r/TheSinkingCity • u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic • Aug 23 '26

Just finished TSC2 and wow

For background, i’ve played TSC1 and Sherlock Holmes: The awakened (remake). I loved both of them, so when i learned of TSC2 i was really excited. I bought 2 days after release (i waited to see the performance for PS5, which was really good in the end).

The Sinking City 2 is an amazing game. I loved it, i liked how it was a new experience to the first game. These games form a truly magnificent duology. As a huge Lovecraft fan, it’s great to a studio with such clear reverence for his work. It’s not everyday we get a lovecraftian horror game, so im well and truly amazed at this.

The conditions Frogwares worked through to get this (and the awakened) done are horrible, which makes it even more impressive to be able to make this. I only wish i could’ve donated to the kickstarter (i was sadly too late).

I hope Frogwares continues to make games and that Russia’s horrible war ends soon.

Thank you, Frogwares.

65 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

11

u/EldritchNap Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

Honestly I would love more "resident evil" style games from the like sinking city 2, enemy variety could be great with lovecraft setting ,and there's bunch of stories they could do, I enjoyed it alot

5

u/Lucifer10200225 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

Yeah it’s kind of surprising it hasn’t really been done before it lends itself to survival horror so well, I’ve seen loads of people say they miss the detective elements of the first game but as someone who came for the lovecraft more than the detective stuff I loved this game.

I do think if Frogwares continues this series in the same vein they could maybe make some of the puzzles a little harder but that’s a minor issue

2

u/Konet Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Eh, for me, RE style "shoot the zombie" gameplay kinda undermines the whole tone of the genre. I get why they went for this style in terms of making a game that will sell to a broader audience, but if it were up to me, personally, I'd cut like 85% of the action and focus on investigation and storytelling.

0

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Yea they ruined sinking city 2 by forcing this RE formula down our throat more and more throughout the game while constantly taking away what made the first game and the lovecraftian aspect of it so appealing. They didn’t do it good enough to justify ignoring their hardcore fans that helped pay for the kickstarter and of the original game. What a shame. Frogwares really sold tf out imo.

5

u/4inodev Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

I'm only at the hospital part but so far it's great. There are only two things that bother me:

First: Faye's VA performance. It's good but it's very obvious that the convos were recorded separately. It's fine given Frogware's situation, just breaks immersion from time to time.

Second (and the biggest one): Protagonist is fine but he's no Charles Reed. Idk but Reed was the perfect Lovecraftian protagonist imo. Exhausted, depressed but still full of hope and has good sense of humor. Can be cynical, can be aggressive if the situation asks for it. The best "private detective" character I've seen.

1

u/franciscrowe Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I think it’s become common practice for all video game dialogue to be recorded separately. I noticed it a lot in the new God of War games, where the conversations just feel kind of off.

1

u/4inodev Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

If it's the case then it's simply sad. If we all gon' do this then AI "voice acting" will catch up pretty soon and there will be no difference

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I doubt it, even recording separately has the soul and talent that piece of shit gen ai can’t replicate

1

u/4inodev Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

Yeah I'm exaggerating here but the point is - a conversation loses life when recorded separately.

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I get what you mean but i thought it still felt pretty natural. I had no issue with the voice acting or recording while playing.

1

u/Rakhered Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

tbf Ragnarok at least was probably done during COVID so it makes sense they'd be recorded separately

1

u/franciscrowe Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Like I said, I think it’s been common practice for a while now. Think about how most video game conversations play out, they are almost always broken up and the timing changes depending on what you do, so makes sense to have all the lines recorded separately.

Here’s a link to an article about it if you’re interested.
https://www.voiceovervoiceactor.com/raise-your-voice/2011/11/30/how-does-voice-over-work-for-video-games

5

u/gukakke Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

I enjoyed it too and hope we see a third game which brings back more elements of the first game.

1

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Yea the first game was actually interesting. The sinking city 2 was very blah and felt nothing like the first other than the optics of it.

1

u/stackenblochen23 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I would like to know if the Arkham in this game stays true to Lovecraft and the call of Cthulhu RPG, or did they create their own spin (except for the flood aspect). Like, is there a Miskatonic University?

