Episode 2 Review [Spoilers]

[Burmaz]

Alright, first off, I chose to stay with Emily for the night. This prompted an amusing little murder investigation with a lot of red herrings and a very fun moral quandary at the end; what's more, I had the detective career, so it fit.

In general, the voice acting is still delightfully janky, and at times I felt that Louis' inner monologue and regular voice were two different voice actors.

The episode is also quite a lot shorter than the previous one - I understand programming a branching experience this early on takes a lot of resources, but this was a shock, and definitely underwhelming for such a long wait.

There's a horrible lot of spelling mistakes, the most amusing of which were the double letters in words like 'honest'.

All that said... the game is still amazing. The dialogue is still interesting, the plot is thickening at a very satisfying pace, and Louis is either a bumbling idiot or a savvy gentleman, depending on how well you play the system.

The difficulty ramped up considerably, as well, and I had to be very careful with my honey. Some of the lockpicks and manipulations demanded water instead.


All in all, the 2nd installment won't really drive off people who tolerated the 1st's faults, nor will it do anything to draw in more people.
I don't know if the devs are monitoring these discussions, but if they are... they really should all they can to listen to the comments of the players.

[Eolair]

Unlike in the first episode there were only 1 or 2 confrontations. I experienced them as interesting because it gave depth to your decisoins. The "vonfrontation" with Wallner (?) I believe where you have 1 shot to win a 4-step-conversation I messed up right in the begnning.

The oterh "convrontation" or feel like confrontation was with Peru in the Garden. Since I played the end twice (thought i made a mistake at the very end) I failed both times to earn his trust.

Well, Emily didn't play ANY role in my playthrough I asked her to leave the room. Also it became "obvious" who wanted to take the blame and who probably was to blame.

I disagree a bit with the conclusion that this will keep all the players playing.

The end in particular was disapoointing. I didn't even have an "option". All in all it felt like it was rushed. The conflicts betwween council members are not played out, only hinted at and add nothing to the story. I even think that your investiagtion result adds "nothing to the story".

Well I kind of commited myself to the game because I want this to be my project for 2018 to improve content-creation. So I will keep on playing. At the end there was no ttension, so whenever the next episode comes out, it's fine with me.

[Dcsmall]

I enjoyed the episode, I thought it was longer then 2 but maybe I was slower this time. I'd like to know who you thiought it was obvious Behind the murder, Obivusly Peru was to take the blame. But who was the real culprit? Your mother?
Still at little confused by the ending, the results for 7. state "You could have found someone important in the crypt, but when bplaying through second time, still didn't find that person. Any suggestions?

[Bulldozer]

Originally posted by Dcsmall:

I enjoyed the episode, I thought it was longer then 2 but maybe I was slower this time. I'd like to know who you thiought it was obvious Behind the murder, Obivusly Peru was to take the blame. But who was the real culprit? Your mother?
Still at little confused by the ending, the results for 7. state "You could have found someone important in the crypt, but when bplaying through second time, still didn't find that person. Any suggestions?

I think Lord Mortimer or Holm is behind all this. If you lock yourself in Mortimer's secret study, you will overhear Peru whining about being treated unfairly by a 'Him' outside the wall. Also, he will warn you of not getting in too deep or you will sell your soul to 'Him'.
As for the ending, I replayed Ep.2 several times and I can confirm that the only thing making the differences to the endings, is if you have locked yourself in the secret study.
You will find your mother in the crypt if you find your way out of the secret study by yourself. Otherwise, you will get another ending, in which a mysterious man is approaching you.

[Browneskiii]

Originally posted by Bulldozer:

Originally posted by Dcsmall:

I enjoyed the episode, I thought it was longer then 2 but maybe I was slower this time. I'd like to know who you thiought it was obvious Behind the murder, Obivusly Peru was to take the blame. But who was the real culprit? Your mother?
Still at little confused by the ending, the results for 7. state "You could have found someone important in the crypt, but when bplaying through second time, still didn't find that person. Any suggestions?

