Curious Expedition 2

An old-school turn-based rpg with a charming visual style, plenty of deadpan ironic humour and many hours of content awaiting discovery. Unfortunately, despite the humour, there's a strange xenophobia to the representations of 'natives' and colonial plundering which makes the whole experience feel a bit grubby. If you can get over this, there's a satisfying and deep experience to be had.

Curious Expedition 2 is unique enough that it’s difficult to characterize in simple terms. It’s a mixture of rogue-lite, turn-based dice battler, RPG, board game, storytelling generator, and survival game.

Overall, I really like where my successive adventures into Curious Expedition 2 took me. There’s a few minor bugs to iron out, but I found that the game was mostly a smooth ride from beginning to end (by which I mean when an expedition failed and I quit the game). There’s enough depth here that you feel invested in the fate of your character, and even once I finished playing, I kept thinking back to my latest run and what I could do differently.

Solid exploration and resource management gameplay combined with decent combat, an enjoyable story, and a strong audio/visual presentation.

Curious Expedition 2's gorgeous backgrounds and good-looking characters improve on the first title, but don't do enough to make the management part of the game sparkle. Expeditions become a trudge, especially when your party robs you of all your alcohol; and combat can be fun, but not much fun to look at.