House Flipper 2 – Review

This week marks the sixth year of the House Flipper franchise, so what better way to celebrate a game that’s turned Simulation titles upside down, by taking a closer look at the long-awaited sequel House Flipper 2.

We’ve come quite accustomed to House Flipper arriving a little later on consoles, with the sequel first releasing late last year on PC, but after a short delay, it’s finally here and fans of the franchise aren’t going to be disappointed.
For the uninitiated, House Flipper started off as a fairly simple task of picking up a run-down house and fixing it up with a fresh lick of paint, before selling it on for profit and moving on to the next establishment.
Over the years we’ve had a great range of DLC which not only added more buildings to renovate, but new twists on the format from the three main DLC packs, Garden, Pets and Farm…
Garden Flipper was my personal favourite, taking the tidiness outdoors to fix-up more than the floor and walls of the building, second for me was Farm DLC, less for the actual farmyard inspired content but because it added actual building mechanics allowing much more versatility when renovating a house.
Pets DLC veered a little further from the flipping business, and seemed to cater more for purists fine-tuning the house, or building their own property, but it’s fair to say all three were incredibly popular and worthwhile additions.

Moving on to the sequel, I was a little concerned initially, expecting the “EA effect” with previously added content, once again hidden in the sequel for future DLC (and profit), yes, I’m looking at you Sims 1, 2 and 3.
Thankfully though, House Flipper continues to flip the genre and our expectations, as from the start there’s building, gardening and plenty of content ready to explore, as well as a much better level of presentation and production value.
This time, you’ll start off taking on smaller jobs, such as tidying a few rooms here and there and making sure you throw away (or unpack) certain items to complete quests around the property.
It does take a little longer to get things rolling compared to the first game, but the more measured progression also feels more rewarding.

A few hours in and you’ll soon be able to buy your own properties to do up as you wish, which really starts to open up the game, but if you want to get your hands dirty straight away there’s a sandbox mode, which not only allows you the freedom to build your own lot, building and surroundings from scratch, but you can spend time crating specific tasks, for near-endless content which can then be uploaded and shared with the House Flipper community.

The overall flow of gameplay remains very similar to the first game, firstly you’ll clean up the property tidying spills and rubbish before moving on to repairing when necessary, then you’ll paint or rebuild before finally furnishing to make it more desireable to future inhabitants.
While the first game has a pretty strict meta of deciding who you wanted to sell to, and then working on the property in a very specific way to maximise their interest (and your profits), the sequal moves away from this slightly with a system that’s similar, but manage to be more linear in those early hours, as well as more open as you progress.
Thankfully all the parts that made the first game so memorable seem to have been maintained, from improving your tools, to make them more efficient and effective, to the mostly straightforward systems in place for doing everything from picking up a soda can to creating a zen-garden in the middle of your property.

Unfortunately, it’s not 100% perfect, some will find the slightly more linear early progression frustrating, especially when many aspects such as building locked behind sandbox mode, or many hours of gameplay, and we found the new painting mechanic of having to set a boundary and then paint a small tile at a time frustrating compared to the old strip system used in the first game.
It maybe pushes more towards getting those progressive improvements unlocked, but with some areas, it feels a slight step back in those early sections.

Another area that didn’t quite hit the mark for me was the style of presentation, while graphically it’s a massive step in the right direction, it’s alot more chirpy, bright and contrasting, which just gives a little too much of a cartoon vibe at times, there’s no mistaking it’s overall much better presentation and menus are improved considerably, but it just feels like the shift in style is maybe half a step further away from the original than I was expecting.

There’s no doubt though that House Flipper 2 is a fantastic game, and while there was always a risk of it feeling like an incremental update, the development team have done an amazing job of giving just about every area more than a new coat of paint, which makes House Flipper 2 feel likea worthy sequel.
There’s a sligtly different pathway through the game, but its every bit as enjoyable as the first and gives more scope for the future, especially with the sandbox mode creations and community content.
With FrozenWay’s track record of not only fantastic free content updates, but high quality premium DLC that considerably adds to the experience, I’m excited to see where the franchise goes from here, and while I hope it’s less of the pet like gimmicks, there’s so much content already in place, i’m intruiged to see what more can be added.

I’ve long been a fan of the franchise and House Flipper 2 improves on the formula in just abour every way, fans aren’t goign to be dissapointed and newcomers will find a slightly easier pathway into the world of House Flipping, which makes House Flipper 2 one of the best simulation games you could invest your time and money into.
I’ve played just about every simulation game I can think of and more often than not by the time I’ve completed the review, they’re ready to be shelved, but House Flipper 2 joins a very short line of high quality titles, where I know I’ve still barely scratched the surface and I’ll keep coming back for months, maybe even years to come.

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