Imagine A Wonderful World Where A TOEM Releases Every Six Months
A common topic among gamers is ‘which game world would you most like to live in?’, and I think TOEM would be my pick. Its towns are so wonderfully chilled, the people are all lovely, and everyone has such simple, easy to resolve problems that I think I’d be hoisted onto people’s shoulders and paraded around the streets most days. It’s such a serene, rewarding place to spend time in.
I snuggled into an armchair and played TOEM 2 on my Steamdeck, and there was nowhere else that I wanted to be (except actually in TOEM, of course). It was everything I wanted: a continuation of the TOEM world and gameplay; some gentle improvements and new ways to take photos, but nothing too game-altering; and some ludicrous hats and clothes to collect.
Buses That Are Worse Than Stagecoach
TOEM 2’s pitch this time out is that you are heading to a Whirling Birch Festival, where a tree is going to lose its last silver leaf. But in true TOEM style, you can’t just hop on a bus and go there. Nope, you have to hop from one town to another, and the bus tickets only become available once you’ve done a spot of community service. You need to solve enough quests at the stop to earn passage and move on to the next location.
This is absolutely no different from the first TOEM. You rock up to a new locale, each with their distinct themes, talk to the characters there, find out what they want, and then attempt to help them out. The quests are mostly photography-themed. You carry a camera with you, and that is often all you need to resolve the mini-crises. A farmer might be missing his gnomes, so you need to photograph them in their hiding places. An aroma-specialist wants pictures of smelly things, so that he can whiff them through your polaroids, so you’re taking pictures of socks and cheeses.
Look up ‘delightful’ in the dictionary, and TOEM 2’s quests would be there. They are all gently absurd featuring larger-than-life characters. An arrogant Robin Hood character fires an arrow blindly in the air and you have to find – and photograph – where it lands (bonus points if you guess who it will hit before it gets there). A daydreaming cotton-ball wants you to aim your camera high so that you can spot and photograph shapes in the clouds.
Dropping The Photobomb
Your camera gains unlocks with each region. They’re abilities that are very dubiously related to a camera, if we’re being honest, but we’ll let them slide. You’ll be able to use the camera viewport as a screwdriver, hammer and scissors, which is then incorporated into some of the regions’ main missions. While they’re not using photography per se, they force you to look at the world in a multitude of layers. Am I just exploring here, or am I using my camera to focus, cut, twist or bash?
There are the usual critters to spot, too. You can fill up a Pokedex of all the animals of TOEM 2. It might be my memory, but I found them easier to find this time out. There are very few creatures hidden round the backs of buildings, or anything like that.
What IS more difficult, however, is the Photo Challenges. I can’t wait for TOEM 2 to release fully, so that someone in the world can tell me how to complete the chess-related Challenge. It’s the one achievement I have remaining on TOEM 2, and for the life of me I can’t complete it.
Exploration Has Never Been This Relaxed
Mostly, though, TOEM 2 is a dawdle through some playfully created spaces. There’s something so purely enjoyable about entering a new square on the map and seeing what lies there. Usually, a new creature will await you: you just have to spot it. There will be a new quest to mentally track – although the journal and photo album all expertly serve this need – and perhaps there will be some solutions to quests that you have already been assigned. I couldn’t help letting my completionist impulses take control: I would take photos of everything that might be useful, in the hope that I get to use them in a quest.
The regions are all neatly diverse. Cropten is a bucolic little farm with a vine problem; Taletorp is a vaguely D&D-inspired medieval town (with a very busy potion-seller); and Deltburg is the one that the demo-players will recognise, as well as being the final town in the game. They might all look small on the in-game map, but they tend to be a bustling network of buildings, sewers and dreamstates.
The problem is that TOEM 2 ends. I felt exactly the same as I did at the end of TOEM 1: I could have played a game that was about three times the size of TOEM 2. I finished it completely (minus chess challenge) in just over four hours, and I was doing everything. There is not a poster or Rubik’s cube that I didn’t photograph.
Where Can I Get More Of That TOEM?
It’s a compliment more than anything. I didn’t feel finished or sated on crossing the finish line. I wanted more. I kept hoping that there was a secret extra level, or a new set of quests that would appear in each region, but it was all wishful thinking. TOEM 2 is so engaging, and so lacking in feelings of fatigue or friction, that I wasn’t even close to feeling like I wanted to stop.
As with TOEM 1, I do think people will complain about the length of TOEM 2. I mean, I think I am complaining about it. Part of the problem is the central story: there isn’t really one, so when the main character suddenly arrives at their destination and the game stops, it can feel arbitrary, like someone has hooked a cane around your neck and hoicked you offstage. But, again,TOEM 2 is so good that you want more.
I’m jealous of newcomers who get to play TOEM 1 and 2 in quick succession. Because they’ll be getting an eight-hour experience that scratches all of the cosy and photographic itches. On its own, TOEM 2 does feel disappointingly short, but it’s also dense with some of the most delightful characters, quests and critters that gaming can find. And as a feet-up, steamdeck-in-the-armchair experience, I don’t think there’s a game that can beat it.
Important Links
Buy from Steam – https://store.steampowered.com/app/2900640/TOEM_2/
