Unravel Two is just a pleasure to play. There is enough personality, charm, challenge, and life in this game to deem it a far better improvement over the original. The two-player complexity was a tough sell, but well worth the buy once you get into it.
Unravel Two was an E3 surprise and miracle when Electronic Arts announced its existence and immediate launch. The first game, which I adored, involved a character made of yarn, who traverses many different types of puzzle situations that required him to use his yarn to get out of and progress. Swinging on yarn, tying yarn up and springing upward, and various other yarn uses, helped to push the first game, as well as its creative narrative that sported a hint of melancholy. The original game’s puzzles were amazing, as was the presentation and narrative atmosphere, but the short journey did leave something to be desired.
Coming back to the present, Coldwood Interactive came back with the sequel and it is something truly special. They upped the puzzle difficulty, while still maintaining that haunting sense of melancholy in the narrative, but this time around the Yarny character is joined by a second Yarny. Because of this, the game can now be played solo or multiplayer. The second character adds a layer of chaos to the puzzle solving, while also adding some creative ‘umph’ that seemed to be missing from the original. It also extends the gameplay through its complication, but doesn’t complicate so much that it frustrates.
Anyway, without further delay, let’s dig right in.
The gameplay in Unravel Two is marvelous. There is no doubt, as I just mentioned in the previous paragraph, that Coldwood has found new ways to make the puzzles in the new game more difficult. The first part of the game you’re going to spend a large amount of time memorizing your control options on how to handle situations you run into during gameplay, and there are a lot of options to choose from in UT. For example, the first part of the game, on the way to a lighthouse, has you traversing a wooded area with your Yarny partner in crime. The two Yarnys are connected, so you have to move through the landscape with that in mind. What this equals out to is using the connected Yarnys to swing through the landscape, sometimes requiring a Yarny thrown over an edge in order to pull the other up, or needing to cooperate in moving objects, tying strings, and making a trampoline. The first set of levels in Unravel Two are pretty much tutorials, though they are wrapped in narrative to hide that fact. Coldwood teaches you a lot out of the gate, including all forms of movement and usefulness with the Yarnys, so you won’t be short on solutions to progress. It’s a cornucopia of tools and technique that help you push through levels, and it can be much. I can see the beginning of this game becoming too much for some players that haven’t experienced the first title. The learning curve is a bit steep and there were times, at least at the beginning, which felt incredibly difficult. Sometimes the chore of learning how to play outweighs the gameplay itself.
Thankfully, as the game progressed, that difficulty seemed to even out a bit and balance itself. Completing a tough puzzle was generally rewarded with an easier puzzle or a narrative reminder of what is at stake in the game. The game seems to give breaks when it needs to, which helps keep the player experience motivated to keep going. Of course, the game doesn’t let you lie on your laurels not using techniques that were taught, which also helps the gamer to keep going. From level to level, the game constantly reminds you of how to swing your characters or use them to propel one character and pull up the other. The crux of the gameplay depends on the player knowing how to use the duo Yarnys and it consistently trains you into remembering techniques. I can dig that, but getting beyond that first hump in the game to get to that point is crucial. Again, I think people might give up in the beginning, but the entire rest of the game is worth the work.
Beyond just working through the Yarnys and getting to know their capabilities, the level design is what really hits a home run, at least for me, in Unravel Two. Visually, the game is stunning. From going through the woods to going through a cityscape where you see two children trying to escape their confines, the game is breathtaking to see in motion. It seems that Coldwood really tapped into the PS4 Pro’s power and shows off the art quite well. One particular level had me dropping my jaw in awe, it surrounds the Yarnys encountering a skate ramp. The ramp requires you to gain momentum from one end to the other and propel one Yarny to the top of the skate ramp. The physics mixed with the visuals, and even down to the sound, were so very pleasing. The rest of the stage played out just as well, but seeing that the Yarnys aren’t just the focus of the game and that the environment can come into play was pretty stunning, as the game felt more thought out than it should be. It added another layer of delightful creativeness to the level design and it just kept rolling throughout the game.
That being said, there were a few creative levels that were a pain to negotiate through. One such level had the Yarnys trying to get through an air duct. One Yarny had to scale the inside of the duct slowly, jump to the right to avoid exposed wires in the duct (touch those and the Yarny dies), and then try to pull the other Yarny down to avoid the electrical wire. It took about 20 tries before I successfully figured it out, and it drove me crazy a bit, so much that I had to take a break. But it was nothing short of a solid challenge. When I did figure it out, I was like, “Oh, my God. I should probably retire from playing games”, but also felt like the difficulty helped to improve the gameplay. Nothing should be easy in life when it comes to games like these and this was a considerable upgrade from the first game in terms of difficulty. Again, as I previously mentioned way up top, there are some frustrating moments in the game that will certainly test the nerves of some gamers, and this is certainly one of them. Sometimes difficulty takes away from beauty, and you will find that occasionally in Unravel Two.
Difficulty and design aside, I’m glad that Coldwood Interactive decided to take on the challenge of offering up a two-player experience in the game, even if you prefer to play it by yourself. The two Yarny complexity makes the game far more cognitively engaging than what the first game offered up. It adds more value to the puzzles and it makes the player work for their progression. In a day and age where gamers bitch/moan over games being too easy, the idea of having to work with and worry about two main characters makes this game difficult enough to enjoy. This doesn’t seem to be an easy experience and that harkens back to Coldwood’s decision to include the two-character decision for their main character. It was a solid way to go and it seems to offer up a different game when compared to the first.
Overall, Unravel Two is just a pleasure to play. There is enough personality, charm, challenge, and life in this game to deem it a far better improvement over the original. The two-player complexity was a tough sell, but well worth the buy once you get into it.
