death end re;quest 2 (shortened to death end 2 for the rest of this) really shocked me going in, both in terms of just how dark the horror rpg got and in terms of just how great it was, this ended up becoming one of my favourite games i've ever played and i'm so happy i took a chance on it. first off going in i need to get one thing out of the way, you should look up content warnings for this game if you're sensitive to certain things, despite how it might look it *is* a dark game, incredably dark, it's got parental homicide within the first few minuites and it's all downhill from there, as is to be expected from some of the writers behind corpse party and period;cube, but it is not an easy sit and if you can't handle that then maybe stay away, but if you can then let's talk about why you 100% should.

the strongpoints above all else are the tone, characters, writing and story. the story starts out great with a really memorable intro and it lays on the mystery pretty quick with a town full of genuinely disgusting monsters that show up after dark and a really culty religion at the heart of the town the main character mai ends up in and that mystery really ended up keeping me hooked for the entire game, like i was so into the story there were dungeons i kept running from battles just because i wanted to see what would happen next, it's really good, every chapter sets up and pays off new mysteries and all the mysteries are interesting and they all add to the atmosphere massively, it always ads new things and keeps taking even darker turns and you even have some choices that actually do effect the narritive significantly, characters can die if you mess up, and while there are some bad ends you can just reload from (with genuinely horriffic CGS attached) some side character deaths you're just left to live with and it can end up with you not being able to see any future side stories with those characters involved. these characters you probably will care about too, while the main playable party only amounts to 4 characters (with some characters from the first game joining without dialogue as optional party members) all 4 are excellent. rottie and mai, a clingy nieve lesbian completely unaware of technology and a shut-off traumatised wreck with anger issues, may be two of my favourite characters in any rpg and liliana and sheena, an excorcist in training who's also the groups little sister and a returning character from the first game who knows the most about the worlds goings on, also make for excellent additions, mai in particular i think is done really well, her portayal of specifically abuse trauma really hit me as someone with a very similar trauma, i still have a lot of residual anger and a fear/dislike of irl men that i don't think i'll ever get fully over, much like how she is for much of the game, i didn't think it'd handle it well at all when i started out but it really did, the voice actress especially does a good job with her in these moments, it all means a lot to me and it almost gives me a little hope. the bond the main trio especially shares feels really genuine and rottie and mai's relationship also feels cute without going overboard into male gaze fetishistic yuri pandering.

big tangent the games overtly lesbian themes is honestly also one of its strongpoints, it's a lesbian story through and through, the only male character is basically non-existant until the last hour and a large chunk of the games cast, both playable and NPC, protaganist and villain each are gay and it's just kind of, there, it's not really fetishised or made a big deal of and there's never any "oh but we're both girls uwu" moments that really plague a lot of similar media, it's just that some characters are that way, both healthy and unhealthy relationships are shown and it just feels really genuine about it, an issue a lot of "yuri" (i hate this word as it has some really problematic origins, does inherently fetishise lesbians and basically anything with this label is almost always weido male gaze fetishbait media that never feels like it's actually made for the kinds of people its depicting) has, and though it still has a trope here or there it just feels much more genuine than most male gaze for men lesbian media tends to be, it deserves credit for that i think.

back to the story yeah it's really good and there's a lot of it, the game has a lot of dialogue, i'd say maybe 50% of the game and a second playthrough even ads a lot more with new main and side events to see that expand on it even more, the games side events are all really cute. the main focus is always on the dorms and the people in them, fleshing out every NPC as much as the game can, though with bad choices the school can become gradually more empty as your choices end up getting people killed if you aren't careful, but the little stories are nice and everyone has a complete arc if you get to see it, you really end up caring about the dorms and all the people in them, you see their hopes and personalities and it makes how dark the game can get hurt that much more when you feel like you know these characters well, even the villains are really good, helped a lot by the fantastic english dub, honestly maybe one of my favourites, but while i won't say who they are but each of them brings a lot of menace and an interesting story, i honestly even wish they had more screentime or some extra side-chapters just on their own. the story overall just connected with me a lot, it reminded me at times of a childhood favourite of mine that i played when i was way too young called saya no uta, i can't really put my finger on why and it doesn't have any of the overtly problematic themes that game does but it made me feel a feeling of dread as the mysteries started paying off and really horrific things started happening that i havent fully felt since i played that game as a near-teen (one late-game twist does kind of remind me a lot of some of its twists too and one of the dungeon themes would feel right at home in that games ost), it almost felt nostalgic kind of, i guess it is helped that the otome talent here did make some of my favourite games, period cube especially but even just the themes and ideas are all some of my favourite, i love settings like this, i love cult stories and the supernatural and even the techno-horror the game has at points really hits well for me, it's almost as me-core as a story can be without being full of really overly unrealistically pretty men.

