Beyond my very personal soft spot for Melville, which can be inferred from my longplay videos, I admit I liked all the protagonists and even the collateral characters, some more than others.

By "liked," I don't necessarily mean they were to my taste, but they were well-written, coherent, and had an understandable place within the narrative. As a lover of world-building, I did not find poorly written, two-dimensional, gratuitously or unjustifiably stupid, or unbearable individuals.

Each of them has a strong personality, which easily emerges in all the interactions the game offers, thanks also to the extraordinary work of the voice actors. They have given a unique voice to each of the main characters, conveying their character, their uncertainties, and their relationships with extreme naturalness.
I found honest pleasure in hearing them talk even among themselves.

The fearful caution of Alcatraz, traumatized by the fate of New Alexandria and the loss of thirty people to the point of viewing every step forward with suspicion and finding solace in Hermanubis's immobility; the enthusiastic push for progress of Byron, which puts them in contrast, so strong that it casts some shadows on him (like in pushing the reconstruction of New Alexandria: was it the fear that stagnation would grasp everyone, or was it insensitivity to suffering?), then discovering how abandoned he feels by Athena, who disappeared without telling him anything; Melville's desire to break out of New Jerusalem's energy impasse and resource scarcity to make everything work (since materials for bodies and their maintenance are also scarce) and to explore the power of engineering when placed in their hands, which makes her sensitive to the power of what they discover on the island and to Byron's ideas; the purity of Yaqut's curiosity, his uncertainties and his manipulability that make him swing between Byron and Alcatraz—all of this makes the plot truly plausible.

But it is also interesting to see the faith that Hermanubis clings to and with which he infuses all his convictions, certain of doing good by maintaining the Purpose, with his followers who follow him in an apparently blind and zealous way, helping to understand the nascent "power" dynamics. Or the dramatic desire for family of Athena and Cornelius and the tragedy that struck them, positioning the former, especially, on an extremely high level of humanity. Not to mention the rational hope that Miranda embodies, miraculous in her birth and visionary in her ingenuity, fascinated by everything in the micro and the macro, afflicted by a thousand doubts yet already perfectly aware of their possibilities.

And even when a voice actor is not present, or is heard for only one or two dialogues or even single lines, it remains very pleasant to follow them in the threads on the Interface, where often extremely interesting food for thought emerges.

This is why I am surprised that there are people who define the characters as "unlikable" and criticize the fact that they "talk": beyond personal preferences in terms of video games and puzzles in general and the two chapters of TTP in particular, discussing the game's lore, isn't that what happens every day in a society? Isn't it our daily life to deal with people we like and dislike and with whom we have relationships ranging from generic and professional to close and personal? With whom we share opinions completely or in part, or from whom we completely disagree?

Melville, Yaqut, Alcatraz, Byron, as well as Athena, Cornelius, and Miranda, but also Hermanubis and his followers or the inhabitants of New Jerusalem in general... they don't have to be likable to you.
They are not obligated to be likable to you.
Or rather, to put it a little less brutally, you have no moral obligation to like them.

They must convey the idea of a plausible community made up of literally a thousand different individuals, not be the perfect RPG with a Ghibli atmosphere or a mute list of pure puzzle levels.

Moreover, not only can we not deal only and exclusively with people we like in life, it always remains that one person can be disliked by someone and liked by someone else, which is why one cannot presume that if the characters are unlikable to one player, then it must necessarily be the same for everyone to the point of making it a criticism of the developer.

As if it were materially possible to make sure that the characters appeal to every single player.
Sure.

The characters are there in the same way that the QR codes were in TTP: to give different opinions, offer moral and ethical nuances, fears and anxieties, contrasting visions of the future, and push the player, through 1k, to understand which direction they want to explore: stick with Hermanubis or Byron? Understand or condemn Athena? Justify or accuse Cornelius? Exploit new discoveries and new technologies or destroy them? Open New Jerusalem to the world and expansion or keep it stable since "the Purpose" has been achieved?

The options are as diverse as the possible endings, but in the first playthrough that is completed, one must somehow choose one (unless you randomly pick in every dialogue and ignore this vaguely role-playing aspect, but at that point, honestly, if you hate the lore of games, I would suggest choosing those with pure puzzles without any story behind them) and carry forward your vision, ideas, and intentions one dialogue at a time.

