The Talos Principle 2

TL;DR: IN CASE YOU DIDN'T PLAY The Talos Principle 1 I wouldn’t recommend playing the first one unless you’re truly a fan of puzzles and want to solve as many of them as possible. If you choose to skip it, I’ll tell you at the very end of this review what you need to know so you can start perfectly in TTP2. ------------------------------------------------------------ In my opinion, this is the best puzzle game by far 10/10. It has a lot of philosophy, and I love that too (like, truly a lot). If you like games such as The Stanley Parable, Superliminal, or especially Portal 2, you’re probably going to enjoy this one as well. But before talking about why it’s so great, I won’t lie: while I love every character in the game and its dialogues, they aren’t as charismatic as those in the games I mentioned before. I also liked the story, but I wouldn’t say that’s its main strength. The reason I think it’s the best is because it has over 100 puzzles. It starts chill, letting you understand new mechanics easily with simple puzzles, and it keeps adding more variables, making them much harder in no time. I didn’t struggle with the normal puzzles, but in the endgame, you unlock golden puzzles, which really made me think, along with other challenging puzzles throughout the game. I won’t spoil any of them. Note: Sometimes you can break a puzzle by forcing mechanics, but if you do it the intended way, you’ll improve your thinking skills a lot more. The game seems to leave it up to you, like saying it’s okay if you can’t solve it the normal way because it’s hard, as long as you thought outside the box. There are also collectibles that let you skip puzzles. While I didn’t use them and don’t recommend using these mechanics, I think it’s great they exist for players who simply aren’t trained in solving puzzles yet. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, for those skipping the first game (TTP1 SPOILERS AHEAD): In TTP1, you played as a sentient AI exploring a mysterious world created by Elohim (a sort of God), solving puzzles to prove your intelligence. By the end, you can question Elohim’s authority and, in doing so, achieve the true purpose of the test: demonstrating true self-awareness and freedom, understanding your own consciousness and the nature of existence, therefore becoming human. By now, you realize that what you completed was The Talos Principle, a simulation which was a project by Dr. Alexandra Drennan as a last hope to preserve humanity. You wake up in a world where flesh-and-blood humans have gone extinct, and now you are the new hope. This sets the stage for TTP2, where the first robotic human is now known as the Founder because she created a new civilization, including a goal of reaching 1,000 humans. You are born as the final one, 1K.

Not as good as the first game but still fun enough for the puzzle solving alone. The biggest issue I had was the story. During the first game, you really only had Milton and Elohim as your primary mouthpieces. It was a very straightforward way to tell the story, with Elohim acting as the representation of blind faith, Milton as the nihilist who was eager to argue against everything you believed, and Drennan's recordings somewhere in the middle with her love of humanity, with the terminals adding lots of supplemental material that did make you think about the things you believed. Conversations with Milton were one of the highlights of the first game because you got this sense that Milton really believed in everything he was saying as a result of his understanding of things through the archive, which made conversing with him feel quite genuine. In this game, you have way too many side characters in addition to the party of robots who goes along with you, and nearly all of them broadly agree with what you're doing anyways, which doesn't make them interesting. The worst you get are some "well I don't know...." type responses when you express enthusiasm for some ideas. The very few true dissenters aren't interesting either, because you get the sense that they are only dissenters because the game wants them to be dissenters. It's not like an argument with Milton; at best, it's half of what an argument with Milton would be. The characters themselves aren't particularly interesting, which is made worse by the fact that the robot models have extremely uncanny faces. Terminals do make a return, but there's a lot more of what I would call junk entries in them. The absolute worst part of the story is everything surrounding your OG robot from the first game, which is immediately apparently when you learn that your robot took the name Athena and is using Drennan's voice, which I immediately rolled my eyes at. I don't have the words to properly explain why this whole plot stinks. It just sucks. Everything involving Miranda also sucks. Another huge problem are the huge worlds. The worlds in Talos 1 were very contained, which was perfect as the primary objective was to solve puzzles, and the less time you have to go between puzzles, the better. This game has the same problem that Elden Ring has: the environments are very pretty, but it feels like a total slog to navigate through them. I'm playing the game for the puzzles, not to run around like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ looking for things on the other side of the map. The puzzles themselves are still good, but unfortunately leave something to be desired. Because of the way the worlds work where they introduce a mechanic and build on that mechanic over subsequent levels, your average world usually has 6 of the 8 standard puzzles feeling incredibly easy, especially if you're familiar with the game. Thankfully, the golden gate puzzles and the abandoned puzzles can offer some challenge, so it's not like you're gonna breeze through the whole game on your first playthough. Some other miscellaneous thoughts: - Prometheus sparks are nice, much better than the messenger mechanic from the first game. I didn't use any, but I can see how they'd be useful. - Tetromino bridges are cool the first game but get old FAST. I think there were more of these than there were tetromino puzzles in the first game. - Pandora and the Sphinx aren't that interesting to talk to. Prometheus is only interesting to talk to because his voice is cool. - Performance wasn't an issue at 1440p on Ultra settings. If you're cautious about buying, get the game on sale.

К моему удивлению, после тягомотной первой части, я с уверенностью могу назвать вторую часть по настоящему кайфовой и интересной игрой. Загадки получились увлекательными и в меру челленджевыми. И даже когда ты ловишь затуп, игра не начинает раздражать, как было с первой игрой, а скорее дарит азарт и желание добить это испытание (исключение составляют разве что некоторые золотые паззлы). В игре теперь есть полноценный сюжет с живыми персонажами, наконец-то есть с кем обсудить все те философствования и мысли, представленные на терминалах, которые как по мне тоже стали гораздо интереснее и заставляют задуматься о многих вещах, которые происходят со всеми нами каждый день, часть из них вроде и были интуитивно понятны, но было важно проговорить их. Сам сюжет тоже получился запоминающимся с довольно воодушевляющей концовкой. Ну и напоследок про графон, благодаря пятому Анрилу местные биомы невероятно красивы и на удивление неплохо оптимизированы.

