Game #1290: Dusk Diver 2

 World's most improved sequel.

 Dusk Diver did nothing for me, so I wasn't planning on buying Dusk Diver 2. Then I played Xuan Yuan Sword 7 and decided that I wanted to try more Chinese games, which led me to buy the sequel, and boy, oh boy, was it a good decision.

 DD 2 is bigger and better in every way, shape and form than the original. The Story wasn't very interesting, and I think such was the case with the original, but this time around it felt more anime, and more silly, and more cliched. I didn't care about the characters and I found most of them to be very stupid and anime. But it's a longer game, the main campaign takes longer, and there are a ton of sidequests to complete. Many of the sidequests seem copy and pasted, there are about 4 sidequests in which you must refuse to buy something 3-4 times before engaging into a fight. Most of the sidequests are bout talking to an NPC and finishing a fight.

 Not off to a good start, eh? Well, the game is better where it really matters: Gameplay. The combat system is much faster paced. The basics are still here, weak and strong attacks, summon a character for a tag attack, enter a super state... but now we've got more stuff. Holding down the R button lets you use any Super attack you've equipped to Y, B or A, which consume stamina that slowly refills over time. Or you can use the new Perfect Dodge, by dodging at the last possible second, which slows down enemies for a short-while, a la Bayonetta, and restores a chunk of your SP gauge. Pretty cool, right? Well, A is a unique attack per character. Oh, yeah, MULTIPLE PLAYABLE CHARACTERS, BABY! All four characters are on-screen at the same time, the CPU taking control of the other three. Every character has their own unique moveset and properties, which is mindblowing. And yes, the three KunLun gods from the original game are your new playable allies. How amazing is that? You can swap characters at any moment too!

 And that's at first, near the end of the game you unlock a fifth playable character, although you can only have four at a time in your party. And finishing the game unlocks another 3. THREE!!! And, I must repeat, they have their own movesets? How crazy is that!? Like in the first game, you can upgrade your stats via experience points, the one caveat is that the experience pool is shared between characters. I just levelled up Yumo and Bahet, while ignoring Le Viada and Leo since I don't like them. As soon as I unlocked the fifth character I started pumping levels into her since I liked her too. The game can be challenging if you are not careful, particularly later in the game when enemies can take you down in a few hits. To counterbalance this, you can bring items with you into a fight, allowing you to heal and revive fallen allies.

 The fighting system is fine, I liked it. It's no Bayonetta or DMC, but it allows you to juggle enemies and what not. The one issue I had with the combat is that early in the game, no matter how much points in Strength I gave to Bahet and Yumo, enemies would take forever to die, but midway through, their life gauges become less spongy. 

 It sounds too good to be true, and on Switch, it is. The framerate is, quite honestly, dreadful. It runs slightly better in docked mode, and during fights it TENDS to be stable, but certain environments can tank it hard. The very first area in the game is the worst, hilariously enough, but it's never a consistent 30, which is a shame, because the game is SO good otherwise.

 Dusk Diver 2 is an easy recommendation for anyone that enjoys Action games, however, I'd suggest getting anywhere but the Switch. If I can find it cheap, I'm certainly buying it again on PS4.

 6.5