Hammerfall: I don't think anybody who has given a positive review has really elaborated on why this game is "so good".. Yes, the world is nice to look at and huge and varied. I'll give you that. But like i've said before, I think that there is nothing else in the game that pushes you to actually want to keep going. I actually was loving the game the first 5-10 hours but after that it's mediocrity really was starting to take a toll on me. (I did beat the game though)
There are no interesting characters at all that you meet through the game. None that the player could ever care about. (I remember in Gothic 1 and 2 meeting and rooting for so many different characters the Nameless Hero met). Not to mention it's almost impossible to even like the main character unless you are one of the few people here who seemed to turn how bad of a character is into a good thing. Also, can you even give me 1 example of an interesting quest? I just don't remember any in my head where as in all my favorite RPGs there are cool quests that stick out on in my mind. The gameplay to me was absolutley borked. The pacing was weird. It was so easy to just break the game and make the game have 0 difficulty. Yeah you don't have to but who wants to NOT make their character stronger just to be able to have a challenge?
All I am saying is this game has nothing that we loved in all our favorite RPGs like Gothic 1/2 or Risen. Yeah it has the big beautiful open world but IMO that's it.
Thanks for the elaborate reply! It seems to be largely a matter of pure taste then. I'll give you that the game does offer nothing to push you towards a goal, but I didn't dislike that. Obviously, if you enjoy the game world a lot, you enjoy how the complete freedom allows you to explore it. If you don't like that, then the problem is that it is really the central part the game was built around, and it doesn't try to do anything else than that.
As for characters and mediocre story and unimaginative quests, I don't think any of the positive reviews try to convince people of anything else. It is an Action RPG pure and simple, and although I'm usually one for the more story-driven games, I enjoy Two Worlds even though it lives completely off its game mechanics. Compare it to Diablo. No characters or quests or stories to speak of, let alone interesting ones. An objectively completely boring and clich� scenario through and through. Yet so many people can't stop playing it, even today, because the game mechanics work so well and are so addictive. That's exactly what I see in Two Worlds, with the difference that it has a huge world with lots of towns and side quests that, even if they aren't especially memorable, make the place feel alive and interesting to explore. Maybe the game could have incorporated a polished story and quest, but I'm not sure that would have improved the game. It often takes away from a game's non-linearity and freedom.
I don't see the criticism in mechanics and pacing at all though. Even GameSpy, in their exceptionally negative review of Two Worlds, noted that the game mechanics (inventory, magic, alchemy) are so excellent that it's a pity they were stuck in this game. :)
You can get a very powerful character early on, but that's part of the freedom. If you want to just roam the countryside and kill enemies endlessly, the game lets you, and it doesn't artificially hold you back with arbitrary limitations, or scale the game difficulty upwards so all sense of achievement is gone. You can do the character you want. And as I remember, there are so many skills to learn that even if you want to create a 100% levelled up character, and achieve it, you had a pretty long and enjoyable game to get there. I agree though that the game was too easy. The only level in which fights are a challenge is "Hard", and when you level up you are forced to progress in the game if you want to have challenging fights. So then you complete the game, but you can always go back and create a new, different character.
I have only played the first Gothic so far, and although I wouldn't compare the two games directly, doesn't the same criticism apply there? Apart from its linearity, I remember that in the progress of playing through the game, I joined every possible guild/class and maxed out my character so that from a certain point in the game the difficulty was 0 as well. Only that there, I didn't really have to try, it just came naturally. (Maybe this was different in Gothic 2). I guess I just don't really see how the same people who love Gothic and The Elder Scrolls can hate Two Worlds so much. They're so similar and I find that 2W is gameplay-wise easily as refined as Gothic or Oblivion. It's certainly nothing revolutionary, but just a well-made mix. The complexity of Morrowind, the freedom of Mount & Blade, the mechanics of Dark Age of Camelot, with nice graphics on top.
So the answer to my original question seems to be that while we all agree on what the game does or does not do, I see those elements as strong points that make the game fun, while you see the same elements as weak points that make it boring =)
If you think the positive reviews (or my positive review) didn't go into the reasons why we think the game is so good, I will be happy to elaborate on any points you found unclear. Just understand that I am in the same position - if people just say that the game mechanics were bad and they didn't like the combat and the horses, I'm a bit lost because these are the elements that made me love the game.