I think Lord Mortimer or Holm is behind all this. If you lock yourself in Mortimer's secret study, you will overhear Peru whining about being treated unfairly by a 'Him' outside the wall. Also, he will warn you of not getting in too deep or you will sell your soul to 'Him'.
As for the ending, I replayed Ep.2 several times and I can confirm that the only thing making the differences to the endings, is if you have locked yourself in the secret study.
You will find your mother in the crypt if you find your way out of the secret study by yourself. Otherwise, you will get another ending, in which a mysterious man is approaching you.

Oh definitely about Mortimer. I'm fairly sure that the game never said I was wrong about choosing what I did with who killed Adams (I put suicide), and the only two that weren't on the list were Mortimer and Holm.
There were also plenty of clues in this episode which all lead to Mortimer being the murderer. But I won't give those away just yet.

My theory is, Mortimer is a manipulative ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who tries to make everyone do as he wants, which in the ened will be world domination or something similar. Something for his good and not the greater good anyway. He killed Adams, he killed The Servant and is trying to frame your mother for it, possibly because she's caught onto him and is trying to expose him. Holm is probably "weak" to manipulation and that's why he's his second man.

Also, look at the name. MORTimer. Mort in Latin? Death.

[Elathan]

Episode starts out kind of cheap imo. In the save slot I started with episode 1 was ended with me being under arrest - and nobody cared much about that in this episode.

Kinda sad that the different endings of episode 1 were focused on the fact that you had to wait for episode 2, and they tried to make themselves way more different than they ended up being.

[CyberPioneer]

Episode 2 is more boring than the first one.

[Eolair]

Since we started somewhat the rumor mill:
I do believe Peru wants to take the blame for the murder. The Mother WAS in the room and lost a piece of cloth there, which definetly wasn't there in Episode 1 (the day before).

Elisabeth was on the Island "long time", so why should Mortimer wait so long, it could have been an "accident", however we know that Mortimar is into the occult and science. We also know that Mother put away a book, let's call it the "Necromomicon" for now. I think Mortimar wanted to evoke a greater (ancient) evil and needed Elisabeth for it.

The Mother killed before and so she probalby killed again to prevent greater evil. For crossing Moritmers plans she now has to hide.

But that is just a theory :)

[DrXanadu]

I take it no one else here has Elizabeth simply missing, instead of dead?

I agree that this episode was shorter than I would have liked. The puzzles were rather obtuse, as well, though I greatly enjoyed the last one. I like the somewhat subtle implications that your mother isn't the complete genius she's made out to be. She failed the labyrinth puzzle, based on the bloody handprint in the crypt wall, and she also either missed the notes in Mortimer's study indicating there was a lock somewhere that'd lop off her hand, or she had no choice in the matter and was forced to give up her hand. Overall, I think this episode was a lot more cerebral, sometimes to its own detriment, but I like the way the narrative is shaping up.

Little things I think are noteworthy:

Some people were complaining about a lack of choices mattering, but I think those people probably didn't explore the game fully. Two isn't a big sample size to form an opinion on, but so far it seems like every episode will have a somewhat significant story branch. Last one's being Elizabeth's fate, this one being who approaches you in the crypt. Although, in this instance, the branching point is based on your puzzle solving skills, rather than a direct choice, which I appreciate. It feels more like a game when your ability is called into question.

This episode managed to make me like Peru, despite having beaten Elizabeth in the previous episode. It's really cute when he helps you escape from the study, and your confrontation with him in the garden helps cement your unlikely friendship. This episode in general focused more on the characters we didn't see much of in the first, while relegating the major characters of last episode to the background. Tonally, it's a little strange to go from potentially being very close with Emily and/or being her partner, to having her suddenly pushed to the side, but I think it was a necessary to step to flesh out the other characters before the action and intrigue ramps up. And she did get one scene about her sister, which helps to further strengthen or weaken your relationship.

That being said, it's a little unsatisfying to have Mortimer just reveal Emily's secret twin sister to us, when that was a pretty difficult challenge to uncover in the first episode. I haven't played through a save where I failed that confrontation, though, so maybe it's handled differently in that case.

