I did play the first game, and the change is vast here. I would say "Take a look at my review of the first game, and then change all the cons to pros", but I think you will not do that. So to cut it short, if you have played the first game and kind of liked it, or maybe just a little bit, then this game might, and I would even say it will turn your opinion around. If you have not played the game, then it's a treat, a neat, chill out game, where you can build, battle and explore, it's fun, but more in detail.
So the base line of this game, in every way it is the same, just way better. So from the story standpoint, if in the first game you did not have a clue of what is going on, here you have more grasp on the things, it's a simple story, but at least you know, what is what. For this game you have, not getting into much detail, ghosts of each ralm that kind of give you more and more info about what has happended and what is the "Force of Nature" along with notes explaining even more. In general the story follows the same path as the first game, collect all shards of the "Force of Nature" to escape the unkown land. That's more or less it.
The only real beef, well the point were I was "OH.. hell no.." and where I went into forums and YT for help, is for the "True ending". Is it hard to get it.. yes.. and no.. depends on how long you want to walk around the world looking for the invisible man, and by that I mean you have only a vague quote "That he is hiding where no one would look" well something like that. Anyways, that might be only part of the game that was a bit sketchy.
But I would not say that the main focus of the game really is the story, it's the gameplay, not to say the story is in the backseat and bad, just that the gameplay is enjoyable and the story is not pushing you to do things, it just naturally connects as you play. If it makes sense.
Besides that, the gameplay, well.. everything is fixed and made a lot better, like way better than in the first game.
Crafting is much faster and now with the help of ghosts, who help you gather, build and in general do things while you are away, is a time saver. The only small thing is that when you craft things, you have to have components on you, in your inventory, it would be useful if crafting stations could be linked to chests in some way, but for me it did not feel like a big deal all things considered.
Armour now makes more sense, you still have enviormental value that has to be met, but you have a lot more of variations of the armor types, depending on how you like to play, being more bulky or having more speed. This time around you don't have to mix up the armour just to get by.
Farming and livestock part is also a lot more easier to get around, unlocking "Trough" so you can feed all animals at once, or having a place for them, so all the materials gather in one spot.
Combat, that is more polished now, I mean it's simple, but a lot more fun that it was before, where you would stand and spam one attack.. I mean it's kind of that, but different, for some reason not so dull, magic also helps. That also inclued the fact that, this game has character level up and points you can invest in skills and magic powers, so not only you deal ranged or melee damage, you can also dish out fireballs. The only thing that got me though was the fact that there is no skill reset, in a way not too big of a deal, but if you are collecting achievements, this can make you replay all the game if you invest points into the wrong skill.
Enviorment, now you can actually see how each ralm is different in every way, visually of course and with materials you gather to the enemies you encounter, each making you maybe change the approach on how to deal with them. In general the visuals are nice, not the top notch polished ones, but enough to have small details pop out and make the surroundings look very good and nice as with enemy design. This time around each enemy is different, they look like they belong in each ralm and they act different, not just get their color changed and have extended hp bar.
Well all that in mind, the game is a treat, it's fun to play, just relax and smack goblins and build your little settlement. If you think there might be something off with this game, try the first game and I'll guarantee you that you will see this game in a different light.
Anyways I do recommend it!
