'Burst 2' review: Can you suffer again?

"Burst 2" finally came, for such a good reputation of the previous work, why use finally? Because even Eiko Miyazaki finished Only Wolf, and they're still doing Black Souls. So if you are interested in this "post-soul" game, you may wish to take a look at how everyone from Deck13 plays "soul" mode in "Burst 2".

In fact, the first impression of "Burst 2" is not very good, because the picture is too muddy, the first glance of the past kind of fuzzy feeling, as if you feel that you are not open NS. A little identification will find that it is not the picture quality of this work, but the map loading method has a problem, often sudden changes. In some scenes that are still high quality, a slight rotation of the camera instantly becomes low quality, including a large number of equipment in close range can not load accurate maps, but the distant scenery is loaded well. The picture is too "paste" to greatly discount the game experience, and it is not even as good as the previous game in this regard.

"There's writing on the back of the kit, but it's completely blacked out."

Although the picture regressed, but in the level design, this game has made rapid progress, much stronger than the previous game, but the whole can only be described as medium.

The convoluted and unguided maps of previous games often left players confused, so in Burst 2, they changed their thinking. The linear design is used in each chapter level, so it is difficult to get lost in a single map, and as the exploration progress progresses, the player will unlock many shortcuts, after unlocking the world is not large, and the resurrection point is only one step away from the BOSS house. The single level design is well designed and the progress made is very encouraging.

"The rewards collected along the way can also be exchanged for more tangible rewards, such as money, with Mr. Guappi."

However, the game uses a semi-open world approach to exploration, so the benefits of a single level don't translate well to the larger area. The player's stronghold is located in the center of the map, and the chapter levels are distributed in a network around them. In fact, many semi-open world games are designed this way to maximize the use of map resources. However, for Burst 2, this is slightly inappropriate, as it will cause too many mid-to-late puzzles to pile up in front of the player. For example, the hook and claw that repeatedly appeared in the early stage, in fact, will not be obtained until the middle of the game, and it is easy to get confused at the beginning.

This superimposed map design also means that this game will not have a detailed small map, so in order to let players know where they are, this game in some key points to join the map preview function, convenient for players to locate the direction, plus other players will leave a lot of "goodwill" labels, so that the difficulty of exploration is not so high. However, getting lost in a slightly larger area of the map is the norm, or because of the superimposed levels, so many puzzles are presented to the player at once, if you don't explore it well, it is easy to get lost.

In terms of game mechanics, "Burst 2" has made some adjustments and changes, you can see it as a special feature in the "soul" gameplay, which is based on the original framework to make adjustments, but the effect is good, at least can become "Burst 2" features, such as players in the most familiar "picking up corpses".

In Burst 2, souls left behind after death will disappear at the end of the duration, but there is no need to rush to pick up the "soul" after the player finds it, because the "soul" will provide a range of healing effects before disappearing, which makes each death of the player improve the fault tolerance for subsequent challenges, if the player directly picks up the soul can also return health. The dual option adds some strategy to the battle and is a welcome change.

However, recovery outside of combat became a problem. Because this game in addition to the two attributes of health and energy, and added the setting of electricity, electricity will only be added when causing damage, equivalent to anger, so no damage will naturally disappear. While the higher the player level, the better the effect during the combat phase, and the power level greatly improves the positive feedback players get, since it only increases when damage is done, it also makes supplies outside of combat a problem.

"There's a close-up when you cut it. It's nice."

Burst 2 has adapted two more sets of gameplay from the original combat system. The first is the "three four-way bounce back", the so-called "three" is a single bounce back, will be divided into three levels according to different timing, respectively in the game with red, yellow and green. Red means that the rebound fails and takes a lot of damage, yellow takes some damage, and green means that it succeeds and only takes some energy. This is a more interesting change, the interesting point is that the red and yellow bounce is actually for the novice and bitter hand players to provide a certain tolerance space, but also marked the echelon, so that they are more willing to try to catch the green bounce, can be seen as a kind of encouragement and learning mechanism.

