Roots in the Sky - The Hand of Glory 2

Worth the wait, huge upgrade in graphics, although the move from the two button system to the more complex controls takes some getting used to on PC

Un’avventura grafica punta e clicca davvero piacevole, capace di coinvolgere grazie a una storia interessante, personaggi ben caratterizzati e tanti enigmi da risolvere. L’esplorazione è intuitiva e il classico sistema “punta e clicca” funziona molto bene, rendendo l’esperienza rilassante ma allo stesso tempo stimolante. Anche lo stile grafico e l’atmosfera contribuiscono a rendere il gioco affascinante. Un titolo consigliato soprattutto agli amanti delle avventure narrative e degli enigmi.

I was really excited for this game and waited for a long time for it to come out. The YES/NO decision came really close on this one. First the good. - The game is long and to me that makes all the difference in point and clicks adventures. All the best classic ones are long. The new short ones always leave me disappointed. So I really like that this maker made both the first one and the sequel long. - The puzzles are many. They are just challenging enough for me to challenge me to solve without walkthroughs and not frustrate me. Most such games nowadays either don't have enough puzzles or they're not challenging enough. So again this game designer does a good job with the game design. - The production value increased a lot. The game is beautiful. He clearly spent a long time on this drawing and animating. It's very well done. - All together I can tell this game designer worked very hard on this game for a long time and I appreciate that. Now the bad. - While the first game was a pretty focused detective mystery with some comical elements, the second game is full of tired liberal tropes like: The "strong woman" that punches him in the face. And as if it wasn't enough he had to add a bossy latina stereotype that berates her husband who's portrayed as full of himself and arrogant in a negative way. There's the black roommate with the high pitch voice that's freaking out the whole time like a really bad hollywood movie. He must have thought it's funny. It's not. It's cringe. Then he spends the entire chapter in India lecturing against traditional social norms including banishing a transgender to the forest who he makes sure both of the characters call "a beautiful woman". He also makes sure to insert an evil capitalist character, an arrogant aristocrat and other such tropes. None of this was really needed for the game. He just did it to push his ideology and it honestly ruins the game for me. He should just focus on making good games, not propaganda. - Besides what I already mentioned, the writing comes off confused and half baked. The first game did a good job to keep you in suspense. This one has a detective case to solve in Rome which was well done, but then it devolves into some hippy archeology Indiana Jones wanna be style. All that tree of life and symbols and ruins were pretty far fetched and made little sense yet were critical to keep the plot going. Flying around in some futuristic blimp was also pretty silly and out of style with the original game and the first chapter of this one. He should have stuck to the style he was good at. I love Japan and the part in Japan was beautifully drawn, but it was really short and came off like an afterthought after Rome where I think he's from and India which is apparently dear to his hippy heart yet he's out to demolish their traditional social norms strangely. - He keeps going back to some kind of childhood trauma story about his father which again comes off like a bad hollywood movie and doesn't fit well stylistically. Should have just been left out. - The controls were downgraded significantly since the first game. In the first one you use left click to engage and right click to look. When you use items it's just a single click to get them then 1 more click to use them on something. Easy. On this one the right click is not used much but to cancel and instead there's the action wheel for a 2nd click. It really ruins the flow of the game. So many times I'd forget i have to do the secondary click and i close out the inventory with no item selected. He should have kept it like the first one. So ultimately, I recommend the game, because I liked the first one and because he did work hard on this one, but so many things ruin it for me that I was very close to give it a no. Make what you want out of this,.

top shelf point-n-click

What an amazing game! It's the same quality as the Broken Sword series. So much variety, and the story is riveting. A must have for point and click gamers.

Beautiful character development compared to the first game, lovely art for the locations, and reasonably difficult puzzles. This is one of my contenders for 2026 game of the year!

I love point-&-click adventures and it always fills me with joy to see a new one. I already liked the first one, the details of it are admittedly a bit fuzzy, but I belief this one is at least on par with its predecessor, if not better.