Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Chapter 1 Review

The first chapter of The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is here, and it has managed to live up to all expectations. It has all of the charm of the original game, and throws our unlikely heroes into another adventure with great aplomb.

As the story begins, the four heroes are adjusting to life after their great journey, and are each finding their lives changed in different ways because of their experiences.  Any time they have contemplating their existence is short lived however, as they soon have to discover the source behind a magical force that is taking over the human world, and seemingly the elf world as well.

The art style of this game world is charming as always, and the animation of the characters is wonderfully smooth.  The music is also fantastic, having a cinematic quality that lends to the fantasy setting nicely.  The voice actors have done a fantastic job, delivering great performances.  The game's puzzles are also top notch, with a nice amount of difficulty suitable for a first chapter of an adventure game.

In this chapter the player will take control of three of the four main characters, beginning with the human Nathaniel.  This is just a short sequence at the start of the game that is there to get gamers used to pointing and clicking, but it is funny and well done.  The meat of the game begins once the elf princess Ivo's chapter begins.  The elves have discovered that a magical plague is taking over the human world, and the Ivo finds that she has become ill for the first time in her life.  Her mother wants to shield her from the world, so she has to escape in order to find out what's happening to both the human world and herself.  The second half of the game seems less urgent, as the gnome wizard Wilbur finds himself having to get used to his post as the only professor in the newly reopened magic school.  Of course, as he goes about his task of trying to get the school back into shape, he soon discovers that there is more going on in the background surrounding his ascending to such a prestigious post.  As this is just the first chapter out of five, the story is just beginning.  However, it already feels quite epic, and has all of the humor and references to popular fantasy literature that fans have come to expect of the series.

Chapter one of The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 begins the story on a high note.  It continues the high standard of the series, with the fantastic art style and all the well written and humorous dialog that fans have come to expect.  The voice actors are fantastic, the music is cinematic and fits the atmosphere wonderfully, and the puzzles are quite good, and at a perfect level of difficulty for the first chapter of an adventure game.  The story is quite memorable, and by the time it ends you'll find yourself wanting more, which is exactly how episodic storytelling should be done.  It's still too early to tell, but if this quality continues throughout the rest of the chapters, it's possible that King Art might just have a must play adventure on their hands.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5
The Book of Unwritten Tales review coming soonChapter Two Review

No comments: