ZPage Entertainment 

Bungie has developed some of my most beloved games of all time. My very first online game was played in Halo 3. I played Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 at friends’ house for endless hours. When Destiny launched I was enthralled for hundreds of hours. My expectations were high to say the least when they announced a sequel to one of my favourite new franchises with Destiny 2, and in short, I loved it. While Destiny 2 has its flaws and shortcomings, I have to say that the gameplay, story and the overall enjoyment that this game brings is far greater than any of its downsides.

 

From the get-go, the game has a unique way of catching you up on what happened in Destiny through beautiful drawings of events from the original game and showing what day you completed it for the first time and who was in your fireteam for the adventure. Once I got into the game, I was shown immediately that Bungie was aware of story being something that was lacking in the original Destiny. The story and exposition is very clear as to what conflict is, along with how and why you should be trying to help the situation. While I personally am not a fan of the silent protagonist approach, I understand that Bungie wants each and every person to feel like they are the character, not just watching the story unfold through this other character’s eyes. While I will avoid spoilers, I do enjoy that the story has a clear ending, and the game feels like it stands alone as a story while keeping a window alive to continue the story afterwards.

 

As for things that accent gameplay, I was astonished by some of the features that were displayed in Destiny 2. For starters, near the beginning of the game I actually stopped for a couple minutes to look at the beautiful scenery while listening to music that reminded me of playing Flower or Journey. Very few times have I ever found such beauty through song in a video game, and I was honestly extremely surprised with how well the music set the mood and helped me enjoy the other aspects of the game. Destiny (the original) was a beautiful game in terms of graphics and unique character and enemy design, and Destiny 2 built upon that and was one of the more beautiful games I played this year. However, I must admit that some of the creativity was lacking in Destiny 2, as many of the worlds and enemies were either the same or felt far too familiar for my liking. While there is some story reasoning for this, it just makes Destiny 2 feel like an expansion, not a brand new game. One small thing that Destiny 2 added that made for a huge positive change to me was that you could access the map to the world, and it showed you where public events were, where side missions could be found and launched.

 

The pace of the game, both during the story and post-game feel slightly off to me. During the campaign, I felt like you would get to a world, and after a mission or two it feels like they try to send you away to another world immediately. These worlds are so filled with things to do such as side quests, patrols, loot caves and area chests and yet I felt that they tried to shove me out the door before getting to fully experience what each world had to offer. Post-game I found that every week doesn’t have enough content to keep me for more than just a short playthrough of a couple hours once a week. The reasoning for this is because other than weekly challenges to earn powerful gear, you get no reward from playing.

 

As for the actual gameplay, this is where Destiny 2 is a master in its class. Shooting mechanics and balance is fun. The use of platforming is used in the regular missions as opposed to only used in raids in the original Destiny which offers new challenges and keeps the player on their toes and looking around them for what is possible and within reach. The Leviathan raid is just as, if not more fun, challenging and rewarding than any other raid from the original. From the first time completing it through trial and error, lasting 6 of us over 6 hours of trying and finally conquering the raid, to the last time where we all knew what to do and could finish it within an hour and a half, each time was still challenging in its own unique way and rewarding all the same. Strikes I found were one thing that weren’t really improved on for Destiny 2. In the original, it always felt like you were going to an area, clearing out waves of enemies, and then doing it over and over again. While some of the strikes in this did feel less repetitive, many of them did still feel repetitive and not exactly fun. This might not be as big of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that in Destiny 2 you can’t choose which strike to embark on. I launched strikes one night hoping to get new content and launched the same strike 4 times in a row, and then another one 3 times in a row. I gave up that night and just went to bed frustrated that I didn’t get to play anything other than those 2 strikes.

 

Looking at this review and seeing what people say about Destiny 2 almost makes it seem like this game isn’t good. Honestly it is great. The gameplay and the story and the interactions involved in Destiny 2 are so amazing that it keeps people coming back over and over again. I believe that the criticism just comes from a place of love, in that we want Destiny 2 to be the greatest game ever made, and see that it has that potential so we are just disappointed that it could be even better than it is. I cannot say it enough, Destiny 2 is great. After seeing Halo 1, Halo 2, and Halo 3, I can only hope that Destiny can have the same ark of continuously growing and being better with each iteration, and I am excited to see what not only this game will continue to put out, but what Destiny 3 could be when it arrives.