Well, this game is okay. It doesn't shatter any new ground over the first and I think it suffers because of that, because it does everything worse than the first.

The port is very bad, having to stop and start every 30-60mins because of a soft lock bug that I got. It also suffers with graphical issues.

The story feels weaker than the first and kind of drags on by the half way mark. It didn't quite capture the mysteriousness that it's forebear did, it felt kinda dull. It didn't help that the gore was toned down as part of it's censorship, which knee capped it even more.

The characters are mostly forgettable and seem as more plot devices than real characters. They're kind of just there. Rottie had potential, but her obsession with Mai and mentioning her every 5 seconds just got real old real quick, it didn't feel real at all, very forced. Liliana is kind of just there, and the decisions to ignore her and move on being better decisions just drives that nail in. The side characters are mostly just bad, and considering that most have no involvement in the plot or are not in the gameplay section, they become a chore to get through. Couldn't care less about their relationships to one another. Mai is at least interesting, and being the MC, that matters.

Music wasn't really worth mentioning as it's mostly the same as the first.

The graphics need tuning or third party input.

If you love the first game like me, you'll be disappointed. If you haven't played it, I'd advise getting the first game as the world building really requires it. But I hate to say it, I just can't really recommend it in it's current state with all of the bugs. If the PS4 version runs better, I would probably have recommended it. It had potential going on from the first, but I just felt nothing from it, it doesn't really stand on it's own.

If you're like me, you've played a lot of Compile Heart RPGs, and you've enjoyed most of them. However, nothing prepared me for the original Death end re;Quest. It had good strategic combat without being too complex. The story was engaging with lots of twists and turns to keep me invested in the mystery. Even the flavor of the signature transformation sequences added something new and different. I honestly didn't know Compile Heart had it in them to make such a good game. And oh, that ending! Man, seeing how much got changed by that True End, I couldn't wait to see how they'd build on it.

Answer? They didn't. This is not the most disappointing sequel I've ever played, but it is disappointing for the same reason. They lost sight of what made the original good, and their new additions don't even come close to making up for that loss.

Combat? That's been dumbed down, and it makes the game world feel much less dangerous this time around.

Original party members? They're back, and even playable! But their inclusion has so little impact on the game story, you'd think they were an afterthought DLC option.

Constant twists, turns and Death Ends? That kind of pacing is hard, so you'll just be left with the knowledge that the creepy town is creepy until a massive info dump just before the final dungeon. Also, those Death Ends that were all over the original game? Those things that are literally in the title? There are maybe seven or eight total.

Game length and variety? Well, you're mostly limited to the creepy town and the surrounding woods. And you won't be spending as much time there, because this game is much shorter.

Main cast variety? There's a lot less of that here. I like the main character Mai. Her backstory is interesting, her personality makes her tough without being uncaring, and I like her look (you can't go wrong with a red jacket). There are two other meaningful party members, along with the original game's six non-DLC characters. One spends all her time gushing over Mai. The other is referred to as frail, in need of protection, and lacking in stamina, and it got to the point where the game convinced me I didn't want to keep her in my active party. They aren't one-note characters, but none of them get as much development as the first game's party members did. None of them are anywhere near as creatively designed as the first game's party members. If you were hoping for something more interesting than a glitch-corrupted girl chained to a floating chair, abandon that hope now.

Intriguing supporting cast? I literally didn't come across any supporting character as interesting as the first game's shopkeeper who is glitched out and literally exists at every store simultaneously. Like I said, these girls constantly talk about how cute other girls are and little else. I'm not making any judgments about that as a general concept, but if you removed every instance of girls calling each other cute, this "dark fantasy horror" RPG would probably be 20-30% shorter, and four or five supporting characters would disappear entirely. I don't think I'm exaggerating here. It's seriously that prevalent. If that sounds interesting to you anyway, I regret to inform you that there's not even variety here. Girl A says Girl B is cute. Girl B says Girl A is cute. Girl C says Girl A and B are cute. No descriptor other than "cute" is allowed. No details are allowed. Everyone is cute in a nonspecific way.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, with all these things reduced or missing entirely, why would I want to play this? Well, I have wonderful news. Have you been looking for girls talking about wetting themselves? Repeatedly? If so, look no further! Do you think every girl should be required by law to say every other girl they see is cute? This game will show you the utopia you've always dreamed of. Do you like catchy opening themes with interesting videos? The game gives you that, so full credit there.

If this were a standalone game, I'd think it was fairly dull, but it showed there could be promise in future installments. As a sequel though? Massive downgrade. It feels so different, it's like it's ashamed to be connected to the first game and hides most of its flimsy connections to the original game in scenes you'll only see on a second playthrough.

I played through this one pretty thoroughly, hoping it would eventually bring back that original game feel and make me glad I sprung for the Limited Edition preorder. I got every achievement, beat every mission, saw every scene... The magic just isn't here.

Final verdict? If you played the original, but it's been a while, go play that again. You'll have significantly more fun than this game can offer. There's literally nothing the sequel does better, and a lot it does worse. I tried not to get my hopes too high, but I didn't try hard enough. This game's final achievement has a sequel hook, but not even that caught my interest. You failed, DERQ 2, and failure has consequences. I won't even consider that sequel. It seems my relationship with this series has hit a Death End, and it's quite a tragic event.

Pros:
Catchy opening song, and good music in general, much of it from the first game
Decent character design
Mai is an interesting main character
Some of the late-game twists were interesting
Voice acting is solid across the board

Cons:
Weaker mystery, weaker suspense, weaker story
Dull supporting cast
Completely retconned Buggies to make them story irrelevant
Wastes the original game characters to the point I wish they hadn't been included
Shadow matter appearances pad out the game by making you backtrack for 15-second stretches to kill time
Doesn't live up to the original on any level

Overall, it's certainly playable, and it often isn't boring, but it's got so much wasted potential that it's hard for me to understand why they even bothered making a sequel. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.

(Expect Spoilers)


For one i'm going to focus on the Censorship aspect as that is the most important to me.

I originally discovered this game because the original DE;RQ1 was promoted by a YouTuber by the name of "RomanainTvee" or just "Vee" who made a video talking about how the developers at Idea Factory for the first game actually releaased a poll asking us the fans/consumers what we wanted in their release of the game to PC.

Uncensored as it was intended or the Censorship model that was released for the PS4.

When it came to the PC release it was overwhelmingly in-favor of the uncensored version, open shut case.

They for some reason even after knowing that the PC Community prefers uncensored/original works, asked again for DE;RQ 2's pre release. This was the first red flag.

Pretty much all a characters even down to their designs are inherently censored. They're either heavily covered up under the guise of being the original designs or returning combat characters from the previous game having their original designs altered for the sake of censorship.

Idea Factory cannot be trusted to not censor their games no matter the platform even though they have sufficient data to suggest that players atleast for the PC Version prefer their games to be uncensored or originally interpretation of a(n) developers work.

on these grounds alone do not purchase this game or really any release from Idea Factory gonig forward.

With that said. letws move on to the following...


This game isn't a sequel in the sense that your favorite characters return to truly reshape or expand on the already existing world/setting. You start off with three new characters Mai, Rottie & Lilliana, in an entirely different town than Tokyo, which you can immediately become confused about if you know the setting of the first game and its conclusion.

Mai Background - Abused by her father who after attempting to kill her, defends herself & is sent off to Wordsworth, this process of actually having killed someone at Age 14 does have a toll on Mai & actually has you questioning her sanity & thought process going forward.

Rottie Background - Daughter of the Head Mistress of Wordsworth, exists to be Mai's Morale Pet & is often trying to get Mai to show her affection in-kind which Mai eventually starts to embrace to some degree, after being incredibly cold to her from the beginning of the story.

Liliana Background - Introduced mid-story, she attaches herself as the final member of the trio. Looking towards Mai as a mother figure of sorts & all while still wanting her actual parents who weren't the best, likely abusive also, to one day return to bring her home from Wordsworth. She aslo has devoted her life to defeating demons as she has come to the conclusion that her parents were bad people because of demonic possession.

With that said.. Pretty much the only characters who come back are Arata/Shina who will never actually spend time together in this game & they're not dating in this one either, despite it being implied that they were going to have that talk after all the effort Mizunashi and by extension the God of Death did to revive Shina & achieve the true end.

Ultimately for the story I'm not going to give a complete breakdown because I'm still trying to figure out the retcons and potential plot holes introduced by the time aspect like how Mai moved all the girls who died in the past forward in-time without the events of both games being effected directly.. Actually I'm not even sure what year it is in this game.

But essentially it's 80% of Slice of life Yuri VN(Where nobody really hooks up or nothing intimate/sexual goes down). They have over 20 odd female students who study/live at Le Chora, all under 18 and the biggest fault is that almost none of them are really developed & yet you interact with them for the majority of the story to make the world feel more alive. Which in a way is good on paper, but none of your interactions with them really matter, takes up alot of time & ultimately they feel forgettable since they don't really add anything to the story or the mystery setting.


IRIS who was given a physical avatar in the real world is now a program again, who when place in the presence of Shina the persona she loved so much, that the Ludens literally reality warped the game and merged it with reality in an effort to appease Iris. Once she was near Shina in Laptop form she ignored Shina's questions only taking answers from Mai the laptop's master, but also answers Rottie's questions.

Reality Warping + Time Traveling elements make you question what's happening in the story, it's honestly all over the place if you take this story standalone with no context to the OG, and even with that context you'll be lost. I addressed one earlier in this review.

Overall I'm not going to focus on Combat because this isn't Lost Ark, the Story comes first and the story alone is a reason to not grab this game. The Censorship makes this game dead in the water for me.

A great sequel for the first game, if you enjoyed Death 1 there is no reason to not get this game. new characters, combinations and story make this game a worth get. also we the fans helped raise concern to keep the PC version uncensored unlike the PS4 version, if you are going to get this game, get it here.

Edit: Alright, I've finished the game now and if I am to believe steam achievments I got the "true ending".
It took me 12 hours to finish the game, I spend time grinding once before understanding that it was useless.
It's short but honestly it's not completely a bad thing as it makes the story well paced.
In those 12 hours of playtime I had to alt+f4 the game more times than I could count, everything broke, the combat system, the shop, the UI, I even had a bug where the game told me I saved but when I quit and restarted the game it didn't save the last 20 mn...

In conclusion: play it for the story, however there's a ton of gamebreaking bugs and it's really short so be mindful of that before you buy.

--------------------------------------------------------

Original review:
As of today, the game is definitively worth a play but it's really hard to recommend in it's current state, so wait for a patch.

The game in it's structure is really different from the first one, there's less gameplay in the VN sections and less VN in the gameplay sections. So when you're in the middle of a dungeon you won't have 30 min of VN completely messing up the rythm of the game.

The combat system is roughly the same, so it's a lot of fun until you meet a boss. And that's because the game feels really unbalanced.
here's an exemple: I'm exploring a dungeon when the 3rd char finally joins the party, for some reason she's level 20 while my other characters are level 37 (seriously) just after that there's a bossfight, I go in thinking I'm overpowered since I'm 17 levels higher that what the game wants me to be, however the boss kills me in one hit....
So every single turn I have to sacrifice one of my actions to help other party members and it's just a chore.

You still have those horrible choices where you have 50% chance of dying ( there's only ever 2 options one good one bad) .
However in this game you have an option to go back to the last choice when you die instead of losing hours of progress on luck like in the first game.

Save points are more numerous than before, however it's still really easy to die.

When you explore a dungeon there's a chance that a shade will appear, if you touch it it's game over, most of the time it appear when you try to go make a detour to save your game ahah.
It's easy to avoid however I imagine that if you are in a dead end this can result in a game over (It seems scripted though so I don't think this will be an issue).

Story so far is very different than the first one, it's interesting though, and the different main characters are cool.

The game is very buggy right now (some bugs are the same as those in the first game sadly).
So you'll have to deal with a mouse cursor in the middle of the screen at all times and be ready to alt+f4 when you press and command button and everything stops working.
Also the audio mixing is terrible, even with music at 100% and voices at 10% it feels like they are screaming in your hears and you still can't hear the music...

Hopefully those will be adressed soon.
Until then buy at your own risk.
I 'll still leave a positive review though, as I enjoy playing the game even with all those bugs.

The only bugs I encountered in this game are the ones meant to be there!

While the game is broken into chapters, it isn’t entirely clearly cut when a chapter change is going to occur. The story flows seamlessly between the chapters and is broken into two types of delivery. Visual Novel style with a mixture of spoken and text on screen and through little pop up messages while in the field. I can tell you that the hybrid of spoken and text is a little strange at first but it actually works decently well. Some scenes are delivered purely with text on screen for you to read while others have spoken dialogue injected between the pure text screens. If there is spoken dialogue typically it is used when the character is actually speaking and anything the character is thinking is usually just text on screen. It isn’t consistently done though with quite a bit of spoken word being just delivered in a pure text format. While you are inside the orphanage there are usually a number of scenes to witness before you sneak out at night to enjoy the actual gameplay.

The gameplay has a few questionable choices made but they do make sense as to why they were made. Every night you start out as you leave the dormitory. You then have to walk through the creepy streets to get to where you are going that night. This means effectively walking through the same area repeatedly as you progress through the game and that does get very repetitive and dull. It would be nice to have it automatically teleport you to the next starting area, but it does help give it the feel that you are leaving the dorms each night to go on an adventure so of course you will be passing through the same areas each time. Usually once you get to wherever you are going the game quickly wraps up after a boss battle and you are back to the orphanage again. If the town at night was more interesting to look at, it would make a difference but every area you pass through looks very similar to the last. Kind of featureless with a lot of glowing corruption intertwined. Since the town itself isn’t really a prime focus of the game and is more of just a setting for it, it can be forgiven that a lot of time wasn’t spent making all the buildings stand out at night, but it does make for a bit of a dull trek each night. This format changes a bit after while once you progress outside of town. Here everything is much more vibrant and even the corruption has a different colour to it! I won’t spoil anything though so I won’t say too much more on that.

The other kind of questionable choice is the whole monster in the dark theme of it. Every now and then you encounter a special monster that chases you but it doesn’t really move all that fast, you get plenty of warning it is coming and you mostly just have to run a little way away from it before it de-spawns again. The game does make it clear that letting it catch you would be a mistake, but unless I was away from the computer when it showed up, I didn’t really feel like it was much of a threat, especially not early on. If it was a major threat it likely would have been very annoying, but as it is, it is a bit of nuisance but not that big of a deal. I do like the idea of it though and I think it does add something to the otherwise potentially repetitive stroll you are on.

Let’s stop with the negative though because this game has far more positives in its gameplay than negatives to talk about. The combat is very similar to how it was in the first game. You can chain attacks together and depending on various factors you might unlock new abilities that way. Discovering new abilities helps keep the fights interesting as it forces you to try new things each time rather than just relying on the same tried and true abilities every time. You are mostly free to wander about the field to try to find the optimal position to start unleashing your attacks from; however, the bugs in the field are back again too. Touching the bugs (little glowing circles) will cause you to gain corruption and possibly some other effects too. Gaining enough corruption will unlock your powerful corrupted form. Gaining even more of them will kill you so all things in moderation I suppose! As you blast your enemies with your various moves, knockbacks and super knockbacks can occur as well as collisions too. Enemies’ colliding with other enemies hurts them both and potentially will send the other enemy flying too. An enemy colliding with an ally will cause that ally to swing their weapon at the enemy and ricochet it away doing heavy damage in the process. Overkilling an enemy is rewarded so it’s best to try to figure out the best way to inflict maximum damage each time you obliterate your enemies. The somewhat complex battle system for a Visual Novel style game is something that made me want to play Death end re;Quest 2 after having previously enjoyed the original.

Another thing that brought me back to the Death end re;Quest series is the fact that your choices do matter more here than they do in some other games I have played. A wrong choice can get you killed! It actually feels like it takes longer for Death end re;Quest 2 to start giving you these choices in comparison to the original but they are still there. If you are a sucker for punishment, it can be fun to try to figure out which option is the wrong one and going for that instead of trying to choose the best option. I mean sure you will likely end the game with a gruesome game over, but that is what your saved games are for.

One thing that is needed in a Visual Novel style game is a healthy smattering of character tropes and this game has pretty much all of them covered. All of the characters are quite well detailed although primary characters definitely look even fancier than their NPC counterparts. It was quite easy to tell who my third party member was going to be once I met her and sure enough she eventually joined me. With so much focus given to dialogue while inside the orphanage it’s good that there is a variety there to work with. Each one has enough character building to make them feel like they matter and each one of them tends to have a bit of an interesting and checkered past that lead them to be at this mysterious orphanage. The school itself, following a religion unique to the town, possibly being haunted and frequently having strange disappearances that are classed as adoptions is also a bit fascinating to learn about. Since it is hard to talk about a story heavy game, I will refrain from talking more about it and talk more about the technical side of things.

The audio works very well and despite the spoken dialogue being peppered in rather than consistent, it is enough to be enjoyable. The fact they were talking in English for a change was very welcome, it’s been quite a while since I played one of these style of games with an English Language option. I don’t mind non-English audio but usually I prefer it just because I find reading subtitles often makes you miss some of the action. The sound effects are a bit generic but they work well within the game. The atmospheric music and sounds did help set the tone and mood of the game very well. The only thing that got a little tiresome, and honestly, I would never suggest to remove it or omit it from future titles is the repetition of the same dialogue lines before and after combat. Sure, there are a number of different lines said and that really helps, but eventually it plays through them all and it just starts getting tiresome. It does let you skip it though so it isn’t that big of deal.

The controls for the game, at least when using a gamepad, work very well. I found some of the keyboard key layouts a little awkward but it isn’t anything that would be too difficult to figure out plus it can all be rebound anyway.

I have more to say, but I'm at the character limit!

Worse than the first game in almost every way, largely carried by Kei Nanameda's artwork and some really good tunes.

I'm not even sure why this is a Death end re;Quest game, as the connections to the first game are minimal and many mechanics no longer make sense as we're not inside a virtual world anymore. The narrative is still written by Makoto Kedouin but seems to be an adaptation of his prior work, the Dolls Fall manga. The protagonist, Mai Toyama, kills her drunkard father after years of abuse, and ends up in a girls' orphanage in a small mountain town in an unnamed European country. There she meets the other 2 main characters, Rotten Dollhart and Liliana Pinnata. And then spooky stuff starts happening and the girls explore the town together at night when it transforms into something creepy, not unlike Silent Hill. The game uses a Persona like calendar system where you do social events at the orphanage by day, and go out exploring the town by night.

There's no dual protagonist system like in the first game, which improved the pacing massively, as you no longer need to jump between two worlds and read long exposition dumps. But to be frank, 80% of the story is slice-of-life scenes with the orphanage girls, many of them being yuri. I believe there are at least 3-4 lesbian couples, and Mai and Rottie are heavily shipped together. I don't have a problem with yuri, but 20 hours of nothing but girls calling each other cute and blushing can numb your brain a bit. Aside from the slice-of-life, the game follows a "victim of the week" structure with each chapter having different girls going missing, which you can sometimes save depending on your choices. The actual plot is info dumped right before the final dungeon in a long visual novel scene. While the horror is not the focus, it's still there and those scenes seem to be more violent than the first game, with a lot more gore and sadistic descriptions of the girls being slowly tortured and killed.

