The Talos Principle 2

A solid game overall. Invariably, this game has to be compared with the first version since not only is the story linked but a lot of the game mechanics are too. With a gap of 9 years there have been significant improvements. The best things about Talos 2 are the sheer scale of the world, addition of multiple NPCs, a few new interesting game mechanics etc. However, the overall difficulty level of the puzzles is easier compared to Talos 1.

The worst thing about Talos 2 is the rather linear structure of the puzzles. A total of 96 core puzzles are divided into 12 sections of 8 puzzles in each. After solving the first few sections it feels super boring because there's not much of an open world to explore through the puzzles. You know what to expect. Yes, some new mechanics like teleporting and moving platforms are great additions but letting go of some great mechanics from Talos 1 was bad. The time reversal mechanic in Talos 1 was amazing.

The second bad thing is the voice acting. They shouldn't have put in any voice acting at all. They've added various accents and I didn't find them attractive (as opposed to Elohim's voice in Talos 1 which I always used to look forward to).

The aesthetics of the game are fantastic. Extraordinarily large worlds with intricate designs are quite impressive. However, most of the details in the design are irrelevant for the game - they're just there for the aesthetic purpose.

What the game has improved on has unfortunately been compensated by getting some things wrong. You will not leave disappointed after finishing the game though.