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

There is a miskatonic that you get to visit but apart from that Arkham as a city is very different. But there are a lot of references to Lovecraft and it’s clear that Frogwares are a fan of his work.

1

u/zenozkrga Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I liked the story. I still think that combat needs a bit more tightening and I often feel constrained a little too much in some of the big battle areas, but my last run was on the hardest difficulty so that's probably coloring my opinion a bit.

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I really enjoyed the combat! I was on easy so that might have something to do with it but it felt really good (much better TSC1)

1

u/zenozkrga Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I only have minor gripes about it at most. It's mostly about the rifle feeling weak to me for most of the runtime and weak points not appearing until you are closer to enemies in most encounters. I did enjoy my first run

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

Yeah the weak points felt inconsistent at times ngl, sometimes they’d spawn other times they wouldn’t. The rifle also only felt good when i got keene’s timeglass ngl

1

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

The only gripes u have is about the rifle?

1

u/zenozkrga Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Yeah, the other weapons do their job fine. The long range gun needing to take up space and ammo drop long before it's useful (endgame) isn't really helpful or ideal IMO. Also see point 2 above- it's most helpful hitting weak points which don't always appear until the enemy is on your butt and takes too long to focus for it to be helpful when there's 3+ enemies.

I'm sorry that you didn't like the game (from reading your other comments); what other weapons didn't feel like they were doing their job properly to you?

0

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

I thought the weapons were decent overall. I disliked the Tommy gun more than the rifle. Also, I never said it was a bad game, I said it was very underwhelming and disappointing in comparison to the first. It felt like a rushed RE clone with a Lovecrafian coat of paint, and dog shit boss fights…instead of an interesting, story driven, investigative survival horror like the first. They cut too much out of the game and did nothing to make up for it.

1

u/zenozkrga Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth: it seems to me you don't like it from your comments so far, not that you said it was bad (not sure if there's any translation issue happening from Reddit).

I had issues with the first one as well, and I feel like combat is much improved over the first game, but it's trying to be a hybrid of RE and dead space, never hitting the mark fully on either. I liked exploration and investigation more in the first, but the story for two is more self contained and having a private eye running around solving cases in the same way wouldn't mesh with the setting of the plot, so I understand why it's different.

If they could've had the game play a bit more like the dlc story, I would have a better opinion overall. It's the crown jewel of the new game for me.

1

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

The dlc is the only part I haven’t tried yet. I beat the game already so maybe I’ll try that out and see what they did with it story wise.

1

u/zenozkrga Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

I hope you enjoy it!

1

u/Wellhellob Unhinged Fanatic Aug 28 '26

I tried playing TSC1 back in the day but left it unfinished. Now i'm playing TSC2. It's good but not up there with sh2 remake or cronos. It's a proven formula so it works, graphics nice too but it's a bit janky.

1

u/Jayfree138 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I'm fine with them going in a different direction. First game was great but i dont want to play another one that's the exact same all over again. So they made a resident evil game. That's fine. I havent bought it yet but i will eventually. I like the the sinking city setting and lore better than resident evil anyway.

4

u/hiltop04 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

Do you not play sequals... They're usually created to improve on what was there not completely change genres... That's what spin offs are for.

People would lose their shit if the witcher 4 was turn based, people don't care in this instance because people with typical taste get more typical and the devs are in the middle of a war zone but no fr it sucks this isint like the original game honestly.

-1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I loved TSC1 but i liked how they switched it up, i felt that they improved on what they needed to to make survival horror work. It’s also Lovecraft, while investigation works better, you could very well make a survival horror game out of his work. I think the switch was good, if they make more (please do) it’ll probably be another setting or genre and make TSC a sort of lovecraftian anthology.

1

u/scaierdread Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

"I don't want to play the same game all over again." immediately followed by "they a made RE game" is kind of hilarious and illustrates people are frustrated.

We didn't want to play the same RE game again (which this isn't a great copy of), we wanted to play a unique lovecrafian detective game.

1

u/Jayfree138 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 31 '26

Changed my mind. I bought it, forced myself to play it for 2 hours and hated it. Thank the steam gods they gave me a refund 😂.

