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[nenjin]

Picked it up.

And ya know.....it's actually pretty good.

It's a completely different flow than the first game. Faster. Way more things to look at moment to moment.

Granted, it loses the individual hero progression so it's hard to feel attached to your heroes. But there's plenty of meta progression, and the roguelike nature of play means if someone dies you don't feel like walking away from the game in frustration or feeling compelled to save scum.

There's so many bits and bobs on this game compared to the last one, the first few runs were a bit confusing. Especially because the tutorial handles things a little different than the full game.

Combat feels about the same but there's just a ton more things going on now. So many more buffs, debuffs, enemy moves, all of it tied to skills. Some moves do additional things if another move puts a "Combo Token" on a player or enemy. Can set up some good synergies once you've taken the time to really study the skills and all the hero classes.

Quirks seem cooler now. Or at least, less -5% to yadda yadda.

The relationship system I dunno about. You really have to push it to get good or bad results out of it. Or maybe it comes out more in a full playthrough. But TLDR, people are on good terms with each other and skills on each hero removes stress or grants buffs for their friend when used. The same is true in reverse if they don't like each other. It's a bit shallow IMO and doesn't really add to the narrative much. It's just another widget in a game full of widgets. That said, having your entire party friends with each other can yield a lot of combat benefits.

Heroes can, if they survive an entire run, be used again with the same skills and upgrades. And more besides that if they survive multiple runs. So I guess there's the run to run continuity if you actually can complete runs.

And there's the meta progression upgrades for heroes too.

As I said, I'm not a huge fan of most of the progression being meta but I think I'm coming around.

The Hero Stories are a nice touch too. It breaks up the monotony of the wagon ride and combat encounters to stop and have a nice little evolving story, maybe with some actual gameplay, in each region.

All that said, the game looks great and is polished to a mirror shine. The atmosphere is excellent. The music is good, the actual wagon riding visuals are great. I appreciate the new look of heroes and enemies. Didn't think I would, and I agree their attacks lack a little punch compared to the first game. But still good. Wayne June is great too, although I'd say his performance is less forceful and vital-sounding than in DD1. He's probably just getting old like the rest of us.

I can't say this is a straight recommend to fans of DD1. It's a very different feeling game in many ways. But I think it's definitely worth a look.

[Aoi]

Did they get rid of that nonsense about having to steer the wagon into rubble for extra lootz?

My laptop liked to choke up on the driving scenes for some reason, and getting shortchanged on that always felt lousy.

[nenjin]

No, that's still in the game.

Can I also just say that:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Boss encounters where they spam attack-type disablers or take away your ability to act for 5 turns straight and you just sit there taking hits like an idiot sucks. I feel like the devs' take away from the last game was "We didn't make players suffer enough, so let's create mechanics that subject them to abuse they can't do anything about, repeatedly." DD1 boss encounters were a decent balance of "you can lose your actions but there's something proactive you can do about it." DD2 boss encounters so far just feel like "It's a DPS race, eat shit."

[Aoi]

I somewhat recently replayed the original DD, with notes, and I found it kind of depressing how easy the game is (even on Stygian) when you aren't fighting ignorance.

"What ailments do I need to prep for in the cove again?", "What gives the enhanced reward for this curio?", "What mechanic does this boss have?"... once you have those answered (discovered, memorized, whatever), it's just a matter of avoiding too much RNG screw and figuring your acceptable level of risk.

[nenjin]

Yeah, my friend new to the series said essentially the same thing. That's the nice part about DD2 vs. DD1. You don't have to wipe a party you've put 16 hours into, to know what you need to do.

[nenjin]

I think perhaps the most enjoyable part of DD2 for me is the Hero Stories. It's really a compelling reason to keep doing playthroughs because the stories are small but sweet and well-written. Just enough to make you want to learn the next part, and there's plenty of hero stories to get through.

Got my first win with 3 heroes surviving, which is the only easy win you get. After your first win in Chapter 1, you have to beat a region boss to get access to the boss fight in the Mountain in later chapters. And they are not easy fights. But it's good. I can see a way forward and losing a run doesn't hurt that much because you're still getting plenty of progression in various places.

Favorite line so far: "Tread carefully. This is Swine country."

[nenjin]

Well. I just had the most ball-punishing run ever dealt out by either of these two games.

Chapter 2. I start out with Helion, Flagellant, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor. I see the Dreaming General region boss within the first few nodes and figure, fuck it, at least get the achievement and maybe a chance at the end boss.

The fight is brutal. Many meltdowns from the Grave Robber and Flagellant. The Helion and Plague Doctor go Resolute and become life long buddies for the rest of the run.

