Playing A Game The Talos Principle II PC

... puzzles have always been important to our culture. To me, they represent the idea that the application of reason can lead us forward.

-- Byron (7)

The Talos Principle II feels like it was made for me. Not just because it's a story-driven puzzle sandbox, or because it includes first-person physics riddles, or even because it's an all-around improvement upon the first game. Talos 2 is downright targeting me with its housecat-informed philosophizing.

This sequel improves what I found wanting, and enhances what I loved, about the 2014 original: fully-voiced NPCs with memorable personalities enrich its narrative, new puzzle tools strongly distinguish it from the first game, and some new design directives - especially, numbered puzzles with accumulating complexity - were a huge help in teaching me how to apply those tools and reason through the game's challenges.

That's in contrast to The Talos Principle's later stages leaving me bitter when I felt stuck, forced to look up hints on the interweb. Talos 2 puts in the effort to carefully build its complexity, one puzzle at a time, so that you won't need hints -- you'll readily recognize twists on patterns you've solved before, and can make informed guesses about how previously-isolated tools might work together.

(... there are, in this game's "best ending" endgame challenges, some impossible-to-find scavenger hunts and a few can't-reverse-mistakes puzzles that I still needed hints on. But these frustrations are fewer and shorter-lived than last time around.)

As I noted when playing the demo, Talos 2's fresh and diverse environments are also a visual treat, evoking the serene-yet-mysterious feel of Myst or The Witness (2016). Talos 2's world isn't really that "open" - each of its 12 regions is unlocked in order, by story progress - but the spaces between puzzles feel very open to free-form exploration.

The Talos Principle II's scripted story, its philosophical backdrop, its brain-tickling puzzle gameplay, and its charming world, all feel like excellent upgrades on the last game; and despite lacking nonograms or computer programming, it really does feel perfectly tailored just for me.

Better than: The Talos Principle, The Witness (2016)
Not as good as: ... the third game might be? I guess?
More substantial, and arguably better!, than: Portal 2

Rating: Awesome