Overlord II

O_o

Fable Pikmin 2

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
- ?

Contrary to its RPG/RTS predecessor, Overlord 2 starts really strong but eventually bursts at the seams with how much it is trying to do, becoming more and more of a wobbly, lackluster chore as it progresses. It devilishly maintains eye contact with you as it drops every ball it was attempting to juggle throughout. Unapologetic at best, Evil at worst.

Gameplay

This game feels more like an attempt of a reboot of the first one - It is a mix of third person RPG but with a twist: you can control squads of minions that can offer different tactical advantages such as different damage types and terrain traversal abilities. However, the similarities really end there.

A lot of the gameplay feels smooth and theatrical at the start, which got me hooked, but it eventually devolves into a unplayable, out-of-budget ugly mess. Many mechanics are introduced on a whim, which you spend time learning, and then become redundant. Mechanics such as manning and steering a boat to perform naval combat, possessing a minion to fit in small spaces, stealth sections, or giving your minion combat mounts, and by the end game it is simply turning them all off and feeding you infinite health and reinforcement gates and catapult "turret sections" every 10 steps because the devs are just as tired as you are by the end of it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3490644317

This all means many choices such as your RPG gear upgrades or minion composition are close to completely insignificant. They even wanted to do "town management" after you "conquer" the... 2 villages the game has to offer, but this does legitimately nothing gameplay or narrative wise. Shallow puddles of intended goodness all the way, just to dirty your Evil sabatons.

Subjectivity aside, the game is extremely glitchy. Minions will often get stuck, and silently teleport away from your squad, making you unsure if they died or not. Objects being carried will also get stuck in terrain, forcing you to reload the level. This killed the game for me because the dev's solution was to put checkpoints everywhere, and I kept being brought back from the experience to deal with it.

Gameplay and Evil design

The art design and quality seemed to be improved compared to the first game. Which is kind of impressive considering it came out only 2 years after the first one. Early on, you have much improved facial expressions and displays of chaotic mayhem that you can't help but laugh at: such as scaring baby seals into swimming towards naval mines placed by PETA-esque Hippie Elven pirates (to blow them up).


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3490366560

The game is also a lot more perverted, showing gratuitous amounts of cleavage, ass, and fat women. Gnarl, your evil advisor, will also constantly mention how much he wants to plow, or cannibalize, one of the mistresses you acquire. Not the most tasteful, as Juno is worst girl.

Unfortunately the game does not manage to keep this sharpness throughout. As it progresses, it clearly shows it had less and less budget to work with. Key NPCs you meet early on just vanish from the narrative, cutscenes become more and more about telling rather than showing, assets start being heavily reused, etc. In the end, there is no payoff, no real twists, and a poor alignment system (destroyer vs dominator) gives you a crappy 15 second cutscene to tickle your brain with at the end - after 10s of hours of playing it.

In its design, there was an obsession with "the player must do X" to progress. This includes literally dropping you into a boss fight and having you figure out the specific, obtuse puzzle gimmick for that boss, rather than trying to beat it in your way like the first game did. It feels like trying to play D&D with an obtuse dungeon master that really wants you to crack his code. The events in this game are a script, and by all that is Evil, you will be following it.

In this game, you feel like a walking trash can with dementia the entire way. My favorite mechanic from the first game became a massive headache: Upon splitting your minions into separate battlegroups, they carry the banner physically, and so the entire battle group becomes slower and delayed in movement. Your camera will also flail around violently if the banner carrier is doing something, as your camera is locked to that banner. It's vomit inducing.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3490644722

In the previous game there was some grind, if you wanted the most beasted up gear, but it also gave you a fighting pit with challenge scenarios in your hub that dropped a lot of resources. Your magic was legitimately scary and strong and you felt really powerful by the end. Overlord 2 presents even more, if not worse grind, with multiple resource types you must collect, but unlike the first game it does not actually offer any payoff: late game enemies have gated, unstoppable gimmicks to them, which often have you rely on "convenient" map assets such as a catapult or bombs laying about. Your gear, magic, and minions, all feel pointless.

TL;DR

I'd recommend this game at a mixed rating - however it does a lot of things wrong, red herrings galore with no payoff. So many glitches that the devs eventually give up on half of the game's mechanics shortly after introducing them. The buildup it tries to do, for hours on end, never amounts to anything, and the true Evil within feels like it goaded you to waste your time playing with it.

If you're curious about some light third person RPGs or fast paced RTS action, consider checking the following:

- Overlord
- Tooth and Tail
- Fable: The Lost Chapters

Love it

little gremlin dudes are cute

Overlord was one of my favorite games of 2007. Its unique gameplay, evil-minded focus and silly sense of humor outshone the technical issues and awkward controls to create a fun and memorable title that proudly sits among my top titles of this generation.

