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since the original runefall is one of the best match-3 games on the market (my review is testament to that), I have to recommend runefall 2 as well, as it's the same game with a few quality of life changes (such as saving mid-level) that should've been but supposedly couldn't be added to the first game after release. so, objectively it's a thumbs up, but I'm gonna have to list a bunch of issues.

the version on steam is the collector's edition with loads of extra stuff (soundtrack, strategy guide, bonus campaign, bloopers, etc.) for the same price as the first game (a lesson to be learned here, looking at you, jewel match solitaire), but because it's a carbon copy of the first game (except instead of upgrading a village, you're traveling around a beautifully-drawn map), I didn't enjoy my time with it the second time around. I normally don't mind more of the same, but it was too much in this case.

the game is basically the match-3 equivalent of assassin's creed, and it's not a compliment. you get huge areas filled with nothing but busywork, except in most assassin's creed titles (maybe not the latest ones) you can hop from story mission to story mission and ignore the sidecrap if you wanted, but here you can't really, as even just getting to the runes on the levels means digging around for various items, and you need the rest for quests that unlock power-ups and upgrades, otherwise it's even less fun and levels take even longer.

sure, you can keep track of various things now (still not everything) and can continue where you left off next time, even skip minigames for a small fee, but levels can still take an hour to complete, and it gets old really fast with all the unnecessary padding. getting the useful stuff (items, chests and runes) is only about half of level completion, the rest is clearing grass, sand, dirt and crates, as much fun as it sounds or would be in real life. 100% completion is optional, of course, but if you want it, you need a ton of resources to unlock treasure map locations as well, with even more busywork.

you can also replay levels now, getting more out of the game if need be with less busywork, but as it is, who in their right mind would want to replay a level they already spent an hour completing? and once you hit 'finish level', there's no way to continue later (nor is there a confirmation prompt), so you either have to do everything to get a badge or move on, but if you want a badge later (it's only for some extra resources and achievements), have to start that level over from the beginning. I was told saving individual level progress was a technical limitation, but the game is on a new engine, they surely could've calculated with this while they were at it.

this is a perfect example of 'less would've been more'. completing the first game with its 40 levels, doing everything except timed achievements, took me about 20 hours and even that overstayed its welcome towards the end. after 40 hours of runefall 2 with its 73 levels I had both campaigns completed, a third(!) of all the levels perfected, and a bunch of bonus levels (part of the 73) in the bonus campaign were still locked.

since you only carry over power-ups from the main game but not resources, unlocking those would've required farming tens of thousands of materials, something they categorically said wouldn't be necessary after the final task of the first game wanting you to have 20k of each before you could call it a day. if you go for perfect levels, you might be fine in this respect, but after a while I didn't bother, and the bonus levels are just more of the same anyway, and utterly pointless once the story and everything else is done.

I would've been a lot happier with fewer and smaller levels, though not all of them are hour-long, fortunately. not all the story levels have cutscenes either, so at least those could've been scrapped. and after doing all the quests, random items could've been removed from levels as well, as they have no other uses, making progress faster if you're not going for 100%.

the new map isn't great either. more stats are most welcome, but found items are still not tracked, so you have no idea if you found them all until the level is finished, and the map itself doesn't mark areas where you need to dig, like it does with chests, not even as an unlockable upgrade, and if you're not doing 100% cleanup, it's easy to miss some glowing areas while matching, potentially leading to missing a chest key or an item to access locked areas on the level.

my biggest map-related annoyance is no minimap zoom and often the map only occupies a small portion of the screen with plenty of room where they could've stretched it out a bit, or better yet, added mousewheel zooming. and while the tooltip says left click is for jumping around, right click does the same, which is annoying as it is, but even more so because right click could've been (and should've been) used to close the minimap instead, as clicking the 'x' in the top right corner every time is less than ideal.

moving around and depleting veins is just as slow as in the first game, unfortunately they didn't make it so that explosions exhaust veins immediately, and I don't think there's any new music either, which is lazy. there are, however, some new tiles, and they're all uglier than the ones in the first game, especially dirt, but this is more of a personal thing. another mournful change is the sound of breaking crates. it used to be really satisfying, but here it's more of a whimper, and crates count for 100% completion now, which adds another layer of tedium.

it sounds like I'm bashing the game, but as I said, it's mostly an improvement over the first, already very good one, but so similar that after completing that, I couldn't get too excited about a lot more of exactly the same thing, and I ended up skipping as much optional stuff as I could after a while.

it's recommended for match-3 fans, 40-50 hours of variable amounts of fun guaranteed, but you should know what you're getting yourself into. in the original you had to set aside about an hour before starting a level, and there's other stuff to consider here. it's a nice package, plenty of content and extras for a good price, but I really hope runefall 3 won't be another carbon copy with changes that should've been patched into this game. bring in new mechanics, smaller levels, more variety, less tedious busywork and it should be fine.

