Sunday, June 2, 2024
Genre – JRPG, Horror, Mystery Play Time – 16 hours Developer – Compile Heart/Idea Factory Steam VNDB
Hack The World
There
are two ways to make a squeal, either you stick close to what was
established in the first game and provide more of the same or you
take the basic ideas of that original title and reinvent them in a
new form. Death End Request 2 takes the latter path by shifting the
series from being about people trapped in a video game into a tale
small town horror with a vastly smaller scale of narrative. The core
tension and RPG integration remains as the solid foundation around
which its new vision can develop. Not everything it inherits is for
the best with issues about the use of the titular Death Ends being
ineffective and the combat system long having reached its limit, all of which
the game makes no real effort to solve. Does this reinvention breathe
new life into the series or does it undermine what made the first
game good? Let’s get trapped in the countryside and find out.
Digital Horror – Narrative and Themes
In
choosing to embrace small town horror as a core part of its tone and
content, Death End Request 2 invokes the genre tropes associated with
it. The game does not simple play them straight instead choosing to
play into them from interesting angles or using them in unexpected
ways all in service of creating tension. Take the almost cult like
religion which dominates the town, its followers range from normal
believers to insane fanatics, but it is often unclear who falls into
which camp or what involvement they actually have in the mysterious
monster appearing at night. On one level the player is expecting the
religion to be the source of what is going on so will be jumping any
time something related to it appears on screen. Meanwhile the seemly
innocent believers muddy this gut reaction lending a sense of
paranoia as the game places enough doubt for questions to form about
if they are genuinely uninvolved or so far gone that they cannot see
how wrong their actions have become. In a small town everyone knows
each other and the player is rapidly introduced to the majority of
the important cast and thus unknowingly to all the enemies and allies
they will be involved with over the course of the story. Due to their
close proximity the characters’ lives and emotions become well
known and they come across as reasonable people with their own issues
and dreams. As such when the curtain is pulled back and their true
nature is revealed it furthers the established feeling of paranoia as
the characters whom the player thought they knew turned out be hiding
their true face which causes them to reevaluate the rest.
 |
| The small nature of the town and orphanage means you will be very faimilar with its residents |
Gone
is the stark divide between the visual novel and RPG halves present in the first game
and in its place is an emphasis on the personal nature of the game’s
mysteries. The cast members remain constant through both sections as
does the location they take place which lends a sense of continuity
between the two sections and avoids the disjoined feelings prevalent
in the original title. When night falls the familiar scenery of the
town is warped and twisted into monstrous forms and seemly safe
spaces take on a sinister shape adding to the already unsettling
nature of the daytime. As the night is the RPG half of the game it is
home to the monsters which form the backbone of the supernatural
elements of the mystery surrounding the town. Events that occur
within the night effect the town as a whole even during the day
creating a sense of interconnectivity from the consequences of what
happens during the night. Having the main cast remain the same
between the two halves allows all of the threats faced on both sides
to take on a personal angle through which they are pulled backwards and
forwards by the challenges each presents. Without the grand
conspiracies of the first game, this intimacy is necessary to
maintain the player’s interest and leads to a highly character
centric narrative where placing them in danger contributes to plot
progress and a slow escalation of stakes.
 |
| Blending the two halves of the game was the best move they could have made |
As
a series Death End Request has always had a problem with how it
handles its signature feature, the Death Ends, and this continues in
the second title. The game seems actively ashamed of them and fearful
that a player might accidentality stumble into one so it signposts
them aggressively. Manifestations of this can be seen in how the
choices have a very clear bad option leading to the Death End or have
the characters more or less spell out which option is the correct one
to progress the story. This removes any impact the surprise of
choosing one by accident might have had since the game removes any
element of uncertainty and by extension any threat. Death Ends
themselves lack any interesting contents to justify going out of your
way to experience them. The majority are simple violent deaths for
the characters with no substance to them and there is only so many
times you can see people die horribly before it becomes familiar and
boring. A good bad ending reveals a small hint about the plot or
some interesting character morsel for the player to chew on and keep
them coming back for more. There is no such draw to most Death Ends
and so they ring hollow as a narrative device.
New Found Family – Characters
A
tight focus defines the core cast with it only consisting of three
characters whom the game follows consistently throughout its entire
duration and it rarely leaves their perspective. Couple this with
each one of the trio having distinctive personalities which
compliment and contrast with each other and what forms is an entertaining group
dynamic. Due to this small main cast each of them get a sizeable
amount of screen time in order to humanise them and in doing so
provides room for them to bounce off the other characters to
reveal more about themselves. Take the protagonist Touyama Mai, she
suffers from trauma and self loathing from having murdered her
abusive father, but rarely does she openly and directly express this
and instead it is communicated through her social awkwardness, frank
answers to people’s questions and her general rejection of those
who treat her kindly. Yet there is a kind side to her that she cannot
suppress especially when it comes to children and these two halves
balance themselves out in a subtle manner resulting in a well rounded
character. The rest of the cast are similarly layered and react to
the ongoing horrors around them in an organic way which helps the
player form a bond with them as they share a similar emotional state
and knowledge. Everything about them is a carefully harmonious
mixture of contrasting pieces that works to keep the characters
feeling fresh.
