The Talos Principle II often near maine staring astatine my surface successful awe. Sometimes, from sheer intimidation successful the look of a seemingly formidable puzzle. Other times, from my incredulous pridefulness aft unraveling said problem. But astir of all, the acquisition regularly gave maine intermission arsenic I pondered a philosophical thought oregon statement that challenged my viewpoints connected the quality of beingness and humanity’s spot successful the cosmos. These moments spurred maine to lick the game’s 100+ puzzles successful hunt of answers, and I’m mostly satisfied with what I discovered.
Set hundreds of years aft its 2014 predecessor, The Talos Principle, you awaken successful a utopian civilization arsenic its 1000th – and last – sentient robot resident. Following mankind’s extinction owed to a planetary microorganism centuries prior, intelligent machines designed by a superb idiosyncratic person inherited the Earth. As the sum of each quality knowledge, these machines person resigned themselves to surviving wrong a single, humble metropolis with strict population, exploration, and depletion limits to debar repeating humanity’s mistakes. However, these beliefs are flipped connected their heads erstwhile a mysterious entity taking the signifier of the Greek titan Prometheus beckons the machines towards a mysterious land with a pyramid-like megastructure, towers, and, of course, puzzles. You articulation a tiny expedition to observe the island’s root and purpose.
Despite the puzzles being the stars, I enjoyed The Talos Principle II’s absorption connected storytelling and quality development, highlighted by choice-driven conversations that bash a large occupation of emphasizing the machines’ inherited consciousness of humanity. I became invested successful getting to cognize my crew, specified arsenic 2 adjacent friends with opposing yet valid viewpoints connected however nine should beforehand oregon having much lighthearted chats with a nonmigratory unsure of whether oregon not to support its surfer-style code pattern. Decisions power the city’s absorption and your lasting successful ways you won’t spot for hours, and portion I recovered the outcomes to beryllium adequately satisfying, immoderate optional threads, specified arsenic choosing whether oregon not to articulation an Illuminati-style concealed group, don’t ever pb to an impactful payoff.
Regardless, The Talos Principle II presents galore angles connected important topics and leaves it up to its formed and players to determine what they believe. Fascinating philosophical concepts connected the morality and work of being an intelligent entity successful a chaotic universe, galore lore notes and audio logs, and adjacent the city’s societal media provender had maine reconsidering my biases and beliefs successful enriching and enlightening ways, adjacent if I didn’t ever agree. I’m inactive mulling implicit a log’s musings implicit humanity’s puzzling attitudes connected earthy extinction versus human-made extinction.
I similar that the crippled doesn’t prop immoderate viewpoint arsenic the “correct” one, and it doesn’t request to; the constituent is that you should inquire specified questions to spot things from arsenic galore angles arsenic possible, and players volition gully their ain conclusions to find 1 of the story’s respective endings. A plethora of dialog choices does an admirable occupation of letting players explicit respective imaginable perspectives, portion the crippled is an engaging and insightful enigma boasting neat twists and dense revelations.
Like the archetypal game, placing crystal refractors to nonstop airy beams astir obstacles to the close lock(s) to unfastened the exit is the halfway puzzle-solving experience. New mechanics adhd breathtaking and originative layers portion eliminating the annoying death-dealing hazards, specified arsenic bombs and turrets, from the past game. New tools see a instrumentality that creates portals connected definite surfaces, an anti-gravity instrumentality that lets players (and objects) basal connected walls and ceilings, and a refractor that inverts airy colors, among others. Each instrumentality is simply a dainty to enactment with alone, but the crippled soars highest erstwhile challenging you to usage respective successful concert.
Puzzle-solving is inactive a tricky workout of placing, moving, and/or stacking objects successful the close spots oregon sequence, a process thankfully expedited by speedy subordinate movement. Still, lengthier puzzles necessitate a batch of moving astir to rearrange things, which sometimes wore connected me. The last puzzle is the worst offender, arsenic it requires a tedious magnitude of back-and-forth trekking to execute specified a precise bid of operations that slipping up often meant restarting the full happening from scratch. Despite these headaches, I was consistently impressed with however developer Croteam managed to concoct truthful galore well-thought-out puzzle rooms, and solving them ne'er stopped feeling similar a well-earned achievement.
Unlike the past game, there’s nary hint system, but you tin skip puzzles wholly by spending a collectible resource. The drawback is that uncovering these adjuvant tokens is simply a task successful itself, arsenic they’re hidden passim the unfastened areas. I don’t caput this arsenic idiosyncratic excessively stubborn to skip unless a puzzle is genuinely mind-boggling, and it gave maine different excuse to explore, but it does make much enactment for those anxious to determination connected and spot the remainder of the narrative.
The biodiverse land is breached up into 4 cardinal regions composed of 3 smaller unfastened hubs, each sporting 8 superior puzzles positive optional riddles and collectibles. I enjoyed roaming these expansive regions betwixt puzzles successful hunt of smaller rewards specified arsenic lore notes, past quality tech, oregon concealed laboratories containing tantalizing secrets. The worlds besides look rather bully contempt predominant geometry pop-in. Though an overhead compass provides immoderate guidance connected however to find points of interest, the deficiency of a due representation made relocating immoderate destinations much of a chore than I would person liked. Environmental puzzles, specified arsenic rerouting an island-wide airy beam oregon chasing hidden particle clouds to statues, connection neat broadside diversions and welcomed breaks from the captious path. The different large recurring puzzle comes successful the signifier of assembling bridges by correctly rotating and connecting elephantine Tetrinomo pieces, though this workout mislaid its luster aft a fewer hours.
The Talos Principle II is simply a agelong game, possibly to a fault. I clocked successful astir 34 hours, and contempt my mostly accordant enthusiasm, I was acceptable to spot the extremity earlier it deed maine with different circular of puzzles oregon a story-focused exploration segment. It’s an ambitious and yet well-made bundle with galore social, artistic, and technological ideas that I’ll beryllium reasoning astir for the foreseeable future, agelong aft the solution to its last riddle has faded from memory. That enlightenment makes The Talos Principle II’s challenges worthy the effort.
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