The Room Two Review (The Greater Sphinx)
The Room Two is a puzzle game where you solve puzzles and investigate the mysteries of A.S. and the null element. It's the sequel to The Room and picks up where the previous game left off.
The Room Two is still mostly puzzles, but instead of solving one puzzle box at a time, you solve puzzle rooms. You'll still solve puzzle boxes, but now you get to explore the whole room instead of just the top of the table. This allows for more complex and creative puzzles, and the game didn't start to feel repetitive by the end the way the first one did. The puzzles are a little more difficult than in the first game, although most of the time that's just because the rooms are big and dark and some of the things you have to look for are small parts of the background. I did have to use the hint system a couple of times, and the hints were just enough to point me in the right direction.
The story is still a small part of the game, but because the game is longer, you do get a bit more of it. You still get the notes from A.S., and they continue where they left off at the end of the first game. In a couple of the rooms, the environment and the notes tie together, although these parts seem to be tangentially related to the "main story." The game is more about atmosphere than story, but the atmosphere is very well done. There's an otherworldly element to the way you travel through the rooms, and the environments and sounds are very creepy, much more so than in the first game.
Like the previous game, this was originally designed with a touch screen in mind, which makes some of the movements and gestures awkward. Certain actions like opening boxes and turning keys were more annoying than they needed to be, and occasionally it was hard to see something from a specific angle. I did have one weird bug, where I was able to focus on something inside an item I hadn't opened yet, but other than that the game worked fine.
Overall, The Room Two is very similar to the first game, but improved in almost every way. It's a bit longer than the first game as well, and I enjoyed playing it a bit more. I'm eager to see where the rest of the series goes. 7/10