Dark Deity 2 Steam Charts & Stats

I have a lot of things to say about DD2, a lot of good and a lot of bad. I will preface this by saying that I have not played the first game, though I have an unhealthy amount of time in the GBA Fire Emblem titles, which are the games which DD2 very clearly draws its inspiration from- the developer even said so I believe. I understand that this game is trying to do its own thing, but this game was specifically marketed to FE fans and very clearly attempts to reimagine the core gameplay loop, and I am totally fine with that. Let's start with the good: - Classes having their own unique active abilities is pretty cool, Getting access to an effectively unbreakable warp staff at the beginning of the game immediately had my Fire Emblem brain SEETHING for cheese. - Timed objectives make the super-effective "turtling" playstyle in FE less ideal, which is the act of bunching up your units and baiting the enemies one at a time. You are actively encouraged to push forward and spread out, instead of becoming a 10-unit ball of death. - All classes seemed to have their own niche, though some were obviously better than others. - I respect this game for being transparent about the growth rates of units. Being able to see their strengths and weaknesses long-term is appreciated. - Pixel art looks great and the animations are fluid. Though I would like to see the crit animations seem a little more "powerful". Which is more of a nitpick on my end. And the bad... - The map design is less than stellar. Frequently maps feel like open spaces with a sprinkle of terrain in. Maps do not feel defensive or tactical. - Not necessarily the worst thing but the voice acting and story are absolutely terrible. - The difficulty of this game is very strange. There are sections where your units are absolutely rolling the enemies and the next map you will get one-rounded. Very all over the place and not consistent. In the early game, failing to use a unit one map might mean they are effective useless the next. - "Unit feel" is lost. Even the main characters do not have a unique class nor a final unique promotion. Around the midgame, the units start to lose their individuality. Especially so with how easy and suggested reclassing is. - The lack of permadeath or consequences of a unit death really prevent this game from having any sort of stakes. Deployment slots are very generous in this game so there is effectively no downsides to using meatshields when the time calls for it. - A lack of mounted units really slows down gameplay. Everyone moves at about the same pace, scaled with promotion. Having a horse mounted unit who has greater movement than the rest of the cast would not only diversify gameplay, but help to secure side objectives. Truthfully when I saw DD1 back in the day, my mindset was "this looks interesting, but isn't ready yet". I thought the second installment would be different. The result is a game that is so desperately trying to capture the soul of the GBA FE titles, but fails to capture anything that made them great. Is this a bad game? Not at all. I think this game is a bit on the average side, with nothing really noteworthy that stands out about it. Honestly I have not written the dev out yet, and I think this game is worth a try if it is on sale and you have a hankering for a new take on FE. Regardless, I will be eager to see what happens with DD3 when that inevitably releases. I would love to give this game a "mixed" review because I truly feel that this is not a bad game. But $32.49 CAD is far too steep a price for this.

This is one of those games that becomes addicting to play in my opinion, especially once you get in the groove of its mechanics. I've had an absolute blast with it, and it absolutely scratches that Fire Emblem itch.

I really enjoyed the first game. This was a "day one" buy for me, which is pretty unusual. I tend to be more of the "wait for a sale" guy when it comes to video games. No regrets paying full price on this. There's probably a story. I skip over it whenever possible. I'm old. The kiddie voices are annoying, and frankly I don't care at all about whatever tropes are being thrown out there. The gameplay is what matters, and this game has improved on it since the first game. My lone gripe is there's too much samey-sameness when it comes to the class evolutions. Pretty much every class can be some sort of archer or mage or warrior eventually. I tend to prefer the model where a mage character can pick a different type of "magic school" they specialize in (i.e. fire, ice, etc). It's not game-killer. It's still a lot of fun.

Dark Deity 2 is a very good turn based tactics game, even better than the first game thanks to its improved graphics, sound, voice acting, and character and inventory management. This definitely scratches the itch between Fire Emblem releases.

The writing and story are....pretty bad. Maybe even straight up atrocious. But man that gameplay is tits.

Game was bout 60 hours long for me and I honestly didn't feel it. Truly was a blast the whole way through and I really appreiciated the full voice acting the whole way through. Didn't get to try all the cool class upgrades but the ones I used were a blast and I really liked the attack and unique crit animations. After playing alot of slow games (looking at you Trails of Cold Steel) it was very nice to just get into a game that was just action action action. The team did a really good job.

