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Puzzle Agent 2, reviewed, loved 02 Jul, 2011 / 14 comments

Fan of Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent? Try the sequel, just reviewed here and loved at that.
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14 Comments

  • Avatar
    koosjebig on 24 Jul, 2011, 21:22…
    I played it on my ipod iOs 4.3.4, and it was unfortunately very buggy.
    Audio is choppy, and the current version is full of glitches.
    I rebooted my ipod several times, but it did not help
    Also, for many slider puzzles, the touch interactivity is totally wrecked. There is this Earth Moon and Stars puzzle that kept me cursing thanks to the bugging interface.

    Aside from that: the story was more of the same (what one could expect), but it did not add anything substantial to the world of Scoggins. I'm not a fan of revisiting so many identical locations as in part 1. And finally, the puzzles were OK, but nothing more. Leighton is way more polished.
    It's too bad Telltale did not polish this one... Seems to be a general problem there these days...
  • Avatar
    AlfredJ on 06 Jul, 2011, 09:12…
    Wow, Tingler, I'm surprised you're so negative about this game. I would place the Puzzle Agent games in my top three of Telltale games. Each to their own I guess.

    Regarding this issue:

    The Tingler


    I have to say though, I utterly disagree. I still love the style, and Korka's a fantastic character, but in solving the mystery of Scoggins (so quickly) I felt that the story lost a lot of the fun, and I also feel that Telltale rushed this. Granted, it may be a case of me judging it based on what I wanted it to be rather than what it is, but with just one new game after the success of Puzzle Agent I wanted either a) a full season or b) a big, proper sequel - a Portal 2 to Puzzle Agent's Portal, if you will. Just having another short episode feels like Telltale really didn't care.



    I actually liked that they didn't let the story drag on for too long. Expecting a full-length sequel goes against anything Telltale has done before, and I don't think Scoggings had enough to offer to stretch it to the standard 5 episode-format. I really like these games, but I think even I wouldn't be interested in wandering around that town for 5 months. Now Nelson is going to get an entirely new case in the third game (if there is going to be one of course), and that sounds pretty cool to me. If Telltale 'didn't care' I doubt we would have seen these games at all. Telltale can get their hands on IP's that are a lot easier to sell, if that was all they were after. A lot of the fans of the first one felt it ended a bit too abruptly without providing enough answers, so Telltale creates a second episode some months later to give them exactly that. Not every franchise needs to be LOST-ified.


    You're not the only one I've seen with complaints about how 'quick' it feels though. I guess I just like short games these days. Means I actually get to finish them.
  • Avatar
    Remi on 05 Jul, 2011, 14:24…

    MrManager

    The Tingler

    Apparently it runs terribly on iPad as well, sort of blowing the whole "extremely polished" idea out of the water.



    Runs just fine on the iPad. No clue why you'd think otherwise.



    Oh, EuroGamer. Any semi-modern iPad 1 game should be played with most apps turned off. That's how I played it and it worked just swell.


    Feel free to actually trying it yourself before telling me how wrong I am next time.
  • Avatar
    Remi on 05 Jul, 2011, 14:10…

    The Tingler

    Apparently it runs terribly on iPad as well, sort of blowing the whole "extremely polished" idea out of the water.



    Runs just fine on the iPad. No clue why you'd think otherwise.
  • Avatar
    Ascovel on 05 Jul, 2011, 02:33…

    The Tingler

    Excuse me for the game not giving any indication that this puzzle was calendar-related.



    I wonder if just this single circumstance could put Puzzle Agent 2 into the realm of adventure games genre instead of puzzle games?
  • Avatar
    Zaarin on 04 Jul, 2011, 12:18…

    Tingler

    Excuse me for the game not giving any indication that this puzzle was calendar-related.


    That was part of the puzzle.
  • Avatar
    The Tingler on 04 Jul, 2011, 12:14…

    Zaarin


    It is if you've ever looked at a calendar. :)



    Excuse me for the game not giving any indication that this puzzle was calendar-related. 31 doesn't mean anything as months don't all have 31 days each, and I don't know the days of every month off by heart (and February changes anyway). That puzzle didn't make me feel stupid, it made me angry. I can't say that ever happened in any Layton game or the first Puzzle Agent - and several puzzles in PA2 did that.

