YMMV / Curious Expedition 2

• Broken Base:
  • The art style evolution to invoke a Flash game this time, along with limited animation of bobbing sprites and similar hijinks. Detractors point out making a game that deliberately looks bad doesn't automatically make it good, while supporters praise the lavish style of the artwork itself and how much it adds to the pulp nature of the game, along with almost everything being a detailed re-draw of the locations from the first game.
  • The game has a campaign mode, which is more or less on-the-rails, despite still being procedurally generated. The story missions are thus either praised for existing and adding some overarching plot or hated with passion for their length and repetitiveness, as they leave very little room for replayability. The addition of Director Mode, a post-campaign game mode with no story missions that steadily increases in difficulty (especially when you take negative modifiers after each year), helped to alleviate this.
• Contested Sequel: Due to the variety of changes in the gameplay loop, art style, and general content of the game, the fandom had rather mixed reception of the sequel. Notably, players who started with the sequel and then moved to the original also ended up with a mixed re-evaluation of it.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Among the follower classes, there is both the Plunderer and Red Flag Pirate. They can't rest in villages, cutting out one of the most reliable sources of sanity. To make it worse, the Plunderer's main sanity gaining ability triggers only when robbing the shrines clear, which in turn triggers their trap. Meaning not only localized disaster, but eventually standing with the islanders reaching -10 and them sending constant war parties after your expedition. Both classes do come with the Plunderer's Kit, however, which allows the destroying of treasures for sanity, but more than likely means you'll end up with much less fame and Explorer Club EXP compared to the other classes.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: At least few of the complains from the original have been addressed:
  • Machete became an equippable item/weapon, rather than a single-use item that has to be brought in huge quantities every single expedition. Not only does this solve part of the Inventory Management Puzzle, but it also provides additional combat dice.
  • Sailor class was rebalanced. Rather than gaining an increasing bonus to flare guns' reveal range on level-up, they simply generate free flares every x days (depending on their level).
  • Animals have been reworked in multiple ways (they can be freely recruited during expeditions, Animal Handler isn't pre-requested to increase their cargo capacity, there is no need to ride them to use their dice in combat etc.) that greatly increased their utility without assembling your entire party around squeezing more out of your Team Pet.
  • As trivial as it sounds, the fact that your expedition can turn the meat of slain beasts into meals without Cook in the party is a great relief. Granted, it's the lowest-quality meal possible, but at least you can do something with that meat.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Any expedition that requires you to go Beneath the Earth, due to the unique (and punishing) mechanics of such maps.
  • Double-island missions. They drag forever, and if something goes wrong, you just spend an hour or two achieving nothing.
  • Any missions on the Prehistoric island type, due to having much harder enemy types and hazards. In particular, sulfur is everywhere and almost impossible to avoid at times, meaning that your party members will take damage and likely end up getting infected sooner or later. If you don't have enough medkits or other means of removing them, it's unlikely you'll finish the mission without at least one death.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The game dialed down the general difficulty and even added an easier mode for playing than the original's "Easy". The challenge now mostly comes from the length of each mission rather than their unpredictable nature.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The removal of the famous figures as explorers created an out-of-proportion blowback from the fandom of the original game. While there is Broken Base aspect to various changes, this one created a direct uproar in user reviews.

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