Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin

[b]Great art. Memorable characters. Fun story. Fun game. Totally worth buying for an enjoyable ~15 hour journey.[/b] I am a huge fan of the original Defender's Quest. I have logged more than 200 hours into that game and unlocked 198 of 201 gold stars in NewGame+, playing with only one of each character class. Defender's Quest 2 is also good. The art is gorgeous. I really love the character designs. The music is fantastic. I bought the soundtrack. The characters are unique, interesting, and memorable. I love having a cyberpunk shooter. Cordellia is hilarious. Each of the characters felt distinct and there are many memorable lines. The writing was surprisingly touching. I laughed a lot. I also cried! It is very skillfully done. It really feels like a worthwhile, spiritual successor very much in the alignment and style of the first game. I imagine that's not easy to do, but it was well done. [h2]Character details[/h2] Mechanically several of the new character abilities felt good. [spoiler]Ketter's[/spoiler] ability to teleport between two squares that you choose is a really cool mechanic, and gives you lots of opportunity to think and plan. Having [spoiler]Ultimate[/spoiler] take up a forced 2x2 four squares of space and being forced to start at Boost level 2 felt unique and solid. It really drives home the fact that they are a beefy character that hits hard. That mechanic would have worked very well for the Dragon in Defender's Quest 1 and it made them an interesting character to play. Having fewer, limited spots to put them down on the map also forces some interesting tactical choices. Having the shooter with a double damage zone is a nice strategy puzzle. [spoiler]Hyde's[/spoiler] character of summoning orbs in advance is a neat mechanic also. It seems like it might reward you if you can place them well to queue up attacks in advance and have time to prepare between waves. And being able to visually see their stored up attacks orbiting on top of the map felt good. I especially liked their 'ball and chain' attack. Having a cleric that also summons 'clouds of death' and spews deadly wasps all over the map is fun and hilarious. Both [spoiler]Devi[/spoiler] the poison debuff character and [spoiler]Roland[/spoiler] the pushing-back tank tower felt fun to play, solid, and unique. Having large boss characters with visually large health bars feels neat. It makes them stand out and feel powerful. Having [spoiler]Ultimate[/spoiler] punch down a boss was a satisfying feeling. And having a boss monster that can toss tiny, fast enemies overtop of a wall into another lane that is far behind my main defense definitely tripped me up a few times and forced me to scramble and change my strategy. [h2]Conclusions[/h2] Does it have as much content and replayability as the first game? No. Is it still fun, high quality, and many hours of entertainment? Yes. It's a wonderful read, and fun to play. [h3]Things Better than DQ1[/h3] * I LOVE being able to just set 3x rewards and set failure rewards to -0% penalty and then save myself time in real life. Thank you for speeding this up. * I LOOOVE the watery wave graphics effect on underwater tiles. beautiful. [h3]Things Worse than DQ1[/h3] * Too many types of Towers/characters. 8 total characters would have been fine. At the end of the game I always forgot to summon the minor 'parasite' and 'shooting robot' because I have so many characters to deal with. I actually beat several game levels without using either of them. * The cleric should both heal and assist inside her 9 square targeting area, not just inside the smaller, inner space. It was much easier in DQ1 to see what the healer was targeting. * Armor and weapon upgrades seem random. When and why do they happen? In DQ1 you earn upgrades for beating a level with a perfect score on the hardest difficulty, which felt like a nice reward. Here they just seem to be handed out at a set rate. * I don't like the free-hand targeting design of the ice circle attack. I want to see exactly how many squares it will hit * The fireball visual effect that goes up makes it difficult to see what is going on * In DQ1 different characters shared weapon and armor types, so it was more of a tactical decision choosing who could wear each best piece of gear. In this game everyone has their own armor, so it doesn't really matter. The DQ1 design feels better. * The final boss mechanic is not as good as DQ1. In DQ1 it was clear: boost Azra to unlock the next boss hp bar. You could strategize when to do it. The mechanic for this final boss was not as clear. [b]Overall: a good game.[/b] Glad I purchased it. Very fun to play.

Strong dialogue, solid gameplay, interesting character design, phenomenal music. As tower defenses go, this one is worthwhile. It's got a lot of heart.

