Review - OVERLORD II - It's good to be bad, and back on GOG!
It took almost 10 years to be on GOG, but let's look at the bright side: this game improved on its predecessor in every way possible, and has aged nicely!
- Gameplay is more fun
- AI is more responsive and aggressive, making the game more challenging in general
- It's fun to battle against the "Roman-like" empire!
Now, let's have fun pillaging innocent villages!😋
| Store | Platform | OVERALL RATING: 83% |
| Buy it on GOG | PC |
+ THE POSITIVE
+ Machiavellian humor, a la Dungeon Keeper!+ Looting and pillaging is super fun, like in real life! + Graphics are still quite pleasant + Some spells are super cool and allow you to mind-control villagers + Get your minions drunk! + Clubbing seal pups has never felt so good.
-
THE NEGATIVE
- Still a bit repetitive! - Many bugs! - Controls are a bit clunky - Backtracking because of bad pathfinding - You can't force-feed geese - Sometimes, you're not sure what to do... |
| Buy it on Amazon | PS3 | |
| Buy it on Amazon | Xbox 360 |
WHAT IS OVERLORD II?
Basically, a third-person action/puzzle/RPG game set in a cartoonish dark fantasy world.
The first game was actually already quite enjoyable despite its flaws, and the only game we ever saw which reminded us of Dungeon Keeper, because of his Machiavellian humor!
A bit dark and yet a cute universe, lots of humor, and good music!
Unfortunately, it was a bit repetitive and most of the time, we felt like being spectators.
For those who are not familiar with Overlord, the core gameplay is a bit difficult to describe: you control a "Dark master"(son of the last overlord), who, with the help of his minions, goes to conquer the "Solariun Empire", a Roman-like empire. Although your overlord can fight (and that helps a LOT, in many situations), he's usually content with just using spells to control his minions to fight for him and ravage villages.
Minions follow you everywhere, but with a certain autonomy in a large radius around you: you will see them doing lots of various tasks, and LOTS of silly things.
 |
| These wolves mount help you charge legionaries, and jump over gaps! |
Note!
For those interested, this game is a bit similar to, "Pikmin", Gamecube game released on 2001. Check out this gameplay video!
GAMEPLAY: MIX OF EVERYTHING!😁What sets this game apart:
- A pinch of role-playing with an avatar that gains power and gets increasingly strong weapons and armor pieces (this was sorely missing in the first game). Too bad the storyline is rather bland and sprinkled with some moronic quests.
- Some fun action with lots of battles, bosses, and lots of peasants to torture!
- You can actually get some "Mistresses" back home! (nope, no sex scenes, though! These maidens will be useful to decorate your tower, mainly.)
 |
| Wait, what. If you start spreading that fondue over my body, I'm going to be very upset. |
- You also have to deal with building, and you'll have opportunities to upgrade your castle! (Although 90% of upgrades are useless... But well, like everything that is useless, it's all in good fun.)
- Dark humor is always more or less present in the game, and helps reducing the repetitiveness of some aspects of the gameplay.
- Without being a puzzle game, some thinking will be necessary to find out how to reach some interesting areas, valuables, or even levers which are well hidden around the map. (UN)fortunately, you'll be helped by your servile minions, who are as smart as dead amoebas. In some aspects, the gameplay can be comparable to Lemmings.
The game would be more enjoyable with proper instructions, though, and is often too confusing.
 |
| "So, who did you call cute again??" |
As for the minions, there are 4 types of them:
1) The browns, a.k.a. "cannon fodder", as they have no particular power except being damn alcoholic and emptying all bottles within their reach.
2) The reds, capable of ranged attacks, throwing big fireballs (to which they are immune), but they're very feeble in close-ranged combat.
3) The greens, immune to the poisoned zones, and fierce melee combatants. (They can be stealthy and do critical backstabs!)
4) And the blues, the pains in the ass which you need to keep alive! They can swim, but they're poor fighters. On the other hand, they're able to resurrect fallen minions!
Feel free to combine your minions any way you want! Sky's the limit!
 |
| Oh, and I forgot the last rule! Never, EVER, paint your Gremlins with funny colors! That's when they get the nastiest! |
Replayability is average, because of the game's relative easiness.