Then, by all means, saying that you didn't like the dialogues and voices and that you would have ideally preferred a mute chapter, similar to the first, is fair. But saying that the dialogues make no sense, that the characters are unbearable, and that they ruined the game... I find that to be a blind criticism made for the sole sake of negative feedback.

New Jerusalem

I will write an in-depth article about this because there are several things to talk about and analyze in terms of world-building, and I don't want to drag it out too much, so I'll just say that New Jerusalem is... peculiar.

Although at first glance it can easily appear cold, sterile, and sparse, or even poorly conceived (and I include myself among those who had this feeling initially), as the game progresses and with the few visits during the events, it seemed perfectly sensible to me.

I mean, the "New Humans" presented to us are, in fact, androids: they don't eat, they don't drink, they don't produce waste, they don't wear clothes, they don't wear trinkets or jewelry, they don't sleep, they don't feel hot or cold, and they are technically immortal.

The only living things present in the city are the pets some have, mainly cats.

What is truly essential is energy for recharging and everything they need to complete and maintain the city's construction.

For me, it follows that their urban environment appears extremely futuristic, clean, and almost aseptic: there are no shops or kiosks (apart from Helga's), there is no garbage, and everything, from decorations to social meeting points, references the human past, the Simulation, or their cultural growth.

It's obvious that in the end, it will appear like a park without the fun, and one that takes itself very seriously.

One must also consider that the city is plagued by a scarcity of raw materials and continuous blackouts, in addition to a sense of "incompleteness" while waiting to achieve the Purpose and from there "start living for real." Or that is the feeling.

Furthermore, I was very struck by the absolutely not insignificant role of the dome over the city, which is far from being completed. It is simultaneously an ambition for those who believe in the Purpose and an anxious Sword of Damocles for those who would like to stop it.

The door to perfect existence made of containment and security, or the prison of privations, boredom, and "doing what needs to be done" for eternity.

One must also not forget that the visitable area of New Jerusalem is just a third or less of the total surface area. We only see a few small portions at the beginning, when 1k first arrives there on the capsule along with Byron and Alcatraz. Unfortunately, we are never allowed to go beyond and visit them, such as the residential area with the living quarters. And that's a shame.

Mysterious Island

I had conflicting thoughts and feelings here and there, but nothing truly serious.

In general, I greatly loved the areas and how they presented extremely different biomes: forest, snow, desert, tropical sea, which offered a more than decent variety on the one hand and avoided what would have been the horrendous repetition of similar landscapes for dozens of hours of gameplay, with the exception of those inside the central pyramidal Megastructure.

The structures, both the scattered ones and those for the puzzles and the Megastructures, create fascinating panoramas where, if you have even a minimal temptation to capture the most beautiful angles, it will be hard to resist. I have absolutely no willpower in this regard and I completely drop my pants in saying so, from the height of the gigabytes of screenshots I've taken.

I adored the endless details, often I believe intentionally excessive and redundant as in the pyramid, as well as their pure design serving nothing. There is, in fact, this sensation of being amidst the work of an army of architects who designed and built for the mere sake of doing so. A kind of open-air museum of architecture.

Only the pyramid offered a somewhat unnatural atmosphere. Perhaps it's because of the way it's built inside, the enormous empty spaces, the feeling of "someone is watching us," "this place doesn't seem truly abandoned," "something is happening behind the scenes here." I still believe this was an intentional aspect, due to the story.

I admit that, and this is part of my conflicting thoughts, I would have perhaps preferred fewer areas but with more puzzles. At the beginning, exploring in search of collateral content is a nice challenge, but the further you go, the more you might end up with the impression of repeating the exact same things, without enough time between doing them once and doing them again in the next area.
I don't know if the feeling was just mine, but finishing a single sub-area (and I mean like West 1-2-3, etc.) in a maximum of 3-4 hours without encountering major difficulties in the puzzles took away some of the enthusiasm to stop for a long time.

But, perhaps, I was the one in a hurry. If I had played at release and not two years later, perhaps I would have felt less of a deficit.

