Do you miss the days of old traditional point and click games with odd puzzles mixed in with some great humor similar to something like Sam And Max? Than this is the game for you!
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is a hilarious game with some great characters and puzzles, it’s rare that I actually laugh out loud multiple times at a game because of its writing! The game is self-aware but not in the way that tries to force how self-aware it is. It balances it out perfectly and sometimes even does it subtly. There is a scene where you need to get a fishing rod and you ask a character if they have one and they pull it out of thin air and your character comments on how you didn’t need to do some sort of ridiculous task to get the fishing rod, throwing a few soft punches at the point and click adventure game genre.
Not only is it self-aware, it has so many references to things like Pixar, Harry Potter, Skyrim and much more that just makes me smile at how much detail they put in the game. There are so many little things people won’t see or get and I really appreciate the dedication behind that.
On top of all that, the game has fantastic puzzles! The puzzles are fairly difficult but not incredibly frustrating, if you use your head and do some exploring in the level you’ll be able to solve a puzzle in a decent amount of time. The puzzles for the character Critter can be some of the most creative because he speaks some fictional language that is pretty much gibberish. There’s a puzzle that requires you to create a drink that cures a hangover. In order to create the drink, you need to order drinks with certain ingredients from an Ape behind the bar. But neither character speaks English, so you have to look at the menu and have your character speak out loud what the translation for the drink is so you can find certain ingredients and watch how the Ape prepares the drink so you can learn certain techniques that are needed for the hangover cure. Eventually I needed to pull out my phone and write some things down in my notepad app so I could actually remember the ingredients and translations for certain drinks. I’ll insert an image of what it looked like so you can get a better idea of how in-depth the puzzles can get. I swear I wasn’t on drugs when I wrote it, it won’t make any sense to you if you haven’t played the game.
Critter is just one of the four great, charismatic characters! The four characters consist of Critter, a fuzzy little guy who doesn’t speak any English but everyone understands what he is saying besides the player. Nate, who is basically just Han Solo. Wilbur, a sweet little gnome who possess magic abilities but has no clue how to use them. And lvo, an elf princess who has a magic curse out on her that forces her to escape from her kingdom to find a way to lift the curse. Each character has an individual story, but they all come together to weave a cohesive overall story. I don’t want to get too spoilery, but it’s a fantastic, lighthearted, and well-told story that doesn’t rely too much on the story of the previous title and can stand as its own game. I highly recommend you give it a chance, even though the opening is incredibly boring and slow and feels very uneventful.
I always say the setting and music is as much of a character as anyone else in the game, and The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 seems to agree with me on that statement. The game has some phenomenal locations and beautiful music that reminds me of some Disney movies and Harry Potter. The music is overwhelmingly beautiful for such a small game, I wasn’t sure if I was playing an indie game or watching an intense adventure movie, it’s hard to describe but it always matches the setting and situation. Sometimes it feels a bit too loud and drowns out what some of the characters are saying, but it’s not often enough where it’s a major problem.
The locations are gorgeous. They look like really beautiful paintings that you can interact with, you can see this in almost any screenshot for the game.
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is a game that should be played by anyone that enjoys a good lighthearted, hilarious, and fairly challenging title even though the opening hour and a half isn’t very strong. I really enjoyed it so I’ll give it 8.5 out of 10. It’s very good!
Cade is a games journalist, Gaming Writer at ComicBook.com. They contributed 108 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, and Xbox news: served as Editor-in-Chief at GameZone before joining ComicBook.com.