This game is good, but the first is better here is why

[Viper Bite]

the first game and this game are amazing, i love both games, don't take this the wrong way, but the elemental pools left on the ground suck, way way to large (espically in small fight zones it can take up to half or more of the fighting zone *the bat rider boss are the worst with their posion and the bat scout warriors perma stun locking with freeze is cringe*). why is every element used on me a stun lock but every element i use on them is just damage over time (way to short) or a short pause (even more shorter then the dot and to short), whetstones being a use it and loose it, cringe and just meh, anti element antidotes are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ uselessly short, (elements is still cool just poorly added) also dont get me wrong i love the element idea, just not how its put in this game, also why do we have elements and magic, but my healing drink cant get larger... (magic is cool*ish* but electric is garbage and so is frost) not to mention getting cheated straight out of my magic some times because a enemy just doesn't care i hit them with it, as for hit detection bruh i seen hits read better in the first game, there are moments where i am inside a enemy hitting them and i get 0 damage and no hit sound (backstabber boss is the most easiest one to see it on but also the snake boss is just as easy to see that) outside that i love the designs (the exception is the bats they are just really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring and all look similar or exactly the same, which is sad because the first game and even this game has really good rat and frog designs, but the bats are just what if bat with metal helmet) first game had better boss looks, this game the bosses are just normal or boring, no boss sits there and makes me go wow hes original looking in this one, but the first one i can remember every boss because they are looked really looked like they were their own person, (the bat bosses in this game really just look like npc enemy number 4 but with giant health bar *yes alot of my criticism is the bats and elements suck) other wise i think the game is a improvement on the original but i think the elements make the combat a downgrade by a long shot

[Viper Bite]

i am here to discuss it to, i will hopefully respond in time, i personally love the game just have gripes, solid like 7 or 8 out of 10, first game is still a 10/10 for me though

[Viper Bite]

oh also forgot to say in my original post, the armour debuffs are way to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ huge for how little buffs i trade back for it, why are some armours like -30 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fire, but only +4 against poison......... what the ♥♥♥♥ (this is still a element annoyance) and i kinda hate that i have to run to a enemy see which one it is then hit inventory and spam change it to match the enemy along with the weapon, already like what feels to be 70% in and tired of doing this now (please in the future make debuffs smaller then the buffs *unless its uniqure armour that gives something huge along side the massive debuff)

[alejandro_magno]

elemental pools are trash

[Viper Bite]

real, i also finished the game, that ending is mad awful, i wasnt expecting a beautiful end, but bruh that end is straight trash, good story other wise up till the final boss and the end after

[Zasler]

Yeah I was NOT happy with the ending either, personally I am rooting for the brother rat.

[Viper Bite]

dude same, also the fact that *certain rat* was just thrown away like he didnt matter only for a cut scene at the end... and it wasn't even a good one.....

[Gunaraj]

I haven't finished the second one yet, but I must say that so far the first one has seemed like a better game to me in every aspect.
Edit:
I already finished it and I can say that the first one is much better

[venom[arf]]

I really don't know why they thought saturating half the screen with AoE stun fields was a great idea for a game in which bosses can 2-shot you. It turns every fight into a slog where I can't dodge, parry or attack the enemy and just have to sit and wait for them to come out of the fart field.

[Commissar Blam]

Originally posted by LetsKickThis:

real, i also finished the game, that ending is mad awful, i wasnt expecting a beautiful end, but bruh that end is straight trash, good story other wise up till the final boss and the end after

I was very annoyed when Redgi got instantly defeated and yeeted into oblivion by the final boss and then when Denis got thrown under the bus by every other character at the end for no reason, but then the post-credits scene happened and now I'm at least somewhat optimistic that the story will have a more satisfying conclusion in the DLC/sequel/whatever. I hope we get to play as Redgi again as well, he was a more fun character than Arlo.

