Review: Destiny 2: Forsaken

<br>Unlike Forsaken, Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is a direct sequel to Destiny 2 . Eris Morn has uncovered something deadly on the Moon and accidentally unleashes the Nightmares, ghostly versions of past enemies. With a new threat emerging, the Vanguard quickly dispatches its army of Guardians to put down the Nightmares and discover their dark source.<br><br><img src="http://www.gamejournal.net/item_list/gj_085/img/map_01.jpg"; style="max-width:420px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;" alt="Game Journal.Net \u30b2\u30fc\u30de\u30fc\u306b\u3088\u308b\u30b2\u30fc\u30de\u30fc\u306e\u305f\u3081\u306e\u30dc\u30fc\u30c9SLG\u5c02\u9580\u8a8c" />There’s no beating around the bush that Destiny 2 was a disaster. Bungie has owned up to their mistakes and the result is Destiny 2: Forsaken. While it’s not cool that it’s taken $140 to get here (and more if you splurge on microtransactions), Destiny 2: Forsaken presents Destiny 2 with its much-needed reset. The campaign is compelling enough thanks to its excellent boss design, though Uldren lacks the history to be a strong antagonist. The new locales are a joy to explore and provide a nice change in pace compared to the vanilla worlds. Gambit is an exciting new mode, but, like the Blind Well, is heavily dependent on what kind of teammates you have. Destiny 2 needed something to save it and Forsaken bought it a new lease on life.<br><br>No matter if playing a Titan, Hunter or Warlock, each subclass now comes with an additional Attunement within it adding some spectacular new powers. Take the Warlocks Dawnblade which now has Attunement of Grace allowing for a super that slams a flaming sword into the ground creating a super rift that does AoE damage, is twice as large as a regular rift and grants both healing with empowering capabilities at the same time. It’s the ultimate team work class. Get to known the new Attunements because they are more than fun -- they’re worth it. Getting these new Attunements isn’t easy, though, as Guardians will have to collect Visions of Light an item that looks like a glowing blue feather that only drops from powerful enemies. After enough have been collected, a quest will appear guiding the Guardian forward. The entire Attunement doesn’t unlock right away either, Forsaken wants the player to feel like they’ve earned being more powerful. Unlocking all the sub-classes won’t be done in a day and that’s a good thing.<br><br>Silver is Destiny 2’s premium currency that can only be purchased with real-world money. Meanwhile, Bright Dust was introduced as an in-<a href="http://WWW.Google.kg/url?q=http%3A%2F%2FUnpop.net%2Fblog%2Fmember.asp%3Faction%3Dview%26memName%3DIWMTabatha2047958/">SLG game Tips</a> currency that would allow players to earn Eververse items without Silver. With Shadowkeep, however, Bungie has significantly neutered what players can buy all while increasing the amount of Bright Dust players can earn. Items purchasable with Bright Dust are hidden away in a less-than-stellar menu. Only a few items are available at a time with new ones rotating in every few hours.<br><br>Yes, despite all the worldwide controversy surrounding loot boxes, Destiny 2 still uses them. Called Bright Engrams, these boxes are purchased from the Eververse store. They spill out a random selection of items that players have no control over. There are also Nostalgic Engrams that contain cosmetic items from Year 2. If you really want to spend real-world money on microtransactions, it’s best to directly purchase what you want from Eververse.<br><br>It's lucky that the rest of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is quite good, though familiar. The Moon, a vanilla Destiny location, never got its fair shake back in 2014. Unlike the other areas in the game, it was easy to finish off the Moon sections and then never come back. In Shadowkeep, Bungie has made it a location players will want to keep visiting. Though the design is familiar, the studio has done quite a bit to make it more visually appealing. Giant chasms have torn the landscape asunder, new caves have opened up never-before-seen locations and an enormous Hive citadel looms large over the horizon. Adding to the spookiness of the locale are Nightmares of fallen Guardians, whose silhouettes replace the standard Patrol Beacons. It's clear a lot of compassion went into bringing back the Moon and transforming it into a place players want to visit.<br><br>Bungie is now quadruple-dipping with Season Passes, loot boxes (via Engrams), direct cosmetic purchases and a Battle Pass. The Battle Pass in particular is annoying by adding an additional layer of time-consuming grind to a game that already requires a lot of grind. The scummiest part of the whole system, though, is that Bungie has built the Eververse store straight into the Director menu. Previously, monetization could be ignored entirely because it was secluded to the Eververse Store at the Tower. Now, Bungie has made sure that it follows players everywhere they go. It's sad to see such regression after Forsaken made Destiny 2's monetization feel fairer to players.<br><br>Everything you do in Destiny 2 earns progress towards the next tier, though the rewards don’t seem worth it. Asides from the occasional armor piece or weapon, the 100 tiers of rewards are mostly lackluster. Both Battle Passes contain too many modifiers, currencies, and other useless content meant to keep the grind going. Though earning tiers isn’t based off of time-played, progress in the Battle Passes still feels like a grind. As of publication, it’s not possible to buy tiers.<br>