"After successful rebound, there will be super long hard straight."

The four-way is a bit gilding the lily. In addition to the different direction of the flick, there is almost no difference in the four directions, coupled with the fact that the enemy does not use a combat mode such as changing moves, the player is essentially still looking at the time to bounce back, which makes the choice of direction somewhat redundant, and also makes the operation virtually cumbersome. Therefore, the "four-way" is more like a design made to cater to the enemy Settings, otherwise the one-click reverse is more comfortable in operation.

"Civil War"

And this game in the bounce return is not the same. The return of heavy weapons is very high, but the attack needs to master the timing, better at counterattack; Light weapons yield is very low, but the move is fast, need to dodge with a more flexible play, good at attack. Differentiating the style of play helps players find their own style.

Second is the combo system, which is fine to fight small monsters, but BOSS battles are completely unnecessary. As we all know, these games are turn-based, and hitting combos means more holes.

"Some weapons yield considerable returns"

Just like the design of "three bullets", the BOSS battle design of this game is also based on learning. For example, the octopus Mech driven by Little Johnny in Level one. The essence of it is for the player to learn to do partial destruction to the BOSS, as partial destruction is a very important gameplay aspect of the "Burst" series. So when the player faces little Johnny only need to destroy 5 parts to easily pass, and in the "Beast of the Recluse" in turn let the player learn the skills of bouncing back, cancelling lock and dealing with broken defense moves.

"The third stage repeats a routine can be passed, the design is not thoughtful enough"

Many bosses are enhanced versions of monsters. Its core action modes are similar to those of monsters, such as Captain Stealth and the Goddess Helena. There is a very clear sense of learning that makes every failure more meaningful. This setting is very pleasing, because core games tend to discourage players because of their difficulty, and the learning-based battle design itself is motivating.

But the study always exam, the result in "Burst 2" in the second half of the game began endless repetition. You have to face many past bosses in succession, and there is no unique way to play, the BOSS battle in the second half of the game is very boring, the original three forms of the beast, was split into three separate bosses, the enemy appeared in the early stage again, the difficulty did not increase, the second half of the game is more disappointing.

"From here, there's a lot of duplication, but the map is rebuilt."

So the focus in the middle and later stages of the game is on exploration. After a certain level, the map will change completely, can be said to be upside down. This also makes the "sense of direction" that the player has accumulated in the previous stages useful, coupled with the fact that the monsters will gain additional skills, the combat will become more diverse, and the appearance of new armor materials will make the exploration of the late game more interesting. It's still the same map, but the exploration and minnow play are more in-depth, which is more fun than playing repetitive bosses with less difficulty.

In general, "Burst 2" is still walking the "soul" line, and has made very significant progress in level design, especially after the upheaval, the entire map has been redesigned, and it is easy for players to find the intentions of this game in level design. However, due to the overlay of elements in the level is too serious, so in the early exploration will encounter no small problems, compared to the battle design full of encouragement and learning, the level design of Burst 2 has made great progress, but there are still shortcomings.

"For example, there will be a bunch of monsters at the door of every stronghold, making people feel confused."

How to let players enjoy the core game, while feeling the level of progress of the happiness is a very important thing, "Burst 2" through the ladder and stage design, so that players can continue to improve their corresponding skills in the game, this process is more pleasant. But in the later part of the game, when it should have been put to use, the game showed a great decline, and the repetition and difficulty of the content was disappointing.

"Look, it's you again."

But compared to cutting equipment, these are not important, in "Burst 2" you can also be happy to cut equipment, match, when you get a complete suit effect, more can let your combat effectiveness soar.

However, the premise of enjoying all this is that you have to adapt to the "paste" to the spicy eye of the picture quality in this work, referring to the nano elements in this work, you can also call this nano texture of the picture quality.