I wanted to 100% this game but encountered two problems: 1) some of my progression achievements were not accounted for 2) the game crashed during a sidequest and all sidequests became inaccessible.
Overall a nice game if I exclude this problem. Nice enough that I wanted to 100% it.
The game is pretty simple and bare bone outside of combat, it's the main appeal of the game. The combat is nice and in my opinion offers quite a bit of variety with a lot of moves to be unlocked. I was never quite bored and experimented a lot of different things throughout the game.
The game is fairly easy but it's also why you can afford to experiment so much and the moves are cool, so I had a lot of fun. I also like the fact that every mission has a hard alternative and the ranking system adds some more meat to the game.
Outside combat, there's not much to see. The characters are nice but the story is forgettable and sometimes sounds like gibberish machine translation. The game has some Persona-like events which are disappointingly short and void of any depth. The events are like five long and that's it. For example, one of them was just a conversation akin to "Hey you got a guitar? You'll play music for me sometimes? Yeah ok".
All the collectibles are pretty stupid, requiring you to spam the same action over and over until you get it : eating multiple times at restaurants, spending 10 minutes watching the gacha action to get all the loot... It feels like they were designed for you to come back every once in a while and max them out just like you would in Yakuza for example, but there's no reason to hang out in the city and getting the food buff that way would be genuinely painful. Besides, nothing stops you from spamming and the prices are cheap.
And speaking of spam, one of the achievements require you to constantly water a tree throughout almost the entire game. It seriously takes a long time.
I hope the second game would be less buggy and have improve the quality of content outside combat. Considering the length of these games though, I'm not buying it anytime soon because it's too expensive.
Overall a nice game if I exclude this problem. Nice enough that I wanted to 100% it.
The game is pretty simple and bare bone outside of combat, it's the main appeal of the game. The combat is nice and in my opinion offers quite a bit of variety with a lot of moves to be unlocked. I was never quite bored and experimented a lot of different things throughout the game.
The game is fairly easy but it's also why you can afford to experiment so much and the moves are cool, so I had a lot of fun. I also like the fact that every mission has a hard alternative and the ranking system adds some more meat to the game.
Outside combat, there's not much to see. The characters are nice but the story is forgettable and sometimes sounds like gibberish machine translation. The game has some Persona-like events which are disappointingly short and void of any depth. The events are like five long and that's it. For example, one of them was just a conversation akin to "Hey you got a guitar? You'll play music for me sometimes? Yeah ok".
All the collectibles are pretty stupid, requiring you to spam the same action over and over until you get it : eating multiple times at restaurants, spending 10 minutes watching the gacha action to get all the loot... It feels like they were designed for you to come back every once in a while and max them out just like you would in Yakuza for example, but there's no reason to hang out in the city and getting the food buff that way would be genuinely painful. Besides, nothing stops you from spamming and the prices are cheap.
And speaking of spam, one of the achievements require you to constantly water a tree throughout almost the entire game. It seriously takes a long time.
I hope the second game would be less buggy and have improve the quality of content outside combat. Considering the length of these games though, I'm not buying it anytime soon because it's too expensive.
Reminds me a little of yakuza / like a dragon games with a bit of anime girls. Good art and combat gameplay, but can get a little repetitive by the end.
Wanted to like this game a bit more than I ended up doing. It was alright, quite a bit repetitive.
you press buttons that make yang rwby hit things, and sometimes you press buttons to make other people do the hitting
I'm sure it's still better than rwby though
I'm sure it's still better than rwby though
This game has glimmers of hope but is covered up in so much muck.
So for what is good. While the cast isn't very fleshed out, they have the potential to be good. Same with the story and premise, but the plot is super standard. I'd say the villain's motive was nice for the kind of game it was, but that's the only credit I can give it. The world is based on a real spot in Taiwan, which is kinda neat. Most importantly, Yusha is cute.
Now for the everything else. It's really, really easy and never gets any harder and more varied which is a deadly combo for a hack n slash. Levels offer little interesting in the way of visuals and audio outside the "boss rush" level, 99% of the time it's the same dark streets and alleyways dealing with the same sets of enemies over and over. You know that part of KH2 where Sora fights 1,000 Heartless? Well if you remove everything cool and impressive about it that's pretty much every single encounter in this game. A very, very slow Musou. And you can't skip them except for one level where you're supposed to but it doesn't give you the impression that you can. Oh, and the levels? You need a certain amount of star-er, Dragon Shards to enter each one. If you don't have enough, you gotta search the city for them in the most obscure places. You can do a sidequest that gets them marked on the map, but the whole Dragon Shard system really just felt like it was added to pad out playtime. You have multiple partners but the best strat is to stick to the first one you got and just kinda unga bunga since there isn't much combat variety anyways, you just kinda go numb playing this. The final boss is absurdly easy, the easiest boss in the game, so you can't even have a satisfying fight at the end of the tunnel.