the gameplay is also so cool, it's an rpg but with a big twist to its battle system, pinball! after a 3 hit combo your character will do a knockback attack that will send the enemy flying into the walls of the arena, each other and your characters for extra damage, you even get an extra hit in if they hit one of your party members and this is where a lot of the strategy happens. the right positioning, elemental attack and use of the games buffs (which take the form of tiles around the arena which you can either walk over for a small buff and extra corruption gage which is for your magical girl super mode or send enemies flying into them for a different buff) and this all ads a ton of interactivity to the battle system and makes it feel very kinetic for a turn based game. the exploration is also super interesting in that the game doesn't have any traditional dungeons, you just have the town which is a dungeon itself. slowly in the game you'll unlock new sections of it to explore from the central hub area of the dorm, it gives the game a very distinct vibe and the town itself is interesting to explore this way, you end up being very familiar with the place and its always fun to go back through areas and find more and more every time and you can even start to place areas from cgs and backgrounds into real places in the town, making it feel more real i think. it's a creepy place too, the music is different for each area but its always a little creepy and the place is full of shadow veiled things like spiders and bugs that don't move or attack you, they just sit there, i kept expectng one to attack and jumpscare me, makes certain areas very unsettling without the need to go overboard with edge or gore. the town is just a really special setting in general, from the atmosphere, the vibes and the look, it's just a setting that i think will always stick with me, especially once the twists of the place start hitting.

the soundtrack is also exceptional! seriously its great, i've used the battle theme in a seperate article and i'll probably keep using songs from this game in the future, almost every theme is amazing and memorable and i love every track, i'm using the dorm theme for this right now which is also a favourite of mine, it sounds very shenmue! Yuki Sugiura and Kenji Kaneko worked on the soundtrack here, both are long-time idea factory composers who've worked on a ton of neptunia and otome games like hakuoki, diabolik lovers, 7scarlet and SYK. they're both super talented and this game is honestly some of the best work both have done, which is saying a lot! the game also looks really good! there's character designs from kei nanameda, who previously worked on the original death end, mary skelter and the fairy fencer F series, this, again is some of their best work, it goes a lot more tame on the sexualisation compared to a lot of those games which makes me really happy and a lot of the main cast designs just looks great, especially the costume design for the basic models, the coats and the cross nametags feel almost iconic to the game for me, though the game does have some mild sexualisation, thankfully no CGs or anything do but the games magical girl super mode does have some designs for the main two party members that i really wish were even farther toned down, though the characters from the first game are much worse in this regard so i do have to give it credit for being comparitively very tame, with these kinds of games you really have to take whatever good you can get in this regard and at least all the main design's are tame, even the nun and maid outfits aren't sexualised, which i'm glad for because midra and shina's outfits are both amazing here.

the games short length is also a blessing, for an rpg it's very short, only around 20 hours with an extra playthrough lasting maybe 5 or 6 to experiance all the new cutscenes, endings and a whole new area and minigame featuring the ao oni from ao oni. if you can handle the content, and i would fully understand someone not being able to get over even the mild sexualisation or the CW's needed, i would say give it a try, i can see many being put off by the fact its a compile game or by the art style but i think if you give it a try, you'll find something really special here, a cross section between the otome writing stylings of idea factories otomate branch with the everything else of their other branch that makes for a game that feels one of a kind among its peers while this game ends on a sequalbait tease in some of the ng+ content its hard to say if we'll ever get one, the game came out in 2020 and while we had a switch port last year, which is the way to play as it does have all the dlc on cart, its hard to say if it sold well enough for one, but i hope we get one because this game is special and i think it deserves to have the series ending they clearly want to give it, i just hope this writing staff is kept on because they really give this game the heart that made it so special to me.