To that point, there's a naural sense of progression in Grimrock II: it gently guides you through each new zone without spelling out an optimal order for visiting them. Shortly after your arrival on Nex, you're free to traverse nearly anywhere you can see, assuming you can unlock the barriers to entry and survive your own curiosity.
The openness of the island setting is mirrored in the game's navigation. Even returning to an open sky of a pitch black night-thanks to the great addition of a day and night cycle-feels like a safe haven from the skittering terrors that roam the chasms below." Of course, thousands of steps are still waiting to be taken in decrepit dungeons and tight tunnels, but the promise of returning to the fresh air of the surface alleviates the impenetrable gloom of underground life.
From the temperate woodlands of Twigroot Forest to the noxious vapors of Keelbreach Bog, each environment carries a unique personality, and together they create a more diverse setting than the original's endless halls of stone and darkness. Legend of Grimrock II shirks the longstanding reliance on subterranean labyrinths that have so-well suited the genre instead, it pulls a new foursome of characters to the Isle of Nex, and the welcome addition of outdoor locales. You trigger fatally hidden traps, avoid the obvious ones, and search for vital clues to unlock gates and doorways, while solving riddles and puzzles in a quest for answers to larger mysteries and the almighty pursuit of power itself.
Along the way, you acquire armor, weapons, and artifacts of increasing prowess, outfitting each of your characters to do real-time battle against a bestiary of monstrous creatures. You fashion a party of adventurers with classic Dungeons & Dragons character trappings and step through unexplored three-dimensional terrain one tile at a time. Grimrock II has little to do with the mountain peak in the game's title rather, it serves as reassurance that the formula defined decades ago, and modernized in the original Grimrock, still elegantly drives the experience. Legend of Grimrock II is a logical and brilliantly executed next step for the series, exhibiting slight symptoms of too much freedom, but never stumbling for long. And while the suffocating atmosphere of the franchise's first entry has been diluted by a focus on exploration rather than escape, its mechanics and well-crafted content have flourished and been improved in almost every way. The sequel is a grand adventure, a far cry from the claustrophobic tunnels of its predecessor's excellent first-person, tile-based dungeon-crawling revival. It's fitting that the music first greeting you in Legend of Grimrock II is a rousing, bombastic tune that would just as easily be at home in a summer fantasy blockbuster.
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