Megastructure - Pyramid

Needless to say, with my extreme love and inclination towards all things Ancient Egypt, the first appearance of the Pyramid during the team's arrival on the VTOL took my breath away. Immense and crammed with enigmatic technologies and promises of mysteries and discoveries, beautiful in its light-colored facades decorated with gold, it was the focal point of the initial part of my playthrough.

I knew we would enter it, but not when it would happen. And my hands were tingling at the thought of what I would see inside.

It was taken for granted that it had to do with the game's progression, and the three laser receivers on the facades were a guarantee of that. What followed, however, seemed like an end-game clause. It was obvious to me that at least three areas corresponding to as many lasers had to be solved for each facade, and then you would get access to the end. Like the Golden Gates later, but much grander.

When we actually set off after the first macro-area, well, I was positively stunned. Especially because this meant at least 3, if not 4 full trips, one for each facade (of which, it was supposed, one final one closing the storyline).

I immensely loved the internal part, just as beautiful and even more so than the external part: the strange and cramped golden corridors, their tight oppression despite the infinite spaces crossed with the VTOL and, like the outside walls, this lingering feeling that there was too much in the construction: too much space, too many decorations, too many seemingly useless elements, too many things that a rational human mind would not only have avoided but would not even have occurred to them.

The soundtrack, then, both for the entrance with the VTOL and for the internal exploration, is the icing on the cake and makes everything more anxiety-inducing.

It made me want to know what it is, how it was built and by whom, why. Consequently, also to move forward with the game, solve another macro-area to be able to go back inside and discover a little more.
And doing it with the others is an addition, especially considering what happens to Byron afterward, which forces the team to stay when they would have wanted to leave.

If I have to be completely honest, I found the puzzles extremely easy.

In TTP, I distinctly remember spending hours on individual puzzles that I found particularly difficult, and not infrequently, I had to leave them aside to do others, only to come back multiple times to try and solve them with a fresh mind.
Admittedly, it's true that my experience in using the devices and understanding the strategies was more limited, and thanks to having finished the first game, it is now easier for me to quickly intuit the correct sequence of actions for a solution.

It might also be a false memory, and I might have spent about the same amount of time, considering that the 120 accumulated hours must include Road to Gehenna, the search for some of the stars, and all the time I always lose taking screenshots (assuming this was counted. In TTP2, the time count seems to exclude things like this).

Yet, despite this, they seemed really quite easy. Easy to the point of starting a new area and finishing all 8 puzzles one after the other, dedicating at most 10-15 minutes to each for the most part, save for a few exceptions (and often due to tiredness), and ending up spending more time getting the two monument stars and looking for all the collateral things on the map.
And those were even marked on the compass.

However, I haven't investigated anything about this and I don't know if it was intentional, to allow more people to enjoy the story without getting stuck for too long, considering that this one is decidedly denser in terms of interactions and dialogues.

The first TTP was an almost exclusively philosophical and exquisitely solitary exploration (not that philosophy is missing in TTP2, quite the contrary, but it is still a very different thing), there were fewer areas and fewer explanations.

Being able to complete an entire macro-area per day and without playing a billion hours straight, in short, felt like a rather fast pace to me.

It must be kept in mind, however, that there is also Road to Elysium, which I have not played yet as I write this.
Perhaps more difficult puzzles were simply separated to make the main game less unnerving and the story followable by more people.
Which, in that case, I honestly approve of.

Furthermore, one should know what their target was: Dark Souls wants to attract people who love near-impossible challenges and extreme gameplay, for example, but it's not certain that Croteam was addressing the same type of people in the puzzle genre.
After all, The Talos Principle is not a pure challenge of puzzles, but a story that continues to unfold from one game to the next, from one DLC to the next, along with its lore.

For the most difficult puzzles, in the end, there are not only the DLCs, as is right, but also the puzzles created by the community.

One thing that slightly frustrated me, though completely negligible and not serious, is the almost total absence of facilitated exits at the end of the puzzle.
In TTP, on the contrary, once a puzzle was completed, there was often a way to exit directly from the zone where the tetromino piece was located, without having to return to the entrance.

