The king may have been saved, but now, his son has been kidnapped. The evil Demon King wants to make the prince into his court jester. What an offense! Instead of the terrific trio of the first part, a gruesome twosome (see number of 'i's in the title) is sent: Fingus, the diplomat, and Winkle, the practical joker.
These two characters aren't all different, like their predecessors were. They can both carry things (even more than one item at a time), they can both use things, they can both manipulate things, they can both climb, they can both apply violence and also talk. None of them can use magic.
The only little difference is already perfectly described by the tiny characterizations taken from the box. Fingus is smarter. That makes him more likely to convince people to help, more likely to understand mechanisms of machines and so on and so on. Winkle, on the other hand, is always up to taking impossible risks, annoying people etc.
Balancing out this loss of complexity is the fact that one 'level' is now usually larger than one single screen. In general, the game is still split into linear levels, though. Puzzles involve more items, the inventory grows quickly - way more Adventure-like than the player expects from this series. Many puzzles, however, are purely based on timing. Exact and quick clicking replaces brainwork. A bit of a pity.
There's more (good) slapstick and graphics are a little better than in the first part, too. The 'flattened' gameplay (which is still good, just.... inferior in comparison) is unfortunately too noticeable, especially since the player even gets not-so-subtle hints like “we have to get those men laughing” all the time. Not a game to last forever, but still a distraction to waste a few hours with.
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Freshly miniaturized, progressing on the desktop was not very hard. I didn't like performing one action three times in a row, but it was apparent it had to be done, so no big deal. Overall, puzzles suddenly seemed quite trivial ("make fire channeling sunlight through a glass shard" etc.). Still not sure what it is we're trying to achieve globally here.
[batch posting ends here, anything further will hopefully be reported as we go, if we go on]
Very short Gobliins 2 session. Surprisingly, everything on the next screen made perfect sense and things were easily performed as well. A far cry from the previous scene! Small exception: using pepper on the cockroach. Gah, this meant we had to get another one from the previous screen again!
Weird: we have now actually freed the prince, but the game goes on. Not sure what there still is to achieve.
[I'm reposting some items from Mastodon here]
Been playing a bit of Gobliins 2 with my daughter. I thought it could be suitable for her. Hardly any text, lots of cartoon slapstick, even when you're not making any progress. Can't die, unlike the first game. So far, it's fun for both of us. However, I have vague memories of the first few screens being the highlight of the game. Will see how it develops.