While Brown Dust 2 is gearing up for its worldwide launch on June 22, we are lucky enough to have participated in its recent closed beta held early this month. So before you begin your magnificent journey to its vast fantasy land, let’s take a look at what this Brown Dust sequel has under its sleeve!
Like its successful predecessor, Brown Dust 2 is a strategy RPG filled with the nostalgic characteristics of old-school JRPGs, blending traditional character archetypes and turn-based combat with beautiful animations. Faithfully expanding on the strategic gameplay that the Brave Nine IP is known for, Neowiz’s newest mobile title delivers an intensive tactics-filled experience where every character plays a key role in ensuring victory!
▍Strategize Your Way To a One-Turn Kill
Fans of the previous game should be no strangers to the combat system of Brown Dust 2, where characters and enemies traverse a 3 x 4 tile grid to attack, direct attacks, and activate skills. The visual scale of combat in this game is reduced to Brave Nine, but don’t discount Brown Dust 2; with the large-scale area of effect damage and powerful knockback skills, players will need to take advantage of every tile they have to take down foes to avoid becoming overwhelmed.
Combat begins by selecting a command for each Companion, and then confirming the action to commence the player’s turn. Each character has access to a basic attack that restores SP, unique Skills, and a knockback attack that can push an enemy back in a certain direction. Balancing these three types of attacks is a core part of survival, especially with harder fights where mistakes can be costly.
Knockback attacks may look weak at first glance, but their true power lies in manipulating enemy positions to set up future actions or redirecting attacks to a tank. Dealing massive damage to enemies hit by the targeted foe is the cherry on top of this unassuming combat option!
Using Skills will consume your SP and a cooldown is activated each time it’s used to avoid spamming. Healing, potent buffs, and Lifesteal are just some effects Skills can provide, so players will need to time them well to make efficient use of them. Some skills also come with a short but beautiful visual cutscene, making the most out of the game’s abundant live 2D animations.
Controlling the battlefield is the bread-and-butter in Brown Dust 2, as each action is carried out in order from top-to-bottom, or left-to-right in the turn order. Disregarding buffs, the UI displays the exact result that each Companion’s action will do, where players can plan their moves in an elaborate show of strategy!
▍Multiple Stories to Freshen Up the Plot
Brown Dust 2 pays homage to its first game by bringing back the series’ Companions with updated art, but it also features a new set of characters to build upon its own story.
Players follow the main storyline through the eyes of Lathel, a young village herbalist who is rescued by the mysterious Justia from an evil warlock. Unsure about the warlock’s intentions amid a sudden surge of fiends, the two team up not only to put a stop to his nefarious plans but to investigate the connection between Lathel and the enigmatic Blood Imprint phenomenon.
Accompanying the main story dialogue is plenty of character portraits and fully voiced dialogue, enhancing the atmosphere of the story. The Japanese dub alone has prolific voice actors like Shun Horie and Aimi, so Brown Dust 2 has set some high expectations on how much investment will go into creating memorable tales for players to enjoy.
If a traditional JRPG plot isn’t enough, then Brown Dust 2’s ‘story packs’ are sure to capture some attention. While the CBT only features an isekai high-school setting at the time, other worlds are slated to be released in the future, such as a spy setting and even a post-apocalyptic world. Each set may feature the same characters with similar personalities, but the writers have clearly put in efforts to experiment and make the cast organically fit into the environment.
Also hyping up the expectation is that each story pack also previews its plot with beautiful wallpapers. You can also find a few pages dedicated to concept art.
▍Interact With the World With Field Skills
The world of Brown Dust 2 has its fair share of NPCs and items to rummage through, but players will be well rewarded by taking the time to explore each area instead of heading straight to each objective. Simply exploring a location can yield Finds, which are item hotspots that respawn over time and can yield Gold and Cooking Ingredients.
Many characters bring a Field Skill that assists the player in different ways and can be leveled up to improve their effectiveness. Field Skills might seem troublesome as the Ability Dust needed to use them is in short supply early on, and provide relatively minor boosts. However, by taking the time to invest in these abilities, players can teleport between locations on demand, and even craft high-rarity gear that can’t be easily obtained from the gacha!
For example, characters with the Search Field Skill can locate hidden Finds, which can reward rare ingredients and plenty of Gold; Justia can then use her own Field Skill with those ingredients, and cook HP-restoring dishes!
