Runaway, The Dream of The Turtle

A bit mixed feelings with this one, as it was fun to play and as absurd as most point'n'clicks, but it also felt like a loose mashup rather than a whole game, full of ideas where noone could decide which one to go with so they added everything in.

I understand the character change due to months spent with Gina and the fact that Brian wasn't the nerdiest nerd from the start either, but I also get that some implications here and there may seem out of character as in the first one he only made few comments about Gina and here he let loose of most constraints. It almost feels like a weird wet teenage dream where you have hot babe, turn to the other side and go through jungle, roll back and have another hot chick that flirts with you a lot, roll around a bit going through temples and snow being chased by a sexy assassin just to end up on the chill side with two girls on a ship. That's the better summary of the story than if you tell actual story with aliens and naked Gina in the tank... and that says a lot about the plot.

The whole thing with "plot holes" and time skips is simple to me and I have no issues with them, not that there are any real plot holes imo, but the delivery on how the story progresses is just bad and boring, forcing you to skip forwrd from one weird and full of backtracking group of puzzles to another. First one had aliens, advanced technology, guy who could throw a ton or more around like it was a basketball and plenty of other smaller things that broke laws of physics or logic. As for the time skips they too were present, but first one was a simple story where you kinda new the end goal from the start and had to pinpoint where it was exactly on every step, here you barely know what your next few steps are, but would traveling through half the country in the first one be interesting? would navigating the caves or hearing more of the travel stories from three divas make it better? GOD NO! Just like having to sail to Alaska, watching them drive to Palenque just to not find anything there and be redirected to place after place, just like having someone explain that because Brain got knocked out by the vase, he also felt something was inside so once unconsious his brain conjured a dream that explained how it could get there (as he was used to the strange ways things get done in this world) or waited for Joshua to be the star of the moment with his even weirder and more logic breaking device, neither of those would be better and they would either ruin the general goofy theme of the game or embrace it bit too much with having it a full on story tool rather than something on the side that you ignore as you got your things sorted some other way.

Some people seem to miss some parts of the storytelling and others straight up ignore some, it still is more of a critique to the game, as it should be more straightforward with a lot of things, even if it's not a kids game for sure, having half of the things straightened with one liners or vague comments after 5 scenes of very suggestive interactions followed by few others being just as suggestive (and this time actually going through with it) is just bad (even if you can get away with it one time and after five people should get used to it)

In the end it was fun, even if felt like a painful chore at times and the jokes were primitive

Recommended as part of the Runaway trilogy, well, sure, I guess, but I have a hard time recommending this by itself. This game combines all the flaws of Runaway: A Road Adventure (pixel hunting, and to be repeated same interactions most of all) with none of its redeeming qualities; protagonist has gone from nice-guy to bro-doofus; every other character is seemingly (also) used as an irritant alone. The writing is all over the place, and with the game ending on a true low note.

First point-and-click in some time where I couldn't bring myself to not consult a walkthrough; think I'm going to hold off on continuing with the final part of the trilogy for a bit untill I have recovered from the fatique this has induced. General opinion seems to be that the last one is better again. Let's hope.

I'm not gonna waste your time:

-Brian's a douchebag
-Almost all of the new characters are completely unlikable
-Music is worse
-Puzzles are more obtuse, picking up items is somehow even more context/exposition sensitive
-Story is almost completely incoherent, random events sort of just crop up to pad the story along
-Chapter 3 features Brian going blackface for the entire chapter
-Chapter 4 features Brian tricking an innocent guy into getting raped by a polar bear then laughing it off
-Ends abruptly on a shit cliffhanger

Don't bother

A mild thumbs up, only to see what happens next in the series. I live for the peanut butter puzzle in the first game, and this game does have the invention puzzle I love, but as a whole there are just less goofy and weird stuff that made the first one so charming. Also the story and characters are just not good.

It just wasn't good. More of the same faults as the first one, with an incomplete story.

Love the original Runaway, but found this sequel weird. Brian transforming into a 'Bro' is character progression, but I never liked that Brian fell in love with Gina in the first game and then decided to be "serviced" by a stranger in this...

From a point and click veterans perspective the series is up there with the best, but it is hard to recommend this one even though I can admit I enjoyed playing it. There was huge backlash with this game and the way it ended, and I remember the developers fighting tooth and nail against the fans, which led to the follow-up (and end of the trilogy) being delayed for an age.

This excerpt from the Wiki really tells all:
Pendulo's Josué Monchan called Runaway 2 "a horrible game" and "the biggest shit we've ever made". He cited his own dialogue writing as a key flaw, as "comedy is rhythm and [he] had no rhythm." In 2019, Monchan stated that he still occasionally returned to Runaway 2's dialogue to learn from his mistakes.

They took worst parts of first game and made them to a 10 hour game, awful experience. We got grounded story in first game and now we are managing top secret alien stuff. Ew.