by: Chris Vavra

July 11, 2009

It took me about an hour to get any kind of firm understanding of what Overlord II was all about. I'd never played the original and, as such, this series and its brand of low-key, warped humor was something that required a bit of an adjustment. The battle system, too, was something I hadn't experienced to this degree before. I guess you could call Overlord II an RPG to some extent because it does have role-playing elements in it, but that doesn't seem right to me. What is especially odd about Overlord II is how passive the combat system is. You don't really do much of the fighting, per se. Your minions will do much of the grunt labor. Your job is to guide them around and make sure they overrun the evil enemies that you are supposed to fight in your bid to become an even eviler overlord and rule with an iron fist, which was the apparent goal of the first title. All well and good. The game has a decent sense of humor and the minions' banter is often amusing.

The first two hours or so of the game is to get you acquianted with the Overlord's physical and magical abilities as well as the abilities of your minions, which are little demon creatures that are at your beck and call to kill anyone you point them towards the idiotic soldiers from the Glorious Empire (they look like they came from the Roman Empire, but I digress). The first hour also introduces you to many of the problems the game suffers from. Your minions aren't the brightest bunch I've ever seen. Since your character is a very passive Overlord, incapable of doing much combat, the ally AI has to be that much smarter. They are a fairly competent bunch as far as that goes, but in tight situations you may have a hard time getting them to do what you want because they're off doing something else because the computer has told them to. The camera system only adds to the frustration. Developer Triumph Studios has a tough time making the camera system work because the focus is on the Overlord for much of the time, which means you have to guide your minions to spots that are about a hundred feet away to an obscure target. This doesn't happen as often as it should, luckily. You don't get to control the camera much, either, which also presents a problem when you're trying to move along.

There is some decent strategy, at least, in the combat situations you'll be throwing your minions into. You have four different kinds, and each minion has a particular strength. The browns, your standard minion, are the front-line bruisers. The reds shoot fireballs. The greens are for stealth. The blues can swim. All of them have weaknesses, too, and this requires some strategic planning by the Overlord since he's a bit of a wimp. I'd hoped for more of these kinds of moments as I went through the game and I'd also hoped that mobilizing my troops wouldn't be as difficult or as frustrating as it winds up becoming. The controls aren't well-tailored to this particular game and with a wonky camera it can make the single-player experience even more frustrating than it should be.

The game design would seem to be geared toward solving puzzles and unlocking mysteries. There is a bit of that, but none of the puzzles you'll encounter are all that complex. Much of Overlord II is focused on combat and how you'll overrun flanking positions and that sort of thing. This is an interesting idea and it might have worked really well if there was more depth and challenge to the combat system and the enemy AI. Many of the enemies you fight aren't very bright and often times you can overrun them with brute force. The result is a rather linear title that does offer the occasional side-quest (like finding knick-knacks for your buxom mistress). I got bored with this title in a hurry and it was a chore to make significant progress.