Honestly, way too overpriced for what it offers. Little to no single player content, playerbase is dead in certain regions (in south america I can confirm it's a discord fighter already) and it doesn't do things that differently from the previous title.

Like, it's a good fighting game. But it's behind the times. You can get an indie fighting game for less than half of this price that does largely the same or spend a little more and get SF or Tekken with loads more content and a healthy playerbase each.

I'm not very experienced with the Under Night games with the only prior game I played was Late[cl-r]. From my casual perspective, UN2 is very similar to to the previous game, but with some new additions.

The combat is fast paced with a lot of depth to it. The mechanics can be quite overwhelming at times though. There's just so many of them and the obscure terminology for them doesn't make things any easier.

Combos can range from simple to very long and technical. Watching them in motion is a treat for the eyes. Overall, the combat is just very fun and almost fills my GGX2 void.

The character sprites haven't changed much from what I noticed, but they still look as great as ever. Background environment and scenery could still use some work since they are uninspiring compared to the other big 2D fighters out now.

Character themes have been remixed, but they still sound great.

The game modes from the previous games have returned so there's a decent amount of single player content. I am disappointed that there's no Chronicle mode or a major dedicated story mode. The story is told through the standard arcade mode which feels like a step backwards.

As for the story, the lore is interesting and reminds me of Type-Moon stuff. Lots of organizations and heavy use of terminology. The execution of the story however could be better since there's only a few cutscenes in each character's arcade mode.

I didn't play online too much, but the connections had been great. Although, the online community appears to be mostly dead for the PS5 at this point.

Incredibly good game

The visuals are brilliant, the music is some of the best in the genre, netcode works really well and the tutorials are super in depth to help learn the game. Gameplay just hits that perfect spot for me with fairly in depth combos and system mechanics paired with faster paced more grounded gameplay.

My only complaints are that the PC port was pretty buggy at launch but that's all fixed up now it feels and that the damage feels ridiculously huge with the newer system changes(Celestial increasing damage by an aditional 10% and also giving you tons of meter)

As of writing this I’ve got like 30 hours in this game. Given how fucking weird GRD is I’m definitely not an expert on the systems yet, but I think I understand enough to have a coherent review. Anyway, Uni is really great. I didn’t play the first one and was worried I’d be getting steamrolled, and I did. But the tutorials and training mode are great so it didn’t too long before I could actually put up a fight. After playing a lot very offense oriented games in the past few years (Strive, BBTAG), it’s refreshing to have a game with some really thoughtful defensive mechanics. Being good at defense in Uni feels like more than just whether you can block high low mix and tech throws, and after dealing with Nago and Giovanna endless blockstrings, I really appreciate that. Oh also GRD is pretty cool, yeah it’s really complicated and kinda disconnected from the actual fighting but I like playing to it. Man what else is there to say? The visuals are great, so is the music I like Nanase’s theme, I miss the old CSS though. Idk there’s a lot to like in this game for me, I wish I had more people to play it with but that hasn’t really affected my enjoyment yet so who cares.
TLDR:
Good game.

Amazing game, love playing against my friends or even random people who spend too much time on this game getting crazy at it so every time I play against them I get dumpstered.
But it's GREAT
Amazing music, characters got SAUCE, combos are sexy, all of it just hits different. Really enjoy this game plan to play a lot more


Wagner my beloved.

Full video review: https://youtu.be/d_VtMJoQQ8s

UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is back yet again. This time though, we went from changing the game’s subtitle to slapping a 2 on the name. And yeah, it’s still just as fun, and.. well, difficult.

Gameplay
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is basically an anime fighter along the same vein as Guilty Gear or BlazBlue. I would say it’s more difficult than Strive, but maybe on par with BlazBlue. I don’t know - that’s all subjective anyways. That said, I liked the past two entries in this series and yeah, I like this one too, but it’s not without its issues.

