Two Worlds II - Call of the Tenebrae DLC

A short adventure, under 3 hours (some more if you do the side missions). The story is original and has some nice and memorable moments; on the other hand, the execution is unpolished and rushed (crude visuals, tedious battles, no sense of progression). In the end I gave it a thumbs up as it's not that bad, but it could have been a much better game.

Look, it's far from perfect, but also far from a total disaster. It's no Pirates of the Flying Fortress in the sense that the main story had no heart. I could see what they wanted to do and the direction they wanted to head, but the story could have been utilized and made to be far more interesting if they had fleshed it out just a little bit further. But hey, it's a DLC, I think I'm asking too much. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy myself, but that's mainly due to the fact as I knew what I was getting myself into and i had my expectations at a normal level (and that I pretty much zoomed my way through as I had already maxed my player). It had some funny moments, good side quests, an awkward intimate scene and some hefty choices that changed pretty much nothing. Perfect. All in all, I'm glad to see they still managed to keep the same sample remarks, groans and that weird 'mehhehehee' noise the MC makes when you slaughter something from the original game, consistency is key after all!

I've loved Two Worlds II since I first played it, but with each DLC they make they lop off another limb. The fact that they replaced the main voice actor THREE TIMES makes each expansion that much more unbearable.

I actually liked this more than I liked Pirates of the Flying Fortress. It had just the right amount of content, the story was interesting, and the enemies were just challenging enough without being too much for my taste. I enjoyed this DLC way more than I thought I would.

Poor performance even on a 1080. Sitting idlly at 50% when fps crash's into 40's. Removal of the Console and replaced with Microtranctions. So guess the quest item didn't spawn? tough luck can't fix it with console anymore. Oh your horse bugged out and fell through the ground?. Oh well can't spawn it back in.

To think that I was once a defender of this company. How times change. Let's rewind a bit. Once upon a time, Reality Pump Studios made a game called Two Worlds. I had eagerly followed their mailers as they were very open to backer input and so I backed the game. On release, the game was fun but a bit problematic with visuals that didn't measure up to its chief competitor TES: Oblivion. Taking in the criticism, within a short time they produced a 4 GB patch that overhauled the graphics and, I must say, improved them considerably. I was impressed by this company and their desire to simply make a fun game that their backers enjoyed. Two Worlds II was promised to be even more of this, but even as I watched the development it seemed like some of that energy RP put into the first game had diminished. They started chopping out content, but it's understandable to a degree. When the game released, multiplayer wasn't integrated into the full game as we were led to believe but was confined to a small island area. I accepted this because I wasn't really interested in the multiplayer, but this illustrates some of the changes at the company that leads to Call of Tenebrae. Call of Tenebrae is a cash in. It was originally marketed as a free update to existing owners of Two Worlds II and Pirates of the Flying Fortress, but they forgot about that and charged us anyway. I figured, okay, if it is at least as improved as the first game after updates it will be worth it. Here's what we get: 1. A side-mission on the island of Tenebris. The updates do not, as yet, extend in any way to the main game. 2. The graphics in Tenebris are somewhat improved. It's not nearly as drastic as the 4 GB patch for Two Worlds was, and honestly it looks more like a texture pass and some added filters. 3. Microtransactions. This, in itself, doesn't bother me, but when taken with the rest of this dlc it's pretty sad. 4. Not the console. They took the console out of the game to subvert people getting around the microtransactions. That doesn't bother me; what DOES bother me is that they haven't fixed the bugs that made people like me use the console, like getting stuck in mountainsides. So, Tenebrae plays like a player modded island separate from the base game with the same bugs as the original (and likely more), and a thin veneer of graphic improvements to convince you in screenshots it's something special. As a former supporter of the company, I refunded it. I cannot stand by what appears to me on every level like a cash grab rather than true support for their product. For those who will inevitably be driven to comment on the play time, I loaded into Call of Tenebrae from the base game.

