Death end re;Quest 2

Great game, not quite as good as the first but still a lot of fun. The VN style cutscenes' story is good and artwork is fantastic. The dungeon crawling gameplay is okay, difficulty is a bit all over the place but you can adjust it in the settings if you need to. I'm looking forward to the 3rd entry in the series!
The game is Verified for Steam Deck but runs poorly on Linux out of the box. I'm playing on Debian 12 with Flatpak Steam. The cutscenes are fine but the 3D dungeons have a lot of stuttering. Add this to your launch options to fix:
WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=1 PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%
I used Proton Experimental. You can also install "unclutter-xfixes" and run "unclutter" in a terminal before you start the game to get rid of the mouse cursor in the middle of the screen in battles. This is an issue on Windows too. And to fix the lack of vsync, you can turn on TearFree with "xrandr --output $OUTPUT --set TearFree on" where $OUTPUT is your video card's output. You can find it by running "xrandr" and looking for its name. Mine for example is "HDMI-A-0"

After playing and beating it twice I can say the base game story isn't as good until you play the game for a second round, but most people won't do that so they miss the ng+ new stuff that I would heavily recommend you play Death End re;quest 1 before doing ng+ as you will be spoiled on certain things if you don't.
Rating before ng+ 5/10, after ng+ 8/10 for the story hook-in with death end 1 elaborating on some things which were left unanswered in both death end 1 and the end of death end 2.

Another gem I found when I was playing on PS4, though I never did fully finish the game over there. I picked up it up during the Summer sale and put a full day into the game already. Definitely a lot of fun and easy to pickup if you want a simple rpg game to relax to. Auto-battling is a thing, so that's many points given from me personally. Makes playing this game and watching a movie right at the same time very easy to do, so yeah.. I'd recommend this game for sure. 10/10.

Hello, In this review i will try to explain my theory about the game story, and my speculation regarding the general reason as to why this game is not well received by the player base
(Overall review is "Mixed" as of the time im writing this review with some of the reasons being confusing story, general lack of engaging plotline, bad optimization, and the seemingly lack of connection to the first game)
This will be a pretty long essay so, i hope you're okay with reading long blocks of text. But don't worry! i'll put a TL:DR and i hope you'll forgive any grammatical error and such since i will inevitably make some.
-First impression review- (Written 3 hours into the game)
Since everyone is talking about the performance already, im going to talk about the story instead.
Like the first installation of the series, the story is great. The atmosphere, the tension, the thriller, the setting, the mystery, are all woven together beautifully.
It managed to keep me glued to my screen throughout the whole intro, with the creepy atmosphere and the seemingly haunted town.
Im still in the very beginning of the game but i can tell that im probably going to enjoy this game very much.
If i have to point out the negative though, is that the English dub isnt complete. Some scenes are dubbed while some are dont, even though it is fully voiced in Japanese. But luckily you can change the voice language at any point of the game so, i'll just use the Jp voice for any scenes that the En dub didnt cover.
Oh and, Most of the reviews seem to complain about the games performance, but as far as my experience goes, it runs very well. It stayed at a stable 60fps throughout the exploration part of the game. Not to mention im using a very outdated system (Xeon X3450 with RX 570) and im playing at 1080p. So if my rig can run it smoothly, i dont really get why people would say they had a rough time running the game. Probably an old review of the game when it was still problematic. But as for me, i'll say its very well optimized.
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-Post game review- (After achieving "Bad" and "True" end. 1 hours into the NG+)
Here, i shall try to explain my reasoning as to why people doesn't like this sequel as much as its predecessor
! SPOILERS AHEAD !
Okay, so after finishing the game once, i can see why people seems to be not too interested with the story of this game.
You see, there's a lot of unanswered question in the ending(s) of the first game, and a lot of people expecting the sequel to answer those questions like who is Lydia actually?, what happened after the world fused together? Why is Shina a Luden now? And general "WTF Is going on!?" with the ending.
And with people expecting the sequel to answer those myriads of questions (Because honestly the ending for DERQ1 gives off more question than answers) but after playing DERQ 2 people find out that this game has so little to nothing to do with the first DERQ.
And the big change for the games theme might also be a factor.
DERQ1's conflicts revolves around Cyber Terrorism, Conscious AI, and general future tech stuff.
Whilst DERQ2's conflict is about Religious cult kidnapping childrens. And the place that the story takes place on has no technology at all (Takes place roughly on 1980s rural Europe)
In fact, i think DERQ2 has more in common with Resident Evil 4 than DERQ1.
Religious cult, Kidnapping, Strange 'lil village in the middle of nowhere in Europe, and an Agent from abroad coming to investigate about the strange happenings (Arata's reason for coming to Le Choara)
El Strain? More like El Illuminados >,>
Like what are they trying to do here? Make a brand new story with the only common thing of the series being violent deaths? (Well i think that would be a pretty cool idea.)
Its as if its a standalone story. Not having anything to do with the first game at all! Although they do explain some of the things that going on in DERQ1 in the NG+, but i really doubt people would want to play the game twice just to make a connection with the first one. Keep in mind, finishing this game takes roughly 20 hours, and just to see the connection to the first game would require you to replay through the game again. Which i understand why some people might not like the idea.
Granted that after you've beat the game once, you will be rewarded with an alternate opening featuring Lydia and the rest of the gang from DERQ 1.
Its as if the NG+ is DERQ 2 v.2.0
But this too feels like a scrapped project that they just recycle, because they probably initially planned DERQ 2 to be about Lydia, but maybe some creative clash happen in the discussion room or something, so they just go with a brand new story, But at the same time they don't think that the new cast could carry on the series so they make some lame excuse so the OG cast can have an appearance in this installment.
And in the process makes the appearance of the DERQ1 characters seems unreasonable to the point it might be better just not include them in the first place. Shina's and Arata's role could easily be played by an entirely new character. Since most of the dorm mates are just... Existing
Anyway, in the NG+ you'll get some tid bits of info that people actually want for the sequel. They actually explain stuff about Lydia's back story (And probably more. I haven't finished NG+ yet, but i expect more info about what happened in DERQ 1 to be explained in NG+)
But honestly, i wonder why they put these new scenes on the NG+ instead on NG. Because these extra stories don't really change anything about the base story. It feels as if they're putting these extra scenes as an excuse so theres something new in NG+ instead of expanding upon the ending.
Had they just add these scenes in NG, i believe players that are seeking answers for DERQ 1 would be far more willing to play the game.
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Now that i've explained my theory regarding peoples "Less than warm" reception towards the game, Now i shall point out the difference and the improvements they make...
There's a lot less Death Ends here (Only 6) but those Ends feels more terrifying than DERQ1.
Instead of just reading about the characters death which some honestly feels rather forced in DERQ1
Here those 6 Ends feels much more natural. And whilst theres only 6 Ends for the playable character, Your choices still dictates the fate of your friends. Some choices you make will result in your Dorm mates death thus locking you out of their interaction in the subsequent days.
Now then, lets talk about the new gameplay.
They removed Arata's Hacking skills like changing the games genre and summoning bosses.
Though this change makes sense since there's no tech wizard to modify the game.
Although they have Iris. She can make those modifications with some excuse since Mai can unexplainably summon the characters from DERQ1 anyway. I don't see why Iris couldn't "Hack" the battle arena at all, since she seems to be aware of whats happening even when Mai isn't actively fiddling with the laptop.
I think Iris is quite a wasted character here. Only there as a convenience rather as a plot device.
If you like the story of the first game, This isn't for you
If you want answers for the first game, Play the NG+
If you like the battle system for the first game, This one is simplified
I think they're trying to tie every mystery this series had in the finale, where players would be like "Ooh so thats what happened". That's why there's seems to be quite an abundance of "Unanswered mysteries" in the series, such as how did Mai summon the DERQ1 characters? Why is there's a field bugs? Doesn't this take place on reality? Why is there's even corruption and glitch mode?
I can honestly understand people's frustration with the game. By the time im writing this review, They already confirmed a spin off and the next numbered entry. I guess all that's left to do is to wait and see what happens next... Anyway thanks for reading.

A mix of horror, visual novel and JRPG. Go to a mysterious town reminiscent of Silent Hill and help Mai find her missing sister.
Gameplay:
Mai had a difficult childhood. She grew up without a mother, and her father was despot and alcoholic. One day Mai kills her father in self-defense.
The orphaned girl goes to the orphanage where her sister was previously raised. Her sister recently disappeared, and Mai wants to find her.
In the role of Mai, you will have to unravel the secrets of a mysterious town and orphanage.
During the day you will communicate with local residents in the style of a visual novel, and at night you will explore 3D locations in real time and fight demons in turn-based battles in the JRPG style.
+ Intriguing plot.
+ Gloomy atmosphere.
+ Murder and blood.
+ Beautiful, animated sprites and 3D models.
+ Excellent English and Japanese voice acting.
+ Loot, equipment, various skills.
+ Battles and exploration of locations with a third-person view.
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5 minutes of game

Damn this game is dark as hell. I really liked it and will play it again on new game plus. Do not play this game around kiddos. With the art it may look cute, but very adult themed and dark.

A vast improvement over the first game in almost all aspects and it gives me hope for the next game.