Has the Talos Principle 2 shown The Witness to be an amateur effort?

[Peter]

The witness is a good game and you can debate if it was better or worse than the 1st Talos Principle, which is a classic in its own right. However, Talos Principle 2 is something else.

On every level it trumps The Witness. Obviously on a technical level there is no comparison, so we will not go there, but it's worth mentioning and appreciating. On an artistic level, The Witness looks simplistic. In terms of world building The Witness seems very pedestrian, whereas The Talos Principle 2 is properly grand, and beautifully realised on a technical level. On a conceptual level, The Witness does have some merit but it pales next to the puzzle design of the Talos Principle 2 and the way it embeds the puzzles in the various worlds.

There is also the philosophy and metaphysical musings of various topics which gives a higher purpose to the game play, whereas many find The Witness to be tedious and pretentious. The list goes on and on, so I won't labour the point.

Anyway, how do The Witness fans feel about The Talos Principle 2 and is it the GOAT puzzler? I thinks it an interesting question to ask you guys.

Finally, and I find this very strange, bizarre and puzzling (LOL!!!) for all the well known self importance and earnestness of the developer of The Witness, The clown developers of The Talos Principle games are also behind the ridiculous Serious Sam games!!! There must be some deep metaphysical explanation. Oh how absurd this looks!!!!

[MASTAN]

They are both great puzzle games. I enjoyed them both and see no reason comparing them.

[Pesky]

The Talos games tell you a story. The Witness lets you discover a story. They are not trying to do the same thing. Letting you discover a story yourself is a more subtle objective, harder to achieve, and more satisfying when it's successful.

If you're a fan of story-telling, how do you feel about the Myst games ?

[B1G]

I played both within the past year, and I have to say Talos had me hooked more. While that game was a bit more linear, both gave you the option to come and go from old puzzles as you please. The story also really made talos something special. Witness is great and is a fantastic puzzle game, but lacking in story and at times providing unintuitive mechanics, Talos takes the cake.

[Darkfalt]

Talos is just more conventional. Both are great but the feeling of discovery and perspective that The witness creates I havent been able to find anywere else. Its just so elegance in its design and what it wants to achieve. I love both Talos thogh. About The Talos 2, I loved the sense of mistery, the music, the atmosphere, dialogs, etc. More focused on creating a cinematographic kind of style. The beauty of the scneario was one the things I enjoyed the most.

The witness really reminds me more of Myst. The game mechanics (trough exploration, and your self having epiphanies about the world of the game) are themselves the main motor of the emotion (nor revelations trough dialog).

[LordErec42]

The Talos Principle 1 and 2 are both far superior experiences hands down. The Witness has an interesting open world environment to explore, a handful of great puzzles, a ton of mediocre ones and a few downright cruel timed/moving ones that are just not fun, and one of the worst "stories" in any game that has zero relation to any of the worldbuilding that was done leading up to it and a thoroughly unsatisfying ending.

The Talos Principle games don't have the single expansive open world to explore, but have far more interesting puzzles and a surprisingly engaging story and are just much more enjoyable gaming experiences overall.

[Sychon]

Comparing the art direction in the two games is almost like comparing apples and oranges. In The Talos Principle II, the level design is merely a backdrop for the puzzle mechanics. A very beautiful backdrop, but practically without any function when it comes to solving the puzzles. In The Witness, the level design IS the puzzle in most cases. For that to be realized effectively, I think it had to have a more simplistic art direction, so as to not get lost amongst the overwhelming details.

They both work very well as puzzle games but within that broad genre, they are way too different for me, to the point that a direct comparison to decide which is "better", whatever that means, seems entirely pointless.

[FITROX]

Tried playing the first Talos, found very boring game wise.

[ezveri]

weird, I liked talos 2 but talos 1 was so far ahead of it imo. the puzzles in the sequel were all way too easy. the witness is far ahead in my opinion

[Squircle]

Originally posted by Pesky:

The Talos games tell you a story. The Witness lets you discover a story. They are not trying to do the same thing. Letting you discover a story yourself is a more subtle objective, harder to achieve, and more satisfying when it's successful.

If you're a fan of story-telling, how do you feel about the Myst games ?

The last thing I would have claimed to find in The Witness would be a story. I found a lot of cool environments, eerie statues and stuff that points at it all being an allegory for purgatory/limbo, but nothing so coherent as to recognize it as a story. I did not finish listening to any of the audiologs though, as they all gave me a near-immediate desire to uninstall the game, so maybe I missed some stuff.

[jet]

The Witness has the best audio/sfx ever, its The best sounding video game of all time... period. Its pretty amazing how you can hear the difference between walking up stairs and walking down stairs just by the shuffle of feet. The acoustics of walking through a tunnel and hearing the echo of each step is still ground breaking. Its a huge oversight with lots of games. Every object surface you step on has a distinct audible and organic sound, its truly amazing.

[jet]

So for overall immersion the Witness wins by a long shot. Better puzzle game probably not but imo immersion is the most important part of a video game.

[MreeBiPolar]

GOAT puzzler? No way in hell. Another dozen years down the road, something even grander will be around.

[BrotherMurus]

I find myself having a zen-like detachment from The Witness, I have it on my computer and I have been refusing to delete it for some years, but I only find myself coming back to it to solve a few puzzles and then I go on long hiatus to play other games, i accumulated around 10 hrs throughout the years. It is a fine puzzle game, but it's like the puzzle book sitting on your bookshelf for years and you occasionally open it and do it, but you don't love it.

On the other hand, I am much more obsessive about Anti-Chamber and Talos Principle. It's easier to go on longer sessions with them for some reason.

[ooooggll]

I probably like Talos 2 better but I really like The Witness too. And obviously different people will prefer different types of games, they are unique after all. Comparing puzzles is one thing, but I don't think comparing the art style or the story is really fair. Some games are better with little to no story (or a hidden story) and some games work really well with a very obvious, grand story. And I absolutely love the art style of both games even though they are very different. The Witness is more intentional about how it looks while Talos 2 only strives for realism.