[b][u]See written review below[/u][/b] or watch it here: https://youtu.be/7artoSMFaX4 [h1]TL;DR: SKIP TO CONCLUSION![/h1] The story starts off with your friend Dar Pha being murdered by giant rat-like creatures. As you seek vengeance against them, you are accidentally thrown back through time by their leader. From there, you find a note Dar Pha has left for you, and you must find her and help her stop the catastrophic events to come. This story takes place after the Two Worlds II: Pirates of the Flying Fortress DLC, but it isn’t necessary to have played it. I have not played any Two Worlds 2 prior to this Call of the Tenebrae DLC. Thus, I was prompted to create a new character instead of importing a previous one. As a new player to the series, I was extremely annoyed by the utter lack of any sort of tutorial. The game isn’t very intuitive either, so I was clueless on how to play and fight. I wound up restarting the game about five times before leaving the first town. Upon creating a new character in Call of the Tenebrae, you choose a class: warrior, ranger, or mage. You start off at level sixty with a full set of gear, a ton of attribute points, a major buttload of skill points, plenty of consumables, and quite a bit of currency. Starting off in a role-playing game with essentially a maxed skill set makes any sort of character progression feel nonexistent. The gear you start with is upgradeable by using crafting components you’ve obtained by dismantling other loot. I figured it’s a good idea to upgrade, so I upgraded a few of my items to their max levels. The bad part about the gear is the fact that the gear I started with never needed to be replaced during my entire playthrough. Combat is frequent throughout the game. You can attack, block, use traps, and abilities. Your set of three abilities will vary depending on which class you play, what abilities you have unlocked, and what weapon you have equipped. Some of the skills are only available if you find the skill book somewhere in base game, or spend real money on them. I played as a warrior with a 2-handed-axe, and I found the most effective way to fight and conserve health was to simply spam auto-attacks while using special abilities whenever they were off cooldown. Combat feels clunky, and blocking is pointless most of the time. Running away to wait for cooldowns seemed like a better alternative. There is also a crafting system in Call of the Tenebrae. You can craft from your inventory, anywhere in the world. The system works by adding ingredients you’ve scavenged into the cauldron. It’s very clear what effect each ingredient will give, but you can mix and match ingredients to try and find new recipes to create stronger potions or ones with varying effects. [h1]Pros:[/h1] [list][*]the story in Call of the Tenebrae is alright; it keeps you somewhat interested, and you might want to listen to the dialog and plot developments [*]the music and ambience are very good, and they create a nice immersive atmosphere (which gets ruined by the broken voiced segments...) [*]crafting system is easy to use anywhere, and it's good for creating attribute buffs, such as strength or endurance [*]environments look alright, not great, but not too bad either [*]controls are fully customizable, and there is full controller support[/list] [h1]Cons:[/h1] [list][*]combat is clunky, and the most effective way to fight is typically repetitive and feels the same from start to finish [*]levelling up feels completely unsatisfying, and doesn’t award you with any sort of accomplishment at all, since you already have almost everything unlocked at the start [*]while loot is plentiful, it's all just crap that is never an upgrade over your current starting gear - it serves as junk to [*]dismantle, and looting enemies for the sole purpose of dismantling items is horribly tedious, and you’ll eventually want to just give up on looting enemies or opening treasure chests altogether [*]crafting system feels utterly useless for creating health or mana potions because the ones you’ll likely craft are complete garbage compared to the potions you can buy from the vendors [*]several broken segments of voiced dialog - There are times where 1. the voice dialog doesn’t play at all while characters are talking, 2. the dialog gets completely cut off mid-sentence or stops too abruptly at the end (and you can hear where they cut the tracks), and 3. the voice volume is inconsistent and plays so quietly compared to usual volume, that you can't hear it over the music [*]quality of the voice ranges from mediocre at best to quite poor [*]game stutters briefly when loading randomly while you’re running [*]a few occasional, but very serious lag spikes and framedrops in some of the areas [*](nitpick) the game isn’t very intuitive and it's annoying have a lack of tutorial (I thought it was supposed to be stand-alone DLC?) [*](nitpick) microtransactions are lame, but at least if you start a new character for the DLC, all of that class's skills are available [*](nitpick) the characters and their animations still look incredibly out-dated, and even straight-up goofy or glitchy at times [*](nitpick) some texture popping issues[/list] The game took me about 5.5 hours to complete excluding the times where I restarted the game. I focused on the main story, and skipped doing the optional side quests, and I would not consider replaying it. [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] Two Worlds II: Call of the Tenebrae lacks any sense of progression or accomplishment, and the combat is tedious. The audio breaking regularly on top of the poor-to-mediocre voice acting ruins almost any sort of immersion or enjoyment the story might provide. I had little to no fun playing Call of the Tenebrae, and my time would have been better spent elsewhere. If you like my reviews, please feel free to join my Steam group, and follow my curations [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/AzralynnReviews#curation]here.[/url] You can also view this review on my website [url=http://www.azralynn.com/review-call-of-the-tenebrae-game/]here.[/url]