NPCs aren’t exempt from interactions either, as certain Companions can steal rare materials or Gold from them at a certain success rate. After certain tries and errors in investigating each and every object, players can obtain gacha currency, materials, and flavor text to reward performing a thorough search.
▍RNG-Filled Progression System Bogs Down A Smooth Journey
Neowiz’s new strategy RPG has a solid foundation, but the game’s CBT has shown that Brown Dust 2 has adopted some of the more unsavory mobile gacha practices common in many Korean games.
Equipment has varying levels of quality, which are finalized when they are obtained as either gacha rewards or from opening treasure chests. Rarities range from N to UR, and the equipment’s base stats increase with higher rarity levels. Optimizing gear can be a trial in patience, as gaining the ability to craft UR equipment is limited to 4-star characters or higher, which takes a significant amount of time to unlock. Players must rely on their luck for equipment limited to gacha banners, which is another can of worms altogether.
Each character also has exclusive gear, which only they can equip but provides higher base stat bonuses than generic equipment of the same rarity. Unfortunately, this type of equipment is only available through the game’s gacha and is subject to the same rarity clauses as any other piece of equipment.
Another frustrating feature of Brown Dust 2 is the Substat system, where equipment can gain random stat bonuses at certain enhancement levels. These stat bonuses are randomized and can vary in usefulness depending on the character it’s equipped to. Players do have the opportunity to reroll existing substat values to higher levels, but this process is costly and has no guarantee of success. Furthermore, players are unable to change what the substat is, which serves as an incentive to obtain another copy of that equipment.
In terms of combat, Companions are limited to a single Skill at the beginning. Players looking to unlock more Skills for their characters are in for a nasty surprise, as Companions and their Skills are tied to the Costume itself; in other words, players will become quite familiar with the gacha system, as it is the main method of obtaining new costumes. Costumes can also be upgraded using duplicates up to a maximum of 5 times, which significantly empowers their effects compared to a single copy.
▍Plenty of Excellent Quality of Life Choices
Despite some of the more embittering features, Brown Dust 2 does provide players with QoL options that are becoming increasingly common in nowadays mobile games. Besides the expected staples such as auto-mode and auto-navigation, the ability to craft UR gear is a safety net for unlucky players.
Brown Dust 2’s UI is fluid and adjusts the components displayed on the screen to suit the game’s orientation, which is a nice touch for players who might feel restricted by how things are shown on their devices.
As part of its tutorial, Brown Dust 2 also offers new players an unlimited number of attempts to roll the standard banner and obtain 10 items from it, regardless of if those items are Costumes or Equipment. Each roll is guaranteed to have one 5-Star Companion and one UR Equipment, ensuring newbies have the opportunity to preview each item they see.
You are also suggested to complete its story mode, as it not only unlocks different game modes but also rewards players with some useful 5-Star Companions! Lathel and Justia are just some of the characters obtainable from the tutorial gacha rolls that can also be obtained through story progression, but completing each main story pack rewards the player with another 5-Star Companion. Players concerned about the quality of these free characters don’t have anything to worry about, as all of them are viable; in Lathel’s case, he’s extremely strong with just his base Skill and definitely worth investing in!
The biggest surprise that I saw in Brown Dust 2 is the ability to recruit characters in Inns and pubs, in addition to the said gacha. Located on each level of the main story, the buildings house some Companions once enough progress into the first chapter has been made. Players can obtain Contracts through different game modes, with different levels for different character rarities. If a player spots a Companion they must have or want to get a duplicate of a Costume, simply hand over a Contract.
▍Brown Dust 2 is Brimming With Potential
Brown Dust 2 is another addition to the turn-based combat genre, but the mobile title has grown in a positive way compared to its previous entry. The game’s current state isn’t perfect as there are some untranslated Korean and minor bugs to work out, but these issues can be easily resolved before the game’s debut on the Play Store.
Time will tell how Brown Dust 2 will perform once it’s officially released this week, but it’s visual presentation and solid combat system are a good sign that this game can reach the top of the charts.
This Brown Dust 2 Preview article takes screenshots and footage from its closed beta test held from June 8 to June 12, which does not necessarily reflect its quality at the official release.
