Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin

Short version: Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin is a very fun, atmospheric tower defence game with a great story, quite in the vein of its predecessor. In a direct comparison with it, it is admittedly lesser in various regards - but since DQ1 was so brilliant, even a lesser version of it is still great, and I would highly recommend it. [hr][/hr] Long version: Here, I will just describe Defender's Quest 2 on its own merits, as I would for those who do not yet know the series. If you are familiar with Defender's Quest 1, I actually have quite a lot to say about that - so much so, in fact, that it completely blew past the character limit for a review like this. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/252190/discussions/0/599659929547102970/]So I instead posted it (alongside this review) in a discussion thread, linked here.[/url] For those who don't know Defender's Quest yet - it is a tower defence game, where you place and upgrade stationary defenders along one or several paths, via whic...

Sure, the first one is better and has a lot more to it, but this is an excellent game and if you loved the first one, you will at least very much like this one. But if you are one of those "This doesn't meet my expectations exactly so it's trash" or "Series x doesn't match the books word for word so I hate it", then you won't like this. I for one am loving playing a game that feels very much like another game I love, the first one. WELL worth the money.

Defender's Quest 2 is a tough game for me to review. Between the first game's cult classic status, 10 years of waiting, and the creator's personal tragedy, its tough to just take the game for what it is and evaluate it on its own merits. That said, I honestly think it's a good, if flawed game. Its not Defender's Quest 1, but I think that's completely ok. It was always meant to be a sequel in the spirit of Final Fantasy sequels -- new story, new art, new mechanics, but a general thematic and stylistic thread running through the games. I think that's exactly what we got. DQ2 is still an RPG/Tower Defense hybrid, with the RPG mechanics being fairly light. Your characters are your towers, and as they level up, they open new tiers of abilities for combat, and you can fill in skill trees. Where the first game give you something like 6 units of each class to work with, DQ2 has each character as a completely unique tower. The upshot is, you get 12 unique towers/units instead of 7. So, DQ2 tr...

[i]Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin[/i] is a game marked by [url="https://www.fortressofdoors.com/i-lost-my-son/"]a great personal tragedy in Lars Doucet's life[/url]. As tacky as it sounds, it's true that this [b]real, heart-breaking[/b] tragedy spawned a [i]tiny, petty[/i] tragedy: DQ2 is going to be the last follow-up to DQ1 ever made. [h1]Good core game coated in colossal disappointment[/h1] Let's ignore any hopes we might've had from the previews across 12 years of development: Nobuo Uematsu's completed track lost to a licensing kerfuffle, the alluring plot scrapped when James Cavin was poached by [i]<reads notes>[/i] the studio behind [i]Temple Run[/i](?!), and the artist behind original cute Final-Fantasy-Tactics-esque sprites disappearing so completely they're not even mentioned in [url="https://www.defendersquest2.com/faq"]the FAQ[/url]. The grass is always greener in the concept art, game dev is a rocky road, and DQ2's situation is dire enough. [h2]Gameplay is great[/h2]...