The Surge 2

I would give it a 5/10, based on recent experience. It's got the pieces of a good soulslike, namely: 1. Combat is relatively fun, active directional parries feel like a really powerful reward for "fighting correctly" 2. The weapon variety is small enough to be manageable, while being interesting, although the attack "combinations" (alternating attacks, etc) don't feel quite as predictable or good as other souls games 3. The gear upgrade system is simple but sensical, although the set bonuses are quite boring 4. The "rings"/powerups are somewhat interesting (more slots at higher levels) However I really feel like the world / navigation brings it way, way down. There's something to be said for having a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of shortcuts scattered throughout, and relatively frequent exposure to new, undiscovered spots; that's a plus. But the map layout, the absolutely abysmal direction despite having lots of interactible NPCs feels really low quality. Dark souls is confusing because the world is empty. This world is full, and yet still confusing. The characters/quests are entirely forgettable, too. The worst feeling is that there are 2 types of "shortcuts" that are EVERYWHERE (ziplines/door overloads), but there is absolutely no indication of where to get the items that let you use them. I've explored so many different areas and opened a ton of shortcuts, and I still have no idea how close or far I am from being able to use the other 50% of shortcuts I'm forced to walk by. It just feels bad. The sense of story progression is essentially nonexistent, as there are different "stories" in different areas that you can seemingly progress without a clear indication of which should be prioritized/are more important. Specifically, I want to be guided towards stories/areas that will unlock more of the damn game (ziplines/overloads), but no such luck; you're stuck wandering around looking for new stuff. The benefits of the game exist in other, better games, so I wouldn't recommend getting this one in particular unless it's crazy on sale and you're curious. By the way, disable steam overlay, or you'll have regular crashes after ~10 minutes of playtime.

I can not in good conscience recommend The game in it's current state, the game consistently crashes every 2-2½ hours, always the same 'Vulkan' issue, I have tried EVERYTHING I could think of and still it keeps crashing. Other than that, when the game is not crashing then it is a decent enough product, not as fast as it's predecessor, (with that I mean that the main character moves much slower than warren did during regular traversal, such as jogging, sprinting and even out-of-combat dodging, all of that feels much slower than in the prior game), the UI has been smoothed out a decent bit, and now we start the game with a healing item that feels like it wants to be used rather than saved for emergencies only. The weapons have gotten quite the facelift, same for armor passives (vulture and chrysalis sets FTW) which now feel like they actually matter instead of being niche and not as important as the individual armor piece's defense and stability stats like in the first game. On the topic of weapons, I really like the new status effects like nano and electric, fire seems a bit underpowered and I have not yet found anything with toxic on it, nano is akin to how bleed works in the dark souls series, upon triggering it the enemy will take a chunk of raw damage while electric will stun the enemy for a moment, either letting you wail on them or letting you take a breath and do something else. The new drone is kinda weird to me, I have all the DLC and I LOATHE the spray paint on it, it completely ruins the vibes, the drone weapons are nice and the one you get at the start holds up very well, I personally use it to weaken specific parts of enemies or when I know the next nano 'proc' would otherwise kill them so I can still yoink their parts (if you know, you know). I am a bit iffy on the new bosses and their weapon drops, some are straightforward while others would not normally be found out unless by sheer accident, happened to me during my fight with the delver, got the V2 version of it's weapon drop without knowing why, then I looked it up and found out that I fulfilled the requirements for it by SHEER ACCIDENT, some of the boss weapons feel like they should be other classes than what they are, I guess that comes with the new extra weapon classes though. Character progression and improvement has been streamlined and generally made better, no longer are you bound by the implants you find in the world to get that extra bit of HP or stamina, now it's all tied to a more traditional level up system with each level giving you 2 points to put into either health, stamina or energy, health is self explanatory, same for stamina, but energy, energy has gotten the good stuff, now your main healing (and other injectibles) scale in strength with your energy stat, this means that a HP restore implant you found at the start of the game will still be viable in the mid-game or even late game. Now for the (arguably) most important part of the game, CRAFTING and UPGRADES, it has been made easier and more awkward at the same time, awkward in that you can no longer just build a pice of armor at level 6 and easier in the way that higher tier parts can be de-levelled to be used for lower tier upgrades, it feels stupid but at least it works, even if it is tedious to go and get an excess of parts just so you can de-level them in order to use them. All in all, the surge 2 is a buggy and unstable mess, it has a certain charm to it, but that might just be me since I liked the first game, don't buy the game unless you like having you patience tested. I hope the devs go bald.