Characters from the first game have only minimal appearances outside of Shina. Shina eventually joins your party and gives you "data clones" of the whole DERQ1 party. How or why is never explained. There are also some annoying retcons, to make the mechanics work in a different setting. For example, buggies are now "guardian spirits". Bug tiles and corruption are never explained though.

If you loved the combat in the first game, DERQ2 will disappoint you. Too many rough edges have been filed down, and it's really casual now.
- Most skills cost 4-10 SP, so it's largely impossible to run out of SP
- Bug tiles no longer hurt you, so you can go glitch mode on practically every turn
- Reaching 100% corruption doesn't kill you
- Counter attacks were largely removed aside from a couple boss fights
- All of Arata's gimmicks were removed, such as codejack, genre change etc
- If you don't feel like actually playing the game, there's an auto mode where an AI will control your party

Although there's a few more positive changes too:
- You can now see exact enemy stats when examining them, including physical and magical defense scores
- There's a warning if an enemy can counter attack and what exactly will they counter
- Pressing A/Confirm during the knockback/knockblow animation triggers super knockback/knockblow which does a lot more damage and launches the enemy much farther

The game overall feels incredibly rushed. It's only 20 hours long for a full playthrough, compared to 40 in DERQ1, and a large chunk of the playtime is slice-of-life scenes. There are no real dungeons, most of the action takes place on the streets and outskirts of the town, and they're all very samey looking. There are only 3 real party members, outside of the DERQ1 clones. Even the developers felt the game was too short on content, so they added a new game plus mode to pad it out a bit, in this mode you play the exact same game, but with about 2 hours worth of cutscenes added, yet there's no new game content whatsoever, no new bosses or items or anything.

I was looking forward to this game so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ much. I kept looking for new updates each week for several months until finally it came out. And what a surprise this is. I regret buying this more than any other games and wish I could have been refunded before it's too late. I will list a few things that made me feel this way. Keep in mind that I haven't finished the story yet and to be honest I'm not sure I want to.

- After many months upon release they still didn't fixed the most annoying bug I've encountered in a game: the mouse cursor will keep popping up in the middle of the screen each time you open the menu, start a fight, open the shop, etc... you will keep having to move the cursor away. And you will have to engage in a alternative solution requiring some prep time and post-game time, every single time you want to play.

- The storyline is nowhere near as good as the first Death End. It's not engaging at all, you won't look forward to next chapters in this one.

- The Berserker (the black figure that sometimes popup) is a joke. You're walking at triple his speed and to get caught you have to be real close to it. It's not a 'danger' by any means.

- You can view the episode chart, which only serves two purpose: Make you regret that you can't go back a chapter to see a Game Over you missed, and collect cheap Eni (for some reason?) each time you click on a event you saw. Not that you'd want to click on every single one of them one by one to get as much Eni as you would killing low level monsters.

- The update to fix the glitch outfits made me unlock all characters prematurely halfway down the game. When I'm supposed to be alone, I'm certainly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not.

- The graphics customization is so little you'll wonder what the ♥♥♥♥ were they thinking. You'll be forced to deal with excessive blur and many other options that you can't turn off or change.

- Shiva made a 180 degrees change in personality that's completely out of character compared to the first game.

- The main character can 'hack' computers to access cameras that will show you how a wall is in fact not real and you can get through. Sound good right? Except the team at IF forgot that your map already displays a path behind the 'hidden' walls...

- If you don't manage to kill a boss character when he's down at about 15-20% HP, well tough luck man he will do a full heal. And when we deal with millions of HP here and it took a lot of time reviving, healing and dealing damage you will get frustrated and rightly so. Add to that the good old 'Boss characters are immune to all status effects' and you're in for a bad time.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy this.

Full review (including score): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jg-z-QtcBg
Summarized review below!

