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dkirschner's The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (PC)

[September 20, 2016 03:56:03 PM]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The Book of Unwritten Tales was a great point-and-click adventure. The Book of Unwritten Tales 2...I'm 4.5 hours in and bored, bored, bored. It started off great, opening with the elf princess Ivo and some cute characters (Cheep, her pet/guardian bird, and a little ent who is the gardener at the castle). Ivo is supposed to marry some elf prince whom she doesn't like, and her mom mostly complains about Ivo and calls her fat. Well, she wasn't just being insensitive because Ivo finds out that she's actually pregnant. Mystery! There's a running joke that she doesn't know what sex is, and also doesn't know how she got pregnant.

So during the opening of the game, you are trying to help Ivo escape from her parents' castle. That part was pretty good. As in the first game, the female voice actors are top notch. Thennnn, the game goes to Wilbur Weathervane, the gnome mage from the first game. He's just gotten a job as a professor at some college and he mostly doesn't know what he's doing. He is not. funny. at. all. I've wandered all over the college, talked to the headmaster, listened to the story of political intrigue there that is not intriguing at all, and I have to do a bunch of chores like clean cobwebs and get rid of dirt in the hallway. It is really boring.

The art is colorful and vibrant, and the music is nice enough. It's the same interface and all from the last game, which I enjoyed because it's logical (not typical point-and-click game logic) and you can press space bar to highlight all interactable things on screen. Characters have quips and stories to tell about every object. I think the difference so far is that Ivo's conversations are very world-building and made me curious, but Wilbur's come off as inane observations and poor humor. For example, you can read through files in the headmasters office, and many of them are just bad puns.

I might be giving up too soon, but I don't care. After 4.5 hours, I should be more interested. Where is the paladin from the first game, or the behind-the-scenes MMO? Where are the big jokes and parodies of video game culture and genres? Not a whole lot so far, though I did appreciate the parody of MMO fishing (and you even fish up a hat--"the uglier the hat, the better fisherman it makes you"--great reference to WoW). And supposedly this game is about 25 hours long, twice as long as the first one. I can't play for more than 45 minutes at a time! I get bored or start to fall asleep. It's just not that fun, and I rarely want to play! Very chore-like!