I could do the typical "lol shit port, rating again," but the fpan team is less than 20 people and the game didn't have a PC beta, so I don't think it's going to be fair shitting at it so early. Fpan is maybe one of the only studios that actually listens to the community, so in less than a month, every problem that wasn't on the PS4 version is going to be fixed. It's still a bad image for the overall company to basically hand over an unfinished build and charge full price. Outside of those issues, fun game! I fucking hate Kaguya, but the linne, eltnum and carm changes are pretty cool tl:dr buy it when there's already tech and the netplay is fixed.

Update: lmao they didn't fixed shit and is WORSE, fuck arcsys and fuck cyclone zero

As rumors of a follow up to one of the greatest fighting games of the century began circulating, most of the original Under Night’s player base began to wonder how the developers may handle a numbered sequel. I think I can speak for most people when I say UNICLR felt pretty much perfect (at least structurally) and making a brand new game seemed unnecessary at best and worrying at worst. What might French Bread change? Would they bend the knee to casual players and broaden its appeal through simplifications of its systems? Would they go the Type Lumina route and remix things in a such way to not shift the series’ DNA entirely while still feeling completely alien next to Current Code?

As I wandered the EVO floor on that fateful Friday morning and heard the news that the fated successor to our darling Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] was just announced and playable at that very moment, my personal anticipation and anxiety rose to all new heights. Things seemed promising from the trailer, but it was hard to judge anything for sure until I got my hands on it. After a bit of waiting in line I finally got my hands on the game, and to my absolute delight there wasn’t anything that jumped out to me. To be clear, UNICLR was never a game I was particularly great at, and as such any small tweaks and balances that did exist surely passed me by, but the foundation felt extremely similar to what I had played in the past. Somehow, it seemed like FB did the one thing no one expected but everyone secretly hoped: they didn’t fuck with the formula.

Flash forward five months, and now that I’ve had the full release of the game in my hands for the past few days I can finally confirm that this is functionally just an iterative sequel to the first game - think like how Street Fighter 4 handled its packaged versions back in the day. In fact, I’d almost liken it more to a glorified balance patch or brand new season than an entirely different game. While someone who casually messed with UNI back in the day may have yearned for more of a refresh to give the series another shot, I appreciate the restraint of the devs to understand the value of their game and not second guess themselves on old mechanics. They didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water, they didn’t make GRD easier to parse, they didn’t fix what wasn’t broken. “More of the same” is the highest compliment I can give to a game with Vorpal Cycles and Chain Shift in it.

To touch a bit on the adjustments more directly, each small new addition targets the GRD system and gives the player just a few more tools to work with and consider in a match. Things like the new forward roll aren’t terribly substantial on the face of it, but by adding more things to this towering stack of mechanics built off the same central resource, it leads to further complications in how to make the best choices in the heat of the moment. When to spend GRD for a force function, when to hold off and play defense, and when to take a chance on a shield to push the Cycle forward and build massive GRD at the risk of a Break are just a few strings of general choices you can make in a pinch, and this is only from the defending player’s perspective - this doesn’t consider how to play with GRD in neutral to even end up in these intense scrambles to begin with. For a modern comparison, in a game like Street Fighter 6 this type of complex decision-making already feels exhausting in the best ways with a lenient timer and an automatically generating central gauge to spend, so making these potentially higher risk gambles on an ever repeating 16 second timer in UNI2 feels just as if not more exciting in the heat of a match. Additions to the system could have run the risk of tipping the balance of an extremely well considered system, but at its core, UNI2 is still all about the captivating tug-of-war for GRD and the race to achieve Vorpal we all fell in love with before, just further touched up and refined in really intelligent ways.

The true meat of this package as a “sequel” really just comes in everything surrounding the game itself, which I don’t want to get too caught up in for the brevity of this blog, but it must be said that this is absolutely one of the most feature rich and complete fighting game packages ever made. Barring the exclusion of cross-play (forever and always, fuck Sony), no stone was left unturned and nothing was left behind. From intense training mode options to replay takeover functions, this game truly has every tool you could ever want and shit you probably didn’t even know you wanted, it makes you wonder how anyone can accept less complete packages from far more established developers in an era where fucking French Bread of all companies is dropping what’s unquestionably the most accessible and rich fighting game of the year.

This has always been a series I’ve held in high respects - never one I was particularly great at or could understand all the intricacies of beyond the the first layer or two, but always one I kept at the top of the stack when it came to my “casual” fighters. I’ve always been a player who loves obsessing over and gaining a strong understanding of game’s and their mechanics, so while I’m still willing to appreciate Fighting Games largely for their surface level “approachable” aspects, I always try to dig a bit deeper whenever possible. While there’s been many games over the years I’ve dreamt of attaining a greater understanding of, few have occupied as much space in my brain as Under Night. In the past it felt like a far off dream to understand the intricacies of the game, to understand something simultaneously complex and beautiful in its construction yet tragically hidden in the shadows behind passionate local communities bound by the shackles of delay-based hell. It felt impossible to slip in and catch up with everyone else in the moment, but now with the release of UNI2, I feel the spark to play and learn far more than I ever have before. For the first time in a while, the thought of going out to events big or small is alluring to me for a bit more than the usual communal aspects you tend to find with fighting games - as fun as it is to stumble into CoN5 without touching the game for months and hitting B-Tatsu in bracket without a care in the world, the drive to learn and improve for nothing more than the love of the game is something I haven’t felt as often as I’d like these days. It’s one of the many reasons I continue to show up for new fighters despite my adult life constricting the amount of time I can put into them, no other community driven games are gonna give you the same sensations as playing and learning with other community members, and that’s always a high I’ll continue to chase for the rest of my days. As much as I love falling back on old favorites, I’m so thankful companies like French Bread are still capable of lighting that spark of life within me for a new release like this. Even if you’re not into fighting games for the competitive glory or paltry prize pools of small tournaments, if you’re into the genre in literally any capacity at all, I hope this is a game that can light the spark for you too.

Odd game; having done all of the arcade modes and playing catch-up before release on the plot, this really feels like a proper conclusion to a majority of the cast. Ending in either death or a return to normalcy, Sys:Celes feels purposeful in wanting to be the end of the Hollow Night: but it also feels like the prelude to a larger conflict in this world. I feel that in both, I can respect that Under Night's focus is not in story, but can also make its characters reach a proper, satisfying end point.

Gameplay's perfect however: everything feels fine-tuned to perfection, making every character feel stronger both with Sys:Celes's new universal mechanics and unique new moves. I found a new main in Kaguya, someone feeling perfect for my playstyle, but I also feel every character continues to be fun. It's a game I feel I can pick randomly and still have a great time with friends, but also feel that I can happily commit time and effort to improving as a player. And the inclusion of rollback is a welcome addition; the online's playable! It runs very well! Sys:Celes feels like a perfect end point to Under Night as a series, but I'm also ready to see in what ways it continues to grow with its DLC.

I might be a little hesitant to give my review so soon, especially in the current state of the PC release and its online lobbies, but I'm gonna hold out hope and say that it shouldn't be a problem for much longer.

Hot off the press of my Under Night 1 re-review, Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes has finally released. As I said there, I pre-ordered the game because I absolutely loved the first one, and had very high hopes for its sequel. To be playing it after the long months of waiting, yeah it's really good!

I sang all my praises of the first game, and that all still rings true in 2. Every character is unique and enjoyable, the current newcomers are all a blast (hell i'm even switching off of Hilda for Kaguya for now), and the game is just as quick and snappy as before. Among the new soundtrack, a new network menu theme, new character select music (which i'm willing to argue is better than the first game's), all that good noise, everybody has received remixes to their old battle themes. What else am I gonna say, they're all fantastic. Some more major than others, such as Hilda's, some simply got a bit of a remaster. Thankfully, we've managed to keep Canon in Initial D, and it's even better than ever. (i'm sorry this is like my favorite theme in the game, i cannot get over it lmao)

I don't have much else to say, it's a cleaner, newer, banger Under Night, bringing in some new additions to the roster and spicing up what we already had a nice amount. I'm glad the sequel lived up to my expectations, and I am definitely looking forward to spending a shit ton more hours in it.

im also looking forward to being able to play online but yknow when does anybody get a succesful release day, right?

I haven't played much yet but at least for now, I can say it's pretty much the same game as before. The 'II' in the title means almost nothing because this feels more like a new edition than a sequel. The old characters look pretty much the same. There are a few great new tracks in the soundtrack, but most are reused from previous games, with at most a new 30-second solo added to them. The new UI looks mostly great, but it's a bit more generic than the old one and i also can't tell much of a change gameplay-wise, but I'm only a casual in this franchise, so take this with a grain of salt.

It's a good game, and I will play it a lot, but it's a super safe move by the devs and what i'm seeing at the moment is way less than i expected a sequel to be. That's normal with niche games like UNIB though, so I'm not really upset. Games like that rarely get a huge sequel that changes everything like some of the big ones such as King of Fighters, Guilty Gear, or Street Fighter do. If the game is at a fair price where you live, I see no reason not to buy it to give it a try. However, in my country, the price is ridiculous for pretty much the same game as before. Might as well buy a more popular fighting game that will have active players for much longer than UNIB and have way more new content. Maybe this release goes well enough that one day they do an actual sequel. Always a possibility; we'll see how it goes with the sales after they fix the online.

this review will ignore the fact that the online doesn't work too well right now

the game is good however I'm not sure it's worth 50$ for rollback net code some characters and QOL
It's a fun game however I feel like there's something missing
I'll still probably put hundreds of hours in tho

I quite remember something Sun Tzu once said to me in coversation. It ran along the lines of "We are so back, my friend!"

Under Night 2 is a perfect game among the bounds of its own features and whims. I could not ask more from a sequel to an already fucking great game. I will, however, address the large network-based elephant in the room, and perhaps its release date was also a case. With a solid week of shady network and having each update being fifty-fifty on whether the matchmaking works or doesn’t work. It’s a weighted coin flip, really, and I wish it wasn’t because the times I was allowed to play in a room or in unranked, I enjoyed it a lot. The success of this game has been stunted, to my personal theory of mine, by the release of two much larger games within the same week, one even being a fighting game. However, I cannot deny the fact that Under Night as a franchise was already niche and therefore has a harder time breaking the market.

The gameplay is perfect, an art piece of its own caliber. It helps that this really is a sequel, an iteration of the previous with some changes given to individual fighters here and there. Perhaps it is my own bias, or more likely my lack of experience, but the new fighters feel like the toolkit is much stronger than the legacy cast from the previous game. All but personal thoughts at the end of things. The arcade mode is very straight forward, doesn’t do anything new within that regard, but still good. The movement is lovely, the flow of combos, based on buttons, is great, I feel like the command list is a bit cryptic, and I know this is a nit-pick but having the option to have the UI of the buttons to be the buttons on the controller someone uses still annoys me. The music has a few standout pieces but none that can ring back and forth in my head, making it memorable.

With wonderful art, great movement, hell, maybe the best movement in the fighting game market as of recent memory and interesting yet still doujin fighter-esque plot, I would recommend picking up this game. As a warning, if you play on steam, wait a few more updates to see if the online net play improves. If you are reading this in the future, as of the first day of February in 2024, then perhaps its fixed now, ill leave on a hopeful note.