The House Of Da Vinci 2 Review ( Nintendo Switch )

Review code used, with many thank’s to Blue Brain Games.

The House of Da Vinci 2 is the direct sequel of The House of Da Vinci series. As I’ve previously reviewed The house of Da Vinci (which you can find here), we thought it might be a good idea if I reviewed Blue Brain Studios second offering as well.

The Renaissance Genius

Just like the first game in the series you play as Giacomo, the budding apprentice to Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance genius. You’ll explore a world full of puzzles and mechanical gadgets in mind-twisting inventions. And this time around, you’ll travel through time and witness a series of mysterious events that led to the greatest discovery in human history.

As the game begins you find yourself awakening in a prison cell, the tutorial kicks in at that time to walk you through the controls. These instructions are simple enough as you can play via the touchscreen. Interacting with the numerous objects, keys, and puzzles you come across through touch.

After a mysterious note and key are dropped into your cell the game begins in earnest. Leaving your cell and travelling through the sewers to a courtyard you eventually meet Cesare Borgia who enlists you to spy on the great master himself…..Leonardo Da Vinci! But first, you must complete a series of tests that Leonardo has set up to prove you are worthy of helping Leonardo with his research.

The story is told to you via journal entries, notes, and the few characters you interact with along the way through voiced acted scenes. The story is quite interesting and it certainly held my interest, though it seems to lose tempo near the end of the game. The puzzles in The House of Da Vinci 2 are pretty much along the same vein as the puzzles in the first game. Mostly of the ingenious, mechanical puzzle kind that you have to interact with by unlocking, opening, twisting, turning and pulling levers.

Ornate Puzzles All Around

In the first game you had a couple of different devices to use as in the two eyepieces. In The House of Da Vinci 2 you have a new device to play around with, the Oculus Perpetua, which when activated, allows you to travel to the past.

Of course this new device is integrated into most of the puzzles, as your actions in the past can affect the puzzles in the present day and vice versa. I really enjoyed the travel back in time aspect and the way the developers have cleverly implemented it into the game.

To use the device you press the Oculus Perpetua button on the side of the screen. A glowing purple portal appears in the center and once you hold your finger on the portal, you’re warped back through to the past in a flurry of pinks and purples as the scenery around you changes to match its era.

It adds an extra dimension to the puzzles, warping between two time periods. Not only are you solving the puzzle but you are moving between worlds as well to complete the puzzles.

If you get stuck on a puzzle it’s always wise to warp to the past or present as the answer to solving said puzzle could be in the other time. I never found any of the puzzles too difficult to solve, if anything the difficulty came from me not remembering to use the Oculus Perpetua at times. So it was really a self inflicted difficulty I had with the game, let’s just say that my memory isn’t as good as it once was and leave it at that.

If you have tried all options to solve a puzzle and are still finding it impossible to complete, there is a handy hint’s system that progresses from vague to more helpful hints, set on a cool off timer after you use them. It’s great that there is a help function included even if you don’t always need it.

Visuals and Controls

The House of Da Vinci 2 can be played using the Joy-con controls or the touchscreen. I used both methods during my play through and I found touchscreen controls to be my preferred system. It works very well.

The Joy-con control’s just didn’t feel as smooth to control the game with and the odd time the hand icon would disappear from the screen leaving me wondering where it had went to.

One of my gripes with the first Da Vinci game was that the style of font used in the writing on the letters was hard to read. I’m happy to report that I was able to read everything without any problems this time.

Conclusion

For The House of Da Vinci 2 I feel that the developers Blue Brain Games have certainly improved on the game from its first outing.

Though I didn’t actually count the number of puzzles in this game (who would?) it felt like there where more puzzles to solve.

And it didn’t feel as much like a clone of The Room game as the first House of Da Vinci game did to me.

All in all if you like The Room games, do yourself a favour and try out both the House of Da Vinci games. I’m sure you will find them fun and enjoyable with many fulfilling puzzles to puzzle over.

One last word of advice: don’t be like Paula….remember to use the Oculus Perpetua!

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot.