Dark Deity 2

The strategic gameplay is solid, but the story was unbearable.

I wasn’t sure what to expect this game, but after hearing that this game improved on DD1’s foundation (of which I enjoyed) I thought I’d give it a shot. Unlike the first game, this game’s story holds it back from being something I can actually enjoy despite the characters individually being much more interesting. It’s an improvement in some areas and somehow took a step back in others, which was disappointing if not frustrating. As with the first game if I could give ‘Mixed’ I would, but I’ll be fair as I did with DD1 and give my in depth analysis; I’m going to be harsher in the CONS section since this is the second outing. The TL;DR is at the end. PROS: -The combat animation speed increase is SO good. Things flow much better now, it’s clean, it’s nice, and there’s no weird positional elongation (looking at you DD1 archers) Very GBA Fire Emblem reminiscent. The removal of the mana test tubes takes away from the uniqueness which is a shame though. -The characters. The characters are much more defined this time around a lot more interesting on the whole. The voice acting helps significantly with this, but also the decision to have a slightly smaller core cast was a definite boon. I clearly understood the core relationships between Gwynn, Riordan, and Arthur and they were a lot of fun while on screen together. -Standout characters aside from the 3 before include Saxon and Khamari, who were both very fun. The return of BENJI was one of the best things ever put in a video game. -GIVE ELIZABETH MAXWELL A RAISE. Voice acting her heart out, what a great performance. -Saxon’s integration was very nice and I enjoyed his journey and story greatly. -The game is significantly more balanced in terms of the overt horniness from DD1 i.e. Brooke -The decision to bring Alden back as a Jagen type unit was very good, and he was an interesting character as well with a lot to offer. Same with Irving when he’s on screen. Irving’s character was interesting, and although not fully fleshed out, he has a few good conversations with Alden about DD1 and comparing him to Varic etc. -The mana system. I love it! So many different combat options both offensive, defensive, and position wise. Licky Lasso into the Water Dance was exceptionally fun. The upgrading system born from the mana system was also incredibly fun. -The ring system. Eternal Aspects who? The rings are much more versatile and fun to use, end of. CONS: -The menus are somehow harder to navigate and feel even worse. It felt like fighting a wild animal at times to go where I wanted to. Unfixed significant bugs return i.e. the Caravan chapter. -The class system is a downgrade. So many characters have a unique base class but no unique promotion (Gwynn, Saxon, Cassandra) which felt odd. I thought I’d missed something at first, but instead it’s just missing content. -Cassandra I was the most interested to learn about but she actually vanishes completely from the story after the first couple of chapters. Everyone else in the core group gets to do something, even Valeria. Khamari and Not!Maeve get more to do. I was very let down by her lack of…anything. -Slapping 1-2 range on the majority of your enemy units and depriving the playable cast of that option isn’t good game design, it feels very cheap. -The story AGAIN. It really seems that the writing team(?) either didn’t learn their lessons or learned all the wrong lessons from DD1’s story reception. I’ve got to split this into multiple points since a lot of the issues are with the story and ‘lore’ unfortunately. -There’s plot threads everywhere that go nowhere i.e. the Demon realm, the demons in general, the reintroduction of the Astral Realm, the Sword that makes portals to it, the Weave and its weakening, the random personification of Death introduced in literally the last chapter?? WHAT IS GOING ON?? It really felt they just threw everything, and I mean everything, they had at the wall and saw what stuck. -Case in point, there’s 3 completely different dark void realms with a starry background that have nothing to do with each other (The Demon Realm, Astralis, and Death’s Domain). Come on now, that’s wack and you know it. -Gwynn’s wangst overstays its welcome. It builds up for a while and it’s done quite well, but when my friends and I could have a drinking game about how a chapter will play out you know you’ve messed it up: ‘Gwynn says she can’t do something, Riordan and Arthur say she can, Gwynn wants to shoulder a burden alone, they tell her to share it, repeat x10.’ They were so close to sticking the landing but just dragged it out for too long. -Orlov might be the single most boring villain presentation I’ve encountered in a long time. He’s built up well and then we get to the big reveal and…nothing. The worst part is he does have a legitimate claim to his actions i.e. a foreigner (Irving) coming over and interfering in his affairs, and having claim to want to reunify his ancestral lands. Unfortunately he says this once with barely anyone around in a deserted town square?? It felt like I was watching a parody play. He’s just so nothingburger. For someone who appears so infrequently in the story it was jarring. -Kira I’d heard people liked going in but her character was just…inconsistent. One moment she’s cool and calculating, the next she’s whining and stuttering. It didn’t come across as natural at all. -To rub it in she says at one point ‘Why do I always lose?!’ even though at this point everything she’s done to the player’s forces has gone exactly according to plan multiple times. She beat Gwynn, stole the orc lady, successfully baited us away from the meeting, then went back and then beat AND stole Irving in a 1v1. -‘Oh but she’s referring to her past’ damn, sure would’ve been nice for the player to see any of that, and it isn’t presented like that in the narrative so you can’t have your cake and eat it. On rewatching some parts it felt like they almost wanted to do an Ozai/Zuko type thing with Kira redeeming herself (presumably in DD3?) but didn’t include any of the things people liked about either of them. -On the note of the orc lady, she literally just exists so Kira has someone to kidnap. I don’t remember her name and it doesn’t matter since she’s just a macguffin. She appears almost immediately before the kidnapping happens with 0 explanation, is mentioned once at the meeting, and then ceases to exist in the story. -The roundtable meeting. It was set up like this incredibly important event with all the heads of state discussing the political climate, and then ended up just existing to have Irving be kidnapped. It’s not mentioned again, nor is it at all relevant. - The meeting’s content also felt like all the worst bad faith arguments possible against the Order. ‘Asvarel has been murdering people in the streets and burning civilisations down indiscriminately. Let’s blame the Order’. Like, everyone there is 100% aware that Asvarel considers ALL their countries to be their property and isn’t going to stop at just one. -If it had been made clearer why this meeting is taking place or the motives of everyone involved or even if the meeting mattered at all I’d be more understanding. Maeve was there for a bit, that was cool I guess. -The blonde joffery king character whose name I can’t remember. He does nothing except get gimped by Kira. -Riordan’s death is somewhat telegraphed because he’s a significantly worse unit than Zanele and I’d wager most people would have dropped him long before it happens. -I have no idea how DD3 can possibly tell a cohesive satisfying story based off this game. I remember reading they considered DD2 the ‘Path of Radiance’ to DD3’s ‘Radiant Dawn’ which is a BOLD comparison TL;DR This game has good gameplay but it’s not good enough to justify playing it for that alone, unlike FE Fates. The story and lore are just too poorly thought out. 5/10, to balance DD1 being recommended, this one I can't in good faith.