I called the original DeathSpank "a thoroughly mediocre action RPG that takes after Diablo but never manages to be all that entertaining", and while some of my complaints 100% apply to the sequel, the significantly increased difficulty meant I actually had fun with Thongs of Virtue.

My gripe with the itemization remains the same as the original game, so I'll just repeat it here: "Probably my biggest mechanical issue with the game is the itemization - there's no randomly generated loot, and almost all items are just straight upgrades that require higher levels to equip. The only exception to these are the weapons which allow you to use your Justice Meter, which also have tiered upgrades, but deciding which of them to use is actually slightly interesting - though I found the spinning swords to be the best of them by far, to the point where I didn't really use the others much." In this game, at least, the stores were much more useful, as you actually had the money to purchase things sometimes, like potions, refills of your consumable weapons, and very occasionally equipment upgrades.

Due to being significantly harder than the original DeathSpank, Thongs of Virtue was also much less simple, since you need to use the variety of consumable ranged weapons, potions, and other items in order to get through the many tough fights in the game. Figuring out which ones to use when will turn an annoyingly hard fight into a cakewalk, which I enjoyed.

As far the humor... I said this about the original: "The parody elements were occasionally amusing, but frequently fell flat for me - that you're going on a set of stupid fetch quests isn't made any better by the game calling attention to how stupid the fetch quests are, for instance. It's one of my gripes about parody RPGs in general, that they frequently seem to think that it excuses replicating bad game design for the sake of parody. Some of the more puzzle-like quests were amusing, however, and weren't something I was used to in this type of game." and I'd stick with it, but somehow the humor hit better for me in 2025 than 2015. Can't really explain why, just my tastes probably changed.

So again, DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue is the kind of game I would mostly suggest trying if you think its style of humor would appeal to you. It doesn't really stack up well without that, though Thongs of Virtue is in all ways a significantly better game than the original, and I will recommend it as a result.

7 Pillars is a very amateurish RPGMaker RPG with straight-up tedious combat - even basic enemies take multiple rounds to defeat, but you get all your HP and MP back after every battle, so you just spam the skills you have. Those skills, by the way, are a very limited set and as far as I can tell you get almost nothing else after the start of the game.

Add typically amateurish map design and basically nothing to interact with other than the next plot point, and you have a recipe for a game I quickly decide I won't be finishing. It does have one unique bit, the ability to spare or kill basically every NPC in the game (not that there's many of them), but this came across as kind of pointless for the most part.

Not recommended, even if you already own it.
(As clear from this review I did not finish this game nor am I planning on doing so.)