**Update 5yrs later** 2022 i just beat the main game, then pirates, then tenebrae, i still have shattered embrace to go after this. Im having a lot of fun. Like a lot. Im 266 hours in and i can confidently say tenebrae is now on par with the quality of the main game (minus the quests.. these morons give multiple quests to the same NPC's which dissapear randomly) its soooo easy to break quests in tenebrae that you will have to play it 2-3x to fully experience it. and they no longer give the player real waypoint markers they lazily just left it on the questgiver). And they got rid of the ugly new rocks in the savannah of the main game. They really changed tenebrae drastically. Actually it may even be slightly better than the main game because its got really cool enemies and lighting effects and gorgeous dungeons. I took a screenshot comparison and tenebrae actually looks beautiful now. Tenebrae was a lot of fun im not gonna lie. And tons of new weapons/armor sets two worlds 2 as a single game, provides the content of like 4 RPG games.. I would be lying if i said i didnt enjoy it. But as of right now the game doesnt work anymore (literally) and you cant play multiplayer so thats kind of a con (you have to use regedit workarounds or else anyone who tries to play tw2 will see the message "waiting for serial key from steam" **Update** I went to play the main campaign and just as i was about to get teleported to the savannah it said demo period is now over please enter cdkey. Which annoyed me. used Copy Key to Clipboard feature on steam. Entered key. It says Key has been activated on too many different computers please call customer support** So now i cant even play if i want to..You can't make this sh** up.. Does topware still even have a phone? Couldnt find any number ***************************************************************************************************** REVIEW OF MAIN GAME ***************************************************************************************************** They actually added in microtransactions.. And they disabled console commands so you can not get these items free via cheats like you could for the last 7 years... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv0pmF5rAI0 Oh and they added a new $30 season pass.. As if this is a new AAA title now. Hell i couldnt even get my friends to buy the entire game for $1.99.. Someone at topware must have hit their head pretty hard -Cant spot a single visual difference or enhancement even if i had a microscope. (I noticed the rocks in the savannah are now black and look completely 100% out of place and unnatural compared to the realistic sandstone rock from the previous version.. such a shame) -Still directX 10/32Bit client -Still lags in the opening sequence level -Still half second lag when opening inventory -Draw distance has not been improved as advertised http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=947898975 -Game pauses for 1-2 seconds while running across the open world as it needs to load. This is apparent by the spinning cd icon in the bottom right just like in the original. -Game uses the exact same small amount of ram/VRAM as the original. This shows me that there have been no attemps at improving or upgrading the games memory management system which could have helped or removed the stream loading issue i mentioned above. -Still has advertisement banner at the bottom of main menu screen http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=947898968 -Initially the game was supposed to get a new game engine completely https://www.gamespot.com/articles/two-worlds-3-announced-two-worlds-2-getting-new-en/1100-6436047/ Now they are just saying "Engine upgrades"...Well it doesnt even look like it has recieved a patch! I see a version 2.0 in the bottom right corner and thats honestly the only difference i've seen. *************************************************************************************************** TENEBRAE *************************************************************************************************** Was absolutely shocked by how terrible tenebrae looks in comparison to the main game. Yes you read that correctly. It looks 1000x worse. Not even in the same league as the TWII base game. It truly looks like a 12-14 year old boy made a map in a game editor to show his mom http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=947923841 I am just in absolute shock, i cant believe this came from the same people who made the original TWII base game.. Here is a 4K video. Sadly this is not a fake troll video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5tcAXzWNEQ ****************************************************************************************************** SALT ****************************************************************************************************** There was a lot of misinformation about this release, and the developers said TONS of things that are not even remotely true. And they did a pretty poor job at explaining to customers what exactly is being released and what you need to do to get to be able to enjoy it. Im still confused to be honest, like what the hell is the HD version and why does it have a different release date? I thought that was the whole point of this release.. I dont care what anybody says because i have been following this remasters progress since the day it was announced like an obsessed fanboy. I swear they said the new content was initially supposed to be free but they decided they wanted $9 for it after a hundred launch delays. They said the MAIN GAME would have new content. Look. http://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/TWII-features.jpg but no its only if you spend $9 now. i7 6700k + gtx1080 + 16gb ddr4-3000mhz + 500gb evo 850 SSD + 850W 80plus gold psu

MICROTRANSACTIONS After years of the game being finished and fine for what it is, that I would rate positively they have just brought out a new single player DLC "Call of the Tenebrae" with plans to release another single player DLC and some multiplayer maps. It's good to see the game getting some new support after all these years. I think but I'm not sure that they also took out the old evil DRM that was limited activations type. However what they have added now is a microtransaction store where you can buy materials like wood, steel etc. and the magic stuffs. They removed the old console commands that you used to be able to use to get these materials. I can't support any game with microtransactions. I haven't started the new DLC yet because my level is not high enough but I really hope they haven't balanced the new DLC around getting people to buy materials by making them more scarce.

So where to begin. 1. The story is meeeeeeeeh with one interesting ending revelation. 2. The combat is a joke, especialy the boss fights. 3. Quests aren't made to complete each other. One side quest can fuck up another side quest and you can't complete it. 4. The engine upgraid is nonexistant. 5. The new gear they made is bad. 6. So many cutscenes. To many. Hit one enemy, 3 minutes cutscenes. Almost like Nartuo: Ninja storm. 7. They put in micro transactions. 8. I liked the fact that you had choices to make that made the story a bit more interesting. 9. Quests are buggy. 10. Map design is bad. 11. Animations are bad My opinion: Skyrim has better mods than this dlc.