Destiny 2 | Review

*SPOILERS*

Developer: Bungie

Publisher: Activision

Sequel to Destiny

PS4 Review

I know before I've even got into this post people will be sitting there rolling their eyes at this post because they didn't like the first Destiny, but let's just remember this is a whole new game with most of the old concepts still added to it. I get a lot of people said it should have just been another DLC after playing the beta which people hated on straight away. It wasn't packed full of much and Bungie didn't give much away with that Beta but we already knew a lot of what would be added to the game from a couple of live stream conferences that have taken place over this year. The three years since Destiny's original release have flown by, in that time there have been some ups and a lot of downs for the game, most of the people I knew stopped playing it due to there not being enough story and they found it very repetitive so they got bored easily. I was a little worried about the new storyline for Destiny 2, I wasn't sure it would live up to the hype but I actually love the new story. It's packed full of more character and more of an insight to the older characters in the first Destiny, such as the Speaker and Cayde. I personally feel more connected to the game, Destiny was the first game I got with my PS4 so I played it a lot, a sequel so early on in Destiny's life always felt a little premature to me as I was hoping for there to be much more to Destiny 1.

The Campaign (story) for Destiny 2 is good, much better than the first, but if you want a game with a longer campaign I don't think Destiny 2 will be your best bet. Although it has more to the story than the first it's still a short campaign in my opinion. The cutscenes are beautiful and tell the story wonderfully though, I soon found myself wanting there to be more Cayde cutscenes as he brings a lot of humour and sarcasm to the game.The storyline behind Destiny 2 is a sad one in a way, the Guardians light has been taken by The Red Legion boss Ghaul and we must fight to get it back, the first story mission you do you will have to kill enemies and a boss in order to get your light back from a shard of light you and your ghost have come across, once you win the fight your ghost is able to restore your light. You are the only Guardian left with your light and must fight along Commander Zavala, Ikora Rey, Cayde-6, Lord Shaxx etc to stop Ghaul from taking the light for himself, it's a tough battle but with the help of new characters such as Hawthorne and Devrim Kay you're able to defeat Ghaul and get back the light, but with this came a dreadful loss to Destiny 2, one I'm really sad about. 

The mechanics of the game are much the same as the first game the biggest change in Destiny 2 would have to be the weapon system, before we had Primary, Secondary and Heavy but now it's been changed to Kinetic, Power, and Energy which I didn't think I could actually get used to but I really like it. I decided to make a Guardian out of all three Guardian classes just so I could try out the new subclasses and see which kind of Guardian I preferred, so far I have only leveled up my Hunter and started on my Titan but will start on my Warlock eventually. I know I said in my Beta review I would more than likely not use a Hunter because I didn't like the new subclass much, well I kind have got used to it now and love the new subclass for Hunter, Arcstrider.

As I unlocked each planet whilst playing through the story I was taken back at how beautiful some of the scenery was, for example, Nessus reminds me of War of the Worlds mixed with No Man's Sky, the mixture of colours of the plants and the surroundings make the planet stand out really well and it's one of my favourite planets to visit. The map is much bigger this time, something I was hoping for as I used to love zooming around on my sparrow and running over enemies and people on my fire team, talking of sparrows, you will have to wait until you finish the campaign until you're able to use one so there will be a lot of walking unless you steal a spike. Another feature, if you're not the biggest fan of walking around in a game is the new fast travel feature, I use this mostly to get to an area that is showing a public event is about to take place. I love the new concept of doing adventures, the fact that they're longer than normal patrols and give more insight into the story of Destiny 2 is a thumbs up from me. You are able to purchase treasure maps from Cayde, in order to obtain these you will have needed to of completed the story, each week when the weekly reset comes around Cayde will have 5 maps for the same planet, they're a bit pricey but worth getting. I really miss the Dreadnaught from  Destiny 1, playing with a bunch of randoms on the Court of Oryx and letting them know you're waiting for them to put  a ruin in was fun. When I saw the Dreadnaught in one of the cutscenes I was secretly hoping it would still be included in Destiny 2, luckily Destiny 2 still has the original enemies from Destiny 1 (Vex, Cabal who are also The Red Legion, Taken and Hive)  fighting against you within the game.

One of the biggest perks of being in a Clan in Destiny 2 is the rewards you will get such as the extra rewards you can get just by being in a Clan, I'm in a pretty cool one! You will be able to earn Clan experience which levels up your Clan, if you use the Destiny app it will show you how many points you have until you level up your Clan and the next lot of rewards you can get. For those of you who don't have a class you can use Guided Games, this will enable you to get a fireteam together to do the Raid, Nightfall etc I think it will be a great way for more players to connect and not feel as if they're not good enough to play because a certain team has certain requirements (it used to really wind me up). Talking of The Raid and Nightfall, I haven't played either yet but I have watched streams, as soon as the new Raid, Leviathan went live James and I spent about 5 hours watching a few clans try to beat it but we were too tired to watch anymore so went to bed. I'm a high enough level to do the Nightfall now so I'm hoping James and I can maybe give it a try. I want to also give The Trials of Nine a shot, back on Destiny 1 I never got to play the Trials of Osiris so it will be cool to give it a go, I haven't seen what it entails yet so I can't really comment on it much. I'm still not the biggest fan of PvP but I prefer 4v4 player instead of 6v6, I've written about my anxiety when it comes to playing online before so a smaller team to me means less pressure and worrying about what others think of me, I found that when I did play the Crucible I worked better as a team of 4 than I thought I would, on the few matches I've played we all managed to work together as a team rather than running around like headless chickens.

I have noticed that when it comes to killing enemies and bosses that they seem a lot easier to kill, the last story mission didn't take much for the final boss to die, I did have some help on this last boss but he was dead in no time with both of us, I know that once I play The Raid that will be a whole different ball game. Although the main bosses don't seem as hard, the grind to level up has been a long one for me, I would usually find this boring and annoying but I'm not with Destiny 2. I've found that by using Legendary mods you will find it a lot easier to level up your light level, the blue mods are given to you, earned as well as purchased with glimmer but in order to obtain a Legendary mod you will either have to pick up a weapon with one or buy one from Banshee-44. Lastly, I don't think enough people talk about is the soundtrack for Destiny 2 enough, Ever since its predecessor I have always been a lover of the music, it always set the scene and made me feel immersed in the game even more so in Destiny 2. There is a lot more of a mix of music genres which were all perfectly executed at the right times, the music was the topping on the cake for this game. Destiny 2 is a huge step up from its predecessor and Bungie should be proud of the wonderful job they have done, I can see the next year with this game being a good one for me, I rate this game:

Elle May

P.s. sorry if I rambled on a bit.