It's not a terrible game in totality, there's fun to be had. I think most the voice acting is really good and the combat is fun. That being said it doesn't really feel anything like the first game. The addition of active skills makes it a little more Final Fantasy Tactics and less Fire Emblem. They switched to equipable weapons that you can customise a little, I'd say it's a relatively lateral move though as there's very few weapons and customisations. I personally preferred the weapons system in the first game, but I could see people preferring this. The world doesn't really feel the same. There's a high fantasy element that doesn't really fit with the first game and the global politics feels off. The Order of Eternals went from a clandestine organization that secretly protects the aspects to a weird blend of mercenary group/country's army. Also the super aggressive elves from the first game are now anti war stand ins for native americans. The big reason I wouldn't recommend the game though is the writing. It feels like it was written by a teenage fanfic writer. The main character feels so much like a self insert as the conversations are about 50% people telling her how she's amazing, meanwhile she's being completely insufferable. There's way too much quipping, especially early on. There's a super weak story, so most of the dialogue is just the 3 siblings making quips, making stupid decisions, or telling you how horrible everyone from the first game is. There's a lot of talking about how terrible their dad is, their mom abandoned them, etc. The modern standard of sequels trashing the original characters. If you don't want to hear teenage angst and shots at the original characters then probably best to skip the dialogue. Also they NERFED Alden, he starts out as lvl 8. He constantly talks about how powerful he is, but he's so much weaker then the first game, so is Irving, but the random guy you meet that's not a fighter is almost as strong as him. Even by the end he's nothing compared to the original game.

The most important part, difficulty, is all over the place. You have anything like worthless units to always good units and no variety at all. Builds and loot sucks, there is not much meaningful configuration to do. The battles themselves are the best part, up until its the same old, same old. Lack of deeper mechanics and customization ruins it, its possibly very good for its price but I would want to pay triple as much for a product that was twice as good in this case. Possible, that further updates or DLC will improve things drastically, but I am doubtful.

