A Night in Rocksbourg 1 - A New Beginning was an absolute slog, horrible, excruciating slog, full of metal, clanks and horrifically numerous and long lockpicks (literally every locked door was locked 3 times, and it took AGES). And so... this returns here, to a lesser extent, but it does.

Metal, metal, metal, clank, clank, clank, triple lockpick, triple lockpick, triple lockpick, DESPITE NO DANGER OR ANY ENEMY IN THE VICINITY. AI hearing and sight cranked up to the max even on Hard, they hear literally every lockpick attempt. This is just a chore, A CHORE I tell you, frustrating and unrewarding.

Now, these massive problems are here in Discovery to a lesser extent, thankfully, and so it's... manageable, but still unjustified. Level layout is quite confusing now, but only because you need to figure out the way to the... 'other' side of the map. Once you do, you'll figure your stuff out, eventually. Except for the glyphs and secret non-secret switches, hidden extremely well. These are god awful, DrK please - is this supposed to be a fun to play FM, or a fokin' pixel hunt? Anyway... At least the keys are somewhat more in the open now, thank God. That was awful in A New Beginning. Oh, and loads of backtracking here, loaaaaaads. I'd prefer something much more linear, but that's all thanks to the "take the homies back to our turf" objective. Never was a fan of this.

Atmosphere is great again, but due to the "calm street" section, I don't believe it hits as hard as A New Beginning, something of that atmosphere gets lost, in exchange for more of a down-to-earth-section. The other section of the map tho - still great, climactic, dark, creepy.

Story is still on the level, it follows Garrett directly from ANiR 1, very interesting and captivating. Except for maybe Hammerites and Mechanists working hand-in-hand, that one... nah, I don't think so, that's way over the top. And maybe the whole concept of the "Order", a mirror reflection of the Keepers. It's... a bit too familiar, and non-novel? Especially since their stuff looks visually almost 1:1 to the Keepers. I don't know, I'd hope for something that defines them well, and differentiates them. Which is all the more sad... in ANiR 3. Which is all about them. Ehhh... But anyway, still good enough.

8/10 overall, the top of the series, but the gameplay side of things is still the worst part of DrK's trilogy here.