There are a lot of unfortunate little technical issues this episode, particularly with the dialogues that don't act like cutscenes (asking the various characters about Godoy, the conference, and the nightmare). The subtitles will flash at the bottom of the screen before returning to their place above your options, and having the options constantly on the screen distracts you from the conversation. Talking to Emily, an option to insult Godoy didn't come up until after I'd already switched the subject to the conference.

All in all, I enjoyed the episode. Less than the first, in some ways, but I'm definitely still excited to continue the story.

[Yung Coke "AKA baby albino"]

Yo what statue in the labyrinth is the right one ? I keep getting pricked

[ilovelex]

Originally posted by Yung Coke "AKA baby albino":

Yo what statue in the labyrinth is the right one ? I keep getting pricked

Minos

[Exogenous]

The only thing I liked was the diffculty of puzzels went way up instead and actually felt far more approriate insteat of the easy kinds of puzzels u would find in an adventure game the puzzels here were actually hard and you really did need as many hints from you're skills as possible they may contue to get harder as they are going to expect you to have quite a lot of skills now.

The biggest negative for me and one I don't think many of you got was the tranistion from my ending of episode 1 to 2 was the worst tranistion I have ever seen in one of these kinds of games. I really liked how ambitious they were in having a lot of different kinds of endings but the ending I got where I was the prime suspect for the murder of elizzbeth at the end of episode one and then became the lead investigator despite being the prime suspect with no explination was honestly a non-tranition that felt like they ran out of time making the 2nd episode so could not put in a proper tranition for that ending in episode one.

Game also seemed shorter and there were way less speech checks I only remember one in this episode.

The only reason i solved the last puzzle was due to the music quo the game gives only to the correct awnser.... this was a mistake as I did not have to think about it I just noticed only on statute gave any epic music guessed that and was right. I get they are trying to make the game feel cool with the music but they are giving away the awnsers to their own puzzles by doing it.

Does anyone know if their are different endings at all in this episode 2? I just met up with mom I am not hurt though (thanks to the music qu lol). I guess the different ending in this is more the different actions you took in this episode as opposed to actually making different endings though as the only difference I can think of is you are hurt here.

[michelle.signo]

I think Mortimer is using Al Azif for cloning himself trough the centuries and keeping alive this persona called Mortimer and influences the human history. The servants has the same voice of Mortimer, sugesting that they are Mortimer clones.
Take a look to the themes of paintings in the mansion hall, various paintings of Cronos eating his son, time killing humanity. Mortimer is avoiding to be killed by time? Is Mortimer killing yours sons/clones like the servant killed in the crypt?

By the way, in my path Adams is not dead.

[Elathan]

Just finished Episode 2 with my second save slot in which I told Adams to leave the island, and indeed, that way she is just missing.

Funny how Gregory seems to be more upset about that than her death.

Transition between Episode 2 and 3 is done poorly, especially if you were accused for murder at the end of episode 1, but other than that it stays cool.


Any theory about what is going on?
I guess mother is hiding from Mortimer. Also she must be the one who killed the servant, and most likely even Elizabeth (when she dies). I assume Mortimer did something with her, but somehow she escaped.

Do you think there is a connection between the armless skeleton and mother not having arms in the visions/at the end of episode 2?

Any clue which will prove to be important later / foreshadow theory?

[DrXanadu]

Originally posted by Elathan:

Do you think there is a connection between the armless skeleton and mother not having arms in the visions/at the end of episode 2?

Any clue which will prove to be important later / foreshadow theory?

Right next to the armless skeleton is a note about a man named Gustave making a lock for Mortimer based on the guillotine. I think this is the same lock for which a prototype sits on Mortimer's desk. I think it's implied that Sarah failed to solve the puzzle around that lock and got her hand lopped off.

[julien.lafleur]

There are at least three endings albeit one comes up very quickly. Ending with Mother, ending with mystery man which seems to be Washington and your own execution which is kind of funny. Haven’t tried this yet but can you be questioned by Holm, then investigate Adams death?