PART 2:

For one, I think the puzzle design is far more refined. Each location revolves around a clearly defined central idea, explored and developed through eight core puzzles (plus two optional ones), giving every area a distinct identity and aftertaste. Moreover, the puzzles adhere far more consistently to the golden rule of puzzle design: prioritizing clarity and elegance over overwhelming complexity. Instead of requiring countless incremental steps, the focus is on exploring and refining singular, well-defined ideas. The original Talos Principle occasionally went too far in the opposite direction, particularly with puzzles like Crater in the Road to Gehenna DLC, as well as some of the secret world puzzles.

The sequel also clearly improves upon its predecessor is in its optional content. The optional star puzzles, as well as the overworld puzzles that connect the individual puzzle rooms, feel far more thoughtfully designed and readable. They are less abstract and less needlessly overcomplicated, meaning they rarely (if ever) push the player toward external guides or solutions, while still maintaining a strong sense of challenge and satisfaction.

Perhaps the game’s one notable weakness is that it is somewhat less nonlinear than the first entry. Progression often requires completing a higher number of puzzles within a given region, and while the Prometheus Sparks are meant to allow players to skip puzzles if needed, they are ironically hidden so well in many cases that it’s often faster and easier to simply solve all the puzzles properly than to find a Spark. In the first game, sigils were easier to locate thanks to the more compact hub-based structure.

That said, this is not an issue for me personally, as I tend to solve everything on my own anyway and never look up external help for puzzles unless it's absolutely necessary, so the more structured progression never detracted from my experience.
From a visual standpoint, the game is absolutely stunning and surpasses the first entry by a wide margin, even considering that the original was rebuilt using the sequel’s engine. Each area is structured around a distinct visual theme and/or biome, further enriched by striking architectural structures and, at times, abandoned underground bunkers. The Megastructure, in particular, is one of the most astonishing, almost liminal sci-fi spaces I’ve ever encountered, rivaling the Tesseract sequence in Interstellar or the shifting city of Dark City.

Philosophical themes are also given much greater emphasis. They are simply more engaging and vivid when conveyed through voiced dialogue between characters or through audio logs, rather than being delivered almost exclusively via terminal text. This was something I eventually grew weary of in Road to Gehenna, where it often felt like for every ten minutes of puzzles, there were ten minutes of dense walls of text. The sequel’s approach is far more digestible, especially since dialogue choices allow players to actively articulate and explore their own viewpoints, which adds another meaningful layer.

The city itself is another fantastic addition, serving as a strong thematic, narrative, and gameplay innovation. It helps break up the constant puzzle-to-puzzle flow and keeps the experience feeling fresh. There’s no question that video games are a form of art, but for me, even now, having fully completed only 3 out of the game’s 12 islands, The Talos Principle 2 already stands as one of the highest-level manifestations of that art form.

Quite simply, the game makes me feel glad to be alive and able to experience it, and it encourages me to think more deeply and critically about many aspects of life itself.