Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin

I'm a huge fan of the original [i]Defender's Quest[/i], I liked the aesthetics and the story of the original game, I liked how much the difficulty ramps up (new game+ is easily twenty hours). Tower Defense has been one of my favorite genres ever since the golden age of Flash, which most of you whippersnappers weren't even alive for... But old man rambling aside, DQ2 is a huge step back from the first game. Every mission is easier (too easy!), you have a dramatically smaller supply of heroes (each of your towers in DQ is a character in the plot) so there's less tactical planning involved in each level, the plot is less interesting (I literally don't understand the setting at all, why are there giant crabs, what is a juice, why do we hate the murkdwellers), the dialogue is much worse, the art is bizarre. There are a lot of specific tiny nits to pick as well when comparing the two games. In DQ1, you could have up to 36 heroes, each with a different class which let them use different types of weapons (swords, bows, staves) or armor (light or heavy), so each time you reached a new store to buy equipment there were decisions to be made; in DQ2 you're given the choice every few levels to upgrade the damage stat of a single party member's gear by spending a resource which you get in huge amounts from each level (so there's never any reason to not make the upgrade). The level select map in DQ1 was full of little details, Mario-style, which gave you an idea of what the levels would look like; the map in DQ2 is a lot looser and more abstract, and every level has a similar tileset and an abstract maze layout. Upgrading a ranged tower in DQ1 increases its range; all ranges seem fixed in DQ2. Levels in DQ1 subtly changed at different difficulties, by adding or removing spawn zones, or spawning enemies that could travel over different terrain types, or shifting obstacles, all of which would require a change of strategy from the player; the levels in DQ2 are nearly indistinguishable from each other, and different difficulties don't seem to affect much beyond how much health the enemies have. Sometimes the ship you're supposed to be defending conceals the path so you can't tell that the enemies are sneaking around to the backdoor for a little rumpy pumpy. I could continue whining for a while but I'm sure you get the idea. DQ2 is a slow and repetitive tower defense game which probably isn't worth your time. As a standalone title it would be a bit blah and I probably wouldn't have bought it in the first place. As the sequel to a classic, it gets a big thumbs down.

It just feels so hollow compared to the first game. If 5/10 is a perfectly average game this is like a 4-4.5/10. If you are comparing it to the first game, it's a 2/10. Art style overall feels like a downgrade. Characters during text scenes and cut scenes overall look better than the first game, but "entities" and enemies look pretty awful and the maps feel very samey. Enemy diversity is low. Like 10-12 enemies, 2-3 minibosses and a handful of main bosses. I don't know if it's the storytelling, the art style, or the lack of diversity, but the enemies feel like such an after thought in the game. DQ2 has 32 weapons that you automatically acquire access to and will always have enough money for. DQ2 weapons only give you a tiny, bad feeling amount of +ATK. DQ1 had over 100 weapons WITH upgrades, some of which had unique passives and abilities that could completely change the way you build your characters. Build/talent diversity is pretty boring, especially when compared to the first game. No such thing as mastering and making bleed, burn or armor penetration compositions to 3-star maps, you have 12 characters with 5-skills that all have +DMG and 2-other talents that overall are not very interesting to play around with. I have hundreds of hours in to DQ1 from initial release through steam release. On an old hard drive somewhere I have a save file with 150+ hours and 208/208 hard mode stars with 100% of skull equipment unlocks. Couldn't find it so I started over on steam, got pretty close to the same level of completion for a second time. DQ2: Mists of Ruin feels like the beginning of something great that got completed a quarter of the way with passion, and then the last three quarters delegated and rushed through to deliver "something". It really feels like the devs gave up not even 1-2 years in, but because they did pre-orders sat on it for 10-years picking away at it until they could throw out anything to fulfill those pre-sales.

Huge disappointment with this game. Story is nonsensical. Characters are boring. Art is beyond unappealing. Character design is baffling. Optimization is bad. (game crashes) Gameplay is serviceable, but just cloning the first game. I literally lost one round because I could not see a specific path to my base because the big, clunky sprite that represents my base was obstructing the view of said path. How drunk was the design team?? This, honestly, feels like a cheap knock-off of Defender's Quest. How is this the same developer???

This was the long-awaited sequel to a beloved tower-defense classic... that was basically nothing like the original. First of all, the look changed a lot, especially for the characters in the cutscenes, and I would say it was for the worse. Sure they looked different and more diverse, but art style and design also made them somewhat ugly. In the game itself, the characters looked fine. The story had no link whatsoever to the previous game, not even the same world, but it was good, and I liked the idea of the two different rival crews. However, it did split the focus and probably hurt character attachment. There was also a lot of in-world lore with weird terms so points for originality despite the confusion, but the last part also became a bit too obtuse for my taste. They removed the ability to have more than one unit of the same type with customized colors and names. We were now limited to party members, so from two to three usually. That's very few "towers" to place on the map and much less strategic possibilities, which is a shame even though it made more sense story wise. However, the characters could be levelled up in different ways, outside the tower-defense action, and that was fine. Buying new equippable gear was pretty pointless as usually only one or two new things became available at a time, and you could usually afford to buy them right away. So no real choices there. Despite the restrictions compared to the previous game, I enjoyed the simpler gameplay, and it did require smarts, although it sometimes veered towards puzzle solving instead of proper tactics. The best parts were when there was a full complement of party members as then you had to decide who to deploy when and where, and which ones were the priority to upgrade. The enemies mostly had unconventional designs but were very bland and forgettable. If you can get past the art style and take it as its own stand-alone game and not as a worthy sequel, then you'll appreciate Defender's Quest 2 a lot more.

Sadly a pretty significant downgrade in almost every aspect of the game - compared to the first one.

Been aching for a good tower defense game and remember the first one was pretty okay. What a let down. Unlikeable cast across the board, horrid art style, the closest thing to a redeeming quality is they included a speed up option for gameplay all the way up to x8 that many tower defense games forget. That's not enough to recommend this.

avoid buying this - it´s not worth the money. If you played Defenders Quest 1 - you will be extremly disappointed. If you didn´t play Defenders Quest 1 - don´t buy this game either - you will just be heavy disappointed. There are other, better games like this out there.

It's kinda like playing a game that's just wearing DQ1 like a skin suit. Pretty uninspired, no side quests, no challenges, no secrets, no nothing. The biggest compliment I see for this game is the artwork, but I'll be honest, all the characters kinda look like ♥♥♥♥. sure the animations are pretty, but it's lost every ounce of unique DQ1 charm. Mention of DQ1, has literally nothing to do with the first game outside of... 5? dialogue boxes at the very end that suddenly reveals it all. Oh and the chracters dialogue and interactions also suck without feeling any real connection between them. I only picked the game up to have both games in my 100% list, but honestly it's just an unfortunate product that got deeply lost in it's 12 years of development. IF you're gonna play it, crank that exp gain up to 3x and save yourself hours of trail and error grinding.

Massive downgrade from DQ1 in every regard.

Rather boring, the world is linear, the shop seems kinda pointless since you buy everything and pretty much can afford it at once. It i have played quite a few levels and i really don't see a connection to the first game so i don't really get why it is named as it is.