REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

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REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

On paper, Dusk Diver 2 looked like a promising sequel – a follow-up to the original 2019 city-exploration brawler with so many opportunities to go bigger and better. Like the changing narratives and gameplay mechanics of the Yakuza series, I was ready for a Dusk Diver sequel that embraced the best parts of the experience and made them even more magical. Instead, Dusk Diver 2 appears to be a botched attempt to shift in a whole other direction. While some of the original game’s interesting components have been carried over, the fighting, which accounts for the large majority of the game, suffers from far too many blunders to be overlooked.

REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

Dusk Diver 2 takes place in the trendy and super-chic shopping centre Ximending, just like the first game. It’s a real-life Taiwanese neighbourhood, and the game recreates it in breathtaking detail. You get a solid piece of city streets to run around and explore, lined with eateries and shopping stops directly from the real world. This was one of the original game’s highlights, and I’m glad it was maintained for the sequel. There isn’t as much engagement here as there might be in the city streets of a Yakuza game, but stopping by a Cold Stone Creamery or a Korean street-food joint in between battles is a tremendous treat.

REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

When you’re not exploring Ximending, you’ll be diving into dungeons in another universe teeming with terrifying creatures that Yumo and her boss Leo will have to knock down and smash apart. They’re joined by Behet and Le Viada as your playable heroes for the duration of the game. Each one plays a little differently than the last – Leo is a slow but powerful fighter, Le Viada is a tricky ranged fighter, and Behet is an AoE beast with massive combo potential.

You should be able to create a variety of different combinations by switching between all of these characters in real time to connect their strikes. Unfortunately, character switches in Dusk Diver 2 have a significant cool-down, locking you within a single character for much too long to allow for any intriguing kind of combination plays.

Dusk Diver 2 feels like it knows what it wants to be but doesn’t know how to get there in a lot of ways, not the least of which is the short-sighted character-swapping cooldowns. The original game featured swarms of enemies with paper-thin health bars, similar to a Warriors game or a Senran Kagura brawler. The sequel reduces the number of foes while drastically buffing them all, resulting in fewer enemies on screen with significantly increased health. This is a bad change!

For one thing, the adversary variety is quite limited in this game, even though battles occur frequently. It’s a lot simpler to identify enemy repetition when there’s so much healthier for you to shred through.

The main issue is that the game lacks variation and evolution to justify the number of battles you do. Because there are only a few unlocked moves, you’ll be performing nearly the same combos for the whole of the game, which becomes old fast.

If you were engrossed in the first game’s narrative, it may be worth struggling through the clumsy gameplay to enjoy this sequel. The events of Dusk Diver 2 take place after the previous game’s finale and raise things in a variety of ways, including fresh mysteries and a fantastic new enemy.

REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

Even better, while the gameplay may have suffered, the presentation and aesthetics of Dusk Diver 2 have improved noticeably. On PlayStation 5, the game runs as smoothly as silk, and every character, dialogue image, and the menu has even more flair and refinement than in the original game. While the majority of the music is carried over from the original game, it still goes as hard as it did before – Dusk Diver boasts one of the top soundtracks in gaming, and that fact stays true with the sequel.

Despite enhanced aesthetics and dependably catchy music, Dusk Diver 2 is a mixed bag.

REVIEW : Dusk Diver 2 (PS5)

It does little to welcome newbies to the plot, while the modifications to fighting will irritate returning fans. It’s disappointing to see the game fall so far when the original was such a tight and exhilarating experience. Dusk Diver 2 has some redeeming qualities, but when a game is primarily comprised of combat encounters, it’s difficult to recommend.

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review-dusk-diver-2-ps5Dusk Diver 2 flies too close to the sun - yet its solar system isn't even aimed at the sun. While the first game was a tight and exciting brawler, this sequel attempts to transition into a more methodical character-action approach without the tools that make those games so satisfying. As a result, the game's fighting is repetitious and sluggish, dominating the overall experience. Fans may find crumbs of narrative intrigue to investigate here, but novices have little reason to get in.

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