And even worse on the PC version, it can crash at certain character events and the game hasn't been updated at a long time despite player reports. And when the game says it's saving, it isn't actually saving where you think it saves, meaning you'll have to watch the same cutscenes again every time you boot up the game!
This game has the potential to be interesting, but it really needed more time before it was shipped out, because as-is it's simply not it. You couldn't save this one, Yusha.
So for what is good. While the cast isn't very fleshed out, they have the potential to be good. Same with the story and premise, but the plot is super standard. I'd say the villain's motive was nice for the kind of game it was, but that's the only credit I can give it. The world is based on a real spot in Taiwan, which is kinda neat. Most importantly, Yusha is cute.
Now for the everything else. It's really, really easy and never gets any harder and more varied which is a deadly combo for a hack n slash. Levels offer little interesting in the way of visuals and audio outside the "boss rush" level, 99% of the time it's the same dark streets and alleyways dealing with the same sets of enemies over and over. You know that part of KH2 where Sora fights 1,000 Heartless? Well if you remove everything cool and impressive about it that's pretty much every single encounter in this game. A very, very slow Musou. And you can't skip them except for one level where you're supposed to but it doesn't give you the impression that you can. Oh, and the levels? You need a certain amount of star-er, Dragon Shards to enter each one. If you don't have enough, you gotta search the city for them in the most obscure places. You can do a sidequest that gets them marked on the map, but the whole Dragon Shard system really just felt like it was added to pad out playtime. You have multiple partners but the best strat is to stick to the first one you got and just kinda unga bunga since there isn't much combat variety anyways, you just kinda go numb playing this. The final boss is absurdly easy, the easiest boss in the game, so you can't even have a satisfying fight at the end of the tunnel.
And even worse on the PC version, it can crash at certain character events and the game hasn't been updated at a long time despite player reports. And when the game says it's saving, it isn't actually saving where you think it saves, meaning you'll have to watch the same cutscenes again every time you boot up the game!
This game has the potential to be interesting, but it really needed more time before it was shipped out, because as-is it's simply not it. You couldn't save this one, Yusha.
I don’t think you need to have a Persona social aspect in your musou clone
Dusk Diver is, for me, a hard game to really talk about. It's a simple beat 'em up/musou-y game with some RPG elements, it's fairly repetitive both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics, and it takes a while for the game to really open up and let you mess around with its mechanics
but there's something there that makes it impossible for me to say anything really bad about it. Maybe it's the clear lack of budget and/or game dev experience, but all of its flaws, for me, just kind of add to its charm? The game's story is about stopping what is essentially the demon world from merging with reality, and I feel like some of its more noticeable flaws actually kind of helps the story by making what's going on feel unnatural
it's far from a perfect game, but I, personally, can't bring myself to give it a low score. It's too charming. There are also a [literal] couple of songs in this game with lyrics and they're both bangers (and one is criminally underused imo).
that said I did spend WAYYY too long trying to pull all of the RNG fortunes. That wasn't fun. Also wasn't at all necessary to have in the game. Or do. I did it. I got all the trophies for some reason
but there's something there that makes it impossible for me to say anything really bad about it. Maybe it's the clear lack of budget and/or game dev experience, but all of its flaws, for me, just kind of add to its charm? The game's story is about stopping what is essentially the demon world from merging with reality, and I feel like some of its more noticeable flaws actually kind of helps the story by making what's going on feel unnatural
it's far from a perfect game, but I, personally, can't bring myself to give it a low score. It's too charming. There are also a [literal] couple of songs in this game with lyrics and they're both bangers (and one is criminally underused imo).
that said I did spend WAYYY too long trying to pull all of the RNG fortunes. That wasn't fun. Also wasn't at all necessary to have in the game. Or do. I did it. I got all the trophies for some reason
Great aesthetic and music however the game play is really boring, you just mash two buttons and win, there are barely any combos and its as simple as it can get, there are only two maps in the entire game which you constantly revisit. Also the translation is pretty bad and the story is meh.
Cant really recommend it
Cant really recommend it
You know, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It is very clearly held together with duct tape and spit but it has a lot of charm. It feels like a Saturday morning cartoon in a good way. The characters are lovable and it also works as a kind of tour around Ximending. Side quests and collectibles are simple and combat is fun and has a little depth to it.
