A look back at: Pokemon Dark Rising 2

 I seem to always play every game the same way. I have the time to do it for a few hours or so, multitask a bit by checking all my social media for any and all updates, then finish off at a comfortable point. Must be why I adore RPGs and Pokemon rom hacks that much, since they usually have comfortable places to leave and come back to. And then when I get close to the end I always rush it so that I can move on to my next game. Did that here and plan to do it yet again. Aren't I just weird?

Well, Dark Rising 2, you're kinda great and kinda disappointing. I found the new music silly, and a bit underused apart from the trainer battle. Graphics as always are better and encounters are fun. Trainer gauntlets are still a thing as usual and are quite fatiguing, but a seasoned player like myself knows that they are just small roadblocks on the way to victory. Dark Rising 2 continues to try to overwhelm the player, offering lots of Pokemon to catch, many moves to take use of, and many of the strongest mons fought are not even catchable, sadly.

I guess if there's any real problem that the series has, it's that a lot of it is more or less the same as I've been familiar with for the previous Dark Rising. In other words, this game is just a direct continuation and the new stuff isn't as noticable. It's great that familiar faces show up, and the idea of fighting every single known enemy team is novel, along with actually battling Darugis. That and the overpowered mon he uses, along with one YOU are supposed to use which is Arceus, makes things much nastier overall. A few glitches here and there make it not as good, then again, this is less glitchier than the first Dark Rising. One thing that disappoints me are the layouts. Once again, Kanto and the Sevii Islands are recycled often, and then you have the dungeons and gyms having completely recycled layouts. So overall, Dark Rising 2 really does try to be a more interesting sequel, but not necessarily a better received one.