Overall I'd say the sequel was definitely worth buying and playing, but it has a whole bunch of little annoyances that add up and I agree that it's not quite as good as the original. My main gripes, in no particular order:

• The elemental system is a fun idea on paper, but in practice it just adds a whole lot of menu-crawling and busywork that interrupts the flow of the game. The penalties for having the wrong element are just too high, especially defensively - elemental weaknesses on armour are ridiculously high, checking the bestiary and then re-equipping your gear before each significant fight is practically mandatory. A couple of times I was effectively oneshot from full HP because a boss whipped out an elemental damage type I wasn't expecting/forgot my armour was weak against, which is just plain frustrating. It also encourages you to run around grinding crafting materials to make a set of gear for every single element type, which is just kind of boring.
  
• Elemental attacks causing you to become stunned just plain sucks, especially with the AOE effects that take up a big chunk of the arena. It's especially grating against dangerous bosses that constantly throw out massive damage hits, and sometimes the AOE effects on the floor get lost in the visual clutter and you don't realise you're about to be stunned until it's too late - the Sky Scorchers with their blue flames against icy terrain were a particular offender for this, especially when everything goes greyscale when you're at low health. Just plain unfun.
  
• Gating progression behind the crafting system and all but entirely removing weapons/armour being found out in the world makes progression feel incredibly arbitrary and happens in two big jumps (that you have to go out and grind materials for) rather than the much more natural power curve in the first game. It also made exploring much less interesting once I realised that there was basically nothing to find apart from generic crafting resource containers. The paladin gear is the only equipment I found out in the world... and the armour's stats absolutely suck, if I'm reading the numbers right it's literally worse than Arlo's default uncovered head. Also unlike the first game I must have completely ignored like 90% of the armour and weapons in the game because I just could not be bothered with the busywork of going out and grinding crafting materials, whereas in the first game I used most of the stuff it gave me because more often than not a new piece of gear was some sort of incremental upgrade (or at least sidegrade) compared to what I had equipped at the time.
  
• There are a bunch of 'regular' enemies that constantly dodge melee attacks, which is just plain annoying and encourages you to just spam them down with your gun, which isn't very satisfying. They're especially annoying when they show up as part of a group fight since they tend to be ranged enemies as well.
  
• Enemies tend to spam the hell out of undodgeable red attacks compared to the first game, and it's extremely rare for them to throw out regular non-colour-coded attacks to the point where it often took me by complete surprise and ate a hit because the game ends up conditioning you that "no colour warning = no attack", which was especially annoying against bosses that hit like a truck. I replayed the first game immediately before playing the second and enemies definitely weren't constantly spamming unblockable attacks in that one.

[Zasler]

You just explained all my gripes with the sequel, great job making it constructive

[Viper Bite]

Originally posted by Commissar Blam:

Originally posted by LetsKickThis:

real, i also finished the game, that ending is mad awful, i wasnt expecting a beautiful end, but bruh that end is straight trash, good story other wise up till the final boss and the end after

I was very annoyed when Redgi got instantly defeated and yeeted into oblivion by the final boss and then when Denis got thrown under the bus by every other character at the end for no reason, but then the post-credits scene happened and now I'm at least somewhat optimistic that the story will have a more satisfying conclusion in the DLC/sequel/whatever. I hope we get to play as Redgi again as well, he was a more fun character than Arlo.

Overall I'd say the sequel was definitely worth buying and playing, but it has a whole bunch of little annoyances that add up and I agree that it's not quite as good as the original. My main gripes, in no particular order:

• The elemental system is a fun idea on paper, but in practice it just adds a whole lot of menu-crawling and busywork that interrupts the flow of the game. The penalties for having the wrong element are just too high, especially defensively - elemental weaknesses on armour are ridiculously high, checking the bestiary and then re-equipping your gear before each significant fight is practically mandatory. A couple of times I was effectively oneshot from full HP because a boss whipped out an elemental damage type I wasn't expecting/forgot my armour was weak against, which is just plain frustrating. It also encourages you to run around grinding crafting materials to make a set of gear for every single element type, which is just kind of boring.
  
• Elemental attacks causing you to become stunned just plain sucks, especially with the AOE effects that take up a big chunk of the arena. It's especially grating against dangerous bosses that constantly throw out massive damage hits, and sometimes the AOE effects on the floor get lost in the visual clutter and you don't realise you're about to be stunned until it's too late - the Sky Scorchers with their blue flames against icy terrain were a particular offender for this, especially when everything goes greyscale when you're at low health. Just plain unfun.
  