[h1]A Sequel Done Right[/h1] [h2][u]Overview[/u][/h2] Dark Deity 2 is a sequel to Dark Deity which, honestly, was not great. However, if you were craving an alternative to Fire Emblem and put off by Dark Deity’s flaws, there is a chance you may like the sequel. The developers did a great job improving on this iteration and I applaud their work even if it’s still far from perfect. So, there is also a chance it will put off hardcore fans of the genre still. I’d recommend at least giving it a shot if it seems appealing at all. For me, it at least scratched that classic GBA Fire Emblem itch I was craving. [h2][u]Story[/u][/h2] While it is a sequel to the first game, you don’t need to have played it. You play as the children of the previous game’s main character, but they will tell you all you need to know from the previous game. This game, is more about the family’s guild (the Order) trying to play peacekeeper in a foreign land with a mix of politics, backstabbing, family and friendship. Oh and demons/undead as always. It’s okay. It did it’s job at giving reasons for playing through and at times I felt myself invested. Sometimes not so much. There are a total of 30 missions in the game with scenes before/after the battles. Honestly, I started to fall off around mission 20 and was losing interest. I think the game just was going too long and started to have bad pacing where some of it was feeling like filler. It did pick back up again near the end – but even one of the penultimate battle felt kind of like filler. Like bro, I’m on the big bad’s door step and still stuck fighting mooks in what is clearly a battle to just stall for time because it’s not chapter 30 yet. I did like the main trio of main characters (the sons and daughter of Irving). Gwyn, the daughter started to get grating by the end with the constant whining but I guess it’s good she has flaws and not a Mary Sue. I think her development could have been done better though to come off less annoying. Other characters all seemed OK too. There are supports to get more back story and developments between characters outside of the main plot. In the main story, most of the characters kind of come and go as relevant but it’s a large cast. With how the story is in mini arcs, generally a couple characters will be prominent for the arc then fade back to the background once it’s over. Honestly, I was fine with this and it worked with how the story was told while still getting to use the characters I like for battle. [h2][u]Presentation[/u][/h2] I like the art, and the sprite work/animations are especially great. UI seemed easy enough to follow and the maps clear as day. Sound design was just OK. I appreciate they got voice work done. Music was forgettable and I don’t know if it was intentional or a bug, but I’ve had several battles with no music at all. Music could use improvement and definitely hasn’t reached Fire Emblem heights. [h2][u]Gameplay[/u][/h2] This is probably the bulk of what would make or break getting the game. First, while the previous game had issues with load times and crashing this 2nd game performed flawlessly. No issues this time! Loading was quick and snappy, no complaints. While the first game was unbalanced and complex with a lot of class/weapon choices, this game is well, still unbalanced, lol. But the complexity seemed just right to me. I enjoyed the customization in this one and did not feel too stressed about min-maxing or worrying I picked a horrible choice. Some choices are pretty bad, but really, as long as you have Eve, some monks and a mage or two capable of dealing direct damage you will probably be fine. Customization includes two tiers of class changes, each tier with 4 classes to choose from, weapons with 2 rune slots, and 2 rings to equip per character. On top of the class abilities and passives, each character has their own unique skills which may make them more suitable for different classes. Some of these skills are absolutely busted (in a good fun way). Personally, I find the unbalance fun. But I can see that being something that puts off people since the game can get incredibly easy using characters like Eve. (I’ve literally solo’d some maps with her and she ended up getting hit only once). The other balance issue is a common problem in these games – speed is king. Armor classes fall off hard due to being double attacked, especially in late game. Getting doubled doesn’t matter if they are a wall built to resist anything. But they tend to be weak to magic which the end game is littered with. So good luck surviving double attacks there. Another thing that may put off players is the lack of permadeath. Personally, that’s an element of Fire Emblem I can take it or leave it. There is a penalty for death but it’s pretty tame and IMO that’s fine. Stuff like starting the next chapter with a debuff. It encourages you keeping your characters alive, but at the same time not really worth restarting just because someone fell (unless it happened immediately and now they will miss all that delicious XP, of course) [h2][u]Summary[/u][/h2] Once again I commend the developers for really improving so much on the first game. If you’re interested in a Fire Emblem alternative this can be a pretty good time for around 30 hours or so. IMO It does go on a little too long but I also have attention span issues lately so maybe others will fare better with the whole story. And the gameplay as a whole is very GBA Fire Emblem so it’s fun. I greatly enjoyed the class changes and planning builds with the runes and rings complimenting the class/character choices. It’s definitely not for everyone though. If you need permadeath and hardcore challenging and professional Fire Emblem this is probably not for you. But just want a casual time from an Indie dev’s passion project? Then yeah, it’s pretty good. It’s nice to see the passion put into this series and I hope the developers keep it up (there is some sequel baiting in the end so wouldn’t be surprised if the story continues!). Overall, recommend the game and giving it a try on a sale while skipping Dark Deity 1. Also, turn off the battle animations if the game starts to feel like a slog. It helps improve the battle completion times at least.

