So I just finished the game, and well... have to admit I'm impressed AH did an even better game than LoG 1... I didn't think it was possible.
Here's some thoughts on the game's balancing and design, sorry it's a bit messy.
Open world
Being able to leave the claustrophobic dungeons and visit an entire island freely felt fresh and exciting! The island map design was pretty clever, with well thought out teleporters, unlockable levels through puzzles / items and good feeling of progression while leaving a feeling of freedom to the player. However such large open areas are a lot harder to balance and LoG 2 feels a lot less well balanced than LoG 1:
Difficulty
Playing in normal with single use crystals I found the game quite hard in the first third of the game ( twigroots and bog monsters were quite troublesome) but the game gradually became easier and easier with time. LoG 2 has WAY TOO MANY herbs, and, the alchemist class' power is a bit too powerful ( maybe his ability should evolve with the alchemy skill as well ? So that he grows plants faster with a higher skill level). I finished the game with about 60 heal mushrooms and 120 mana plants. LoG 1 gave that great feeling that each element you found was vital to your success. I never felt like i didnt care for loot even if it was food. I found myself growing bored of basic loot in LoG 2 because i had crates of food and herbs.
Respawning ennemies
Part of the problem came from respawning ennemies on most maps. I think this is a step back in design. This kinda kills the survival aspect, when you can just grind mobs for EXP and food. When food is infinite, it makes the starvation system just futile and nothing but an inventory filler ( I think this is why we see quite a few people up here complaining about the food system). It doesnt make the game harder nor does it push you to move forward like it did in LoG 1 ( I know LoG 1 had infinite snail but it was only in one spot of the whole game I think, making it unlikely you d go back all the time to stock up) .
Make respawning mobs give limited EXP and not drop loot. Make them rarer too: backtracking when it has to be done is not especially fun in the first place, but making it more arduous doesnt make it more interesting. If you want to make old places more interesting set one time events that bring new ennemies in the map ( like the rat boss ' twin brother: that was a great surprise).
In the end: easy grinding of EXP + infinite food + multiplying herbs with an alchemist = no feeling of urgency or risk. Worse: the more i got stuck on puzzles the stronger my party got ( from fighting respawning mobs and having more and more herbs). It is rewarding the wrong kind of behavior. in LoG1, at no point I wanted to waste time and there was a great feeling of struggle ( finding secrets to get loot felt really important).
Bosses
Boss fights were an AMAZING addition. I'm a sucker for boss battles and those were very well done with good old life bars and a different music for each fight! Nothing to critic on that except that the undead brothers were pretty underwhelming. Probably a lot more entertaining if they were both fighting the party at the same time.
Air elementals
Mentionned in another topic but those guys are pretty poorly designed. They are visually confusing and read as poison / earth type. They are ethereal but heroes can't go through them. Only a couple things can hurt them, but you could meet these ennemies before you find any and find yourself cornered and have to wait for your death. The game should either introduce them once the player has a way to fight them ( boring solution) either introduce them in a way that feels fair to the player. My first Air elemental was in a tiny dead end in the house of needles... this is a very frustrating way to introduce a new mechanic if the party has NO way of fighting back and is forced to die because its stuck in a dead end. A solution would be to be able to walk through air elementals like the rat horde. The other would be to introduce them in more open areas, and eventually place them in corridors way later in the game.
Water
Being able to swim was a nice touch, but not being able to fight felt very frustrating.
In itself its not a bad idea, but the player should always have a way out of a situation. As in, he shouldnt be punished for jumping in the water and being unlucky because 3 turtles happen to be around and he's stuck forever in between them. It just didnt feel fun. The trident came too late in the game and in places not related to water so it didnt even occur to me they could be useful.
If there was a one time use teleportation crystal, it would make a rare / costly way to escape the air elementals / underwater monsters bad situations. But in the current state, being stuck forever for X reasons feels unfair / frustrating.
Epic items:
Are all epic weapons 2 handed heavy items ??
It felt like the game wanted me to have a whole team of heavy weapon wielders. I missed 3 epic items by end game and I believe none were throwing / bow / light weapons. :l
Races:
Maybe I get this wrong but lizards seem better at survival than any other race.
An easy 50 % resist all from the start? Yes please. Most big ennemies and late bosses do mostly elemental attacks.
Add to that a huge 30% regen in a game where food is infinite. Sure!
Puzzles:
I feel like AH made sure to not reuse some of the previous puzzle mechanics from LoG1. But in a way some of those were missing... I was disappointed there was no teleporter maze, or tricky areas that keep secretly changing the direction i was facing, not much timer based puzzles too. But all the new ones were great!
Magic:
Where is my enchant arrow spell!?
I realize it's a bow special attack now and that it was a bit tedious to create them all the time but I dunno, it was kinda fun. Maybe you could enchant arrows on specific altars through the world. This way it woudlnt be a repetitive tedious task, you d just do it once in a while.
Is there only 2 water spells? It seemed like most spells were Fire or Air. Too bad for my water mage, good thing he knew how to use guns.
Skills:
It's too bad main stats dont increase anymore with skills. Especially since skill often have underwhelming upgrades. Why not add some stat upgrades along the way too to make increasing skills more appealing?
Ok I'm done! Maybe it sounds like a lot of bashing but I really think LoG 2 is amazing and that with a few tweaks it could become the absolute ultimate First Person dungeon crawler!
And well, like a lot of us here, I'm eagerly waiting for the mod scripting reference!