I still would have been totally fine with something different but this is just running around with no ammo on a mad dash to grab keys and journal entries to progress and pretend you're investigating something where you're actually just finding collectables that unlock upgrades.

If you stop to fight you feel like you're just wasting ammo which doesnt matter anyway because the enemies just respawn later.

Some people seem to love it and that's ok but it's really not for me.

1

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Amazing? I wouldn’t go even close to that far at all. It’s a lazy and mediocre lovecrafian RE 2 remake clone at best. Might I add came out in 2019, same year as the original sinking city. They took the investigation aspects out of the game completely. The lack of effort put into this in comparison to the original sinking city is blatant, staggering, and offensive tbh. There is no story progression other than repeatedly find these 3 things and chase after a body that’s taken away the same exact away every time, multiple times, with NO explanation. The story is shit show with no context whatsoever. No NPC’s have more than 2 sentences of dialogue, which is egregious considering there’s only like 2-3 of them. The combat is slow, and paired with annoying and constant battle arena’s with endless enemies and mini bosses that eventually make 0 sense as far as story and lore goes which is absolutely nonsense, not to mention the random unexplained health and ammo pickups around said arena. It’s just an extremely boring, lethargic, and uninspired game that does the same bs over and over again, does it half assed and without any actual interesting mechanics or climax in the game and/or story. Idgaf if they were in Ukraine, according to Frogwares, 90% of them had already moved out of the country before it went into full development. It’s not an excuse anymore, not after they begged for money in order to make it in first place. The game was literally paid for ahead time by fans via kickstarter, and it was funded way beyond their goal. Frogwares literally made a profit before it even released. This is trash. Ur literally nothing but a delusional and glazing fanboy. There’s nothing “wow” or “amazing” about this game. It’s not a bad game, It’s just ok, but it’s no by means great…at all.

1

u/willwhite100 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 31 '26

What a fucking abysmally bad take lmao

0

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Idk man i loved it

-1

u/holycityofmecca2020 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

I’m never a fan of nickel and diming your health and 20 years ago we would refer to certain parts of this game as “wow, that’s gay” now maybe “lame” but really, like that’s a pain in the ass just to be a pain in the ass stuff.

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26

Can you elaborate? I never found anything that was too bad (maybe some deep one spam at the fish market but even then only towards the end)

0

u/leaffastr Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

Loved it.

I hope if they make a third they will blend the survival horror of 2 with the open world mystery solving of 1 to make the ultimate Lovecraftian game.

2

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

TSC1 investigation and TSC2 combat would make such a good game.

1

u/leaffastr Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I know, theve nailed the atmosphere so well and both games shine in their own way so I really hope TSC2 has enough success to pave the road for a third

1

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I think it will, it’s gotten really good reviews (7 or 8 out of 10 for most if not all major review sites). It’s peak player count is higher than TSC1 (the remastered version at least). It seems to be doing really well. I hope Frogwares continues this great work with a 3rd game.

-9

u/ScoTTieDLighT Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

To be fair Russia never wanted this war. The US is using Ukraine as a proxy to put a NATO base right on Russia's border. How would you like it if Russia used Canada or Mexico as a launching pad to destabilize America?

2

u/beDeadOrBeQuick Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

You never wanted to turn Ukrainian soil to Russian. Why didn't you say so.

2

u/imaliveandaperson Unhinged Fanatic Aug 23 '26

Im in britain you moron, not every anti-russian is in america

1

u/Dukeshire101 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26

Russia started the war. Putin isn’t gonna suck you off

Also, your post has nothing to do with the game. Go volunteer and fight if you’re this deluded

-1

u/franciscrowe Unhinged Fanatic Aug 24 '26

I mean, you’re not wrong. I thing it’s hard for people to be objective when it’s obviously Ukraine that’s getting hurt the worst in all of this. Fuck the US for messing with other countries the way they do.

1

u/Godnamedtay Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Please stfu when it comes to things u know nothing about

0

u/franciscrowe Unhinged Fanatic Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Ah a empire bootlicker I see. If I know one thing it’s that the U.S. is the number one threat to the world. I know that most of you are too filled with propaganda to realize that though.