...I really want to visit Taipei now.
...I really want to visit Taipei now.
Quick Review
The characters are fun although there's pretty much zero character development.
The story isn't anything special.
There's some sidequests, but most are just typical fetch quests. The added story and cutscenes from them are decent though.
The main town hub is a bit bigger than I'd expected, but it's not particularly appealing enough to just explore and look around.
The game had a small budget and it shows graphically. Environments look mostly the same throughout the various stages. There's very little enemy variety.
The combat is not that deep, but I found it fun regardless. Beating down a large horde of enemies is satisfying to me even if the combos I do become very repetitive.
The music is quite good for most of the game. The song used during the final boss fight got me really hyped up.
Overall, the game is on the okay side of things. Not much really sticks out and it's a decent game to play when you want something light without having to think too much. Short game overall too.
The characters are fun although there's pretty much zero character development.
The story isn't anything special.
There's some sidequests, but most are just typical fetch quests. The added story and cutscenes from them are decent though.
The main town hub is a bit bigger than I'd expected, but it's not particularly appealing enough to just explore and look around.
The game had a small budget and it shows graphically. Environments look mostly the same throughout the various stages. There's very little enemy variety.
The combat is not that deep, but I found it fun regardless. Beating down a large horde of enemies is satisfying to me even if the combos I do become very repetitive.
The music is quite good for most of the game. The song used during the final boss fight got me really hyped up.
Overall, the game is on the okay side of things. Not much really sticks out and it's a decent game to play when you want something light without having to think too much. Short game overall too.
I stopped playing after Chapter 5. It's very much a DMC-lite game. It's incredibly mediocre; there's nothing outstandingly bad here, but there's nothing really eye-catching or fun either. The music is already really, really bland.
s'fine. Gets super repetitive by the end though and the story's just whatever, though I like the main cast.
Luckily I'm currently playing the sequel and I like it much more than this game so far, they've learned quite a bit.
Luckily I'm currently playing the sequel and I like it much more than this game so far, they've learned quite a bit.
DuskDiver Terminado. Le pondría mejor valoración si no fuese tan repetitivo sobre todo en cuanto a enemigos, pero lo que se intenta crear con este juego esta bien, tiene su sistema de quest rollo social, entrenar a los ayudantes, podría estar muchísimo mejor, pero ta pasable.
It's kind of just a mindless hack and slash, but it's not too bad. It wants to be persona but doesn't commit to that
Coldstone is funny though
Coldstone is funny though
I tried out Dusk Diver as it seemed like a nice and simple game to briefly scratch that hack 'n' slash itch. Unfortunately, it ended up being too simple, with extremely limited enemy variety and not having any reason to attacking using anything other than the same combo for the entire game.
All the combat stages have the same visual style and there's only one exploration area, really driving home the feeling that your experience in the first ten minutes of the game is no different from what you'll be doing 7 hours later.
All the combat stages have the same visual style and there's only one exploration area, really driving home the feeling that your experience in the first ten minutes of the game is no different from what you'll be doing 7 hours later.
i really wanted to like this game because it has a nice style. a persona style hack n slash sounds very appealing but... p5 strikers exist. dusk diver's combat is very similar to gravity rush but the level design is extremely weak. i played for over 3 hours and just felt like i was just going through motions. it's decent game but the level design is just too dry for me with gameplay that's decent, but not strong enough to make up for it's flaws
I really want to like this game more than I did. I like the characters, the concept, walking around the city with your friends, and a lot of the combat, but the level design is a little too rough for me to finish the whole game.
The first half of the game is the worst impression the game gives. After chapter 7 (when you unlock le viada) the combat gets way more varied for a beat em up game, levels never stop being repetitive tho. The story, characters, side quests and setting are all very charming.
Interesting 3D adventure beat em up with a sprinkle of RPG. Good mix o Yakuza exploration and side quests, to the more cute, young, supernatural elements and the more conventional RPG elements of a SMT: Persona title. Combat needs more polish, there are few enemies and the combat controls need more than x,x,x,x until u press y combos. PLatforming parts are relevant but need better controls. THe first 3 levels have the exact same music for their entirety and its repetitive as hell.
Dusk Diver is a visually stunning yet repetitive game.
The game's esthetic is very nice and beautiful overall. The colors of neons in terms of blues, greens, yellows and magentas are very flashy and pleasing to the eye.
The music can be very repetitive but some tracks are really great to listen to.
