Not purchased, wondering spoiler free if there will be a third?

[Cadmeum]

I just finished the first game, which was part of Humble Choice in the last 12 months. I am considering purchasing this sequel, but have read a lot of mixed reviews about the state of the game.

Those who purchased it, is it worth it? Does it wrap up the story entirely, or did they leave it up with a cliffhanger like the first one?

TIA.

[Zyberetro]

Frankly I feel very mixed on Amanda the Adventurer 2 reflecting on it since it launched. Mixed in that I still really want to love this game because it's the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. But the problem I have with Amanda 2 is that the noticeably rushed and unfinished state of said game gives me several reasons not to.

In my honest view, there are many problems with Amanda the Adventurer 2. Examples include but are not limited to; poor/amateurish puzzle design, an unfocused and meandering story, bland music, weak/uninspired sound design, and the game's attempts at horror are cheap and poorly executed. On top of all this, the dissonant music and eerie atmosphere from Amanda 1 is often missing in this sequel.

First I'll address your questions about the story. No this doesn't wrap-up anything from the original, yes it does end on a cliffhanger. And if you're wondering if the ending is any good, no, it's not, especially if you're talking about the secret ending. I won't spoil it, but this game's secret ending has got to be one of the most hastily and poorly written 'endings' to a fictional work that I've seen in my entire life. I'd even dare say some of the Banban games have better written endings, yes that is an unironic statement. The normal ending is a lot better in my honest view, but still not great.

And to address the rest of Amanda 2's story, while it has a few good moments here and there, said moments cannot save the messy and cobbled together sum of parts that is this game's story. It's like the writing lacks a clear throughline or sense of direction, things seem to just 'happen'. The original at least was serving as an introduction of sorts to the world of Amanda, and despite that, it was still able to have a sense of direction to it.

And if you want to just play Amanda 2 as a puzzle game and ignore the story, think again unless you're willing to use guides. This game is filled to the brim with frustrating and cryptic puzzles that are often unintuitive and poorly designed. Even when you eventually figure out the answers to the game's enigmatic riddles (or you just look up the answer because you're done with the game's BS), the solutions are often mindnumbingly tedious to execute, with numerous hyper-specific pause timings and laborious busy-work. It's rare when a puzzle in Amanda 2 rivals the excellent and intuitive design of its predecessor. Back when I was playing this game for the first time on launch day, I was stuck for at least an hour on multiple occasions not knowing what the game wanted from me because as far as I'm aware, no one bothered to playtest Amanda 2 at all. It's not just that the puzzles are poorly designed, they also often lack the relevance to the game's story that the original's puzzles had too. It's like James Pratt (the designer of both this and the first game) decided it would better to have 'difficult' puzzles just for the sake of it over the fun and accessible puzzles from the original.

Despite all this, I want to love this game, I envy people who can't see the problems I see. The problem I have is that when I look at this game as a whole, I see an unfinished game that really needed more time in the oven, like at least an extra year. Look, if this game looks interesting to you and you really want to play it, be my guest. And if you end up loving it, that's great. But if you find that this game isn't very fun and you haven't played for two hours, I'd suggest refunding it, this game doesn't 'get better'. If you're really money conscious, I'd suggest trying the demo for this game (if they still haven't reuploaded it to Steam, last I checked, it's still available on Itch.io), as even though it has an older (and worse) version of this game's opening puzzle, I'd argue said puzzle is reflective of the worst this game has to offer. If you find the puzzle really bad, don't buy this game, that's my advice for you.

[Cadmeum]

Originally posted by Zyberetro:

Frankly I feel very mixed on Amanda the Adventurer 2 reflecting on it since it launched.

Thank you for taking the time for such a thoughtful and thorough reply. I am going to try to Demo on itch right now to get the gist of it.

Playtests with feedback are the only way games can release well. I was really looking forward to the sequel, but I'm already gravitating towards not purchasing it, especially since it's not early access and is considered the entirety of Part 2.

Thank you Zeberetro :)

[sheepedup]

sorry for such a short reply compared to the other one, but in my personal opinion its better to watch someone play then play it yourself. i literally encountered 2 bugs on the second puzzle lol..