This is a really hard decision to make because it's yet again, another example of a game that needs a mixed button instead of a yes or no button. This game suffers and even double downs on the stat inflation and the balancing turning to utter garbage from it's prior iteration. It tries to put more emphasis on a tactical approach to every single fight. That's cool, the issue is, there's no way for you to upkeep your mana to allow you to even do this without losing units left and right late to end game. Stat inflation gets to the point to where, one mission your strongest units are unkillable and are tanking everything easily to them getting one shot left and right. Another issue regarding that is, this game is exhausting. The balance is non-existence. Throughout the entire game, there's a bunch of enemy units that are in every mission that are capable of one shotting 3/4ths of your squad. Even your tankiest units. They will straight up do 70+ damage on you with no crit and you can't do anything about it on your dodge specialist. Enemies will still have 75-100 accuracy. Your protection and force tanks still take absurd amounts of damage on average no less. Even your bruiser units that are specifically designed to be able to back and forth multiple units will often get 1 or 2 shot. The thing about this is, this can all happen in reverse. The game eventually boils down to one shot or be one shot or one turn or be one turned. Much like DD1. But it doubles down harder in DD2. The game just shits it's pants mid to late game and end game is just "I want this to be over. I can't take it anymore". This game is long. Very long. The missions also suffer from oversized maps but, it's even worse in this game because you don't have mounted units. They are slightly smaller than DD1 to compensate for the lack of mounted units, but they are still too large nonetheless. The game turns into a slog because all of these issues combined. The story is pretty generic. The twists and turns are shock value or wholly depend on which route you take and where (Which I liked the decisions and routes concept, but the shock value was weak because it was predictable and I often imagine if the reason some things happen have to do with Bond levels similar to a certain Fire Emblem game we all know regarding a couple Ninjas) and some results you have no idea how you actually managed to get to that point. I got an achievement for sparing a life during a critical moment in the story, but this happened DURING a cutscene and not by any action (that I'm aware of) I put into the playthrough. I have no way of knowing what I did to get this to happen. I had no control or knowledge over this. The game implies that there was a choice I could have made but the game didn't give me it OR I somehow made a series of unconscionable decisions that weren't obvious to me and were a series of hidden flags and specific conditions that were met. The best comparison I can make to this is the player choice being made of killing a specific unit or a specific class more than the other to determine whether or not you get Karl or Harken to spawn during the next chapter (might be a gaiden chapter, I don't remember specifically) in FE8. This seems to be something that is apparent throughout the entire game aside from the specific decisions the game throws at you to put you on specific routes as well. There's a seemingly lot of hidden variables. The classes seem... relatively samey and you don't really get the differences until you get your level 25 promos. I wish there were more classes as well. But most of the classes have an answer for everything, can do everything, have their own iteration of a heal or just straight up heal nuke and a lot of the support skills just don't seem all that relevant considering the stat inflation everybody goes through in this game. There's seemingly little diversity and I blame the nuance in classes not outright being different from each damage category of classes. They're just subtle enough to separate themselves from being a copy/paste of another class while retaining a lot of what similar classes can do. You eventually get the feeling that every class is just another variation of the same class. I'd argue the physical classes are the most different from each other and feel the most unique. It really does seem as if they ended up having to rush the game and realized towards the end of the game's development that they don't actually have a class roster and they just decided to copy and paste from DD1's concept. It just feels rushed. We honestly would have been better off with every character having their own unique class they promo in throughout the game instead of what we actually got. However, this also gives way to the units themselves having their own unit specific skills. These are completely unique to the characters themselves and this sets a precedent for the kind of unit you're expected to promo path throughout the game. So much so that you're expected to follow the path that is as relevant to their base class for optimal use stat shenanigans considering how you can see the growth rates either even out or are all green. Changing them to a class that is different from their assumed promo pathing is often met with heavy growth nerfs. Actively discouraging you from experimenting or changing promo paths just for fun. Now, you're thinking to yourself "So, just like Fire Emblem.". Except, not really, because of how stat inflation in this game works. The balancing in this game is so awful (Don't get me started on the hardest difficulties and how unbalanced they are) that if you're not playing as optimal as possible with promo pathing, you'll end up screwing yourself over and either softlocking you or killing off your playthrough unless you have permadeath turned off (which is forcibly turned on on harder settings and can't be turned off). Fire Emblem games aren't as awfully balanced as this game. Even Three Houses DLCs were balanced better than this game and that's pretty bad. I love Fire Emblem clones. I love FFT clones. However, when it comes to indie games making clones, the balance of the games are utterly destroyed because they're looking for the AAA killer and think "If we make our game really hard, everybody will love them!" when in reality, you're appealing to a very tiny and insignificant minority instead of a franchise's fanbase as a whole and that's why these games don't ever reach a quarter of the numbers AAA counterparts will get. People see shiny new product that is a "spirit successor" of sorts or just a clone of a AAA variation and blindly give a thumbs up. Very few actually care to be critical. They just see something that looks like something they'd like, buy it, play it for a couple minutes or hours. Not experience 10% of the game and they will die on a hill that a game is really good and is perfect and is goty. The problem with this is, when the first half of your game is really good, but the second half - the part few ever get to prior to writing a review - shits it's pants and gets way out of hand, you're going to give everybody the wrong idea and impression about the game. You've already convinced yourself the game is great all the way through and you're hellbent on not giving the game a proper review. (Not like 90% of the Steam community bothers to give coherent reviews for games in general) I had a BLAST with the first half. It wasn't until the middle part of the game that the novelty wore off, the issues started to show and then come the late to end game that the issues started to become glaringly blatant and apparent. It stopped being fun and became more and more exhausting, tedious and borderlines overstaying it's welcome because of how poorly balanced this game is.