Game #932: Dusk Diver

 Diving does feel better at dusk.

 I had a waning interest in Dusk Diver. First I was interested in it, then I was it, then I was again and finally purchased it, because, hey, I love me some beat'em ups.

 You play as Yumo, a girl with the ability to borrow powers from gods and enter another dimension, which she has to do in order to beat up barely threatening enemies. It's a bit Yakuza-ish in that you spend a large portion of the game wandering around the streets of Ximending, but you don't trigger random encounters. That said, the city is basically dead with little to nothing to do. You have to gather 'Dragon Vein Shards' every chapter since the game won't allow you to continue with the story until you get your quota. The game has a total of 153 shards, but I think you only need about 30 of them to clear the game, and by the time I finished the game I had over 60 of them, so it's not TOO bad. If you track every side quest, you'll eventually unlock a Tao Master you can pay some money for him to mark all the new shards on your map, which is rather useful as not to waste time running around the empty streets(activity-wise) searching for them.

 After you are done dilly-dallying, you'll be ready to enter the alternate world of Chaos Beasts, and then the game really begins. This is a beat'em up, through and through, you have a weak attack combo string, a strong attack button to end your weak attacks with, a super mode, and a button that lets you call in one of the gods to assist with an attack. It's quite basic, but serviceable. That said, enemy waves are too large, and enemies can soak up TOO much damage, so the game quickly turns into a repetitive, boring and mindless button masher. Heck, the Weak-Weak-Weak-Weak-Strongx10 attack string is easily the best in the game, so it's the one you'll be using the most to chip at the enemies' health bars, while occasionally summoning an ally. Even when your strength is maxed out enemies still soak up too much damage, the game truly becomes a bore. It's not even challenging.

 You can get skillpoints by finishing missions with a good score(Completely dependent on the time it took you to finish it) or by collecting shards, and then, while you are in the human dimension, you can spend them to enhance your stats. It's a decent system all in all.

 I played the game entirely in handheld mode, and... it looked a bit too blurry, and there was some slowdown every now and then, but the game is playable.

 Dusk Diver wasn't a horrible game, but it's downright mediocre. It had decent ideas, I liked the protagonist's design, I think having a human world separate from the other dimension could've worked if the hub city had something worthwhile and fun to do... but the combat system needed some tweaking, more moves, and take away health from the enemies or make their quantity lower, as the game only got increasingly boring.

 5.0