Overlord II attempted to pull the same stunt, shining through with some ambitious new ideas and a chance to be far more tyrannical. However, the game’s problems have increased since the last game, with new ideas bringing new issues.

At the end of Overlord‘s one and only expansion, Raising Hell, the original Overlord was trapped in the fiery Abyss to replace the previous fallen god as it's new Overlord. In his absence, the forces of evil have been scattered and the world has been slowly cleansed of magic by a new ruling body, The Empire. Gnarl and the Minions eventually find a a worthy successor to the evil throne, a shunned “witch boy” in the snowy town of Nordburg. After the “Overlad” has his first clash with The Empire, he is taken to The Netherworld and instructed in the ways of Overlording, so that he can reclaim the world and rule it in his own dark image.

The story, written by Rhianna Pratchett, has a few high points, especially the end twist, but it has to be said that most of the humor misses the mark. Pratchett is a decent fantasy writer, but isn’t very funny, and while there are a few laughs to be had, there just isn’t enough humor befitting such a darkly comic world as Overlord‘s. It doesn’t help that the cutscenes seem disjointed and glitchy, with character voice samples sometimes even talking over each other and sounds cutting out entirely.

As with the last game, players get to control a gang of vicious Minions who will do his bidding. Overlord II keeps the control scheme of the last title, which basically does as good a job as it can with the complex controls, but still gets muddled and confused all too regularly. Controlling the minions and the camera can be a hassle, and it’s difficult to juggle the game’s four different Minion classes, each of which have their own specific uses in battle.

Putting the issues aside for a second, it has to be said that Triumph Studios did not rest on its laurels when crafting Overlord II. While the game could have gotten away with simply providing more of the last game, this sequel comes up with some impressively inventive ideas and has made the game feel so much more interactive than before. Siege weapons and ships can now be controlled after Minions are sent to power them, and each class of Minion gets its own unique mount at points in the game, which have special bonus effects for your horde. There is a lot more to do this time around.

Also joining the host of features is Minion possession and Minion disguises, where The Overlord can take over the body of one of his cackling servants or dress them up like enemies at key points in the game. While options as a Minion are limited, being able to disguise and infiltrate is good fun, especially due to the fact that a disguised Minion really couldn’t pass as an Imperial guard, but the moronic enemies think that your Minions are just “short.”

One of the biggest additions to the sequel is the “Destruction or Domination” system. Whereas the last game allowed the Overlord to be good or evil, this game focuses more on being either a slave driver or a merciless destroyer. The Overlord has the power to drain innocent bystanders of life or control their minds and turn them into loyal servants. As the game progresses, players will take control of towns and get the option to either slaughter the population or completely enslave it. Unfortunately, in order to totally take control, players need to dominate or destroy 100/100 villagers. What should be a fun and empowering sub-game turns into a rather boring and dull experience, especially when you have one villager left and are looking for a needle in a haystack.

Perhaps if it were easier to find villagers that had not yet been Dominated, either via the map or via other Dominated villagers hunting them down for you, this could have been a great addition. What we instead have is a very cool idea that seems awkwardly sandwiched in, possibly rushed out of the gate before it was given time to be worked out properly.

Despite all these numerous and blatant faults, however, Overlord II is still a bloody good laugh. Using the Minions to hunt for spells, health, mana and Minion upgrades is always fun, as is acquiring three Mistresses and getting to boink them. The game also lets players get more attached to Minions if they wish, with the ability to resurrect any favorites that get killed. Sadly, the repeated resurrection animation for every single Minion brought back to life gets very boring very quickly. The attachment players feel to Minions also adds to the frustration a little, since Minions are still, at the end of the day, dispensable, and they will frequently die, if not by the hand of enemies, then by jumping in water or simply disappearing for no reason.

The game deserves praise for some inventive boss battles (except for the excruciatingly horrible final one). Timing the attacks of Minions and working out some of the rather cool puzzles to take out enemies leads to some inventive gameplay and a few of the more interesting bosses I’ve tackled in a long time. The game impresses in its ability to play like the first game, yet still feel completely different in execution.

I’ve been incredibly harsh in this review, but it’s only because I love the Overlord series so much and want it to be better. At its heart, Overlord II is a game that could deserve a review score of nine or even ten. Sadly, the problems cannot be ignored and the game is let down severely by problems that never should have been there. Rather than iron out the faults of the original, Overlord II seems simply to have added even more, and there isn’t really an excuse.

