UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes

Im ill

Would highly recommend if you like anime fighters.

ok

Love this game. I wish I could make out with this game because of how much I love it.

Warning that this review might be rambly and disconnected, I'm just spewing directly from my mind onto the page here. Despite only having played 50 hours of the first game mostly in training mode/on netplay with college wi-fi in 2018/19, I guess something about it had stuck with me for the years after that. I didn't initially buy UNI2 on launch due to hearing about the PC launch issues, but I caved in summer 2024 (literally right before it went on a -50% sale for the first of many times since) and now I have like ~350 hours in this game. I'm saying this as someone who's only real fighting game experience wass casually playing Smash Bros. (lol) as well as very lightly dabbling in other traditional fighters (aka I don't have a very good concrete point of reference to make comparisons to UNI2); at the time of writing this is the only fighting game I've deeply invested time into. I feel like once you understand the very basics and then get like 1 or 2 combos in your head, you can start to go to town with this game. And then once you start trying to make full use of system mechanics (like the GRD system and Chain Shifting), you can ride off into the sunset. I don't know if it's because this is the first 2D fighter I put serious time into, but along the way something clicked in my mind and slowly picking things up has been fun. It feels like I can slowly learn how to play patient and be rewarded for it while also occasionally rolling my face across my controller if I wanna get greedy. I will concede that I've gotten mad playing this game sometimes, but I still come back to it, usually with a cleared mind; I feel like a game being able to grip you like that and keep you coming back despite frustrations has some merits to it. Maybe if I play another fighting game and get deeply invested into it too, I'll have these same thoughts about it if/when something clicks in that game too. Also, might be worth noting I've been playing this game on a leverless controller (my previous casual dabbling in other 2D fighters had me using my keyboard, so I'd say the jump to leverless was relatively smooth). Even though I wanna say I still haven't mastered using a leverless, it still feels intuitive enough to use for me and has aided in my UNI2 time investment. I don't feel like there are any game-breaking technical/non-core-game issues with this port; it's serviceable. There was that one small kinda-recent period (idr how recent it was) where netplay was ♥♥♥♥♥♥ but that's not really the case anymore. In terms of technical issues. I guess how online is structured could be better; I've only heard about how GGACR+ lobbies work, but my impression upon hearing about that feels like it sounds better compared to what we have now; implementing something like that would probably take a ton of work for an already-existing game or whatever on the dev's end, so it's not a make-or-break thing; the lobbies are still serviceable enough. Also, rank in this game (D, C, B, etc) feels like an indication of time invested more than only skill (RIP [your UNI gamerscore] feels more like an actual rank in that context, and it's per-character so that's cool). Besides netplay, I guess I would only really have nitpicks such as the game being a bit ""blurry"" past 720p or something, but I feel like none of these are issues I'd not buy the game over. Besides the gameplay, I do have issues with this games "vibes". I feel like it's been stated before, but this game feels kind of sterile in comparison to UNI1. Stuff such as the character renders, menu aesthetics, [i]maybe[/i] music choice in some aspects feels like a downgrade going into UNI2; I feel like the character select screen is a decent microcosm of my issues with "vibes" cuz it has all 3 of those problems (Gathers Under Night kinda mogs Begin System Celestial). Also, there being no Chronicle Mode from the first game kind of sucks (hoping that changes in the future somehow) even though I didn't read it in the first game lol, it'd just be nice to have it in this game and I could pop it open whenever. Don't get it twisted though, I would still say the soundtrack and in-game graphics are good. TL;DR, it's a fun game and it also goes on -50% sale (30 USD) semi-frequently so I think it's worth copping it.

lab gordeau