RE-REVIEW: Death end re;Quest 2


Title	Death end re;Quest 2
Developer	Idea Factory
Publisher	Idea Factory International
Release Date	February 8th, 2022 (Switch) August 18th, 2020 (PlayStation 4 and PC)
Genre	RPG
Platform	Switch, PlayStation 4, PC
Age Rating	Mature
Official Website

I was very excited to get my hands on Death end re;Quest 2 when it launched on Steam back in 2020. I loved the first game’s darker story line and characters, so I figured the sequel would add more to this interesting world. I was very correct to assume this, even if the game was very different from the first one in some aspects, I had a great time with it. The game has finally released on the Nintendo Switch, and I decided to have a look at this port. Let’s see if this version does one of my favorite Idea Factory titles justice!

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on story details since this review is mostly going to cover the performance of the Switch port. If you want a more detailed look at the story and game systems, you should check out my full review of the Steam release. That being said, I do want to give a quick story introduction.

Mai Toyama has led a pretty rough life; since her parents divorced, she’s lived with her abusive father. Her sister, Sanae, was living with her mother, and Mai assumed things were better there. Mai’s father finally went off the deep end one day, and she killed him in self-defense. She requested to go live in an orphanage in the remote town of Le Choara. She heard her sister was living there now, since their mother had passed away as well. Upon arrival, however, she finds that no one remembers Sanae, and that something is very off with this town. Her new friend, Rotten Dollheart (Rottie), is the daughter of the headmistress, and is quite taken with Mai. Mai soon discovers that monsters roam the streets after midnight, and this place seems like a living hell. Rottie agrees to help Mai explore the area for clues about her sister, and this will lead them into a much deeper mystery than they could ever imagine!

As you would expect, the graphics take a decent hit in this release. It appears the resolution has been lowered, and the details are scaled back a bit for everything. The environments are where you can really see this. The textures do not look as crisp and detailed as they did in the PlayStation 4 and Steam releases. The character and enemy models look decent, and appear to have not been scaled down quite as much as the environments. Overall, while this doesn’t look as good as the other versions, it’s certainly passable. If you play in handheld mode most of the time, this will be less noticeable.

I was a little worried about the how the frame rate would be in this release of Death end re;Quest 2 after the Dragon Star Varmir release on the Switch. Thankfully, my fears were dispelled quickly. While this may not be running at 60 FPS, it stays at a very playable frame rate. You will see some dips now and then while walking around the environments, but these aren’t that frequent. The only real issue I ran into is when you get in a battle with an excessive amount of Bugs on the ground, it can make things crawl until some of them are used up. Idea Factory should’ve doubled the effects of these in the boss battles, and just put about half the amount on the battlefield.

Death end re;Quest 2 on the Switch is a decent experience. It may not look or run quite as well as its PlayStation 4 and Steam counterparts, but it plays well. If you’re looking to take the game on the go, this is a great option for that. The DLC from the previous release is included here, so you can start off with some awesome alternate costumes and special weapons. I spent around six hours with this release, skipping all of the story dialogue, to see how it preformed. If you haven’t picked this up on any of the other platforms, at the $39.99 launch price I would recommend snagging it up here. This is a great addition to the franchise, and still one of my favorite Idea Factory titles, and I blame Rottie’s awesomeness for this. If you own this one elsewhere, there is little reason to dive in here unless you just want a portable version.