The game was made by a Chinese developer, and I really enjoyed how much time and effort they put in. I personally played with Japanese dub. But to have the option of either Japanese or Chinese dub is nice.
The game suffers from repetitive syndrome where its "get from point A to Point B, but the catch is there's enemies who block your way, so you're not allowed to move until you kill all the enemies on the screen. It's takes the beats from 2D beat em ups and applies them to 3D, and it works sometimes. Though the repetitiveness of fighting the same enemies over and over can get very boring.
The character designs are really nice though, Yumo is very cute and badass when she's both in her regular human and D ARMS mode. LEO is a badass uncle type of character, who reminds me a lot of Dojima from Persona 4 Original/GOLDEN. BAHET is a cool nerdy character who sort of reminds of characters like Makoto Yuki/Minato Arisato from Persona 3 mixed with Yusuke From Persona 5, being obsessed with Music instead of Art. Le Viada who is just a Ara Ara Milf anime woman, who's actually very likeable and funny. Boss who's a typical kawaii trope character except she's tough while in a ridiculous statue (sadly we never get to see her true form in this game, however I hope in Dusk Diver 2 we see her true form). Namea who's a cheeky little devil of a girl who just wants to have friends and has a justified reason for doing the things she's does.
There's only 1 bad character in the game and thats honestly Yumo's friend Yusha, being completely useless up until the end, and mostly getting herself in shitty situations.
The designs for the characters are very unique, personally I love Yumo's design with the aqua/cyan hair, and when going super splits between Cyan and Yellow hair, it's really nice.
La Viada has a nice rack, and is drawn and model beautifully.
The Super moves with each Kunlunian is very badass and explosive to witness.
The game most certainly is inspired by Persona in several aspects, like Social Links (but here they're just called Friendship level) however the only real way to increase the Friendship is by eating food in all the restaurants, and it's a pain having to walk to different restaurants to increase said levels for Leo, Bahet, or Le Viada, however it unlocks cool new optional moves to use along side them. To Prove further that this most likely was inspired by Persona in some way, the whole Ximending and Youshanding, is very similar to Persona 5's Shibuya and the Cognitive world. Now this is not the say this is a detriment to the game, this is just to say that this was in some way clearly inspired. Proving this further is the villian wanting to fuse Youshanding World with the city of Ximending, similar to Persona 5. The game has these moments where the characters hang out which is clearly also inspired by Persona 5, even done to the fun jokes.
This is not to say this is AN AMAZING SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR, if anything it's a has a copy, but it's not as great as Persona 5, the story is very bare bones and while the characters are fun, and the villian has a reasonable motivation, it's still needed more than just "beat this enemy, run here to this exclamation mark, beat up more enemies for the door way blocking your path to open up. Maybe press a switch, and fight a boss which is just a regular enemy you'll face later in the game, until you meet the TRUE BOSSES."
Not to knock the True bosses btw, they're very fun and the music that plays is very great as well.
Ximending has a lot of side missions called Links you can do to increase a meter powering up your Super/D ARMS mode that helps a lot, and when maxing out allows you to wear the Outfit without having to go Super.
The game is a very repetitive experience, however the characters are very enjoyable, and the experience is fun for the most part.
Dusk Diver 2 is coming out soon so the improvements I hope to see for the next game are:
1. A Greater Story
2. More character interactions that show the characters more expressive than just their standard emotions.
3. Ximending to be more expansive in terms of its overall size and scope of the city.
4. Youshanding/other world being more than just "beat up these guys here and there and move on, and point a to point B"
5. Romance if optional.
6. Bigger levels with different gymics, that make the experience more fun and unique than just a beat em up, if it becomes an rpg like xenoblade mixed with the beat em up style, that would be perfect.
Overall I can't say this is an amazing game or a bad game, its good but not great but as a start to a franchise it's a great start, and I look forward to seeing the improvements in Dusk Diver 2.
If you were hesitant on this game I recommend if you like beat ems, nice music, funny characters, but you are also patient with its repetitive nature.
Overall I have to give this game a 3.5/5 Stars 😎🙏🏻
The game's esthetic is very nice and beautiful overall. The colors of neons in terms of blues, greens, yellows and magentas are very flashy and pleasing to the eye.
The music can be very repetitive but some tracks are really great to listen to.
The game was made by a Chinese developer, and I really enjoyed how much time and effort they put in. I personally played with Japanese dub. But to have the option of either Japanese or Chinese dub is nice.
