Developer: KING Arts Games
Publisher: KING Arts Games
Platform: Mac, PC, Linux
Tested on: PC
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 – Review
A game as good as The Book of Unwritten Tales couldn’t be left alone, so KING Art Games made him a little brother: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2! Although the gameplay is the same, it is a great idea to check out this game as well because the story will pull you from your seat into the magical world of Aventásia.
Story
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 takes place a year after the prequel. You might think that you need to know the previous storyline to understand this one, but no no no. This game is connected with the previous one but it is still a bit standalone so you won’t have any problems with understanding what’s happening.
We will give you an idea of what has happened so you have a bit of background information. Ivo, the Elven princess, and Nate, a rough pirate saved the world with the help of Critter and Wilbur, the gnome wizard. They were close friends, Nate and Ivo even sweetheart close *wink wink*. All of the sudden, the three are pulled apart.
Ivo doesn’t have any contact anymore with Nate and she guesses that her mother, the Queen of Elves, has something to do with it. She is determined to shape her own life and decides to make her own choices. In the meanwhile, Nate isn’t that happy with his “break-up” and wanders around here and there. All of the sudden, he ends up on the isle of his nemesis, “The Red Pirate”. How this will end is something else, although he still has the support of his friend “Critter”. Wilbur on the other hand has been assigned as a teacher on the School for Wizardry and Witchcraft in Seastone. Strange things are happening and he has to be brave and solve everything. Things will get real messy though, but how things will turn out and if the friends reunite is something that you will have to find out on your own!
Graphics
It has to be said, the graphics are just wonderful. Every room or area is packed with loads of details and things to explore. It will take you a while to really get a grasp of the complexity of a zone. Every scene has particular elements that give you a certain vibe. For example, the garden area at Ivo’s palace has some marvellous flowers and the colours are that vibrant that you can almost smell them.
The superb graphics has a small downside as well. Changing scenes will take a while because everything needs to be rendered and takes you wait a bit, but this isn’t really that annoying. Lowering the graphical quality is an option, but the low setting will give you a really altered image of the Book of Unwritten Tales 2. There are some other settings as well, giving everyone the opportunity to play the game on his/her computer.
Sound
The music in the game is just as the graphics: amazing. There aren’t that much sound effects, but this is made up by the great soundtracks and voice acting. Every line in-game is spoken and gives it that bit extra. The soundtracks really fit the setting of the game, although the music stops when you’re in the same area for a longer time.
You can alter the speech volume, music and sound volume in several percentages, which is a great asset.
Gameplay
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is an old-school point and click adventure game with a twist. It takes you back to the good old days in which you need to find items to advance in the game without really solving puzzles to open a door for example. The difficulty on the other hand lies in the fact that you won’t have any hints and that you can’t change the difficulty level.
You play as one of the four characters (Ivo, Nate, Critter and Wilbur) and every one of them has their own particular problems to conquer. As stated before , this is a point and click game, so you need to click elements in the environment to find out more about them. Sometimes after that you investigated something, you might get the possibility to pick something up. This is a great idea of course since this will probably be necessary to advance in the story.
Everything you pick up is stashed in your inventory. These items need to be combined at times if you want it to be useful for your quest. Even the silliest things might even work, so try them all! You know when you can combine things when a little pop-op text appears.
Each area has loads of stuff to check out, but you have the space bar to help you. Pressing this key will make everything suspicious or interesting pop up. The exits to other areas are lit up as well, so you don’t get lost.
Conclusion
It has to be said, the game might be a retro gameplay style but it will keep you busy for several hours due to the complexity and the length of the story. Be ready to search and think a lot to accomplish everything. This isn’t that bad, because you will discover something new every time you revisit an area.
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