Or so I recall, at least.

Honestly, I can't say why they didn't do it this time.
I tried to take a look, and it doesn't seem like it would have caused problems with the puzzle designs. After all, in TTP, it was almost always a simple grate that, once solved, lowered and allowed access to the exit or cut part of the path (I don't remember if there were walls too).

It's clear that, if I remember correctly, it was not present if the puzzle was very simple, and it was often a useful solution for when there were hostile entities that could not be blocked/avoided again or energy walls that could not be opened/jammed again by going back. However, it remains that, especially in some puzzles, it would have been very convenient.

Another thing that I was somewhat disappointed and pleased by at the same time is that each of the 9 main areas is presented with a new mechanic, which theoretically should keep attention high and boredom away,

BUT

the things don't have time to get really complicated.

The first levels, as in TTP, serve to familiarize yourself with the new mechanic and the new device (if there is one), so they are extremely linear. However, the presence of only 8 levels does not allow them to become complex, whereas in TTP there were many more (and fewer areas), and you clearly felt the difference between the first puzzle and the last of an area, as well as between green, yellow, and red puzzles.

I found even those behind the Golden Gates relatively easy.

Furthermore, there is also little summation of the different mechanics, if not rarely and rather vaguely. Only when returning to the central Megastructure are well and truly all those seen in the previous zone, put together somewhat. Yet, where I had imagined extremely complicated puzzles inside the Megastructure, I found everything very smooth—or almost—in the same way.

And here we return to my doubt that they may have left the base game approachable by more players and reserved the major challenges for the DLC and the community.

But I repeat and emphasize: this is not a bad thing, nor is this a criticism.

I have always been and always will be on the side of providing games with different difficulty levels, approachable even by those who are less inclined/expert.
As I said above, if the choice was to leave the main game story-driven, with lighter puzzles to better immerse oneself in the story and putting the others aside, that's perfectly fine.

Okay, I'd say it's time to conclude this long, looong review, by summing things up (but I warned you that you would get a taste of my love for The Talos Principle!).

I consider The Talos Principle 2 the full and worthy successor to The Talos Principle, capable of skillfully picking up its legacy both in graphic continuity, despite being Croteam's first game to undergo the transition from Serious Engine to Unreal 5 (via 4), and in the narrative and philosophical legacy, which hits the mark every time and sparks a potential symposium with every dialogue.
Pandora, Prometheus, the Sphinx, Lifthrasir, Straton, the logs of Trevor and Miranda, as well as all the pages of the past in the terminals, Hypatia's diary about the early days of New Jerusalem, all tickle critical thinking and the desire to go deep, dissect reality, and get to the bottom of the whys, even when the arguments go against our personal point of view, our personal ethics, and morality. There are moments when we are slapped with doses of what appears to us as disillusionment and cynicism, only to then ask ourselves if it's truly so and to question our convictions.

The shift from the solitary digital and fictitious reality of the Simulation to the well-populated real world of New Jerusalem is fluid. The story not only captivates but digs deep into important themes that go beyond the typical philosophy of the franchise, which this time, as we have seen, explores relationships and the birth of a society (or the rebirth of a civilization?).
This time, we also find themes much closer to people and not just existential debates, such as feelings, family, loss and grief, the frustration of those who—in our time—found themselves with incapable governments and limited time that will not stop, because everyone is already dead even if they are still breathing. This shows us, through a marvelous intertwining of characters and personal experiences, how much these "New Humans" are robots more in body than in mind.
We also delve into sophisms like what nature is, what extinction is, what the weight of Homo (Homo mechanicus?) in reality should be, whether it is right to interfere and how much, whether the extinction brought about by humans is natural or an aberration to be fought.

Even the sub-plot that I know exists, which I know I missed for roleplaying reasons (but I will explore it in another playthrough in the future), demonstrates how the city's dynamics have come very close to those of the old world and old humanity, of the wildest Anthropocene.
The very dynamics that later led to the extinction of biological Homo sapiens.

Beyond my regret for having lost a year and a half before actually playing it, I can say I am happy to have believed in the worthy sequel and to have resisted snooping in online discussions to be able to play completely in the dark. No regrets!