The first Surge game was somehow a hidden gem — unpolished and rough around the edges, but at the same time quite fun and engaging experience. I liked that game, despite its inequities, especially when we taking into consideration, that Deck13 overcome impossible and be able to crawl out from the steaming heap of garbage called Lords of the Fallen (and yes, I am going to ♥♥♥♥ on this game every time I have opportunity, because it pleases me). From the second game I expected the golden standard of sequels — trim the bad ideas, expand on good. Did developers deliver? Well, not exactly. It’s more like two steps forward, two steps back — some things are clearly more polished and refined, but at the same time, this game still cannot reach full potential and be an exceptional, genuinely memorable experience. Before anything, quick notice — I assume you played the first game, so I will not talk about basic mechanics and specific nuances. If you didn’t, what are you waiting for, boy? Go, buy the game, you can thank me later. So, what changed? The game is much, much more polished in the mechanics department. First of all, character development is more refined and the entire philosophy behind how implants function is better thought out. You still have core power that you increase with spending tech scraps, but stacking up health or stamina implants to raise numbers is gone. Now each implant has only one copy through the entire game, and HP/stamina/energy ones are non-existent. How do you raise those stats then? The Surge 2 pivots towards more traditional attributes progression — when you level up your core power, you get two points that you can use to enhance mentioned above stats. I think it is a good solution, because in the first game you can create this unstoppable, hulk like beast that had so much hit point that was basically unkillable. The balance was off and mechanics were easy to abuse. On the other hand, this makes character progression more generic and less unique. We've seen something like this in plenty of other games. Other implants were also reworked. Now you have only 12 slots, you cannot raise this number until NG+, that gives you 4 additional more. Same like in the previous game, you still need to level up core power to unlock slots, and certain core power is required to equip them (as well as pieces of armor). But now you don’t have this idea of “pick up this specific implant to have an easier game”. No easy win button for you. Everything is more balanced. Some implants are for utility purposes — the one responsible for displaying enemies health bars is back, unfortunately — like allowing for quicker energy acquisition, raising your protection against elements, enhancing your poise, yada, yada. A big chunk of them also works when your batteries are full — more about it later. What is more important — core power required is tune up and better thought out towards balancing all this mess. Don’t expect to run around in heaviest armor and having all your implant’s slots filled, well at least not regular playthrough, more like in NG+ if you really want to waste time grinding. Now, energy and healing — I am going to lump them together, because they are connected tightly. First of all, regular, “estus-like” healing is completely gone. No more healing implants. Devs probably looked closely at how people played the first game and noticed that the majority of them used energy-to-health converter implant all the time. So, now this is the main way of healing — you attack the enemy, build up energy (now separated into max 5 batteries), you use it to heal. But now you can store your healing doses to prevent energy degradation to take it away. The healing implant can also be upgraded, so it can heal more and have more doses stored — and this applies to all implants that you need to activate, the passive one cannot be made stronger. Some implants are also built around how much energy you have stored. For example, if you have 3 or more batteries you gain a bigger chance to stagger enemies. Some implants prevent energy degradation, so you can have even more healing doses. Energy is also of course still used for cutting off enemies' limbs. Time for bread and butter — combat. Unfortunately queuing input is still here, as well as lack of ability to cancel animation, so you are punished hard for being too aggressive. The biggest glow up experienced parrying. In the first game it was more like an afterthought rather than a real mechanic. Just raise your weapon to block attack, wasting stamina instead HP. In Surge 2 parrying and riposte is a real thing that can dramatically change your approach to encounter. Now we have directional parrying. Not only do you need a hold button to defend yourself, now you need to match the direction from where the attack is coming using the right stick. If you don't do this correctly, you will get smacked to the face with full force. Timing parry just before getting hit allows you to stun enemies and riposte their attack. But here is the thing — you need an implant to see the attack's directions. And the visual indicators are misleading and clogging your view. Don’t rely on them when timing parries, they will not help, use the old school method of carefully watching enemies' weapons descend upon you. Plus in some cases — like when fighting with bosses — you need to parry enemies a few times before you stun them and be able to use riposte. Encounters still rely mostly on targeting enemies specific limbs, just like in Surge 1. And again you want upgrade materials, gear and weapon — well, you need to target armored body parts. Wait, you want to dispatch them quickly? Then focus on exposed limbs and, especially, the head. In other good news — the proficiency system is completely gone, which is a good thing. It was forcing players to lock in into one type of weapon and punish them for experimentation, lowering weapons damage, making combat more stale and repetitive. Now it's gone, replaced by nothing. If you want more damage, the only way to do this is by upgrading weapons. Hunting for materials is also made easier — now enemies have a level of resources indicator close to the health bar. You need to find tier 2 arms materials? Attack level 2 enemy. Unfortunately that neat feature from the first game, where you can skip lower tiers by using higher ones is also gone — now you need from level 1 to level 2, 3, 4, etc, up to level 10. Thankfully you can easily break down higher components to lower ones, with ratio 1:2 — for every one higher level component destroyed, you will get 2 pieces of lower one. That speeds up the entire process and skips unnecessary grinding, which is always a good thing, because who the hell wants to waste some precious time on mindless chores. Next, let’s talk about level design. In Surge 1 progression through levels was impeccable, with all those neat shortcuts you could unlock, built around the one checkpoint sitting in the middle, but the level design itself was meh, due to a more grounded approach to the topic. In the second game we are no longer confined to just one factory separated into different departaments, but still keeping a more or less monolithic design patter — now we have the entire city of Jericho to explore with different districts and therefore, with more diverse looks. We have downtown that looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario, Port Nixon, turned into a shantytown packed to the brim with nasty zealots, Gideon’s Rock, a green area with a lot of vegetation, and an AID command looking like a military outpost. Exploration is more interesting this time, albeit I do not like how the game handles progression through story. Because it recycles levels. <rest of the review in comment section>

Nice garbage, stuck in tutorial because can't hit/aim boss at head to dmg.

I really wanted to like this game. I gave it multiple chances, kept telling myself "it'll click eventually." It never did. It has this weird ability to make everything feel like a chore. Even when something interesting was happening, it somehow felt... flat. The combat is decent but the level design is boring, but I can see why some people enjoy it... for me it was just painfully boring. I lost the battle long before I lost my scrap.

First half is more enjoyable than the second, interesting mechanics but poor execution, and you should read and listen to everything to know where you should go i prefer intuition over wasting my time , mapping is not that good But the combat really satisfies you If it's on sale get it 6/10

В целом слегка доработанная первая часть, чутка изменили боевку, управление. Продолжение первой части. Мне в целом понравилась....И да..ну как же без этого этож соулслайк

Bastante bueno el juego, me lo platine en menos de 2 semanas, lo recomiendo si quieres probar algo nuevo de los souls like, dejaron un final abierto para un 3 juego pero hasta aqui se quedo la saga lamentablemente