The city eventually begins to feel less like a bunch of obstacles and more like a jungle gym, and a slick, unbroken run across a district's rooftops makes me feel almost superhuman. Being able to slide through a low gap instead of ducking and walking under it never saved my life, but it sure as hell feels good. But those skills add up and eventually make movement much more fluid, which gives me plenty of confidence. It focuses on more practical needs like being able to roll after hitting the ground, or popping back up immediately after landing, or skills that let you leap a bit further or climb a bit quicker. Parkour progression doesn't feel quite as great as adding new combat skills or weapons-at first. It barely hurt him, but after hours spent hitting people with clubs and hatchets it felt great to blast him right in the beak.Ī slick, unbroken run across a district's rooftops makes me feel almost superhuman. It's only useful for a single shot and costs so much scrap metal to craft that I didn't fire it for hours-until a ridiculous bandit boss wearing a bird costume sucker punched me. And weirdly, my favorite weapon turned out to be the only gun in the game, called the Boomstick. There are also great single-use "opportunity weapons" scattered around enemy encounters, like spears that can be snatched from corpses and quickly flung into an enemy for a one-hit kill, or bottles and bricks that can be grabbed and thrown to stun or stagger someone, giving big brawls a fun, improvised feel. Kicking bandits off a roof is even more fun when they're bleeding and on fire. I crafted another mod that meant crits would set an enemy on fire, which could spread to an entire mob. I replaced the Heavy Duty in favor of the Bad Gal, a katana that did bonus damage at night and even more bonus damage during the day. You can't repair weapons in Dying Light 2, but I never had one break-by the time my favorite weapons were degrading from use there were newer, deadlier ones to buy or find. I liked it so much I installed a third mod that increased its durability. I grew pretty attached to my gleaming two-handed axe called the Heavy Duty, not just because it could hew off arms, legs, and heads while providing me with a stamina regeneration bonus and a damage bonus when I was at low health, but because it had three sockets I filled with craftable weapon mods that did electrical and toxic damage, turning critical hits into gloriously gory and effective strikes. You don't have to kick everyone to death: there's a steady supply of sharp, rusty, and spiky melee weapons to collect along with bows and throwing knives for ranged attacks, and explosives like mines and grenades. I know, it's not a kick, but it's still an awesome (and hilarious) finisher and a stylish way to get down to street level. There's a satisfying headstomp for mashing a fallen enemy's brains into goo, and even a move that lets me run right into a dude, knock him off a roof, and ride his body all the way to the ground, smashing his skull into the pavement. An air kick lets me target a foe from above, leap down, and drive my foot into his face in glorious slow motion. Feet firstĪlong with my beloved flying two-footed kick, there's more fun foot-related skills: a vault kick, which lets me use a stunned foe as a springboard to launch myself, boots-first, into his comrade (and if my kick stuns him I can simply turn around and springboard back to deliver another kick to the first guy). And most skills are distinct and useful enough to change the way I approach both fights and parkour. Each time I had a point to spend, I really had to consider what would have helped the most while I was getting my ass kicked for the past few hours. It makes progress feel earned, something I really have to struggle to accomplish, and it makes deliberating over which skill to pick feel important. Whereas a game like Far Cry 6 would have thrown loads of exciting weapons and skills at me immediately, in my first 10 hours of Dying Light 2 I'd only added a couple of extra moves to my arsenal. Progression is slow: every enemy I kill and wall I climb sends a trickle of combat and parkour XP into my bank, and only once I've leveled up those talents am I given a single point to unlock a new move from the two skill trees. The first few hours of Dying Light 2's feel shaky, slow, and clumsy-I miss my jumps frequently, hesitate at the ledge of every building before leaping, frequently run out of stamina while climbing, and hammer away at zombies with ineffectual weapons like table legs and baseball bats. I'm a complete klutz, a disgrace to the art of climbing walls and running on rooftops. I'm not yet a dynamo of flying kicks and fluid parkour when I arrive in Villedor.
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