The game suffers from repetitive syndrome where its "get from point A to Point B, but the catch is there's enemies who block your way, so you're not allowed to move until you kill all the enemies on the screen. It's takes the beats from 2D beat em ups and applies them to 3D, and it works sometimes. Though the repetitiveness of fighting the same enemies over and over can get very boring.
The character designs are really nice though, Yumo is very cute and badass when she's both in her regular human and D ARMS mode. LEO is a badass uncle type of character, who reminds me a lot of Dojima from Persona 4 Original/GOLDEN. BAHET is a cool nerdy character who sort of reminds of characters like Makoto Yuki/Minato Arisato from Persona 3 mixed with Yusuke From Persona 5, being obsessed with Music instead of Art. Le Viada who is just a Ara Ara Milf anime woman, who's actually very likeable and funny. Boss who's a typical kawaii trope character except she's tough while in a ridiculous statue (sadly we never get to see her true form in this game, however I hope in Dusk Diver 2 we see her true form). Namea who's a cheeky little devil of a girl who just wants to have friends and has a justified reason for doing the things she's does.
There's only 1 bad character in the game and thats honestly Yumo's friend Yusha, being completely useless up until the end, and mostly getting herself in shitty situations.
The designs for the characters are very unique, personally I love Yumo's design with the aqua/cyan hair, and when going super splits between Cyan and Yellow hair, it's really nice.
La Viada has a nice rack, and is drawn and model beautifully.
The Super moves with each Kunlunian is very badass and explosive to witness.
The game most certainly is inspired by Persona in several aspects, like Social Links (but here they're just called Friendship level) however the only real way to increase the Friendship is by eating food in all the restaurants, and it's a pain having to walk to different restaurants to increase said levels for Leo, Bahet, or Le Viada, however it unlocks cool new optional moves to use along side them. To Prove further that this most likely was inspired by Persona in some way, the whole Ximending and Youshanding, is very similar to Persona 5's Shibuya and the Cognitive world. Now this is not the say this is a detriment to the game, this is just to say that this was in some way clearly inspired. Proving this further is the villian wanting to fuse Youshanding World with the city of Ximending, similar to Persona 5. The game has these moments where the characters hang out which is clearly also inspired by Persona 5, even done to the fun jokes.
This is not to say this is AN AMAZING SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR, if anything it's a has a copy, but it's not as great as Persona 5, the story is very bare bones and while the characters are fun, and the villian has a reasonable motivation, it's still needed more than just "beat this enemy, run here to this exclamation mark, beat up more enemies for the door way blocking your path to open up. Maybe press a switch, and fight a boss which is just a regular enemy you'll face later in the game, until you meet the TRUE BOSSES."
Not to knock the True bosses btw, they're very fun and the music that plays is very great as well.
Ximending has a lot of side missions called Links you can do to increase a meter powering up your Super/D ARMS mode that helps a lot, and when maxing out allows you to wear the Outfit without having to go Super.
The game is a very repetitive experience, however the characters are very enjoyable, and the experience is fun for the most part.
Dusk Diver 2 is coming out soon so the improvements I hope to see for the next game are:
1. A Greater Story
2. More character interactions that show the characters more expressive than just their standard emotions.
3. Ximending to be more expansive in terms of its overall size and scope of the city.
4. Youshanding/other world being more than just "beat up these guys here and there and move on, and point a to point B"
5. Romance if optional.
6. Bigger levels with different gymics, that make the experience more fun and unique than just a beat em up, if it becomes an rpg like xenoblade mixed with the beat em up style, that would be perfect.
Overall I can't say this is an amazing game or a bad game, its good but not great but as a start to a franchise it's a great start, and I look forward to seeing the improvements in Dusk Diver 2.
If you were hesitant on this game I recommend if you like beat ems, nice music, funny characters, but you are also patient with its repetitive nature.
Overall I have to give this game a 3.5/5 Stars 😎🙏🏻
the low budget shows. hack and slash gameplay doesn't change much, and you can probably count on one hand the number of different enemy designs there are.
but, it has some heart! all of the ingredients of a great hack n slash game as well as jrpg are present through its battle and social mechanics.
with myself discovering the sequel that's to be released in 2022, i gotta be honest: i'm excited. if the studio has more funds to flesh out every aspect such as the graphics, more character designs, and better music, we are looking at a cool new hack n slash jrpg franchise!
but, it has some heart! all of the ingredients of a great hack n slash game as well as jrpg are present through its battle and social mechanics.
with myself discovering the sequel that's to be released in 2022, i gotta be honest: i'm excited. if the studio has more funds to flesh out every aspect such as the graphics, more character designs, and better music, we are looking at a cool new hack n slash jrpg franchise!