    And I'm not on my own with this opinion. Apparently it runs terribly on iPad as well, sort of blowing the whole "extremely polished" idea out of the water.
  • Avatar
    Zaarin on 04 Jul, 2011, 11:41…

    Tingler

    The very last puzzle for example - "does 31 seem familiar to you?" is not a hint.


    It is if you've ever looked at a calendar. :)
  • Avatar
    The Tingler on 04 Jul, 2011, 11:18…
    Who reviewed this one? Just out of interest as the review doesn't say.

    I have to say though, I utterly disagree. I still love the style, and Korka's a fantastic character, but in solving the mystery of Scoggins (so quickly) I felt that the story lost a lot of the fun, and I also feel that Telltale rushed this. Granted, it may be a case of me judging it based on what I wanted it to be rather than what it is, but with just one new game after the success of Puzzle Agent I wanted either a) a full season or b) a big, proper sequel - a Portal 2 to Puzzle Agent's Portal, if you will. Just having another short episode feels like Telltale really didn't care.

    And the puzzles are, frankly, terrible. The Professor Layton games for example have hundreds of puzzles, and almost all of them leave you feeling satisfied or feeling smart for solving them - or thinking "of course! I should've noticed that" if you're given the answer.

    Puzzle Agent 2 has 30-odd puzzles and very few of them left me feeling satisfied, and the ones I couldn't get I don't understand how anyone could take the leaps of logic required to get in the developer's mindset. The very last puzzle for example - "does 31 seem familiar to you?" is not a hint. When Layton gives you a puzzle, it always gives you enough to spot the answer. PA2 though... anyone here know Pi to nine decimal places off by heart?

    I was hugely unimpressed by Puzzle Agent 2, after loving the first one despite a few dodgy puzzles. PA2 feels like an afterthought, rushing through the story with mostly pathetic puzzles (including a load repeated from the first game). For me it's not game of the year, in fact it'll probably my Biggest Disappointment of 2011 - and that's over Duke Nukem Forever.
  • Avatar
    SurplusGamer on 04 Jul, 2011, 11:16…
    I solved the coin puzzle using google to look at pictures of coins. Which shouldn't be necessary, but there it is. It's a shame, because aside from the cultural barrier the idea behind the puzzle was very clever, and I loved solving it.

    In general, most of the puzzles are improved, and their descriptions. I found myself much less frustrated with them as I mentioned in my review of the first game, though I maintain that they're still less rewarding than Professor Layton's.

    The ones I almost always had trouble with were the 'put these pictures into chronological order ones. I used hints on those and even after using the hints I felt like the logic was occasionally dubious. boo.

    Still, I think they are moving this very much in the right direction. It's amazing how much this change in art style helps. The stilted animations and sketchbook characters look great and prevent a lot of the annoying animation issues a lot of Telltale's stuff suffers from. In fact, thinking back to Strong Bad, it seems Telltale's games look best when they adopt a simpler, more stylised visual design, or try to imitate an existing style (Strong Bad, Wallace & Gromit)
  • Avatar
    Ascovel on 03 Jul, 2011, 12:14…
    Sounds rather great. And thank god for the return of the polish!
  • Avatar
    AlfredJ on 03 Jul, 2011, 09:19…
    I completely agree with this review. The Puzzle Agent universe might be my favorite of all the Telltale worlds. Oh, and there's a character named Alfred in there. Clearly a reference to me.

    So yeah, really loved this game, can't wait for the third one.
  • Avatar
    manny_c44 on 03 Jul, 2011, 02:00…
    For me it was a let down~ that deliberate pacing that made #1 great (and make's all of Annable's creations so interesting) felt way off here. This episode definitely felt much more like a telltale game than an Annable game.
  • Avatar
    Kroms on 02 Jul, 2011, 21:59…
    I liked that review, though there's a "screnshots" in there. :)

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