Death end re:Quest 2 – PC Review

Genre: Action-adventure JRPG
Developer: Idea Factory, Compile Heart
Publisher: Idea Factory International
Release Date: August 18th, 2020
Edited by AlexKnight2005

Many sequels to games while not exclusive to the RPG genre, have big shoes to fill, and while some succeed in filling those shoes with new and fresh concepts, others will fail and are quickly forgotten. Death end re; Quest 2 is an anime horror-filled action-adventure JRPG developed by Idea Factory and Compile Heart, later released by Idea Factory International. This follow-up to the first game by the same name keeps what was so memorable about it, then adds new mechanics and ideas in hopes to keep the series fresh.

Starting in a darker and more unnerving tone, Death end re; Quest 2 tries to be more mysterious and attach itself better to the world and the characters that interact with it. Starting in a grim place, we follow in the shoes of one Mai Toyama, who after, doing some unspeakable actions, has come to the town of Le Choara in search of her sister and becomes enrolled in an all-girls dormitory known as Wordsworth. However, the town is not all it seems as at night, an evil presence takes over the town and begins to consume those it can, with darkness. Now Mai, along with others, sets out to confront the darkness and find her sister in all of this madness.

While I felt the darker tone of the story provided by Death end re; Quest 2 was a nice touch in comparison to the half and half style story of Death end re; Quest, it did fall flat in some areas that the previous story was able to workaround. This is most noticeable in the lack of character development, more so the lack of characters that were given it. While here, we are given some solid character development for the ones that do get it. A lack of characters is noticeable and something I wish we had more of as it was a tool the first game utilized excellently to keep the story interesting as it went on.

Cleaver in hand, the gameplay of Death end re; Quest 2 sticks to its roots and does not try to fix what isn’t broken but extend upon it and reinforce itself. In my review of Death end re; Quest, I talked heavily about how combat worked and for this review. I will be focusing on what changes the developers made to the game, so it is highly recommended you check that review out for a better explanation of the basis of combat and gameplay.

Let us start with the open-world, which has been heavily expanded upon this time around. Death end re; Quest 2, instead of opting for a world map and location system, goes for an open world style map with the world locals all focusing around the town of Le Choara, expanding the access of new locales as the player progresses in the game chapter-wise. This was something I felt was a big improvement. Though it was at the expense of more variety in the locales so where you gain a dark and grim forest, most of the locales are brink town buildings shown in a darker tone.

Following this are the changes to combat, more specifically, the gaining and losing of some cool combat elements. While this game does keep the attribute and bounce systems from prior, how corruption works have been altered heavily. Players still gain corruption from the crystals on the ground, but unless they are specific crystals, they do not cause damage to Mai and her compatriots. Instead of providing them with buffs more frequently, with corruption now not killing the person at 100% and slowly draining per turn, they are in the corrupted state. This was a massive change, and where some crystals can still cause the player harm, it is far less than the last game.

This does come with a trade-off, this being the removal of the Arata as a whole from the combat. While Arata was to a degree limited in use, had some game-changing effects such as summoning etoma as allies, and to see them go to the wayside was kind of heartbreaking. Add in that Shina and her compatriots from the first game are playable characters. But only as their avatar selves with no story impact does make the game feel like you have less teambuilding variety in comparison.

Before moving on, I wanted to bring up the multiple endings and an unfortunate UI glitch that can make or break the game. Though multiple endings are nothing new, as the original game had them and was a way to give the player more story, here they offer the same functionality but act more like the Neptunia series in how you get these endings, which can be annoying at times. Finally, we have the UI glitch, a problem that has existed in the game since launch, at least on the pc port. This nasty little glitch occurs after the player has been playing the game for multiple hours, and then your pause menu begins to glitch itself. This can cause issues of not being to access some screens, missing text to downright locking you to one screen of the pause menu, and forcing you to restart your game to fix it. It is unknown when this will be fixed, but as of the writing of this review, it is still a large issue that the developers are working on fixing.

In a sort of role reversal from its predecessor, Death end re; Quest 2 pushes for a darker and much gloomier tone of aesthetic. Visually, I felt like the brighter colors and variety of locales were one of the elements that made the first game so memorable, and while the darker tones still can be memorable, they don’t stand out as much across the board. The backgrounds and character models reflect this change, as while you do get some pretty interesting locale changes than just the bleak and dark stonework of Le Choara, most locales are generally explored at night, playing off the dark and grim nature of the game as a whole. Detail has not been lost during this darkening how, as the new buggy designs are easily some of the best in the series thus far, with Mai and her friends still standing out with their missionary style uniforms, an extension of the boarding homes design.

Keeping with the theme of mixing genre types is a prominent point of interest, and this was well kept, in Death end re; Quest 2 for the most part. Musically, I felt the game tried to keep a similar style in the soundtrack with the piano playing a huge role in this. Instruments do vary this time, something that I appreciated, but they put the focus on the more dark and mysterious nature of the world at night, which can lose its luster as you go further into the game. The sound effects once again stand out, nothing new for the series as they always push to make the impact of these effects reverb, be it walking in the world with echoes to indicate how purely empty it is or the clanging of steel in a battle.

As the dark shadows fade, I find Death end re; Quest 2 to be a great, borderline fantastic sequel to the first game that fixes several problems like story pacing but misses the mark of fantastic with some issues like the UI glitch being a prominent problem. The darker themed and mystery oriented story, an interesting new set of main characters, gameplay improvements that make the game a smooth transition for old and new players, a focus on world-building, and the use of the visuals with the music to continue the theming all make for an experience that holds steady and true to the original games core design.

Pros:

The focus on a darker theme story that stands out
General all-around gameplay improvements in the overworld and combat
Multiple endings
A bigger focus on world-building
A combination of visuals and music to bump the theme work well

Cons:

UI glitch can ruin the experience of the game
Loss of some more fun gameplay elements
The darker tone can feel forced in some places

DarkLunarDude gives Death end re; Quest 2 a Drastik Measure of 7.9 out of 10.0 (79)

For the price of $49.99 on steam, I can still easily recommend this title to those RPG players searching for something to spice up the traditional RPG and JRPG formula. Without the UI glitch being so prominent and a few other issues ironed out, this game is easily a must-pick up even though I do recommend playing the original game first, as it does tie heavily together storywise at some plot points.