At first I got excited about this becoming free but then I remembered playing the demo and not caring for the convoluted fighting system. The graphics, music and general feel of the game were great though.

Should I play The Spirit Engine 1 before playing this?

Amazing! I didn't know this game! The style looks quite unique... Plus it's free...

Sauyadav: The games have completely different plots with practically no connections to each other.

It's a spiritual successor, rather than a story-sequel. I would also highly recommend the original, as well, though! This is well worth playing.

It is a bit of a downer that the game didn't succeed as well as it should have commercially, but turning the game freeware is a nice sort of bittersweet outcome.

the turbo download link is worthless unfortunately. have to fill out a survey in order to use it, which just never sits well with me.

Yeah, I head about this earlier.

What a shame, it was a great game.

I hadn't realised TurboUpload was such a nuisance. If anyone knows a user-friendly place to host a 210MB file for free, please let us know! Thanks.

Oh! And thanks for the news post Tim. I hadn't realised you were lurking. :)

The new download page is: http://www.thespiritengine.com/tse2-download.php

.... which you already know. Sigh, it's been a long day at work. x_x

Mark, try http://multiupload.com

One upload gets your file automatically distributed to several file-hosters.

hey there - didn't mean that as a criticism, as you are releasing the game for free, so can't be choosy. just wanted to let whomever know that it was difficult to use. i was able to download it regardless - thanks so much. had never heard of this game and look forward to playing it.

Amazing game Mark :)

SE2 was always on my list of games to get that I could never get around to. BUT, when I downloaded it, I donated some money because you guys were way too nice in making it freeware!

this game is awesome

is that ARIAL I see? When will indies learn to have even the basic graphic design sense?

Yeah, TSE is a rough one for me. I like the plot, I like the art.

Convoluted is a good way to describe the combat system. Really what I see is pretty close to classic, Final Fantasy-style fighting with several unneccesary layers of obfuscation added. It's a ton of work to try and regulate everyone's actions so that they sync effectively, and you have to create all of these "skill chains" outside of battle, so it's hard to really tell whether they'll be effective prior to getting your ass kicked. I don't feel like I'm playing a game so much as trying to decipher a puzzle whose input/output displays are often quite indirect and obscure in themselves.

I'm not exactly a video game dunderhead - I've made several successful Dwarf Fortresses - but there's something about the whole combat system in TSE that is jarring, unintuitive, and not very rewarding. I was kinda bummed that they didn't rework it much.

I couldn't get through the first TSE, though I made a modest donation. I couldn't get through TSE2 either. It's a shame, because the world and the characters are very engaging.

I dunno, what do you guys think? Is my brain just not keyed up to the combat system? Granted it's original, but is it fun?

It's absolutely amazing. I don't see the problem with skill chains. I usually just choose skills manually and set up skill chains when I want something repetitive like alternating blessings done.