This game is a masterpiece in it's own right, and casual players can expect like a good 30 hours out of it. It's graphically stunning, the best looking and performing unity game i have ever seen, by a very wide margin in both areas. (Your performance will suck if you don't configure texture quality right though, i think 6-8gb vram for high settings)

I absolutely recommend this game, it's great, you won't regret it.

If you compare it to the first forest however, it falls short in certain areas.

The biggest issue is that this barely qualifies as a horror game anymore, sure it has some creepy monsters, but the designs of the monsters in the forest were original and maybe even thought provoking, the designs of the monsters in this game just felt kinda generic. The monsters in the first game each had a story, the monsters in this one, simply put, don't have a story. Not to mention the scale, the monsters in the first game were big, the monsters in this one tend to not be much bigger than humans, it takes a lot of the terror away.

I suppose this is done because instead we just have more of the monsters but more generic monsters vs fewer unique monsters, I know at least I myself would enjoy the latter far more than the former.

The cannibals in the original game were scary as hell for most of the playthorugh, in this one they're a nuisance at best.

As for the story, the plot in this game is rather convoluted. a lot of critically important things are left entirely unexplained and some things just plain make no sense (why is all canned food cat food?! there aren't even cats! and that's just one minor thing...). It seemed like they were originally going to take the plot in a certain direction then midway completely changed their minds and made it something else instead, but left a lot of major things that could only be explained by the abandoned plot in the game anyways without making up any new explanations for them.

The build system, in the original game the build system was a bit tedious, but endearing, in this game it felt only tedious to me.

Possibly the worst things though were the unicycles and gliders. The unicycles allow you to move at ridiculous speeds and jump from any height without taking fall damage, and the gliders can climb indefinitely so they're more like airplanes than gliders. it's op as ♥♥♥♥ and ruins a lot of the survival elements in the game, you never have to prepare for a journey when you can just fly anywhere on the map in a few minutes without any danger. Then fly right back when you're done. This was probably their biggest mistake, the glider and unicycle seem only to be there to make the game more friendly to casuals, but it's a mistake. The golf carts are fine though.

There were some things they did better though.

The island is bigger (but sadly less dense with 'stuff'), the caves are much better designed, the story thrives on mystery, you play as a guy trying to unravel what happened on the island and it's a ride and a half trying to puzzle it together.

So in a nutshell, i'd say this is a worthy second installation of the forest, despite it's flaws i would still call this game a masterpiece but when compared to the first forest, some of the things that made people really love it haven't been given the attention they deserved from the developer for this one. I hope the third installation will give us the best of both games.

This game is a masterpiece in it's own right, and casual players can expect like a good 30 hours out of it. It's graphically stunning, the best looking and performing unity game i have ever seen, by a very wide margin in both areas. (Your performance will suck if you don't configure texture quality right though, i think 6-8gb vram for high settings) I absolutely recommend this game, it's great, you won't regret it. If you compare it to the first forest however, it falls short in certain areas. The biggest issue is that this barely qualifies as a horror game anymore, sure it has some creepy monsters, but the designs of the monsters in the forest were original and maybe even thought provoking, the designs of the monsters in this game just felt kinda generic. The monsters in the first game each had a story, the monsters in this one, simply put, don't have a story. Not to mention the scale, the monsters in the first game were big, the monsters in this one tend to not be much bigger than humans, it takes a lot of the terror away. I suppose this is done because instead we just have more of the monsters but more generic monsters vs fewer unique monsters, I know at least I myself would enjoy the latter far more than the former. The cannibals in the original game were scary as hell for most of the playthorugh, in this one they're a nuisance at best. As for the story, the plot in this game is rather convoluted. a lot of critically important things are left entirely unexplained and some things just plain make no sense (why is all canned food cat food?! there aren't even cats! and that's just one minor thing...). It seemed like they were originally going to take the plot in a certain direction then midway completely changed their minds and made it something else instead, but left a lot of major things that could only be explained by the abandoned plot in the game anyways without making up any new explanations for them. The build system, in the original game the build system was a bit tedious, but endearing, in this game it felt only tedious to me. Possibly the worst things though were the unicycles and gliders. The unicycles allow you to move at ridiculous speeds and jump from any height without taking fall damage, and the gliders can climb indefinitely so they're more like airplanes than gliders. it's op as shit and ruins a lot of the survival elements in the game, you never have to prepare for a journey when you can just fly anywhere on the map in a few minutes without any danger. Then fly right back when you're done. This was probably their biggest mistake, the glider and unicycle seem only to be there to make the game more friendly to casuals, but it's a mistake. The golf carts are fine though. There were some things they did better though. The island is bigger (but sadly less dense with 'stuff'), the caves are much better designed, the story thrives on mystery, you play as a guy trying to unravel what happened on the island and it's a ride and a half trying to puzzle it together. So in a nutshell, i'd say this is a worthy second installation of the forest, despite it's flaws i would still call this game a masterpiece but when compared to the first forest, some of the things that made people really love it haven't been given the attention they deserved from the developer for this one. I hope the third installation will give us the best of both games.