Recent reviews by Cpt. KoolAid

Let's get one thing straight before we begin: Frostpunk 2 is NOT Frostpunk 1. If you're buying it expecting the radial city builder the first one was, then you'll be disappointed.

With that out of the way, let's talk about what Frostpunk 2 really is and its similarities with 1:

11 bit studios decided to leave the city building part as secondary and go straight forward for the political game. You'll be taking a lot of hard decision about the city and how it should be managed. Some will be angry, some will die, favor will be lost and gained and the city will respond accordingly.

In this aspect, Frostpunk 2 makes you feel like the city is truly alive. Your residents will comment on your actions, both positive and negatively. New groups looking for change will arise, and if not pleased will revolt and disrupt the city. Political mechanics takes a hold on every single part of the decision taking, and you'll have the play around it constantly.

And the game is beautiful as ever. The thematic is still the same beautiful bright colors on the pure white snow, with highly detailed buildings for your districts. The narrative tools used to push the story forward fitted perfectly, adding more details to the game's lore.

Now, let's talk about where Frostpunk 2 falls short:

The interface can be very confusing at first. When you learn how to use your tools, it becomes pretty easy. But the problem is: when you are having your first experience, the tutorial pages don't give you enough mechanical information about how to use these tools to begin with, and you are let to discover it by yourself.
Not only that, but there will be countless times you'll have to take blind decisions because the game won't allow you to minimize the decision screen. Let's say you want to make a promise about a rule for a certain group: the screen will show you which law they want, but won't tell you if it will substitute another passed law or what this new law will do.

About performance, the game struggles to run even on more powerful computers. If you're expecting to play it on the best graphics settings, you better be ready to have a very powerful rig to support those beautiful graphics.

Another problem is about the progression. The game is separated in chapters, which you progress based on some milestones you complete on each one. Your city carries on from one chapter to another, and if you just barely made it to the next one, maybe you just bricked your save and will have to start over or reload several weeks back.
Frostpunk 1 had a lot of restarts, that's true. But the difference lies on the fact that you had different scenarios and, although you would need to replay these scenarios a number of times to finish it perfectly, they are short and restart wasn't much of a pain.
If you're an experienced player, this won't bother you too much in lower difficulties, but if you're new to the series, you might find it frustrating.

Overall, I've been enjoying my experience through the game. you can see that, although 11 bit studios fell short on some technical aspects, the game was made with love and it's a worth sequel to the Frostpunk universe.

game's good

Terraria

It's ok

Edit: I guess...