A year after the events of Dark Seed, Mike Dawson is recovering from a nervous breakdown, living in his mother's house in his old home town. Nightmares and headaches are still ailing him and the psychiatrist he is seeing doesn't seem to make things any better. On top of that, his life is made even more miserable by the sheriff of the town, who suspects him of killing Rita, the town librarian and Mike's old high school sweetheart.
Mike's life takes a turn for worse, when the Keeper of the Scrolls from the Dark World contacts him, revealing that the ancient ones are at it again, trying to find a way to enter the real world to conquer it just like they have conquered the Dark World. So, in his own world, Mike has to dodge the cops, in the Dark World, he is chased by the ancient aliens and their cohorts.
In the real world, Mike's task is pretty straight cut. With the help of his friend, Jack, he has to uncover the truth about who killed Rita. The main subjects are the coroner, the sheriff and the mayor of the town, who all seem to have skeletons in their closets. Then there is the mysterious carnival, which has opened its doors. Bizarrely enough, many things in the carnival seem to point towards the Dark World.
The Dark World, on the other hand, is a puzzle of stopping the ancients from entering Earth. Mike has to find a way to shut down their perverted generators as well as the way to stop the Behemoth, a biomechanoid creation that can enter Earth and convey energy to the Ancients. This would help the aliens to devour Earth just like they have done for countless other worlds in the Dark World.
Dark Seed was quite a sparse game in what came to the story. While it did have a resemblance to a story, it didn't really bother fleshing out many of the ideas it had. In contrast to that, Dark Seed II proverbial lore is dumb about the whole universe of Dark Seed. The first game was released in 1992, but a couple of years had a huge impact on games thanks to the increased resolutions and storage capacity the CD-ROM brought, which also means way more characters you can actually interact and talk with.
This time around, the people around the real world and the Dark World are not mere statists, who exist to dispense puzzle items. They have things to say, some more, some less. Especially in the Dark World some creatures spill out a lot of lore or chat just for the sake of it. Some discussions are, in fact, either relevant to the puzzles you have to solve or puzzles in themselves.
Another big issue with the first Dark Seed was, that it was also a short game, where the story was more or less a lazy excuse for utilizing the art of H.R. Giger. This time around, there is more story to tie the two separate yet united worlds together. Again, the things you do in the world you are in are reflected and more puzzles utilize this factoid this time around.
Sadly enough, despite the good production values, the puzzles do leave room for improvement yet again. The game has a very rigid structure, which means you have to tick every variable needed to solve a puzzle. For example, there is a key you need early on in the game. I knew that I needed the key, but couldn't pick it up, as Mike didn't know what I had already guessed. So I had to spend extra time looking for the final triggers in order to get the game logic to the same place I already had been for a good half an hour. A good lot of the puzzles are like this, which force you to run all-around, speaking to everyone over and over again, checking the same hotspots in order to see if some new events would be opened.
Another big issues are some scenes with poorly marked navigation points. It's easy to miss a location altogether because of poorly marked navigation points. The carnival is perhaps the biggest offender in this matter. Even before you get in the carnival, the gate section has 3 directions besides the gate you can enter.
But, not all is bad. One of the worst design points of the first game has been removed: there is no timer. You are not forced to follow the in-game time when you do things and this also results in a bit less linear game. While the story does imply a sense of haste, you can do things at your own leisure. Things open up as you solve puzzles. So hats off to that, at least.
One aspect of the game I have nothing to complain about is the art. The real world utilized pre-rendered 3D backgrounds, which look very nice the age of the game considering. The characters are FMV sprites. The Dark World, just like the first game, uses the art of Swiz surrealist H.R. Giger, on both backgrounds as well as the characters you meet. This draws a stark contrast between the realism of the real world to the surreal, alien scapes of the Dark World. Though I must admit, it is at times jarring to hear the Giger alien characters speak with voices you'd not expect them to have.
The voice acting is mostly passable. There is no stand out performances among the cast, but considering how clunky the dialogue is at times, the writing really does leave a lot of room for improvement, the cast does well with the material given to them. The music is best tuned down or muted altogether.
That said, Dark Seed II is a better game than its predecessor. At times clunky script and bad puzzle design aside, it feels better thought out and designed. It doesn't hurt that the game looks pretty good as well.
Dark Seed II, just like the first game, isn't sold anywhere at the moment. With this game, the reason is most likely two-fold: the license fees for Giger's art and the small problem of it being developed for Windows 3.11 despite it coming out in 1995. If you do manage to find the game from somewhere, it does need a DOSBox with Win3.11 installed in order to run. Or you might opt to try it with Playstation, Sega Saturn or Mac. I do recommend trying it, as, despite its flaws, it is a fun horror sci-fi tale.
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