Recent reviews by Gwhen Heive

I've never left any leftovers before, after this story, i'd eat the plate as well. Don't waste food.

Great game for those who likes the Stalker horror genre, Especially for the price. I've managed to complete the main story in about 3 hours (If you're familiar with the genre, probably less)
*TL:DR At the bottom.

The game can be quite challenging, especially as you progress through the story. From modified maps, slippery floor, to straight up being chased by 2 entities at once. And one of those "entities" can disable the hiding spots.

But luckily, the game does offer the players some help by offering you the "Vampire Compass". Which will tell you Velina's general direction. While it does reduce my anxiety, I still get caught numerous time nonetheless. (Maybe i'm just really bad at this sorta game)

While the story mode is short, The bonus content is quite enormous. Once you've completed Hard Mode, you have access to "Velina's Room", where you can buy her costumes, and furnitures for her to interact with.

You need gems to purchase these things, and to get them, you need to go through a special stage where you collect these gems instead. The stages are the exact same from the one thats used in the story mode, with the exception that you can modify the entire experience (Need gems to purchase these modifiers though).

From giving Velina a "Full moon" buff (Makes her a lot more aggressive and changes the caught animation) to settings that changes the gameplay (Such as temporary invisibility potion, Darker maps, Vampire Compass, Raising the humidity???, and more)

The more buffs you give to Velina, and Handicaps you give to yourself, The more gems you get.

-TL:DR-
You can definitely spend 10+ hours on the game if you're aiming for a 100% Completion. For the price? I think its definitely worth it!

A great game to play when you're bored. It can be scary at times, even though you're literally being chased by a sexy zombie nurse.

The game can be completed at around 5 hours. But, there's a lot of extra content to unlock, 100%-ing could easily took more than 10+ hours.

Not to mention the Survival mode, which could add even more hours into the game. And it's also very fun!

One of my most recommended titles by Etirue!

Surprisingly wholesome game. Can be cleared around 5 hours (3 hours if you're very experienced in horror games).

I like the mechanic where both the player and Freya get more abilities as the days passed by. From players being able to cast a timeout on Freya to Freya being able to go beserk where chases the player nonstop. It's quite exciting to unlock new abilities.

Unlockable costumes is available for players who want to go for 100% completion.

Assisted mode or "Stress free mode" is provided for those who are not familiar with the genre (Such as me) where you can always see Freya's location. Basically a map hack. (I still lost somehow)

There's also ranked mode where you speedrun through randomized parameters and objectives. (Your clear time will be displayed in a leaderboard) which can add more hours to the game. Pretty good game.

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.

[TL:DR At the bottom]

-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.

---

-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.

-

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.

[TL:DR]
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.

The game continues straight from where the first one left off.
Its like some kind of an epilogue given how short it is (Finished it in just about 2.5 hours with the patch)

The patch isn't mandatory to enjoy the story since all it gives is the H-scene which happen after the ending anyway
and didn't contribute anything to the story.

The pair is the same as before with the exception that Akuru's hobby is more pronounced here as compared to the first installment. She kept on being a fanatic to her "Husbando" to the point its questionable whether she's actually committed to her current relationship or not. While its clear that they do this for the "Comedy" in which they kept using from the beginning to the end of the story, It gets old pretty fast and to a certain degree annoying...
(Akuru here is basically a watered down Makoto from School Days, who simply has commitment issues)

Given how short the VN is, its hard to recommend. Like i said before, i finished the game in about 2.5 hours. The patch only adds like extra 20 minutes to the game, that is if you only read it once
(Be honest, you will revisit the scene several times >,>)

I would want to give this game a neutral review, but i can't. The art and voice acting makes me want to give it a thumbs up, but know that i personally rate it a 5/10

Good!

Definitely a great game for those who loves souls-like games

Its good.

A short but fun game. Very reminiscent of a game called "The Sniper" on PS2. The character spirtes are very cute too.