I just finished The Outer Worlds 2, and I think it was an overall enjoyable experience. The beginning of the game is definitely the strongest with reaching Cloister/Praetor being about when it starts to teeter off for me.
The entire first half of the game where you're chasing de Vries and finding out why she betrayed you and such was great, the quest designs and town design were good, there were a lot of ways to utilize your skillset in the world and quest design. The writing was also good and intriguing. I enjoyed the companions it had to offer, from Niles to Tristan to Inez, my personal favorite was Aza.
I only wish that the companions had more interactivity amongst one another, something I liked about the first game was how when on the Unreliable you could find the companions bantering with each other, The Outer Worlds 2 does this, as well, but far more sparsely than the first game. I also wish that the companions had a bit more tension amongst each other, too, especially in regard to a companion like Tristan who's a Protectorate Arbiter. The most that the game provides in "tension" is Niles or Inez making a comment on Tristan or Aza.
The themes of the game feel muddied. Where the first game was blatantly anti-capitalist and anti-corporatism, the second game feels less so. It still has such ideologies, but it isn't exactly the focus, and the focus isn't really easy to tell what it is. The main antagonistic faction is the Protectorate, which act as a "perfect society" as an authoritative society where questioning is cause for lobotomization. Though the game doesn't do too much to really dive into this thinking and faction and what you can get through Tristan simply isn't enough to really dig into. (I also simply dislike the fact you can ally both Auntie's Choice and the Order, I really wish it was an X or Y thing.)
The game's big bad, the Consul Thoreau, has a rather stupid plan that it just feels not fully thought out. The first game had the player really engage with the problems that plagued Halcyon, whereas the problems that plague Arcadia aren't fully engaged with which I think is the main core issue. Halcyon was full of corporations, it was ruled by them, Arcadia is amidst a war between Auntie's Choice, the Order, and the Protectorate, and I feel, personally, the game could have benefitted in exploring its themes by giving us more of the Protectorate to explore and see, something about their society. How they live and such, the closest we get is Westport in the first zone of the game, but even then, they're branded as traitors.
The gameplay itself is very fun, I enjoyed the gunplay, the movement, and the world design. The exploration was fun and I appreciated how a few times the game actually has you return to an old zone, something that the first game didn't really do.
However, I do have some issues with the gameplay and design of gadgets and companions. The companions in the game are both an improvement over the first game and a step back, I appreciate that they have their own custom weapon and armor, I like that they have actual unique perks focused on them, I like that they interject in dialogue. But there's a few things I don't like that they don't do, that the first game did.
The companions lack the ability to determine their tactics; you can't tell them to follow close or far or if they use ranged or melee or mixed. The inability to heal companions in combat is also annoying, I can somewhat understand why, but the fact that not even a perk exists under Medical or Leadership is disappointing. The game instead has two dedicated companion healers, mainly Valerie but there's also Inez. I also miss that in the first game, the companions would give a bonus to your skills, it's something I again understand why it isn't there, the game emphasizes far more on replaying it and focusing on specific skills than the first game did, but something like giving a companion a trait or something that, while following, can be used as an alternative method (because the game offers a lot of such alternative methods) would have been welcomed.
Regarding skills, I personally like and dislike how they're handled. The game streamlines the skills into twelve skills, in comparison to the first game's eighteen skills. The skills in The Outer Worlds 2 have a lot more influence in their effects, where in the first game even at 150, it'd only give a 1.5% increase in plasma damage, for example.
I wish the game had more dedicated skills, though, mostly for guns, but I liked how lying and persuasion had their own skills, I liked the unique way that skills behaved in the first game as you level up a group and then specialize, I liked that each skill had their own masteries at increments of 20, similar to that of Oblivion's in increments of 25.
The gadgets were probably the least used thing in the game, and that could simply be on me since I chose the Dumb trait and locked Science!. I don't care for how TTD is in the game to begin with, and it really seems like its only purpose to exist is a one time use for fast moving fans midway in the game. The N-Ray Scanner was neat, but another thing I largely didn't use outside of stealth since I can see through walls with it, the location it was obtained at to see invisible enemies was cool and I wish the gimmick was used more, but what's really disappointing about it is that it opens up using the scanner to see wire connections in walls, but this is only used at most three times in the entire game.
The Auntie's Acidic Dematerializer is another gadget that I hardly used, as its entire purpose is to make bodies disappear and it's only used for one quest, but the enemies spotting bodies is largely meaningless, as all it does is make them investigate it briefly and return back to normal. Were the enemies to become permanently aware/cautious, then it might have some greater use, but as it is all of the gadgets feel largely extremely situational as a one off for when you get them or entirely tacked on.
Traits are another thing I find I both like and dislike, as the game got rid of attributes from the first game and replaced them with traits. The positive traits all work in a way that an attribute does from the first, like Brawny being for Strength or Nimble for Dexterity, but there's only three negative traits alongside nine traits. This would mean that on a replay, you'd likely experience the same negative traits more than you would positive ones.
The negative traits are also largely inconsequential in their debuff, the Dumb trait is, ironically, the best trait in the entire game as due to how stingy skill points are (90 in total), being locked out of five skills isn't a detriment at all for a good build. The other two negative traits, Sickly and Abrasive, are largely meaningless, as well. Abrasive just results in being unable to go past a Neutral in reputation, but all reputation really does is give a discount. Sickly is the most impactful trait but its -15% base health and toxicity resistance can be negated with perks and investing in the Medical skill. In the first game, a below average attribute meant something, such as a below average Strength meaning no movement in TTD, a below average Perception meant no weakspots, etc. You would actually have downsides that impact builds and how you play the game.
Overall, I enjoyed the game and I spent the past two/three weeks playing it almost nonstop, but I think it falls short in a few aspects that ultimately harm it. I'll replay it again in the future, I have my own build I made ahead of time for it, and I'll also pick it back up when the DLC comes out in the near future. It simply could have been shorter (I think its length is part of its issue with the theming/writing as a whole) and a few of the mechanics could have been improved on and emphasized on. It's a great RPG with pretty decent writing on average, the part where it really gets dragged down is simply the ending which feels very rushed.