I'm trying very hard to like this game, but I need a break lol. The visual design of this game is incredibly overstimulating. It's a project that clearly struggled to persevere through some very personal mists of ruin, and I think the team should be proud that they managed to complete it in spite of the person who perhaps used to be the wheels and engine of the entire production having to put it on the backburner in the wake of tragedy. It's a beautiful story that they still managed to put the game out, finally, after struggling to get it done for so long. The main hurdles to me liking it, are the art and the jarring nature of leveling units up and skilling them carefully, only to be able to use none of them shortly thereafter, getting a completely different roster. This could be temporary. Maybe the gang gets together towards the end, I'm only an hour into gameplay. If not, that is a total bummer. It would be more fun to collect all of the little guys and having to strategically figure out which ones to put where, you know? Even if it IS temporary, I feel like this is kind of a flaw and dampener to how I like to play these sort of games. On the art. Look. Not everything needs to be beautiful. The character design is pretty good overall. The units have a lot of personality. But there is something about the muddy, ruddy, inconsistent color scheme and the sharp color contrasts of equal intensity, sometimes across the board and combined with a lot of detail, that makes the game hard to look at. When every artistic choice is a very bold one, none of them are. But I would of course die for the cannon turtle tank. I recommend giving it a go, but you will be disappointed if you expect a game that feels similar to DQ1. This is at best a distant cousin.

J'ai beaucoup joué à Defender's Quest premier du nom quand il est sorti, alors je n'ai pas hésité à acheter le 2 (même si j'ai pris un moment à jouer). Nouvel univers, nouvelle histoire, nouvelle patte graphique qui ne conviendra pas à tous (mais je m'y suis attaché avec le temps). Bon petit jeu de défense de tour (mais avec des héros) assez solide, l'histoire est correcte, les personnages sont sympas et grandissent au fil de l'histoire. Le jeu respecte votre temps : il vous apprend à jouer au début, puis à utiliser les différents personnages, mais il n'y a pas de tableaux répétitifs, et ils ont tous leur petit défi. J'ai pris moins de 20 heures pour tout finir, je savais jouer, ça aide, mais j'ai aimé le temps passé sur le jeu et j'avais envie de le finir. Le gameplay est bien peaufiné, et comme dans tout jeu du genre, c'est important de bien positionner ses personnages (qui prennent le rôle de tours). Il faut parfois repositionner et revoir sa stratégie en cours de mission, et on peut choisir des paramètres pour affiner le ciblage de chaque héros. Ils gagnent des points pour améliorer leurs attaques par l'entremise de quatre bonus, différents pour chaque compétence. Il n'est pas nécessaire d'optimiser pour finir le jeu, mais pour faire la difficulté avancée de chaque tableau, il faudra savoir ce que vous faites. En somme, je recommande si vous cherchez un jeu de défense de tours qui ne vous noiera pas sous les tours (ici, 12 personnages en tout), qui a de la personnalité et qui respecte votre temps (tableaux et défis variés, bonne durée). Les personnages sont aussi un plus, on les voit évoluer au fil de l'aventure, et ils ont de la personnalité.

Just finished this earlier - Ignore the playtime, steamdeck doesn't properly track it. To anyone reading the other reviews here, yes, there are valid criticisms. The story doesn't hook quite like DQ1 did. There are less equipment options, more of a straight train of upgrades. There aren't any sidequests - the progression is a straight line through the stages and the story. The art isn't quite as charming as the first entry. And yet... The gameplay is still top-notch if you love TD - if you're playing on normal difficulty, there are stages you almost certainly won't get through without retrying a few times, tweaking your talent builds and changing up your layouts. The characters are fun in their own ways (except the last four, the parasites, felt a bit placeholder-y) and have their various niches, and combine really well with some others. The story is....good, honestly. It's not deeply fleshed out with detail at points, but the dialogue between characters is fun, and sweet, and sad, and uplifting. The game is a work of dedication, and love and sacrifice, and it shows. If you're wanting a step up from the first, maybe manage your expectations a bit, but overall this was a fun game for me, easy to recommend it.

good game. good story. what a twist

Sadly, not just a bad TD game, a bad game overall.