Much more fun than the original, I think. Though it still feels held back by budgetary constraints, I think the devs are closer to realizing the game they wanted to make. Legit my biggest issues mostly relate to how stiff cancelling into certain moves can be at times, and the fact that a lot of late-game enemies love teching out of combos and it can be a wild goose chase.

But ultimately, yeah I had fun. Combat felt like a step back at first, but once you get into the rhythm of tagging to different characters mid-combo, knowing when to use your skills in a combo, etc., it becomes a lot more fun.

Also, it has one of the best New Game Plus modes I've seen in an action RPG. I don't wanna spoil it for people but like, there are much more successful, higher-budget games that don't even do what this game does with NG+, it's kinda nuts.

Dusk Diver 2 is the sequel to Dusk Diver, a game that takes inspiration from other games like PERSONA or SMT in terms of concepts of other worlds and abilities.

Both game play as beat em ups, however DUSK DIVER 2 introduces more variety when it comes to having a more WARRIORS-ESK inspired combat.

In this game, you are now able to switch between Yumo, Leo, Bahet, and La Vieda similar to PERSONA 5 Strikers where each character has their own unique set of abilities.
The game's story is fine, it's nothing amazing, though I do like the unique twist they add towards the end of the game with Nemea and Typhon. The game's story is essentially expanded upon from the first game with explaining the existance of Youshanding and it's connection to Ximending.
The entire story revolves around Yumo and co, along with Nemea figuring out why Youshanding still is leaking into Ximending, and they later discover it's because of this new corporation called Hesperia.

Hesperia features 2 new characters called Vandak and Raven who are unique in terms of their designs.
Throughout the game Yumo and friends fight against a mysterious doppleganger of Yumo named D.D. who has a strange motive that I will just say never gets resolved because I 100% the story got changed midway through development in my opinion.

The game has a nice twist I won't spoil involving Nemea's brother Typhon who is introduced around Chapter 3 of the game.

The ending of the game is a nice satisfying end, that in my opinion warrants a 3rd entry, not focusing on Yumo, but instead D.D. since her development is given little attention, even if she is on the boxart of the game.

The gameplay is fun in terms of combat but becomes repetitive. Now there are no longer any small chaos beasts or floating chaos beasts as they instead are just huge and powerful, and attack in specifically layed combat zones that force you into combat. While Persona 5 Strikers did something similar, it still had unique moments within traversal that made Strikers fun to play.
While the new locations look very unique in design, it mostly plays upon the same structure of the original game, where you get from point A to B without really doing anything unique, apart from some puzzles that have you guess what path is correct in a specific area.

The game has a weird thing with the characters in the game where your party system and the story itself have a bit of LUDONARRATIVE DISONANCE in terms of how gameplay plays out compared to aspects of the story and side quests.
For example, the game has Bette have side stories that involve collecting her bags she accidently left there, side quest story wise, it about mostly Bahet with him being inspired by his guitar teacher Michael, these sidequests mosty rely on Yumo and co going to Youshanding and finding the bags.

The way the game plays out, makes it seem Bette was helping you out when in fact she's not a playable character in the regular game.
What I mean is the characters of:
- Bette
- Vandak
- Raven
Do not become playable until new gameplay plus, which tbh didn't make sense to me, especially during Chapters 11 and 12, since everything makes more sense for Bette and Raven to be playable in the regular game. As for Vandak, he's a villian story wise, and while I haven't played DUSK DIVER 2's new game plus fully, It's just odd he was made playable even with his cool clone moves.

In my opinion, it would've made more sense to make the BOSS playable, or Nemea since she tends to tag along in the story and is the central focus of the story along with Typhon.
The game overall was enjoyable for me and repetitive, I think the team making the game are on the verge of cracking something great if they get the opportunity to make a 3rd Game. Gameplay wise they should keep the Persona 5 Strikers/Warriors style combat, while making combat more freeing and not repetitive by forcing combat areas, and instead making the entire open area of Youshanding have free roaming enemies for combat.

I think more enemy varieties should have been included instead of removed, because while there are new Chaos Beasts in this game, they're ground base. It would have been better if the team implemented Chaos Beasts that required you to switch to a specific partner (Bahet, La Vieda, Leo, Raven, Bette, D.D.) to break down the enemies shield since said character would be stronger/ a weakness to said Chaos Beasts, that way it warranted switching between team members.

I think the new tracks in the game sound good, however if they ever do a DUSK DIVER 3 they need to start mixing and making more memorable music.
Story wise, I think the games story is fine, and went in a unique direction with the narritive during the twist, the big problem with the game is D.D. in terms of her involvement.
D.D. suffers from what Scorpion Suffered from MK9-11, where they put the character on the cover, but they don't really do anything too important in the story, apart from getting involved with the main team in either a enemy/rival or new friend/teammate way.
D.D. comes from UNIVERSE 247, and that's all we really know, she looks similar to Yumo however she's more a of a Kuudere archetype and is mysterious in her lack of explanation.
She does have an interesting story to tell, however this game doesn't tell that, and instead leaves it to our imagination as to what her world is like, if she is an Alternate Universe version of Yumo, who her companions are, etc.


I enjoyed my time with Dusk Diver 2, but I can 100% understand if someone gets bored of playing, or feels like the games a bit too long or lacking. I enjoyed the 11 days I put into the game, and enjoyed the characters.

I really hope they do improve on various things if they do make a DUSK DIVER 3, and if they do, they need to make sure it focuses on D.D. and Universe 247, since there's story to tell there, since Yumo's story at this point has no where to go because the characters got the penulimate happy ending in terms of Yumo, La Vieda, Leo, Bahet, Yusho, Nemea, Bette, Meg, Boss, Raven, etc. Now I could be wrong and maybe the next game is focused on Yumo again, expect now a new enemy has appeared, but we'll see. However I think because of the set up of D.D. I really think D.D. should be the next game's protag and have it focus on her world and her life and her friends to see the differences and to finish up that loose end.

So overall I enjoyed Dusk Diver 2, I would recommend it.

Quick Review

The sequel is a significant improvement over the first game. Many of the game's flaws have been changed or removed in my opinion.

Enemy variety has improved and now include large mid-boss-like enemies.

Level design and variety is much better. Instead of having the same "look" that the first game had, there's a lot more unique looking areas this time around.

The platforming segments from the first game that I found annoying, are pretty much gone in this game.

Collecting Dragon Vein Shards are completely optional now, but are much easier to locate since they are actually marked on the map.

Graphics-wise, it does look better and with better textures on the character models. The world looks cleaner too.

The sidequests haven't improved much in quality, but are still fairly entertaining with some degree of story in them. There's a lot more of them here too for those that enjoyed them in the first game.

There's more of the city areas to explore. The main city hub is still the largest one, but it's nice to have more variety on places to go to.

Combat is better than before with more variety by having more than one playable character. Each of them are fairly unique in their approach and style. When not used, they participate as a A.I. controlled party member during fights which is a nice touch. Party size is maxed out at 4 for battles.

There's more RPG elements here which includes character levels, exp that can be grind, equipment with stats and affects that can be looted/earned and damage numbers.

The story still isn't anything special, but I still enjoyed it. It's more interesting than the first game with more things happening that includes multiple characters involved.

Overall, there's lots of fun with this game and the length is solid so that it doesn't overstay its welcome.