The Surge 2 is a Action-RPGs games for PS4, XBONE, and PC, which was developed by Deck13 Interactive and published by Focus Home Interactive, and it is a sequel to 2017's title The Surge.
Around year and the half, I already covered The Surge for my PS4 which I described it as Dark Souls styled Dystopian Sci-Fi title which is a decent Action-RPGs that I have praised it for its 30 hours length, solid combat, satisfying boss battles, and exploration, but except the weak story and characters that felt bland and uninteresting that needs to be addressed for the future installiment.
So then I finally had another go with the sequel which I am expecting the improvements from the original including larger open-world exploration with alternative paths, make different choices which will affect the game's world and story, larger variety of combat styles with the introduction of 5 weapon types, and allowing players to create their own customizable characters.
After spending over 25 hours of whole single-player campaign, I had to say this is actually a better sequel that had addressed the faults of the original game such as the storyline itself are slightly more interesting in the sequel than the first game, but not quite perfect which I will explain it further on this review.
I will also discuss the pros and cons of this game such as combat system, open-world design, objectives, and boss battles during this review to show if this game is worthy enough to pick up and play.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game takes place after the event of the first game as it sets in dystopian future where humans have exhausted the world's resources causing strained social service and environmental diseases which leads the extinction of mankinds.
You have unnamed protagonist who is befriends a young girl named Athena Guttenberg, the granddaughter of CREO founder Jonah Guttenberg, went abroad an airplane till the rocket collides with the plane which releases its nanite payload which severely damages the craft, causing it to crash on the outskirts of Jericho City.
After the terrible plane crash, you are being woken up in a prison medical facility where you set off to search for Athena, as well as learning the conflict with the A.I.D. disaster relief unit and the Children of the Spark led by Matriarch Celeste, a cult leader who plotting to use an experimental source power known as nanites to harm the human race as well as the machines.
The story in the game is rather bit better, but not the best so far in my opinion. What made the story got it right is that it focuses on unnamed warrior uncovering the Athena's recent memories which involves how she was being infected with nanite that leads the members of the A.I.D units went after her for experiment which I think it made the story in the game quite little bit better than what I've expected from the game.
Then you have a former protagonist Warren Garcia from the first game which I never been fond on this character as much, but instead he just one of the NPCs came to help unnamed warrior as a masked man seeking the truth behind the actions of A.I.D.
I got to be honest with the villains in the game such as Little Johnny is a big fat maniac, who is drug-addict, went quite aggressively ballistic during the boss fight, and then you have Brother Eli, a prophet and heir to the Spark, who followed a same plot as his mother Celeste tends to destroy humanity by obtaining the powerful sources that allowed them to corrupt the city and turning machines into hostile, so these villains are actually quite better than the ones from the original which is a not bad attempt by developers themselves trying to make it look more acceptable in game.
Speaking of acceptable, the character's customisation is pretty good which gives you an option to change your choice of preferences such as male or female appearances, types of facials, types and colours of hairs and eyes, and personal outfits which I got to say its pretty good for the genres that gives you a choice to create and design your own playable character.
As much I liked the Dystopian Sci-Fi settings, the city of Jericho is massively larger than the first game filled with broken buildings, wrecked cars, remote controlled drones, security zones area, and no entry bridges, as well as many locations such as dance clubs, metro station, forrest, power station, police station, and undergrounds which I got to say it's pretty neat looking environmental design.
The weapons and enemies in the game is just as good like from the originals which I am very glad that the developer team did a fine job of putting more efforts in the game.
It had robots, droids, security experts, heavy armored units, and super-powered sparks units, while the weapons concepts like blades, hammers, twin-rigged, and heavy-duties is what made the concept design looked appealing in the game.
Overall, it has fair story, okay characters, cool character's customisation, and solid presentation design.
Gameplay
You take control of unnamed player in Souls-like RPGs perspective, while it has Metroidvania style exploration which has large open-world levels to explore as well as requiring the quest item to open up blocked areas that leads to new locations. Your goal is to head at the main destination while it progressed though the story as you are being required to upgrading your abilities and weapons in order to survive the battles against the enemies.
