I honestly went into the game expecting maybe minor changes at most from Resurrection while still following the general formula of the first game but I was more than surprised to come out with definitely one of my fave action games ever.
God Eater 2: Rage Burst is honestly one of the most perfect sequels ever with how much improvements it delivers in every aspect from the first game. The main story is a lot more dramatic, convincing, and thrilling this time around as well as the main cast who appear quite one-sided at first but develop into very interesting and lovable characters as you learn about their backgrounds and progress the story and they even made me genuinely like a character who I hated from the beginning. The side cast in the game is quite huge too with a couple of new characters and a lot of returning ones from the first game which gave me a huge sense of nostalgia despite starting the game only a week after finishing Resurrection. Despite the huge list of characters though, they do an excellent job of letting the player interact, learn about, and grow with each and every one of the side cast through Character Episodes which require a bit of grinding sometimes but are honestly some of the highlights of Rage Burst. Some of these include a womanizer who tries to convince you of the importance of women's legs, a very clumsy but eager bazooka-wielder, and even the branch's pet capybara who does nothing but sleep and eat all day and it's easy to get attached to everyone with how fleshed out they all are.
The overall combat system also gets a big improvement through the addition of several very interesting features. The addition of Blood Arts add a lot of depth and versatility to the once limited-feeling arsenal that make it feel very fresh and different from the first game in terms of melee combat. And on the other hand, we also got Blood Bullets which heavily encourages making use of all 4 diverse gun types and also incentivizes everyone to make their own bullets through the Bullet Editor, which admittedly I did not care for at all in Resurrection but soon found myself spending hours just messing around with creating a handful of funny and devastating bullets. And even after all these still comes one of the most fun power up systems I've ever seen in an action game, the Blood Rage mechanic. I honestly don't wanna get into detail about it since the excitement of activating Blood Rage in a battle is one of the most addicting stuff that will never stop feeling like the best thing ever even after your hundredth use and every player just has to experience it for themselves.
For every action game, I'll say the combat is just as good as the enemies to unleash all these on and Rage Burst is home of some of the best Aragami in the franchise. They've added a lot of really well-designed and fun to fight Aragami as well as some of the most difficult ones ever and it really just shows the improvements in their game design as the series progressed. Some of the ones worth mentioning are the Marduk, Chrome Gawain, and especially the Mukuro Kyuubi which are definitely the fights to look out for as they really showcase how good the Aragamis in Rage Burst are. Paired with some really nice new maps and especially an absolutely godlike soundtrack, it's very easy to just find yourself stuck on the very fun and rewarding combat loop which, funnily enough for an MH clone, actually has almost negative grinding for materials. The upgrade tree for weapons is very small which initially weirded me out but upon realizing how they pretty much did away with the MH stigma of "endless material grinding for upgrades" I found it very fun with the zero hassle it gives and just really lets players focus on progressing the story first and foremost.
Overall, Rage Burst is honestly just nothing short of being the perfect follow up to the first game and really solidified this franchise into being one of my all-time favorites. Took me 69 hours to finish the whole thing because it's chunkier than the first game even with all 3 arcs combined. I'd say skipping directly to Rage Burst is fine or maybe watch the anime as a substitute for the first game if you want some more context (it's a god tier adapt too). Looking forward to coming back to this after 3 and doing the endgame.
God Eater 2: Rage Burst is honestly one of the most perfect sequels ever with how much improvements it delivers in every aspect from the first game. The main story is a lot more dramatic, convincing, and thrilling this time around as well as the main cast who appear quite one-sided at first but develop into very interesting and lovable characters as you learn about their backgrounds and progress the story and they even made me genuinely like a character who I hated from the beginning. The side cast in the game is quite huge too with a couple of new characters and a lot of returning ones from the first game which gave me a huge sense of nostalgia despite starting the game only a week after finishing Resurrection. Despite the huge list of characters though, they do an excellent job of letting the player interact, learn about, and grow with each and every one of the side cast through Character Episodes which require a bit of grinding sometimes but are honestly some of the highlights of Rage Burst. Some of these include a womanizer who tries to convince you of the importance of women's legs, a very clumsy but eager bazooka-wielder, and even the branch's pet capybara who does nothing but sleep and eat all day and it's easy to get attached to everyone with how fleshed out they all are.
The overall combat system also gets a big improvement through the addition of several very interesting features. The addition of Blood Arts add a lot of depth and versatility to the once limited-feeling arsenal that make it feel very fresh and different from the first game in terms of melee combat. And on the other hand, we also got Blood Bullets which heavily encourages making use of all 4 diverse gun types and also incentivizes everyone to make their own bullets through the Bullet Editor, which admittedly I did not care for at all in Resurrection but soon found myself spending hours just messing around with creating a handful of funny and devastating bullets. And even after all these still comes one of the most fun power up systems I've ever seen in an action game, the Blood Rage mechanic. I honestly don't wanna get into detail about it since the excitement of activating Blood Rage in a battle is one of the most addicting stuff that will never stop feeling like the best thing ever even after your hundredth use and every player just has to experience it for themselves.
For every action game, I'll say the combat is just as good as the enemies to unleash all these on and Rage Burst is home of some of the best Aragami in the franchise. They've added a lot of really well-designed and fun to fight Aragami as well as some of the most difficult ones ever and it really just shows the improvements in their game design as the series progressed. Some of the ones worth mentioning are the Marduk, Chrome Gawain, and especially the Mukuro Kyuubi which are definitely the fights to look out for as they really showcase how good the Aragamis in Rage Burst are. Paired with some really nice new maps and especially an absolutely godlike soundtrack, it's very easy to just find yourself stuck on the very fun and rewarding combat loop which, funnily enough for an MH clone, actually has almost negative grinding for materials. The upgrade tree for weapons is very small which initially weirded me out but upon realizing how they pretty much did away with the MH stigma of "endless material grinding for upgrades" I found it very fun with the zero hassle it gives and just really lets players focus on progressing the story first and foremost.
Overall, Rage Burst is honestly just nothing short of being the perfect follow up to the first game and really solidified this franchise into being one of my all-time favorites. Took me 69 hours to finish the whole thing because it's chunkier than the first game even with all 3 arcs combined. I'd say skipping directly to Rage Burst is fine or maybe watch the anime as a substitute for the first game if you want some more context (it's a god tier adapt too). Looking forward to coming back to this after 3 and doing the endgame.