[quote]For more puzzle game reviews, news and everything puzzle-related, follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25928931-Puzzle-Lovers/]Puzzle Lovers[/url] and check out our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/puzzlelovers]Steam group[/url].[/quote] since the original [b]runefall[/b] is one of the best match-3 games on the market ([url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/dohi64/recommended/813650]my review[/url] is testament to that), I have to recommend [b]runefall 2[/b] as well, as it's the same game with a few quality of life changes (such as [b]saving mid-level[/b]) that should've been but supposedly couldn't be added to the first game after release. so, objectively it's a thumbs up, but I'm gonna have to list a bunch of issues. the version on steam is the [b]collector's edition[/b] with loads of extra stuff (soundtrack, strategy guide, bonus campaign, bloopers, etc.) for the same price as the first game (a lesson to be learned here, looking at you, [b]jewel match solitaire[/b]), but because it's a carbon copy of the first game (except instead of upgrading a village, you're traveling around a beautifully-drawn map), I didn't enjoy my time with it the second time around. I normally don't mind more of the same, but it was too much in this case. the game is basically [b]the match-3 equivalent of assassin's creed[/b], and it's not a compliment. you get huge areas filled with nothing but busywork, except in most assassin's creed titles (maybe not the latest ones) you can hop from story mission to story mission and ignore the sidecrap if you wanted, but here you can't really, as even just getting to the runes on the levels means digging around for various items, and you need the rest for quests that unlock power-ups and upgrades, otherwise it's even less fun and levels take even longer. sure, you can keep track of various things now (still not everything) and can [b]continue where you left off next time, even skip minigames[/b] for a small fee, but [b]levels can still take an hour to complete[/b], and it gets old really fast with all the unnecessary padding. getting the useful stuff (items, chests and runes) is only about half of level completion, the rest is clearing grass, sand, dirt and crates, as much fun as it sounds or would be in real life. 100% completion is optional, of course, but if you want it, [b]you need a ton of resources to unlock treasure map locations[/b] as well, with even more busywork. you can also [b]replay levels[/b] now, getting more out of the game if need be with less busywork, but as it is, who in their right mind would want to replay a level they already spent an hour completing? and [b]once you hit 'finish level', there's no way to continue later[/b] (nor is there a confirmation prompt), so you either have to do everything to get a badge or move on, but if you want a badge later (it's only for some extra resources and achievements), have to start that level over from the beginning. I was told saving individual level progress was a technical limitation, but the game is on a new engine, they surely could've calculated with this while they were at it. this is a perfect example of 'less would've been more'. completing the first game with its 40 levels, doing everything except timed achievements, took me about 20 hours and even that overstayed its welcome towards the end. after 40 hours of runefall 2 with its [b]73 levels[/b] I had both campaigns completed, a third(!) of all the levels perfected, and a bunch of bonus levels (part of the 73) in the bonus campaign were still locked. since you only carry over power-ups from the main game but not resources, unlocking those [b]would've required farming tens of thousands of materials, something they categorically said wouldn't be necessary[/b] after the final task of the first game wanting you to have 20k of each before you could call it a day. if you go for perfect levels, you might be fine in this respect, but after a while I didn't bother, and the bonus levels are just more of the same anyway, and utterly pointless once the story and everything else is done. I would've been a lot happier with fewer and smaller levels, though not all of them are hour-long, fortunately. not all the story levels have cutscenes either, so at least those could've been scrapped. and after doing all the quests, random items could've been removed from levels as well, as they have no other uses, making progress faster if you're not going for 100%. [b]the new map isn't great either.[/b] more stats are most welcome, but found items are still not tracked, so you have no idea if you found them all until the level is finished, and the map itself doesn't mark areas where you need to dig, like it does with chests, not even as an unlockable upgrade, and if you're not doing 100% cleanup, it's easy to miss some glowing areas while matching, potentially leading to missing a chest key or an item to access locked areas on the level. my biggest map-related annoyance is [b]no minimap zoom[/b] and often the map only occupies a small portion of the screen with plenty of room where they could've stretched it out a bit, or better yet, added mousewheel zooming. and while the tooltip says left click is for jumping around, right click does the same, which is annoying as it is, but even more so because right click could've been (and should've been) used to close the minimap instead, as clicking the 'x' in the top right corner every time is less than ideal. [b]moving around and depleting veins is just as slow as in the first game[/b], unfortunately they didn't make it so that explosions exhaust veins immediately, and [b]I don't think there's any new music[/b] either, which is lazy. there are, however, some new tiles, and they're all uglier than the ones in the first game, especially dirt, but this is more of a personal thing. another mournful change is the sound of breaking crates. it used to be really satisfying, but here it's more of a whimper, and [b]crates count for 100% completion now[/b], which adds another layer of tedium. it sounds like I'm bashing the game, but as I said, [b]it's mostly an improvement over the first[/b], already very good one, but so similar that after completing that, I couldn't get too excited about a lot more of exactly the same thing, and I ended up skipping as much optional stuff as I could after a while. it's recommended for match-3 fans, [b]40-50 hours of variable amounts of fun guaranteed[/b], but you should know what you're getting yourself into. in the original you had to set aside about an hour before starting a level, and there's other stuff to consider here. it's a nice package, plenty of content and extras for a good price, but [b]I really hope runefall 3 won't be another carbon copy with changes that should've been patched into this game[/b]. bring in new mechanics, smaller levels, more variety, less tedious busywork and it should be fine.