Yet, I still love the game, no matter how many times I curse its horrible elements. Despite badly implemented features and bugs , Overlord II is a blast to play and well worth the time and irritation of series fans. The game is as charming and fun as it always was, and looks far better than the last one to boot.

If you liked the first game, then this is worth a purchase. Fans of the original will be prepared for the game’s less savory moments and will be more than happy to struggle through for the end result. The ride is incredibly bumpy, but ultimately worth it.

Verdict: 7/10

Great Game

Super fun good way to kill some time

A good 6.5-7/10 game to kill time with. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nice little funny adventure, and more of Overlord 1 but slightly better tuned in my opinion.

I would have given it a 7 at least, if the controls weren't clunky as hell during the moment to moment gameplay with the minions. Sweeping them forward onto a locked target is very buggy.

they dont make games like this anymore just casual but fun just breakign shit and killing stuff

Overlord II brings some cool new mechanics like mana obstacles instead of water, city domination, and fun tools like catapults. I was genuinely excited by the additions, and the world feels bigger and more ambitious. That said, the pacing didn't quite hit the mark for me. I found myself finishing the game without ever needing to visit the forge, which took away a lot of the progression and satisfaction I got from the first game. It’s still a good ride, but overall, I had more fun with the original Overlord.

While I loved the first Overlord - the second installment feels undercooked in every aspect. There are many good ideas to be found, but they all feel lackluster in practice and the general feeling is lost from the first game in many regards. If you love the first one, you should still find some fun moments - but do not compare the two.

To be found:
Worse music (and the wrong music at the wrong time?)
Worse design and biome choices overall
Worse/frustrating gameplay mechanics
Worse pacing

Better graphics (which doesn't help since the design is worse)
Some funny moments

TL;DR
If all the ideas were implemented and expanded fully, this could have been a much better game. Do try it since there are some fun to be had, but expect frustration and do not compare it to the first game.

5/10

This game is one of the best games I have ever played. Evil always finds a way

I like this one too... though I remember it being a tad more difficult than the first Overlord game. A few stages towards the end were particularly troublesome.
Still.... same basic feel. Fun times. Good humour, colourful, cartoony graphics... all good stuff.

its a good game the controls are a bit frustrating. One thing is its choices are a bit more gray than in the first game, meaning its usually a choice between killing or in slaving your subjects. Idk just seems like its more fun to be evil when its a choice rather than a default.

Great game

One of the best childhood games i played

childhood game very epic nostalgic and entertaining even after years

Another enjoyable classic. even today i still hope for a true overlord3 or a spiritual succesor. However to note, dont let the 'controllers not supported' fool you. You can actually still use controllers for this game!

Overlord is not a complicated game, nor it is hard, but it has charisma, I play this and Overlord 1 on my 360 on my teens so it bought it for the nostalgia factor more than anything else, can only hope one day a 3 may come, and it not been a sloop

Fantastic game! The only bad thing about replaying this game is you have to grind forever to get gold and minion lifeforce.

while the controls can be super clunky and sometimes dont wanna work with you. I remember buying this game from 5below and playing it nonstop. It made me dream of having a goblin army so they can fetch me pizzas and be like "FO YOUUUU MASTERRR" just for that it raises it to an 8/10.

Fun, even today 🙂 But beware of clunky controls. Played it on the steam deck 😲

It is an old game, but fun enough if on sale.

I bought this game because it was $2 and nostalgia. This game is so much better than I remember it being. I never got very far because I was a kid and bad at video games, but now I'm making serious progress and omg this goes so hard.

Not as good as the first game.

5/10 A game with fun theming that is let ultimately let down by clunky controls. Pikmin style gameplay that I would love to see more of though.

SOO MUCH FUN AND SOOO FUNNY

I remember seeing ads for this game as a kid and wanting to play it but not having the means to. Maybe I over hyped it in my head, but after finally playing it as an adult - the game is pretty uninteresting and forgettable.

+

One of my classics.

It's a 2009 game through and through. Story is kinda ass, animations aren't great, graphics are very 2009.
But it is a looot of old-school fun, in a way that isn't made anymore.

Game takes around 10~15 hours to complete, no real achievements, either, but a fun game

Good evil fun!

