Richly atmospheric and truly engaging. Many elements in D2 are well supported, except for the gameplay and the speed...
Before I start with this long review, let me give a brief history of the very little known developer named Kenji Eno. He is the one who found WARP and he's the mastermind behind all of their games. He released his first game called D, for the 3DO (1995), and later for the Playstation and Saturn (1996). The game was a low-budget horror thriller that never got any success despite it being released on 3 systems. The game ran on a 2 hour time limit and required you to solve puzzles. Later on, Kenji Eno wanted to try a sequel to improve all of D's shortcomings. So in 1996, he started planning on D2. However, he noticed that it would take a long time to complete. Originally, D2 was going to be released for the M2, but that system never got released. So he putted the project aside temporary and worked on a "spin-off." This turned out to be Enemy Zero, which was released as a Saturn exclusive in 1997. Like D, it was not very successful worldwide.
After the spin-off, Kenji Eno decided to go back and finished up D2. He still had no idea on what system to put it on since the M2 was cancelled. He originally thought of maybe releasing it as one of the last Saturn titles, however, he noticed Sega was planning on the Dreamcast in 1998, so he planned on releasing D2 for that system. Unfortunately, fans of his games had to wait for a long time because D2 kept getting delayed. The game was finally released in Japan in late 1999. Now, after nearly 4 years of planning, D2 was finally released for the Dreamcast for the US and later in Europe in 2000. After D2, however, no one has ever heard of him or of WARP ever since. Kenji Eno said WARP was breaking up and that D2 will be their last game. Today, Eno-san probably is working on other things related to computers or something.
Gameplay:
Laura, who is the female star of WARP's games, is flying on an airplane to visit her mother in Canada. While on the plane, she meets a couple people for a bit. But later, the plane is hijacked by terrorists. The terrorists started killing people and giving orders to everyone. But then, all of the sudden, a meteorite strikes the plane. The plane then crashes. Many people died, but some survived as well. Unfortunately many people get infected by a virus that mutates them into gruesome monsters. Laura, thankfully, is not infected. However, she grew unconscious for days. Later on, Laura wakes up in a bed in a cabin. A woman is by the fire keeping it warm. Her name was Kimberly. She accompanies Laura and tends to make sure they both survive and get out of the Canadian arctic. As the story progresses, you will encounter more people and many surprises on what happens. There are many cutscenes and most of them have a meaning as well as a long length.
D2, promised to surpass its prequel, D, has 5 different types of gameplay modes. There's the Search mode, which is based on what D was all about. You walk through rooms and check drawers, closets, talk to people, as well as figuring out puzzles in a first-person view in order to progress through. You may even find extras that are not really required, such as spray bottles to heal yourself and bullets for some of your guns. Then there's Exploring mode, which is where you control Laura in a 3rd-person view through snow fields and mountains of Canada. Everything is snow-covered like you'd expect in parts of Canada. You can use ether the analog stick or the D-pad to move. Sometimes controlling Laura takes time to get used to, since it's not very easy. Most of the areas are huge and are easy to explore. Sometimes, you will see animals, such as Geese, Hares and Deer out walking around in the snow. In D2, you can hunt for them to get meat. You are acquired a rifle so you can use a scope to aim for the animal. Use it by pressing the L trigger and selecting the rifle. Like in real life, however you need to be careful while hunting. If you shoot once, most likely the other animals will run away. After you shoot an animal, you will have meat so you can heal yourself when in battles. Often times, mutated creatures will pop out of nowhere as you explore the mountains.
This is where battling comes in. When mutated creatures appear, you will automatically switch to a first-person view and use a gun to stop them. In a way, it's like a FPS battle, but a little different. Press the A button to attack and press the R trigger to switch weapons. Sometimes, you need to switch your camera view to the right or left by pressing ether B or X so you can catch sight of the creatures. At first, you only have the sub-automatic as your weapon for battles, but as you play on, you will get more guns. Thankfully, most of the battles aren't very difficult, so you should have no problem. You can even heal yourself in battle if you have any meat. After you kill them all, you get experience points, typically what you see in RPG's. When you level up, your skills and HP will get higher.