[i]The Talos Principle 2[/i] in terms of identity is leagues above the preceding title. The artistic design of the world and environments you explore are much more creative than the ancient ruins you explore throughout the original. However, I found there still needed to be improvements for this title to be a fully engaging experience for me. The characters are written for the sole purpose of posing a certain philosophical take or question, and have no depth beyond that. The puzzles still mostly fall on the easy side with a challenging exception scattered between. The game feels like a friend insistently trying to domineer a conversation towards something they want to talk about; [i]The Talos Principle 2[/i] is insistent the philosophical topics it wants to depict are there. Sadly, it feels like the developers are so enamored by these philosophical topics that they forget to make a unique experience out of the game itself.

The Talos Principle 2 is an exceptional sequel that builds on the foundations of the original game. Design of each location is breathtaking and inspiring me, I often stopped to admire and experience the quietness and beauty of my surroundings. The puzzles are inventive each new location introduces new mechanics that feel purposeful, keeping the experience fresh and fun, I was always curious what will await me next What truly shines is the story and philosophy. The first game focused on questions of religion, faith, free will and self-understanding. The sequel asks profound questions about humanity itself and our responsibilities, asking whether intelligence carries moral weight or not, reflecting on humanity's place in the universe and our right The only constant I have ever found is LOVE

too much story and running around between puzzles

Самое сложное в этой игре прочитать все записки и не задушиться

I have fond albeit fuzzy memories of the The Talos Principle and its ponderous mix of puzzles and philosophy. But I’m giving up on it’s sequel The Talos Principle 2 having progressed through a third or so by my reckoning, unable to find much satisfaction in it’s ivory tower of block puzzles. You play as 1K, catapulted from the isolation of virtual space and into the real world, the last of 1000 robots built to create a new vision of humanity, post-apocalypse. There is little anxiety wasted on considering whether the robots are truly human. Afterall, as the games many audiologs love to pontificate, a human is a type of machine, as is a city, a civilisation, a galaxy. But what now? Their primary goal complete, the robots are left to create their own sense of purpose. Embodying the locus of that purpose they’ll show no qualms in projecting their various existential questions on to you. Should we continue building more robots? Should we repair ourselves or embrace death as a core aspect of humanity? Should we trust the giant glowing hologram beckoning us to puzzle island? All of these questions feel like they’re goading the player into absolutist statements only to drop a ‘But what about…’ rejoinder with all the conceit of a debate bro. The many characters you meet are all remarkably fleshed out, metallic exteriors aside, all with their own ideals and consistently strong vocal performances. They’re more interested in the raw principles than the logistical realities of the matter, whether that be overpopulation, the meaning of art or the value of cats. The problem is these questions all feel so…sterile, devoid of any stakes or context, doubly so the snippets of text and audio logs scattered haphazardly and stitched together like a socratic quilt. I’ll admit to not being the most well-read when it comes to Philosophy 101, though I can’t help but feel that just asking questions within a utopian bubble only has so much value. All this has led to a civilization with all the stagnancy of a perpetually hung jury, every character you meet possessing the naive optimism that their ideals will be vindicated in the marketplace of ideas. The game doesn’t really prime you for comprehending its theories, just delivering a never-ending barrage of ‘it really makes you think’ quandaries that are sure to leave you feeling either smugly intelligent or resoundingly stupid. Wait, isn’t this a puzzle game you ask? Occasionally, between dodging robots trying to debate you and schlepping over the enormous landscapes, the game remembers this. 1K and a handful of conveniently eclectic thinkers are contrived upon a quest to an island absolutely infested with the things. Each puzzle you solve fills one bar or another, providing progress to unlocking the island’s various megastructures of increasingly absurd designs and the core mystery of the robots’ missing founder. The puzzles start with variations of those from the first game, finding ways to connect increasingly complex circuits of lasers, fans and gates. Each of the island's dozen areas adds a new tool to recontextualize how these interact. The first few puzzles in each area seem designed to tutorialise how they function. These frequently proved the most challenging to me, their interaction with the games physics not always self-evident or consistent. By the time each area escalates to anything that feels truly clever, you’re basically done and ready to move onto the next area, that mechanic dropped for a new one. There is definitely satisfaction to be found in the puzzles, many falling into the sweet spot of challenge, but they’re finely scattered amidst vast levels along with various collectibles and meta-puzzles that soon feel redundantly formulaic (follow the glowing spark, X marks the spot treasure maps, find the hidden fallout bunker to get a clue of the next puzzle mechanic). The sense of scale is impressive but I’m left feeling this island could have been a menu. Ultimately the puzzles themselves suffer from the same sterility as the game’s philosophy, as physically boxed in as the robots are psychologically. Buried in one of the robots’ mausoleums to the past is an acknowledgement that play is core to human nature, an appealing if self-aggrandizing sentiment. But try as they might to reclaim humanity, the robots give little effort to reckon with this. 1K seems the only one interested in them at all. No context is given to any of the puzzles you’re completing, no rumination on their appeal, just an assumption that there must be a reward. Robot see, robot do. There are fascinating moments of enlightenment and mechanisms to be found, but try as I might I cannot unlock their secrets. Like a fish trying to define water, I cannot see the big picture, just try to solve what’s in front of me, one tetromino at a time.