Two Worlds Review - My guilty pleasure.

By Sam Coles:

There was once a time on consoles where the Tolkien style RPG were far and few and only two major contenders were on the market one of them being one of my favourite games of all time The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and a year later Two Worlds. Two Worlds was immediately compared to Oblivion because both had a similar setting and mechanics but Two Worlds said it was going to put Oblivion to shame with a bigger world and more in depth features. While some of that was true Two Worlds was met with negative to lukewarm reception due to the laughable voice acting and technical issues when it came to the frame rate, but I still love it for some reason. I played it during a long and wet summer and just loved exploring the world finding new weapons, armour, villages and just getting into trouble with the local guards. It’s not perfect by all means but games with these sort of quirks could get away with a few technical short comings back in 2007 as people looked past them as long as they didn’t get in the way too much.

Two Worlds take place in the world of Antiloor where you are a lone adventurer traveling with your sister who is gravely injured and even opens with a Monty Python reference and yes it is the Holy Grail. A few months pass and you’re working in a farming community and mysterious man named Gandohar says he has his sister who has the spirit of an Orc god within her. You must go on an epic adventure to find talismans of the four elements earth, wind, fire and water. The setup is completely unoriginal as the original Final Fantasy did it back in 1987 but it is basic for a reason as the game doesn’t really interrupt you until the credits roll.

The game let’s go and do whatever you to do from the get go although there is a brief tutorial to let you get the hang of combat whether it is melee or magic based as you have to go and clear out a cave full of bandits. The game has a steep learning curve as the difficulty can be extremely brutal at the start of the game but once you start levelling up and unlocking new weapons and armour you become unstoppable and are more capable of taking on new challenges.  

Combat can be a bit awkward with weird wind ups and swings from your characters coupled with the hilarious sound design where it sounds like your punching your enemy rather than slashing or stabbing them. Magic is a good system where you play with physical effects and elemental damage which can cause some devastating outcomes.

The presentation is not great when it comes to the character models as they look like they have sausage links for arms with awkward animations. The environments look good they’re varied when you travel the region from the standard countryside villages to feudal Japan inspired cities and jungles, this is what I like about the game as each environment is distinct from the other.

There are a lot of problems with Two Worlds but underneath the issues is an engaging RPG, yes the voice acting is horrendous and the frame rate can be a bit of a pain however it is fun if you want to have a time burner with a big expansive world to explore with lots of quests. The game is cheap and easy to find so pick it up if you ever see it.