In the decades since the creation of the management-sim genre, there have been many attempts to redesign and rejuvenate the formulae. However, few have been able to reach the heights of popularity as seen in Two Point Hospital. With the success of Two Point Campus now under their belt, will Two Point Museum bring anything new to the table? Or will it just be another Hospital wannabe?
As a budding new Director, you have been given charge of your very own museum. Or should I say, museums as, unlike previous entries, you will have to jump back and forth between levels a lot to progress your “Curator Level“. There are fewer levels than in previous entries, but each level can now be played up to six stars, and there are multiple “level goals” before ranking up.
Unlike previous Two Point games, Two Point Museum stops you from clearing each level to three stars as you unlock each level. Instead, the quest lines and challenges force you to jump between locations with different exhibit themes and specialists. This likely is due to the “Expedition” mechanics.
This felt weird at first, but I felt like it forced me to learn the mechanics I would need to succeed later on as managing multiple helipads and living exhibits does become a lot when first introduced. You also need to research exhibits to increase their “Buzz” value and install them with upgrades, manage security and thieves and many other mechanics which are introduced in the early stages of each level.
Although you will need staff to maintain your museum, you will also need to acquire exhibits to showcase to your customers. You obtain these through expeditions which you can charter to one of many points on a map.
When you choose a point, a secondary menu pops up showing you a selection of possible events and incidents which can happen while your staff are exploring. It is then up to you to choose the correct staff to send on the jobs and equip them with an item that will help on their journey. Then, so long as you meet all the requirements (financial, items or skills), you send your team off on their merry way and wait to see the results of their conquest.
This mechanic makes levelling and training your staff more important than ever. Even their character traits can improve survey percentages and how fast they recover from injury. Everyone from Janitors to Shop Assistants can be called in to help on these missions, and having the correct skills could be the difference between someone getting the trots and going MIA. It makes maintaining your staff’s happiness more important too.
The quality of the exhibits your staff uncover relies on RNG, but you can do a lot to bolster your chances. Naturally, your staff are a part of this, and you can make items to better equip them, but revisiting locations to increase your knowledge of them is a key component of the gameplay loop. This is where things can get a little grindy.
There’s essentially a different map for each museum – Prehistory, Marine, Supernatural, Space and Science – with Botany exhibits being a good secondary category as you can find them popping up in the strangest places. Each location requires many runs to get all the exhibits, and you need multiple of each exhibit to max out their knowledge and get them at a higher quality.
I did twelve runs on one level before finding the rare item and then had to do many more to increase my knowledge of each item. And there are a lot of locations for you to find and analyse for the betterment of your museum. It could easily take over 60 hours to clear the maps if you had all the resources available to you at all times, which is not the case.
Each museum has a story which builds into your quest goals and expertise with a text pop-up at the bottom of the screen to introduce each part and an animated cut-scene of the locations between each star. The first museums were the usual affair designed to help you get to grips with the mechanics, but later missions added in a degree of problem-solving which was really refreshing. Not only did I have to put the exhibits in a place where they would be safe from vandals and get good donations, but I also had to appease their decoration goals and increase their knowledge to get maximum Buzz bonuses.
Exhibits aren’t confined to rooms or areas either. So long as you appease their needs for humidity or temperature, you can pretty much put them anywhere and decorate them however you want. This makes the building process infinitely more creative and free-form, and in turn, makes it all the more rewarding to see your designs unfurl and develop.
The building mechanics was one of the most improved aspects of Two Point Museum, in my opinion. They hid some of the external decorations in some back menus which took me a while to find, but I spent *hours* redesigning my museum to make sure each exhibit was as well displayed as possible while I waited for the expedition team to return.
Two Point Museum still looks like a Two Point game, but there have been some graphical upgrades compared to the previous entry. Most of the upgrades I have noticed have been to things like the expedition quests, curator levels and character interaction animations/AI as opposed to amping up the poly-count for no reason and I’m here for it.
Two Point Radio returns to keep you company while you work, alongside the announcer who roused a chuckle from me a few times. The general background music and sound effects felt like the usual-but-pleasant Two Point themes, but I couldn’t tell you if they were the same or new as they all seem to become one after a while.
When it comes to the controls, people will either love or hate being on a console vs PC. Personally, I enjoy the PlayStation controls as they feel natural despite my habit of regularly pressing down instead of “square” to open up the bottom menu. Equally, I can see it being easier for others to click and scroll through menus as the “cursor” can get confused on the console and I would need to back out to go back in on occasion.
Unfortunately, I ran into several bugs which were not unique to me. The glitch where a character would stretch off the screen and walk around like they had puppet strings was back. I managed to bork the curator quest progression a few times and it got a bit choppy in paces when trying to build or in populated areas.
Most errors could be fixed by refreshing the game and going into a level again, but I did hit a roadblock I was unable to remedy and had to restart my game to get this review in. It looks like the Devs are on top of these issues, however, you need to sign up to their website to post your problems on their message boards.
I also grabbed the “Explorer Upgrade” which gives you extra kudosh (the games currency) and some exclusive items. It didn’t feel like it was worth it, to be honest, but did help get things unlocked easier.
Two Point Museum takes the classic formula and adds in dinosaur skeletons, carnivorous plants and aliens to make one of the most humorous, engaging and addictive management-sims on the market. It’s still missing a few things here and there, and there will no doubt be a slew of DLCs to come, but it hits the itch I’ve been needing to be scratched.
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac operating systems
Developer: Two Point Studios
Publishers: Sega, SEGA of America
Leave a Reply