By: Tyler Miller
When I first played Destiny in 2014, I thought the game was fun and had a solid foundation, but there just wasn’t enough to keep a strong hold on me once I completed the campaign.
I didn’t really care all that much for the game’s competitive mode, I didn’t have too much time to raid, nor anyone to do it with, and I didn’t like the way the game’s loot system worked at the time. And although I thought the story was serviceable, it wasn’t anything to write home about. I wasn’t as invested in the game as I would’ve liked to be, which disappointed me because I’m a fan of Bungie and their Halo games.
Things changed with the release of The Taken King in 2015. The story was a big improvement, I found time to raid, and I actually started to enjoy the competitive modes. The loot system received a major overhaul as well, and just like that, I had been sucked into Bungie’s FPS-MMO. While I’ve taken breaks from the game over the years, I’ve enjoyed everything that’s been released for the game.
Coming into Destiny 2, my excitement was at an all time high. I was excited to jump back into this world and explore brand new worlds as I fought new foes alongside old comrades. I’ve only made it Nessus and now have the option to head to Io, but I’m happy to say that the game is meeting every expectation I had for it, and even surpassing others. First things first, let’s talk about the story. Bungie seems to have taken what they learned with The Taken King and Rise of Iron and applied those lessons to Destiny 2, as the story so far is leaps and bounds better than the story in the original game.
The story so far has been impactful, fun, and not uninteresting in the slightest bit. I’m actually invested in the story and want to find out what’s going to happen next. We have a solid antagonist who’s motivations are clear and understandable in Ghaul, the leader of the Cabal’s Red Legion. He sees the Traveler and the Light that it has given us to fight with as something that he has a right to, and seeks to take it for himself. Right from the start he’s a tangible threat. His army’s attacked us at our home, rid us of our powers and weapons, and forced us to take refuge outside the city.
I never thought I’d be worried or feel sad about something that was going on in the Destiny story, but the escape from the Last City and into the world outside of it is one that made me actually feel humbled and made me worry about the fate of everyone that was in there. Sure we may have fought a Hive god before, but he never had us this desperate and scared.
Then there are the other characters as well. Zavala, Ikora, and Cayde-6 are still great characters and have more of a presence in the story this time around than in the past. We get to see them worried and struggling with the knowledge that they’ve lost their home and that they may not be able to beat their enemy this time around, and it makes them deeper characters for it.
The new characters are great additions as well. Suraya Hawthorne is the refugee leader who runs The Farm on Earth, and although she’s all for saving the people and keeping them protected from the Cabal, she’s not really the biggest fan of the Last City and Guardians. Then there’s Devrim Kay, a talented sniper and associate of Suraya’s that is an absolute joy to talk with while doing missions on Earth. My favorite new character so far is Failsafe. She’s an A.I. on Nessus that has two different personalities: one that’s cheerful and one that’s pessimistic. It’s funny when she talks to you and flips between both sides in the middle of a sentence, and I can’t get enough of her funny dialogue.
As for the gameplay, while it feels very similar to the first game, things have also been stepped up in many ways across the board. For starters, shooting your guns feels just as impactful and powerful as it did in the first game. It’s incredibly satisfying firing off three rounds from a pulse rifle into an enemy and feeling the controller rumble as your target staggers or has its head blown off. Speaking of weapons, the weapon management system has changed and I’m liking it so far.
Whereas in the first game, we had primary weapons (auto rifles, pulse rifles, hand cannons, and scout rifles), special weapons (shotguns, snipers, side arms, and fusion rifles), and heavy weapons (rocket launchers, swords, and LMG’s), this game changes that up in a big way. Instead, we now have kinetic, energy, and power weapons. This allows us to have two different types of primary weapons equipped at all times, and forcing us to decide if we want to use a rocket, shotgun, sniper, or fusion rifle. As of right now, I have no issue with this change. It’s a bit more freeing to be able to swap from a pulse rifle to a scout rifle on the fly, and not have to go into my menu and take about 10 seconds to find the weapon I want and switch to it and get back into the game.
Destiny’s main gameplay draw is its loot system and so far it’s working well. I haven’t been getting loot drops that have been useless, but I am still leveling up. It is worth noting though as the loot system when the first Destiny launched was not the best and promoted heavy grinding.
One big change that’s been made to the gameplay experience is the worlds. In the past, we were only able to explore each planet is if we chose to do a patrol. This always started us at one specific point on the planet and only allowed us to do real short patrol missions or public events with other players. Also, we were never able to look at a map of the planet unless we went back into orbit and clicked on the planet to decide what we wanted to do. Now when we choose a planet, we can land at a few different spots on the map and then go do whatever we want.
We can explore for as long as want or we can go do a story mission. Want to do a public event? Go right ahead. No need to be on a patrol in order to do it. Want to go material hunting, do a public event, and then go right into a story mission? You can do all of that and never have to leave the planet once. It makes the planets feel more like actual worlds we can really explore and do what we want in, and not one level that we have to keep jumping in and out of in order to do activities. It also helps that we can open a map of the planet whenever we want to see where we are, track missions, fast travel back to a landing spot, or even go to another planet. Combine this ability to explore deeper worlds with great characters that you interact with in them and great gunplay, and you have an experience that’s plenty of fun.
The only issue I have so far with the game right now is with the shaders, and I’m not the only one. Shaders are color schemes that get applied to your characters outfit and change the way that it looks. In the past, shaders were applied to the entire outfit and could be used as much as you wanted. Now though, shaders are applied on a piece by piece basis, and you’re given a finite amount of each shader. Want to give your Warlock a cool red color scheme? Well you only have 2 uses of that shader and 4 body parts to apply it to, so you can’t. And if you want to change your current shader scheme to another one, well say goodbye to the color you currently have applied because it’s gone until you manage to find that shader again. While director Luke Smith has offered an explanation, I’m not totally on board with it.
I know there’s more to the game that I haven’t even touched yet with the Strikes and the Crucible, but as of right now, I’m thoroughly enjoying my time with Destiny 2. Yeah I may still be riding high off my initial hype for the game, and things could change my opinion on the game once I finish the story, but as of now the game is an improvement over its predecessor in many ways, and I just can’t wait to jump back in and keep on playing.
TheComfySpot 