Pros:
+ Excellent combat
+ Interesting storyline
+ Higher production values compared to first game
+ Decent port
Cons:
- Inconsistent writing quality
- Boring level design
- Some UI issues

I had a lot of fun playing through and reviewing Death end re;Quest 1, more so than usual with most Compile Heart games. So of course I am excited to try out the sequel, one we don't even have to wait for this time. It's arriving on PC a full week before PS4, which might actually be a first for the publisher.

Note: Had to trim review to fit character limit, check video for full version!

• Excellent combat. One thing I really liked about the first game was its combat. It took the traditional turn-based combat you see in most JRPGs and added this entire movement mechanic on top of it, making positioning a key factor in how the combat actually played out. Well, to the surprise of no one, the sequel continues this style of combat. It's pretty much just a carbon copy, but they didn't really need to change much here. The combat doesn't go overboard with complexity, the different moves are fun to use with all of their varying sizes, elements, and effects, and the knockback feature is still some of the most fun I've had in any Compile Heart game.
  
  
• Interesting storyline. So the combat may be good and all, but for those that played the first one, you will already know that this is a much more story-focused game. In fact, I would say that about 70% of the game is just visual novel segments. I'm not complaining though, as I mostly enjoyed the story from the first one and was happy to see that continue here with the second.
  
  Now, I'll try to talk about it without spoiling anything. The story basically resets from the first game, with a fresh cast and all. However, as you progress, it becomes increasingly more linked with that first game. Although I didn't like how the first game ended, I liked how this game was able to build on that foundation while also offering something new in the process. The new characters are cool, the twists and turns are plentiful, and the story is weaved into the gameplay in such a manner that it never felt like it was overpowering. Of course it isn't without its problems, but it's a solid effort from Compile Heart and much better than what they usually put out.
  
  
• Higher production values compared to first game. Compile Heart is no stranger to low production values. Although they usually make decent games, it's usually done with reused assets, unvoiced dialogue, and repetitive level design. While Death end re;Quest 2 doesn't completely avoid these issues, it's a much better overall package than what we got with the first game (or really any Compile Heart game for that matter).
  
  For one, we got a bunch of cool new enemies. Not only are they unique in their designs, but some of them are really, really creepy, like straight-up nightmare fuel. Of course, that perfectly fits the setting here, so I'll give them credit for that. Then you got the English dub, which, as with the first game, is actually not that bad. It doesn't feel overacted, nor does it lack emotion like a lot of other JRPG dubs.
  
  It strikes a nice balance there and even felt expanded compared to recent Compile Heart games. Dragon Star Varnir, for example, had very little dubbed dialogue, but here in Death end re;Quest 2, a significant portion of the game is dubbed. Given that this is a story-heavy game, it's nice to see them put some actual effort into that.
  
  
• Decent port. This may not be the best-looking game, but they did a pretty good job with the overall port. I never ran into any frame drops, stutters, crashes, or other such issues that usually come with JRPG PC ports. Additionally, the game also performs well on both controller and keyboard and mouse. They are completely rebindable and there's even button prompts for both. And the keyboard and mouse implementation is not lazy either, you're able to use the mouse both for the camera and for navigating menus. Granted, it's not an entirely bug-free experience, but I got to give the game some props for at least having some polish to it.

• Inconsistent writing quality. Just as with the first game, the story in Death end re;Quest 2 suffers from a number of different writing problems. Perhaps the most major of these would be the various pacing issues. Whether that be a misplaced story development that wasn't given the proper buildup or the sudden push to finish a scene without properly wrapping it up, the writing never quite found a consistent pace there. Then you have the drastic tone shifts that not only are cheaply written, but really take you out of the experience.
  
  You'll have a scene that's progressing at a relatively steady pace and all seems fine, only for the writers to suddenly remember "Oh! Wait, this is supposed to be an edgy game!". What better way to sell that than by describing scenes with human organs and blood everywhere and characters dying in the most brutal way possible. I get that this is supposed to be a darker game like that, but these scenes oftentimes come out of nowhere and some even had me laugh at just how absurd and misplaced they were. I'll give the game some credit for having a more well-written ending compared to the first, but it couldn't completely escape the same writing issues that that first had.
  
