The House of Da Vinci 2

Genre: First-Person Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Included in The House of Da Vinci Complete Bundle, along with The House of Da Vinci and The House of Da Vinci 3.)

The House of Da Vinci 2, like the first game, is an interactive first-person puzzle game that places you in the role of a man enlisted by a mysterious benefactor to become the new assistant to legendary artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci, a task that will require you to figure out how to piece together and operate numerous strange devices.

And much as with the first game, the gameplay in The House of Da Vinci 2 primarily involves you interacting with countless devices to find a way to move further on. These devices are intricately rendered in wonderful detail, and one of the great delights of this game is encountering a new device and uncovering its secrets, or finding a hidden switch and seeing one of these contraptions unfold into some new configuration. A new element this game adds is a new device that allows you to jump back into the past to influence events in the present or get parts and components not available in the present, giving this game some new elements, although this also does make it harder to know just when a puzzle stumping you requires a time-traveling solution.

Beyond this issue though, the puzzles in this game are superb, and many are solved largely through being observant and thoughtful. Rarely do you feel like this game is making you guess at what to do, and more often than not the answer you’re looking for is a part of a device you didn’t look at closely enough, or a tool in your possession you didn’t realize you could reconfigure into something else.

In many ways, this game is just a continuation of the first game, with the same excellent hint system in place… but also the same flaws. Namely, the controls, which are just as stubborn here as in the first game. More so, in fact. Once again, players are required to use either clunky motion-control with the Joy-Cons (no Pro controller support, yet again) or touchscreen, and once again, this makes for a lot of frustration. However, there’s a new problem that makes things even worse this time around.

Here’s the thing – much as with the first game, the visuals here are excellent, with some added lighting and environmental effects that even make this game more delightful to look at than the first one. Unfortunately, these come at a terrible cost – at many points, the framerate in this game absolutely chugs to the point of making the game feel damn near unplayable at times. It’s hard enough as is using the finicky motion controls, but when the game is constantly freezing and then picking up again a few seconds later, it can interrupt what you’re doing and ruin the motion you’re trying to make.

Despite some good ideas added into the mix this time, the terrible framerates and freezing issues, as well as the uncertainty added by the time travel mechanic make this sequel decidedly worse than the first game. If you loved the first House of Da Vinci and want more like that, you may find some enjoyment here, but you’ll also find a lot of frustration. If you’ve never played the first game, start with that one, it’s far better.

tl;dr – The House of Da Vinci 2 is a First-Person Puzzle game that has you fiddling with beautifully intricate, deviously-designed devices much as the first game had you doing. Unfortunately, the control issues from the first game are not only still present, they’re actually much worse thanks to some terrible framerate and freezing problems, and a new time travel mechanic that showed promise ultimately just makes it harder to solve some of the game’s puzzles due to uncertainty when it should be used. Fans of the first game may still find some good in this one, but it’s an overall worse experience.

Grade: C

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Port/Remake

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