Shortly after the Dreaming General the Grave Robber bites it because I'm so beat up from the Dreaming General fight. I complete the rest of the first region with 3 party members, close fight after close fight after close fight.

At the 2nd Inn, I pick up the Man-At-Arms and head out. He immediately becomes Suspicious of the Flagellant. And I stupidly forget to reorganize my party so he is at the back.

The very first fight is a tough one, especially with Suspicion firing off on the abilities it does, and the Man-At-Arms is killed in the fight. So I go through all of the 2nd region with again, three party members. Many, many more nail biter fights. Honestly if it weren't for the bond between the Helion and the Plague Doctor, the run would have tanked already. I'm 0/3 Armor and 1/3 Wheels by the end after having a breakdown.

But we make it to the third Inn. I get the Leper. He immediately becomes Suspicious of the Flagellant, and Hateful with the Helion. It really seems like late additions to your party "catch up" on feels immediately and it's often negative. I even plied the whole party with booze and card games and they still came out mad. I don't get the relationship change notifiers, or how the system actually works. If someone has a 6/20 blue relationship and a 12/20 Gold......WTF does that mean!

Anyways, we set off. Things are going ok, even though the Helion now loves to stab the Leper in the back when he lands successful hits. I go to a Lair fight, and it doesn't go well. By the end of the 2nd round, almost everyone is at 10% HP or less, with more than a few Death's Doors. Tough fight, but the whole run has been like that and we made it, right?

Spoiler: And then this bullshit happened. Legit spoiler here. (click to show/hide)

"Death has come to claim what has eluded them so many times."

The game literally spawned Death on me because I'd just narrowly avoided it too many times. My god.

But the BS doesn't stop there.

In the two rounds after that SS is taken, I manage to get Death to Death's Door with a combination of Bleed and Blight. They kill everyone except for the Leper......and then shift around the Tombstones so my Leper has no attack to actually hit them with. They kill the Leper while being at Death's Door with 30% DB resist.

Mmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn that shit is cold.

[Aoi]

Favorite line so far: "Tread carefully. This is Swine country."

"Isn't this a disinfectant?"

If someone has a 6/20 blue relationship and a 12/20 Gold......WTF does that mean!

...

Chapter 2. I start out with Helion, Flagellant, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor. I see the Dreaming General region boss within the first few nodes and figure, fuck it, at least get the achievement and maybe a chance at the end boss.

...?

Blue is bad, gold is good. That's it. At least this game does the mercy of making relationships reciprocal; I remember playing Zafehouse: Diaries where one guy absolutely loved everybody else, and they all hated him to the point they literally threw him to the zeds. Also, by virtue of how relationship changes work, they tend to tilt in one direction, and are nigh impossible to get out of.

You start getting a chance of relationship synergies at 4/8/14/17, with below 4 and 8 being negative synergies. Most 14+ synergies take the form of -1stress, but I had an amorous  (17+) relationship between Dismas and Paracelsus that gave the PD health every time the HM used Pistol Shot. Combo that with a trait that gave him regeneration, and he was getting like 7hp/turn without doing anything.

Try the boss of The Sprawl if you want an easy entrance to the Mountain, and a pretty useful trophy for a crit team; I just did him on Chapter 2 as the very first encounter and came out around 80% intact. Having said that, my team is pretty good for taking him down.

Spoiler: Boss notes. (click to show/hide)

You want to bring ways to deal with blind, burning, and hitting the back row... he fights kind of like The Preacher. If you let him approach you, he'll spam party-wide attacks, so make sure you drop him within the ~6 turns you get.

[nenjin]

Favorite line so far: "Tread carefully. This is Swine country."

"Isn't this a disinfectant?"

If someone has a 6/20 blue relationship and a 12/20 Gold......WTF does that mean!

...

Chapter 2. I start out with Helion, Flagellant, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor. I see the Dreaming General region boss within the first few nodes and figure, fuck it, at least get the achievement and maybe a chance at the end boss.

...?

Blue is bad, gold is good. That's it. At least this game does the mercy of making relationships reciprocal; I remember playing Zafehouse: Diaries where one guy absolutely loved everybody else, and they all hated him to the point they literally threw him to the zeds. Also, by virtue of how relationship changes work, they tend to tilt in one direction, and are nigh impossible to get out of.

You start getting a chance of relationship synergies at 4/8/14/17, with below 4 and 8 being negative synergies. Most 14+ synergies take the form of -1stress, but I had an amorous  (17+) relationship between Dismas and Paracelsus that gave the PD health every time the HM used Pistol Shot. Combo that with a trait that gave him regeneration, and he was getting like 7hp/turn without doing anything.