These gameplay modes is what you see mostly in the game, however, there is one more that can be very useful. As you get much further on, you will find a snowmobile. You can use it to go on trails quickly. At times, it does have control issues, but you'll be able to overcome them. Presentation-wise, D2 has a few issues that will annoy most people. D was famous for having the speed in the gameplay to be slow. This issue caused some people to look at D as boring. This has been improved dramatically in D2, but there are still times when you have to have a little patience in some situations. Many of the cutscenes are long. A couple are even as long as 10-15 minutes. The only way you will find D2 somewhat enjoyable is if you have patience. Compared to WARP's previous games, D and Enemy Zero, D2 is the company's best in terms of gameplay, but unfortunately, compared to other games out there, D2 just doesn't have addictive gameplay to keep a casual gamer interested.
Graphics:
One thing WARP has always been great at is making their games with great graphics with a strong atmosphere. D had a gothic/horror atmosphere and Enemy Zero had a sci-fi/horror atmosphere (Alien is a perfect example of this). D2 has a horror feel in a north woods style. Since the game takes place in Canada, the game has snowy mountains, snow-covered trees, and even some dead trees with sharp branches. There are cabins and huts as well. When it comes to Dreamcast games, this one is one of the most atmospheric and is one of the most beautifully presented games ever made for the system. Occasionally, I find myself stopping Laura just to look at a mountain from a distance. They are that interesting to look at. The game has white fog for a winter affect and has everything you'd expect in mountainous region. The areas in D2 are large and rarely has any pop-ups. When it comes to environments, D2 is beautiful to look at.
Other graphics, such as the characters, objects and mutated creatures, are not extremely interesting to look at. Some of the characters look decent (with Laura being the best looking) but there are some blocky fingers you will notice. The frame rate sometimes at 30 fps, but other times it will get clunky during cutscenes, and that's a bit of a disappointment. Another thing to point out is D2 is quite graphic. There's not only tons of blood and gore, but the mutated creatures look sometimes gross-looking. There are many other moments in the game where the content is just...unsettling. Even for a 6 year old game, (from the date of this review) things in this game are still pretty sickening today. So the environments featured in D2 are great for a Dreamcast game, but everything else pretty much is average or above.
Sound:
The music, which is composed by Kenji Eno himself, is not really memorable, but it does fit in a situation well when a tune is heard. The music is mostly played in cutscenes. You will hear sound effects when you pick up items, and when Laura is walking through the snow. The voice acting is pretty good and fits in most of the characters very well. They even do a good job on some of their lines with some good emotion. The only issue is that Laura doesn't talk at all, which is common in WARP's games. She only gasps, screams, and makes other small noises. Anyone interested Laura DOES talk briefly in the game. (You'll have to play to find out) The audio is nothing memorable for the game music history, but it does serve a purpose for creating the effect in cutscenes and such.
Conclusion:
D2 is hard to recommend. Since WARP was never great with gameplay, that's one of the reasons why their games weren't successful. I personally thought the gameplay was good, but could've been much more. Despite the game being 4 discs long, D2 can actually be completed in 10 hours. There are 4 discs because there's a lot of talking in the game and the environments are huge. After beating this, there is no real reason to play it again. Most likely you will put it aside for a couple months and see if it interests you again. If you're a gamer interested in this game, despite it having some problems common in WARP's games, then go ahead and try to get it at a cheap price. Story-wise, you don't need to play WARP's other games to know it. Kenji Eno was always famous for creating games with flawed gameplay, but rich atmosphere and are easily engaging. And he continues that tradition in his last game...
Pros:
-5 different gameplay modes, all of which have some enjoyment out of them.
-Environments are huge and are beautiful to look at.
-Characters are sometimes very interesting and you actually have feelings for them.
-Above-average music and voice acting is well suited here.
Cons:
-WARP continues the tradition where the game feels a little slow-paced.
-At times, things will get boring, another tradition.
-Most likely, you won't come back for a long while after completing this.