The Surge 2 Analysis: Trying to survive in Jericho City

We put on our exoskeleton at Newskill to bring you the review of The Surge 2, the sequel to the game presented by the German studio Deck13 in 2017, which gave a twist to the well-known "souls" formula by changing the medieval setting for a futuristic city full of threats that we must explore thoroughly if we want to have any chance of getting out of it alive.

Currently we have at our disposal many options if we like this kind of games and most have managed to differentiate themselves by providing their touch, either a 2D gameplay or giving it another atmosphere. The Surge 2 presents us with a city with a lot of personality, scenarios that invite us to rummage through its corners to see what we can find, which will generally be more powerful enemies and better equipment. In addition, it perfects the spectacular combat system that we presented in the first installment and adds a directional blocking movement and improving the system of fixing enemies that adds just the right touch to make it much more addictive and tactical.

Surviving the futuristic apocalypse

This time, we forget about Warren, our protagonist in the first The Surge to create our own protagonist character through a traditional editor where we can mold our features and choose our origin. Once we have done this we wake up, after a coma caused by a plane crash, handcuffed in a police station and survive! Through flashbacks we will discover details of the story as we go through Jericho City.

We go from the CREA facilities to having the whole city at our fingertips. Although, in this type of games, the map is usually quite linear with nooks and crannies and shortcuts to avoid area, here we have found a certain level of exploration and planning of the city that we have loved, with much more varied environments than it may seem before we get fully to walk these streets, offering very distinct neighborhoods and areas that have left us with a very good taste in our mouths. We will also find NPCs that will help us and offer us side missions that will allow us to get out a little of the main story and explore the map more thoroughly to fulfill their assignments.

Making our analysis of The Surge 2 we see how the story is told in a more direct way than we are used to Hidetaka Miyazaki in his games with From Software, especially the "souls". Here we find audio tracks that leave us details of what has happened as well as conversations with the characters we meet.

A very well adapted formula

The base gameplay is well known, The Surge 2 is an action RPG in which we must overcome scenarios and areas full of enemies and reach the next safe point, known here as CentroMed, from where we can manage our resources and improve our equipment in exchange for all the enemies reappear. One of the aspects that we liked the most is the level design, far above those seen in the previous installment, with very characteristic areas, which on more than one occasion will test our sense of direction, being real mazes of streets.

The maps now offer much more verticality, with magnetic elevators and zip lines to move both vertically and horizontally and further complicate the scenarios. In addition, from a certain point it is advisable to return to areas through which we have already passed to discover new secrets and even more enemies, we can not reveal more.

A much more technical combat system

As we mentioned before, the combat system has improved a lot, our Arkadia gamepad has responded to the height getting us out of more than one predicament by amputating enemies' limbs, as in the first installment, to get pieces of material and be able to survive until the next area.

We again have two attacks, one vertical and one horizontal, which we can charge by holding down the button. As new features have improved the system of fixed enemies and a new system of coverage with our weapon that if we press the lock button and the direction of the joystick in which the blow comes we will deflect the attack and we will have the possibility of making a much stronger attack. This movement, as well as the attack and the movement to evade consume stamina, so we must manage each of our actions well if we want to get out of the confrontations alive.

The number of final bosses has also increased. Learning the routines of each boss is practically mandatory to know when to block or when to dodge to adapt and be able to defeat them. Most of their designs are very original and maintain a high level of quality and difficulty. We will also find minibosses, normal enemies that we will find but with a larger life bar.

Our good friend the drone also returns, but if before it was a simple complement, now it is indispensable to survive. Many more skills have been added and a greater impact on combat, whether attacking, placing turrets or protecting us.

Immersive artistic design

As for the graphics, for our analysis of The Surge 2 is where it weakens the most because it is not very well optimized and we have suffered the occasional drop in fps and a little slow texture loads. But such problems are usually solved with a patch after a few days of release. Another section that we liked a lot, and we have already commented, is the artistic design that presents us, both Jericho City, as the designs of the enemies and the armor and weapons that we will find.

The sound section has passed us a little unnoticed. They are themes that fit and are correct but we have not seemed very remarkable in general, on occasion if that has made us come up against some final boss but otherwise complies efficiently. The duration of this new installment is also superior to its first part, easily reaching 30 hours, although with our new Kaidan chair we have spent very quickly, not to mention the typical New Game + that always offers extra challenges.

To conclude

In conclusion of our analysis of The Surge 2 has seemed to us an outstanding game that has managed to give us everything we expected from a sequel, more and better than what we liked about the first part and additions that have left us very good taste. The gameplay has been what has experienced the greatest improvement along with the design of the areas. On the part to improve, we have the technical section that we hope to solve soon with a patch and a soundtrack something more inspired.

Positive points

• The fighting system and its improvements
• The planning of Jericho City
• The design of weapons and armor
• Menu and interface design

Points to improve

• Technical issues
• Uninspired soundtrack

This review was made possible thanks to a PS4 copy provided by Koch Media