 |
| The main trio are endlessly loveable |
When
it comes to characters the group which stand out like a sore thumb
are those who are returning from the first game. The vastly different
subject matter of that title makes its cast come across as out of
place in a small town horror narrative. Their personalities are
larger and more flamboyant than the new cast which is due to them
being from a game with a much larger main cast meaning they had to be
immediately recognisable so the player could remember them. This was
fine in the first game, but here it feels like the game is shouting
at you whenever they are on screen compared to the new characters
which are almost like quiet whispers. While their involvement in the
narrative is relatively minor overall, they appear just often enough
to distract from the game’s tone and drag the player out of the
experience. They also represent a missed opportunity to add some
additional depth and humanity to these characters, especially Shiina
who has by far the most screen time and yet remains static
throughout. Instead they just do a greatest hits version of their
personality before exiting the stage to be forgotten about the
narrative and the player.
 |
| Shiina is such a missed opportunity here |
Corrupted Normality – Visual, Audio and Technical
The
visual and audio style of Death End Request 2 inherits much of the
glitchy and data corruption styling of the original title, but here
recontextualised as a perversion of the real world rather than of a
game. As such it has toned down the more fantasy themed elements from
that first game in order to keep the parts of the town the cast visit
at night still looking recognisably like their day time equivalents.
It plays off this combination of two familiar and yet vastly
different aspects to create a sense of unease since these mundane
places are similar to those the player likely sees every day and yet
they all wrong. During the day time sections when only the normal
town is shown it adopts a brighter visual and audio style to show the
warmth of the orphanage and the girls which the cast interacts with.
However, even this takes on a darker undertone as the truth behind
the town is revealed without the need for any dramatic changes and
this does work with the subtle build up the game is based around. The
resulting mixture lead to a feeling of texture to the world beyond
the direct narrative being presented to the player and it works on
them in a subconscious level to push them into experiencing the
desired emotions.
 |
| The RPG system need some major updates to main interest |
Compile
Heart has had a RPG combat system that they have been using since
Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2 and the Death End Request series uses a
variant of it focusing around knocking enemies into one another.
While it is never not satisfying to hit enemies around liking
bowling pins, it was always a limited gimmick pasted over an ageing
battle system which has long ago reached its limit. The symptoms of
this stagnation are clear from its lack of meaningful mechanical
escalation to enemies who do not encourage the player to engage with
the unique selling point of the gameplay. Alongside this is the
recurring problem in Compile Heart’s games in their inability to
balance difficulty properly. At about the half way mark there is a
dramatic escalation in the health pools of enemies with little to no
other changes resulting the fights taking longer to complete without
actually becoming more challenging. This makes the latter sections of
the game feel like a slog to complete which really hurts the player’s
ability to enjoy the other elements of the game. To top it all off
the final boss is such a massive jump in difficulty due to its
insanely damaging attacks compared to anything else beforehand that
it would perfectly reasonable for the player to rage quit in
response.
Conclusion
Death
End Request 2 is a game defined by when it inherited from its
predecessor and by how it shapes this into something uniquely its
own. It takes the glitch and data corruption visual, audio and narrative
elements and reshapes them into the context of a small town horror
story in order to provide an unsettling atmosphere. The more personal
focus and smaller cast also contribute to the claustrophobic and
paranoid atmosphere where the player becomes intimately familiar with
both the main cast but also the people who will reveal themselves to
antagonists. Not everything it inherits is of such a high quality, it
continues the first game’s inability to properly utilise the
titular Death Ends and old cast members feel out of place in this new
tone and setting. On top of this the RPG systems have long ago
reached their limits and can bore or infuriate the player over the
course of the game. However, none of these issues are enough to
undermine what is one of the strongest examples of RPG horror.
Verdict –
A sequel which is not afraid to take the series in a new small
town horror direction to create something distinct to great effect.
It is only held back by being shackled to an ageing RPG system.
Pros -
+
Excellent utilising of the small town horror genre to create a tense
and compelling experience.
+
The smaller focus and scale contribute to make the game feel intimate
while promoting paranoia in the player’s mind.
+
A small main cast allows each of the characters to be properly
fleshed out and given the subtle and humanity they need to make them
likeable and interesting to watch.
+
Glitches and data corruption pervert the mundane world of the town
creating a distinctive and unsettling visual and auditory identity.
Cons -
-
Death End continue to be poorly utilised, overly signposted and
uninteresting to engage with.
-
The returning cast members feel out of place in the new setting and
tone while not receiving any development of their own.
-
Compile Heart’s ageing RPG combat system is unable to produce
interesting encounters consistently over the course of the game and
is balanced poorly.