You have an bar screen at the bottom screen which indicates player's health, stamina, and energy, so the health is actually your player's condition which keeps you alive, the stamina actually effects on sprinting, dodging and attacking which tells you that you may ran out breath for overdoing your actions, and finally the energy are used for implants items and drone attack which can only increased by attacking enemies further.
You can able to walk, sprint, and jump through the areas, while locking on the enemies during the fight which I think its easier to direct focused on the enemies keeping the camera system intact nicely. You can also switch target between the enemies nearby are also really helps me to lock on another types of enemy that I wanted to fight on.
You have two types of attacks such as horizontal and vertical attacks which are used for damaging enemy depending what types of weapon you used in the game and you can also avoid enemy's attack by pressing the dodge button for evading and using block button to prevent getting damaged by their projectiles as well as parrying which also defecting their incoming projectiles.
It came with 9 different types of weapons has some advantages and disadvantages depending how much impact damage or speed contains with such as twin-rigged provides speed attacks and balanced stamina, one-handed is short range with well-balanced attributes, staves has long range and well-rounded, heavy-duty are slow and wide but deals high amount of damage, punching gloves are quick but has weak attack, hammers are heavy and slow provides high impact attack, spears are long and quick attack, double-duty are dual welding weapons, and single-rigged attacks deals fair amount of damage.
It will takes sometime to get used with these kinds of combat weapons once you're able to master these weapon well during the combat fight against bad guys. You can also perform an finishing moves by holding the action button while the enemy runs on low health causing to dismantle enemy's armour parts by targeting on their body parts such as arms, legs, body, and head as you can keep them for the workshop which I will explain it for later.
Then you have these types of drones modules such as sniper which deals long-range damage, flamethrower that burst the enemies with fire, turret is a self-machine that automatically shoots, grenades that can explodes them, and of course spray can which allows you to spray stuff on walls.
On the workshop room which acts as a auto-save checkpoints, this will allow you to craft and upgrade your weapons and armours which requires both components and tech points.
You will need wrecked armour parts to convert into the certain components and you can also gained tech points by defeating enemy or destroying consumables which you can store them safe fully on workshop's tech bank, but be careful if you getting killed by foes your tech points drops on same location as where you die so you had to retrieve it back to get all remaining tech points, but if you die again then your tech points item will disappear meaning you will lose all remaining currencies.
Spending on these tech points along with required components helps you upgrade your armours which improves your player's defense to reduce damage, as well as choice of weapons that increases amount of impact damages resulting heavy kills on enemies easier.
Then you have the core power are also effect on equipping armours and implants items which requires enough core power to use these depending what your core power level you're on, so you can upgrade them from the workshop which adds enough core capacity levels to fit your enhancements.
The implants items are quite useful which can be located on different rooms of the areas, so you will have health capacity, stamina reducer, energy saver, and etc. which really improves your player's overall performance making more stronger and tougher. These injectables items may come in handy during the in-game battle such as restoring health, increasing defense and stamina, and removing poisonous are also located somewhere in the levels.
There are a required quest items that leads you to new paths such as ID card to unlock security doors, travel hook that you can attach into ropes allowing you to travel through the next area, and you may also need EMP disabler that allow you to disable mechanism such as unlocking doors or activate stuff, and finally the one of the ability that attached into your attributes allowing you to break through blocked paths made of sparks using your own weapon.
What I've notice in the game is that the whole level environments seems to be much larger than the original which is the reason why this game takes place in city rather than the factory which gives us a more freedom and choices to explore around the areas such as finding hidden secrets, discovering un-visited places, collecting randomised items, and best of all is the alternative paths where you can make decisions may affect the world and story with two or more different routes which I got to say it's a well-made game's design filled with many interesting objectives and replayability.
Then again, I did mention two annoying things from the first game such as lack of the map screen from the pause menu and keep losing all scraps after two deaths are still present on this game, so it looks like the developer team hasn't learned it from the first game to resolve the issue, oh well.
The combat system feels much fluid and more impact than the first game thanks to 5 addition types of weapons feels nicely balanced and responsive making it easier to fight against many foes.
