Silence: The Whispered World 2

This point-and-click adventure game combines a touching story with stunning visuals. While its short playtime may leave you wanting more, the blend of fairy-tale imagination and harsh reality creates a subtle and lasting impression.

This is a Point & Click story game. It has both trading cards, and achievements. It's a sequel to a game from around 2010 called 'The Whispered World'. The graphics are astounding, and the voice acting is top-notch. The plot is pretty solid, but not that engaging. The story itself can seem childish at times, but the game is not meant for young children to play, as there are "adult" jokes and references scattered throughout it.
Here you alternate playing as three different characters. You are a teen boy (Noah/Sadwick), his little sister (Renie), and an oversized green caterpillar (Spot). You start out with Noah & Renie hiding in a bunker while it's being aerially bombarded. From their surroundings, it looks like World War 2 is the time period. After a very heavy hit, Renie can be heard but not seen. Noah climbs down into a hole to find her, only to find they have left the real world, and are now in the world of Silence. The goal, of course, is to find your way back to the real world.
There is no manual saving. The game automatically saves at certain checkpoints, so when you quit and come back you will continue from the last checkpoint you passed. The loading screens are atrociously long... so long they should be considered criminal acts against the player. The game has a great hint system for times you get stuck on what to do next. Also, you will have to play through at least twice to get all of the achievements.
Once you get all the achievements, this game has absolutely no replay value. If you are not an achievement hound though, you probably won't even bother to play it again after your first time through. It just doesn't contain anything that really lures you back to play again. Also, the puzzles are not hard at all. This game pretty much holds your hand the whole way through.
You can not skip cutscenes either, so that can be a little tedious. Your first time through should probably take you 6 to 7 hours to complete. However, that is kind of short for a story, so there is not any time to really get into the backstories or the development of the characters. Thus, they do somewhat come off as one-dimensional and shallow. Personally, I thought most of them weren't even that likable.

As someone who was somewhat disappointed with The Whispered World I was somewhat hesitant to start the sequel. Yet I am glad now that I did it anyway.
Even if it’s on the short side and the puzzles aren't big brain scratchers, it's the story that captivated me. It succeeded where the first game failed me. Especially in the two endings and the identity of the false queen. If you have played the first game you might even puzzle the pieces together before encountering her. Its themes of loss, escapism and acceptance are so well executed.
A great (if short) Point and Click adventure that I gladly give a wholehearted endorsement!

I do like these games by this dev, and would recommend this one with a little caution. I played through twice, the second time to get all of the achievements. It was hard but I got through the entire second game as required to get the achievements. BUT, in the end 3 of the hardest ones did not pop, the ones for balance, not dying, and not skipping any talk (this one may be bugged). I must say that I did not enjoy the balance scenes, and the ending star races. I do not play these relaxing games to endure races or feats of precision.

Fairly short, but nice art and bittersweet story. Unfortunately, there are enough references to A Whispered World that you'd want to play that game first, but I'm not sure it's good enough to justify playing both.

It has been long overdue playing Silence. I’ve replayed The Whispered World in preparation for this game, that was a couple of months ago. Luckily, the story and characters were still fresh enough. Silence is definitely more enjoyable with that knowledge, many NPC return, some inside jokes are referenced and the story kind of continues. I say kind of because the focus is on a different set of characters and some plot details have been heavily changed. I don’t mind the new characters or wanting to change things, but I don’t understand why the main character suddenly has a sister, why ‘Corona’ is now called ‘Silence’ etc. That’s just rewriting history to make things work and it doesn’t feel right. In a sense, Silence does feel like a new game. That is certainly the case when it comes to the gameplay. The previous game was more of a pure point and click adventure game with less focus on the story. Here things have been so simplified and there are so many cutscenes/dialogues, that it feels closer to a walking sim with some light point and click elements.
I’m not saying this in disapproval, I’m just pointing out the differences to be fully aware what you’re getting yourself into. Looking past all of that, the game’s quality is very high. The graphics are gorgeous, you have to see them in motion to appreciate the magic. The cutscenes are properly directed, they’re not half-assed. The text is fully voice acted and everyone does a fine job. The UI is great, the gameplay is smooth and everything feels super polished. Basically, you can tell the game had a lot of budget. The only flaw I noticed is everything regarding the achievements. There are too many that require very specific steps. It went so far that I opted with playing the first run completely blind and the second time using a guide to get the achievements missed. There are also a couple that seem very harsh or buggy with the requirements, think of completing the game without skipping anything etc. The first run took me 5 hours. The second run took 4 hours, it was stressful trying to follow the guide fully to not miss anything.
Silence is a great game, I had a blast playing it the first time. Renie is such a lovable character, the story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Those feelings are similar to the first game but the games are still very different. I highly recommend the game to newcomers. When it comes to fans, I only recommend it if you’re open to change in every sense of the word. Coming with expectations would be the wrong way to approach this game. It’s on sale often and it’s therefore absurdly cheap. So you can always give it a try without losing much out of it.

It plays more like a visual novel than a point & click game in a lot of ways, but the story is compelling and it definitely doesn't overstay its welcome