Try the boss of The Sprawl if you want an easy entrance to the Mountain, and a pretty useful trophy for a crit team; I just did him on Chapter 2 as the very first encounter and came out around 80% intact. Having said that, my team is pretty good for taking him down.

Spoiler: Boss notes. (click to show/hide)

You want to bring ways to deal with blind, burning, and hitting the back row... he fights kind of like The Preacher. If you let him approach you, he'll spam party-wide attacks, so make sure you drop him within the ~6 turns you get.

So are positive/negative feelings essentially two values that get tracked separately? And if either hit the threshold something develops? I know it checks every Inn and there's a chance for something to develop. I just feel the UI is a little confusing.

[Aoi]

If someone has a 6/20 blue relationship and a 12/20 Gold......WTF does that mean!

...?

Blue is bad, gold is good. That's it. At least this game does the mercy of making relationships reciprocal; I remember playing Zafehouse: Diaries where one guy absolutely loved everybody else, and they all hated him to the point they literally threw him to the zeds. Also, by virtue of how relationship changes work, they tend to tilt in one direction, and are nigh impossible to get out of.

You start getting a chance of relationship synergies at 4/8/14/17, with below 4 and 8 being negative synergies. Most 14+ synergies take the form of -1stress, but I had an amorous  (17+) relationship between Dismas and Paracelsus that gave the PD health every time the HM used Pistol Shot. Combo that with a trait that gave him regeneration, and he was getting like 7hp/turn without doing anything.

So are positive/negative feelings essentially two values that get tracked separately? And if either hit the threshold something develops? I know it checks every Inn and there's a chance for something to develop. I just feel the UI is a little confusing.

It's on a sliding scale of 0-20, between each pair, and appears to be reciprocal, so there's 6 of them? (AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD) I guess it doesn't HAVE to be reciprocal, but I haven't ever seen the values in a pair deviate yet, so I've been assuming it is. (As a further indicator of this, when you use a deck of cards, it shows six pairs of pulses.)

When there's a blue mood, it means the relationship meter has gone down, and a gold icon, it has gone up-- I'd say it's actually pretty straight-forward, so it may be a case of over thinking it?

Edit: Oh wow, I just got two negative synergies, with everybody having at least 11 relationship... but there was a +10% negative relationship passive effect running at a time.

...Wait, was the PD always female?

[Sirus]

Plague Doctor? Yeah she's always been female as far as I know.

[Aoi]

Plague Doctor? Yeah she's always been female as far as I know.

Huh. I remember there being a Workshop mod that was something like "Female Plague Doctor" that... gave her implants (as it turns out...). It wasn't an outright eroticization of the art, and given the title, it sounded like it was a genderswap, so... yeah.

[nenjin]

Always been female AFAIK.

Edit: Oh wow, I just got two negative synergies, with everybody having at least 11 relationship... but there was a +10% negative relationship passive effect running at a time.

Like a lot of this game, there are SO many things going on in the background (so to speak, it's all there) that you get outcomes you don't expect. The more I look at it I think I was over-thinking the relationship meter....but then you have instances like the one you just mentioned where you THINK everything was fine but it's not.

I did manage to beat the Sprawl boss. The first attempt was a wipe with him at Death's Door. The second, he didn't even finish the last stack of books. Same party. The difference was that I upgraded damage skills rather than healing and defensive ones. Seems like DPS is still king in this game. Or at least if you want to go for an early lair boss.

Think about doing an all knife party. Highwayman, Plague Doctor and Occultist spec'd for melee, Grave Robber spec'd for Daggers.

Also I didn't realize that tokens do expire. Seems like around 3 turns if they don't get used up. I feel like they should probably print that in the tooltip.

TBH, I really want a combat log so I can try to understand all the stuff that happens a little better. A friend and I are both playing this and there are so many exceptions to what seem like the rules. They all have their reasons but catching them when they happen can be tough.

[nenjin]

Just beat Chapter 2. MAA, HM, GR, PD.

It was kind of a dream run. Beat the Sprawl Boss early, recovered nicely, kept my relationships out of the gutter. GR critting and doing 25+ damage sometimes with thrown daggers. Synergy with Dismas just further enhanced both of them. MAA trinkets stacking Block and Armor on everyone. At one point I did hit 4 Loathing, which now I know what that means. It didn't change the outcome of the final fight though.

All four of my heroes survived the fight, and other than 1 big attack which? I don't think was even supposed to happen, I had almost no problems with the fight. The first Confession boss honestly seems way harder. The second seems closer to your classic DD puzzle boss.