As I liked the customisable controls from the option menu may benefit to those who aren't really used with the default settings like mostly from From Software's Dark Souls series, I also noticed that the game had added two customisable functions for sprinting, jumping, and evading, so I am glad that I don't have to press left stick for jumping like from the first game so I can have all 3 actions on the X button instead which is much easier to use.
The objectives is mostly good in the game which mixes with all mains and side-quests as well as fighting with the tough bad guys are harder to beat but also adds the fun factor of the game itself which I am glad they tweaked the enemy's A.I to make it feel more intelligential and responsive. I had to give the game credit for having the most satisfying boss battles that the sequel had done it right for being tactical and challenging which I am impressed with the game's overall.
Overall, it has larger open-world design, fluid combat system, has alternative paths, and satisfying bosses.
Graphics
The graphics in the game is just like from the originals but larger than you're expected such as environmental design on mostly level locations which they did a good job of expanding the open-world size of the Jericho city, and I also liked the details on objects like trees, waterfall, rocks and large buildings seems to be quite impressive to look at.
The visuals design seems to be look good for its lighting effects and background draw-distances which is fine, but it does have an minor loading textures when loading the game up or exiting the medbay menu causing the blurs textures that only lasted for 10 seconds which is not an serious issue.
The game does have graphics options which gives you an option to change motion blurs, bloom effects, camera shake system, brightness levels, and other configuration that might help you change for your preferred video settings.
The character's animation is pretty good in the game especially with their A.I feels much more natural during the combat and I got to love the gory effects on the game where the player chops off the enemy's body parts in slow motion which is kinda cool to watch them torn apart while running on slow speed sequence.
Overall, it has amazing environmental design, great visuals, good character's animation, and cool gory effects.
Music and Sounds
The soundtrack is mostly great with more of industrial sci-fi feel that fits perfectly well for most of the locations as well as in-game boss battle, and I am glad it has an easter egg soundtrack from the first game at one of the medbay such as the song called Prisoner made by Stumfol.
The sound effects is pretty good for its background noises and some environmental sounds inside the building is quite an atmospheric in the game, while I also liked the battle screaming from the human enemies is quite insane during the battle.
The voice acting in the game is slightly little bit better than the first ones, but not the best so far in my opinion because some of the NPCs sounded like they trying so hard to be like professionals while the others including villains are sounded just about right for their roles which is okay at best.
Overall, it has great soundtrack, decent sound design, and okayish voice acting.
Special Features
The game does feature new game plus that adds the game's replay value, and it also has DLC expansion called The Kraken which includes a new location with 3 quests as well as new story, weapons, enemies, armor, and implants.
The physical copy of limited edition came with many cool collectables such as 3D exclusive cover, comic book, 3 exclusive lithographs, and double-sided poster with artwork.
Overall, an amazing bonuses.
Advantages
Cool customisable characters
Solid presentation design
Larger open-world design
Fluid combat system
Has alternative paths
Satisfying boss battles
Amazing environmental design
Great soundtrack
Disadvantages
Lack of map screen
Losing tech scrap instantly after two deaths
Minor texture loading
Final Verdict
Presentation 7/10 - fair story, okay characters, cool character's customisation, and solid presentation design.
Gameplay 8/10 - larger open-world design, fluid combat system, has alternative paths, and satisfying bosses.
Graphics 8/10 - amazing environmental design, great visuals, good character's animation, and cool gory effects.
Music and Sounds 7.5/10 - great soundtrack, decent sound design, and okayish voice acting.
Special Features 8/10 - New game plus, expansion DLC location, and bonus limited edition collectables (physical copy).
Overall 8/10 - As much I liked the first game, this sequel are far better than what I've expected thanks to large open-world with numerous of locations, character's customisation, solid single-player quests with great combat and epic bosses, and has more than 2 different routes adding replayability makes the overwhelmed improvement over the original.
The Surge 2 is one of the better game that I can appreciate enough to liken this type of Action-RPGs, so it may be difficult to recommend casuals due to punishing difficulty may frustrates them unless if you're one of the experts or those who previously good at From Software's Dark Souls series then this game is for you to pick up and play.
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