This sequel makes overall improvements to Overlord I. However, some bugs that can be encountered frequently can really ruin the experience. If you like Pikmin or the original, defintly pick it just be mindful.

the game was great but still annoyed that the game's DLC was never ported to the PC version and the ending still to this day seemed kind of rushed sense we really never got a proper ending to Witchboy's story and no I am not counting the fellowship of evil as canon witchboy was done dirty by the time the game came out but up untill the end of the game it was a great sequel to the first game but as I said earilier Overlord 2 ending seemed really rushed and it like a lot of great sleeper games like overlord franchise it was saddly was killed off once Codemasters was bought up by EA so now the franchise is fully dead because of fellowship of Evil. that and the forging of gear in this game really sucks compared to the first game

very fun

Amazing game, a true classic. I still hold onto hope that a new one will be released one day.

Made back when western video games could still have attractive female characters.

This game is really fun, but I can't recommend it because the Battle Rock DLC was never released for PC, and without that DLC you can't max out your character.

I doubt that will ever change, but if it does I'll update my review.

A Devilishly Good Adventure with Chaos, Laughter, and Lots of Minions
Overlord 2 is the game where you can finally unleash your dark side – and laugh more than you'd expect during a sinister power grab. Here’s my detailed review:

Positive Aspects:
Dark Humor: The game is brimming with dark humor. From the sarcastic comments of the characters to the exaggerated situations you find yourself in – there’s never a dull moment. Who knew being evil could be so funny?

Minion Mayhem: The small but extremely chaotic minions are the highlight of the game. These little devils turn the battlefield into a mess and create unpredictable and often hilarious moments. It's almost like commanding a horde of hyperactive squirrels.

Moral Flexibility: You have the choice to be a little nice (at least on the surface) or completely evil. Both paths are incredibly entertaining. After all, who doesn’t want to know what it’s like to be the ultimate villain?

Harem Dreams: Yes, in Overlord 2 you can actually have multiple women – a dream come true for some, right? Of course, only in the game context. 😉

Interesting Story: The storyline is captivating and provides enough material to keep you interested until the end. It’s fun to battle through the various chapters and become increasingly powerful.

Revisiting Areas: It’s fun to revisit areas to collect everything and truly leave no stone unturned. There's always something new to discover or destroy.

Negative Aspects:
Controls: The controls could be better and sometimes feel a bit clunky. It’s a challenge to maneuver the camera to keep everything in view.

Minion AI: The AI of the minions is sometimes really questionable. Occasionally, they simply don’t do what they’re supposed to, which can be frustrating. But maybe they’re just cleverly disguised?

Buggy Minions: Occasionally, you encounter bugs affecting the minions. This can disrupt the flow of the game when your little helpers suddenly start acting up. But hey, who needs perfect minions?

Repetitive Tasks: Some missions and tasks repeat and can become monotonous over time. A bit more variety would be welcome.

Florian the Elf: This elfin slacker causes more chaos than your minions! Instead of being useful, Florian just runs around spouting poetic nonsense while you do the real work. Sometimes you wonder if he wouldn’t be better off in a Shakespeare play.

Conclusion:
Overlord 2 is a devilishly good adventure that will delight both fans of the first game and newcomers alike. The mix of dark humor, minion mayhem, and moral flexibility makes it an unforgettable experience. Despite minor flaws like the controls and AI, it’s an experience you won’t soon forget. And if Florian the Elf gets on your nerves again, rest assured your minions are there to bring the battlefield back to order.

Rating: 8/10

Feels like a walking simulator. Couldn't get same fun as much as the 1st installment.

Don`t sleep on it

Nice improvements compared to Overlord I
Maps, mounts and guides.

Poor performance in saving and loading, really frustrating!
Crashed after dealing with Borius and I have to replay since opening the gate.
In Everlight reef, I finished two keystones, but the quest progress was reset after I returned to the tower.
Very ugly tower, hope it will be better as the game goes on.

=)

awsome classic games from the 2000s

It's a great game that takes the basics from part one and does everything better.
Timeless graphics, more diversity and some nice additions in the form of vehicles / catapults.

9.3/10

The only thing that they could have left in part 1 is that some things feel a bit grindy. The domination quests, gnome elimination and just gathering gold/souls in general for upgrades feels too slow. It adds a couple of hours to the gameplay, but not hours that I enjoyed spending. Rather just tweak the gold/soul count a bit so you can get decent armour somewhere where it actually matters in the game. I see that a ton of people are using trainers to compensate but it doesn't really add anything to an otherwise awesome game.

this is the perfect game for those, who like to abuse your minions as hell

KIDS II

it says it does not support controllers but it does you just have to go into the settings and change your input to gamepad. also a wonderful game!!!!

I used to play this as a kid and its just as good then as it is now.

Unfortunately, I believe this will be the pinnacle of the Overlord series. This game is amazing and I've beat it multiple times now (also on xbox 360). DO NOT BUY THE FELLOWSHIP OF EVIL. THAT GAME SUCKS ASS.