You'll play one time to discover the game and all of its satisfying mechanics, then maybe a second time for completion, and finally a third time with cheats, just to enjoy ravaging a cute village with 1000 brown minions. 😁
All in all, a somewhat short "little" game, which suffers from a bit of repetitiveness, but which we still enjoy to play almost 10 years after its first release, which is not something you can say about the vast majority of games out there!
 |
| Oh my god, this Cyclops is so susceptible! All of this because I told him the joke "why did the Cyclops have to close his school? Because he had only one pupil!" |
TIPS! (Thanks to a Steam user, "A Joy-Adjacent Feeling"!)
1) Nordberg cannot be completely conquered until you retrieve ALL 4 types of minions! (Same goes for Everlight City, though, in that one, you have to wait for a quest.)2) If you cannot find the last 1 or 2 citizens in a city, wander around, firing your Evil Presence spell: it causes free citizens to begin screaming and running, helping make them stand out from already conquered citizens.
3) When escaping the temple, on the third spider run, the third button cannot be hit directly. Go quickly around the obstacle, you have enough time!
4) How to beat the Salamander boss: Target the ramp he jumps off with your blue minions from the water!
5) When fighting the final stage of the final boss, if you find targeting the head node difficult, leave some Reds on a banner upon the ledge you entered the fight on. They'll automatically hit it when it becomes available.
 |
| Gremlins sure know how to party! |
Overall looking way better than the first one, every "level" is much more imaginative and diverse, and the glorious architecture is extremely complex and a marvel to gaze at.
HUGE IMPROVEMENT OVER THE FIRST GAME: There's a mini-map. Thanks GOD. It's not great, but it sure beats not having one at all.
Unfortunately, the color palette is a bit disharmonious, and you can't help thinking of a first generation 3D mmorpg when you look at Overlord II style.
Also, too much damn bloom. (remember, it's the 2000s. Terrible times for people allergic to bloom...)
 |
| Released around the same period, Two Worlds 2 offered much better graphics than Overlord II. |
MUSIC & SFX - ECLECTIC AND MELODIOUS😍🎧
We couldn't find a SINGLE track which sounded bad in the OST.
The magnificent music composer Michiel Van Der Bos(Age of Wonders, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, etc) has created something truly memorable, as usual.
It's a pure delight from beginning to end, which offers quite an eclectic choice of orchestrations, from warm blissful melodies to dark war drums a la "imperial march", announcing the rise of the overlord.
Voices might be a bit exaggerated to our taste, but they serve well the action. The minions talk very often and end up being a bit repetitive, but their catchphrases and silly songs are very fun to listen to and make the whole game more pleasant!
SFX are top-notch in general. A real professional job!😎👍
RATING BOX
 |
VERSION TESTED: 1.0
Publisher:
Developer:
Release Date:
23 June, 2009
Single-player
Difficulty: Easy
|
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRAPHICS: 77% | |||||||||
| A major improvement over the first game. The acceptable textures haven't aged too much, but colors are sometimes pretty weird, and the overall look makes you think of a low-budget mmorpg. | |||||||||
| MUSIC: 94% | |||||||||
| Michiel Van Der Bos did it again! One of his greatest OSTs, without a doubt. | |||||||||
| SOUNDS: 90% | |||||||||
| Great sound design, some nice ambient and spot effects, and really meaty weapons sounds! Minion voices are very fun albeit a little bit repetitive. | |||||||||
| GAMEPLAY: 84% | |||||||||
| Command an army of enraged Gremlins, club seal pups, terrorize children, beat up the yeti you just freed, ruin a winter celebration, kill endangered species like pandas, beat elf leftist hippies to a pulp, sleep with hot Nordic women... Need we say more? | |||||||||
| OVERALL RATING: 83% | |||||||||
| A good little game which, while not being cult because of its relative repetitiveness, will offer a good time to all our Machiavellian, nymphomaniac, perverted and other megalomaniac gamers, which represent 95% of our followers!😁 | |||||||||
No comments