• Gating progression behind the crafting system and all but entirely removing weapons/armour being found out in the world makes progression feel incredibly arbitrary and happens in two big jumps (that you have to go out and grind materials for) rather than the much more natural power curve in the first game. It also made exploring much less interesting once I realised that there was basically nothing to find apart from generic crafting resource containers. The paladin gear is the only equipment I found out in the world... and the armour's stats absolutely suck, if I'm reading the numbers right it's literally worse than Arlo's default uncovered head. Also unlike the first game I must have completely ignored like 90% of the armour and weapons in the game because I just could not be bothered with the busywork of going out and grinding crafting materials, whereas in the first game I used most of the stuff it gave me because more often than not a new piece of gear was some sort of incremental upgrade (or at least sidegrade) compared to what I had equipped at the time.
  
• There are a bunch of 'regular' enemies that constantly dodge melee attacks, which is just plain annoying and encourages you to just spam them down with your gun, which isn't very satisfying. They're especially annoying when they show up as part of a group fight since they tend to be ranged enemies as well.
  
• Enemies tend to spam the hell out of undodgeable red attacks compared to the first game, and it's extremely rare for them to throw out regular non-colour-coded attacks to the point where it often took me by complete surprise and ate a hit because the game ends up conditioning you that "no colour warning = no attack", which was especially annoying against bosses that hit like a truck. I replayed the first game immediately before playing the second and enemies definitely weren't constantly spamming unblockable attacks in that one.

i could not WORD THIS ANY BETTER, my god brother man preach, the only thing i cant agree on is arlo being less fun, i think they are equally fun, i think the game just kinda spits on arlo and sours the taste of him, i think if he was dlc in the first game i feel you would feel different

[Viper Bite]

i think the second game is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome thing, and i am thankful for oddbug putting it out, and while i sound like i ♥♥♥♥ on it the whole way through, i genuinely love both games, i am just disappointed and hope that they can improve this one before they move to the next one

[TichoSlicer]

+1 to the stupidity that are the elemental pools... at one point one of the snake bosses literally put poison on the whole arena, like WTF? How anyone on the dev team thought that would be a good thing?

I kinda like the idea of elements too, but it would be wayyyy better if we had some type of loadout system, at least it wouldn't be so annoying having to change sets so often...

I'm still in the beginning of the game, but these 2 things are already annoying me 😭

[FleshCarpenter]

I found the elemental antidotes to be quite handy in countering the pools. Although it's annoying keep them restocked, they do clear out your elemental build-up and provide you with protection against that element for a little while after consuming.
Used all my cold antidotes on final boss on bloody whiskers, lol.

I do agree that the stun locking from the elements is a less than desirable design choice. If each of them had a different effect it would've felt more organic, and not just a re-skinned effect.

Progression is definitely whacked; especially in Bloody Whiskers. The monster hunting style of the game needed some more work, imho. The multi-screen fight of every hunt is just annoying (Especially when farming). If the boss just goes to an adjacent screen it would've been fine. But having to travel all over the map (The Rift being a BIG annoyance) just wastes time and make it tedious to get all the required materials. Bugged drops (thankfully most are fixed now) really made it unnecessarily painful to get required materials (looking at you invisible chameleon).

Having played both games back to back for comparison, I must disagree that TOI 1 has better hit detection. TOI 2 is the decisive winner for hit detection, although the hit boxes are weirdly placed with some enemies (Backstabber mother, scorchers, snakes). The enemy hit registration on Arlo is, however, far superior. I didn't feel cheated nearly as often in TOI 2 compared to TOI 1. The ability to actually RUN to close the distance in a fight is downright THE BEST improvement in combat. All in all the combat system felt more polished and less jank to me (with some exceptions for bugged fights).

[kolok13]

i enjoyed both , overall the second game manage to become something different from its predecesor. its not perfect, but both games are great. i hope we can get more of this studio and this universe, even if its from the point of view of other races.