  
• Boring level design. They may have upped the visuals a bit, but the environments are still almost entirely composed of copy-pasted assets, repeating textures, and invisible walls everywhere. The devs have a very clear path they want you to travel and there's no exploration beyond that, even in areas where it looks like you can move around freely.
  
  Additionally, the actual layout of each level is really blocky. You get a bunch of smaller areas connected by long straight paths, similar to what you'd see from old level editors for games like DOOM. It just gets boring exploring these blocky levels and seeing the same copy-pasted building over and over. It's something that Compile Heart is really bad at, so if you've played any of their prior games, you probably already know what to expect here.
  
  
• Some UI issues. While the overall port was pretty smooth, I did run into some issues with the UI, enough so that it needs to be mentioned. Specifically, I had issues with the UI disappearing at times and not going away at others. This could be in the middle of a battle or somewhere on the field and usually required a game restart to fix. It was a limited issue (happened to me maybe five times total), but should be noted regardless. Hopefully it's an issue we can see patched sometime close to release.

Although not quite as good as its predecessor, Death end re;Quest 2 is still a decent sequel all things considered. The combat is fun, the story is interesting (even with its problems), and it's nice to see some higher production values this time. However, it still suffers from the same writing issues as the first and has arguably worse level design. For fans of the first game, it's worth a look, but if you haven't played that one then definitely give it a try before entertaining the sequel.

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I loved Death end re;Quest. It was not what I expected to come from Compile Heart but in the end: I got an amazing story, very nice character and a pretty great battle concept. The typical Compile Heart mixture of Visual Novel and JRPG worked amazingly.

Hearing there would be a second part, I've been quite sceptical. How would a second part to a game with a pretty completed story work? Would they do an mk2 on it? As in: pretend everything from the first game didn't happen and start again. Well: In a way... maybe? In another way: maybe not. But well: can't talk about this here because you know - story spoilers. And I wouldn't want to destroy any story relevant parts for you.

Should you play Death end re;Quest before this game? Yes, you should, although it isn't absolutely necessary - while the story is linked, see above, it's independent enough to not require it.

The gameplay concept over the original didn't change overly much - you have visual novel scenes throughout the day in the isolated Eastern European town called Le Caoara - you attend a school called Wordsworth there. And Le Choara turns into a dark evil place at night - which you will be able to explore at night in JRPG style. Enjoy it.

The gameplay challenge is nicely balanced: Easy mode will literally let you enjoy the story as you can just progress from battle to battle - make the necessary battle and you'll advance quickly enough. Medium and Hard modes require you to grind more and experiment with the battle system a bit more. The battle system has a lot of variety so if you seek a challenge: Go ahead - you have Super Knockbacks, you have a decently interesting way to learn attacks, and the characters in the game add to each other rather well.

While we're on it: I really enjoyed the chemistry between the 3 main characters which would be Mai , Rottie and Liliana (spoiler reveals the names of later characters in the game). Or four - if you count a character from the first game. The interactions between other Wordsworth students and Le Choara residents were interesting enough to keep me entertained.

Like the original: the game is quite bloody, sometimes the language can contain swear words - but overall it just fits the general style of the game. There are the typical fan service scenes which Compile Heart cannot refuse to add to any of their games although this game honestly wouldn't need them. But well, they're there. What else would you expect?

On a minor note on that: in Death End re;Quest 1 the characters in the Glitch mode which returns in this game had very revealing outfits. The console version had those adjusted (aka censored) - for the PC version these adjustments were reverted for original characters who returned. Kudos for that, Idea Factory!

All in all: Good game! You liked the first: Play it! You didn't like the first? Don't play it then, it's very similar. You didn't play the first? Well, maybe check out the first one for now but you can just jump into the second.