Starting with the good though: The movement. This is probably my favorite thing about the game. It just, flows so well, if that makes sense. You have so many options to dash, jump, and move around the screen that once you get the hang of things, it is a very fast-paced and satisfying experience. That and the characters themselves are pretty solid, for the most part. Plenty of variety there - grapplers, zoners, rushdowns, all of that - and I always like a good fighting game where more than a handful of characters click with me. That said, Merkava is still my favorite. He’s just so noodly and fun to play.

Tutorials
The game also does a really good job with its tutorial system. There are over 100 different tutorials, each with demo videos and a walkthrough to help you through them. And then on top of that there are character combo guides and general strategy guides for each and every character. It goes to great lengths to get you into the experience, which is definitely warranted given just how hard a fighting game this is.

Multiplayer
If you’re looking to hop into the game and don’t already have friends to play it with - you’ll be subjected to the game’s online mode. On one hand, there’s actually rollback netcode which is super nice for a niche 2D fighter like this, but on the other, there are not that many active players just hanging out in the game’s online lobbies and when you do find a match, it’s likely going to be someone way higher rank than you. People call this series a Discord fighter - meaning you have to hop on servers dedicated to the game to find matches - and that still holds true with this sequel - even if the online playerbase is double that of the last game, averaging around 200 online at any one time.

I spent some time in singleplayer, but honestly, those modes just aren’t that great. The arcade mode is pretty standard, but comes with a boring storyline and the time attack and score attacks are just vaguely different ways to play the arcade mode basically. Multiplayer is pretty much a necessity for this one and the most fun I had was duking it out with friends locally - and this is definitely one I’ll be keeping installed for that very reason.

Various
I’m still not a fan of how tight diagonal inputs are, it just doesn’t feel right to me, but pretty much everything else is solid. The art is just as great as its always been, the music is excellent, the stages are cool and really just remind me of the Fate series, and the level of polish on top of it all is really impressive given the size of its developer.

Overall
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes is worth a recommendation, but maybe not for the general audience. If you’re not already into fighting games, definitely pass on it, and if you’re not specifically into 2D anime fighters, then probably pass on it too. It’s got quite the learning curve, but is fun to play with friends and the addition of rollback netcode actually makes the game playable online too - even if the playerbase is small. The PC port apparently had issues on launch, but playing a couple months later, I can’t say I had any issues, so there’s that too.

I never played the first one, but I decided to pick up this one since I'm basically at the point where I'm just buying every new fighting game.

I really enjoy it. The character designs are fantastic from a gameplay perspective. Everyone has an interesting gimmick and style and in true anime fighter fashion there's plenty of depth and weird stuff each character can do.

The tutorial is fantastic. It does a great job of teaching you both the game's specific systems and general knowledge that will help with the fighting game genre. The language in the tutorial is approachable and easy to understand. The same goes for the missions (character guides and combo trials). If you wanted to learn a character this pretty much sets you up with the basics and a foundation to build upon.

Online works well. However, this is a super niche game in an already niche subgenre of anime fighting games. Sometimes it takes a while to find a match. At some points, you'll end up matching with the same few people back-to-back-to-back. That's not really fun.

There's not much single-player content. The game's mechanics are pretty complicated and with the small population I don't really feel like it's something I want to fully put time into.

If you thought Tekken was a legacy skill game, UNI2 your first few hours are going to involve getting mixed into oblivion by even C ranked players because chances are, those players also played UNI1 and know what's going on.

The game is fun. It's overpriced for what is offered. If you can catch it on sale in a few months it'll definitely be worth it. Otherwise, idk, if you thinking about buying UNI2 you already probably own Melty Blood, BBCF, BBTAG, or Strive. Just play those until you catch a good sale.

It's a very fun game but dear god the pc launch for this game was one of the worst things I've seen, the game could've had a really good chance to be one of the most popular fighting games of the year but they failed horribly and killed the amount of hype for the game, but other than that the game is both extremely fun to play and extremely challenging at the same time. Also just one minor complaint I have about the game is just the release date for the dlc characters but other than that its a perfectly good fighting game that wasn't given a chance.

also fuck wagner