Ludography
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D2 cover

1999 · WARP · Adventure · Horror

D2

Sega exclusive

A survival horror video game developed by WARP for the Dreamcast. It was published by WARP in Japan in 1999 and then by Sega in North America in 2000. D2 was written and directed by Kenji Eno, and serves as the third and final entry in the D series after D and Enemy Zero. Like the previous two games, D2 stars the digital actress Laura and serves as an independent story unrelated to either game.

Released
23 December 1999
Platforms
DreamcastPanasonic M2
Genres
AdventureHorrorPoint-and-click adventureRole-playingShooterSurvival horrorZombie
Developers
WARP
Publishers
—
Series
D
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
First personThird personAuditory
Themes
ActionHorrorSurvival
Country
Japan
Age ratings
ESRB M
Directors
Kenji Eno

About

D2 is a survival horror video game developed by Warp for the Dreamcast. Directed by Kenji Eno, it was published by Warp in Japan in 1999 and by Sega in North America in 2000. D2 stars the "digital actress" Laura, but has an independent story unrelated to the original D, and uses action-oriented gameplay in contrast to the puzzle-driven D.

›Story

The game opens with Laura Parton falling asleep on an airplane trip to an undisclosed location. After being jolted awake by a tone over the airplane's PA system and a friendly conversation with a fellow passenger named David, a group of terrorists, who seem to be guided by some kind of mysterious cultist chanting to himself, suddenly and violently takes control of the plane. David, who turns out to be a special agent within the FBI, attempts to stop the terrorists, but he is thwarted when a meteorite strikes the plane, sending it crashing into the Canadian wilderness. After a series of bad dreams, Laura awakens in a small cabin being cared for by Kimberly Fox, a poet and songwriter who also survived the crash.

She explains that ten days have passed since the accident, although Kimberly had only found her some distance from the crash site two days prior, leaving a strange eight-day gap where she was mysteriously taken care of. The moment of peace is broken when another survivor, one of the hijackers, staggers into the cabin before suddenly transforming into a hideous plant-like monster. Here, Laura and Kimberly meet Parker Jackson, a CETI researcher and fellow crash survivor who drives out the monster, only to be driven out himself by a distrusting Kimberly.

Laura then sets out into the wilderness in order to investigate the possibility of contacting the outside world and seeking out other survivors only to discover that more strange, hideous creatures are lurking in the area, as something is causing the crash survivors to mutate into the very same monsters she must avoid and battle while travelling through the region. She is driven deeper into the mystery when she must venture into an abandoned mining facility in order to locate Jannie, a lost little girl Kimberly had found along with Laura and one of the plane's former passengers.

Keywords

  • hunting
  • exploration
  • rabbit
  • female protagonist
  • bird
  • snow
  • camera
  • survival horror
  • amnesia
  • nudity
  • sequel
  • silent protagonist

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game has a few different kinds of gameplay. The majority of D2 involves exploring the Canadian wilderness from a third-person perspective while interior locations are encountered in a first-person perspective. While exploring the wilderness, the player encounters random battles, much like those of a role-playing video game. When fighting monsters, the player cannot move Laura, but only aim her weapons.

Defeating these creatures earns Laura experience points, which are used to level Laura up, increasing her health limit. Laura is initially equipped with a submachine gun with unlimited ammunition and a hunting rifle, which is used to hunt animals for meat which she can use to regain health.

Story

The game opens with Laura Parton falling asleep on an airplane trip to an undisclosed location. After being jolted awake by a tone over the airplane's PA system and a friendly conversation with a fellow passenger named David, a group of terrorists, who seem to be guided by some kind of mysterious cultist chanting to himself, suddenly and violently takes control of the plane. David, who turns out to be a special agent within the FBI, attempts to stop the terrorists, but he is thwarted when a meteorite strikes the plane, sending it crashing into the Canadian wilderness.

After a series of bad dreams, Laura awakens in a small cabin being cared for by Kimberly Fox, a poet, and songwriter who also survived the crash. She explains that ten days have passed since the accident, although Kimberly had only found her some distance from the crash site two days prior, leaving a strange eight-day gap where she was mysteriously taken care of. The moment of peace is broken when another survivor, one of the hijackers, staggers into the cabin before suddenly transforming into a hideous plant-like monster. Here, Laura and Kimberly meet Parker Jackson, a CETI researcher and fellow crash survivor who drives out the monster, only to be driven out himself by a distrusting Kimberly.

Development

Development for D2 started as a premier game for the cancelled Panasonic M2 console, the successor to the 3DO console. The 3DO Company, with which Warp had a good working relationship, had suggested Warp create a sequel to D for their new console.

In this early version, a pregnant Laura is on a passenger flight to Romania which is attacked by a supernatural force. The plane crashes and her unborn child is spirited away by the Devil to medieval Transylvania, to be the child of a widowed duke who sold his soul for a son. The player would have taken the role of Laura's son as he enters adulthood, and must escape a large castle and fight the Devil to save his father. Unlike the original D, but like the D2 that was released for Dreamcast, the game was to feature full-motion video cutscenes but gameplay entirely played out with real-time graphics, and consisting of both puzzle solving and combat.

Reception

D2 received "mixed or average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

D2 aroused conflicting reactions in reviewers. They lauded the graphics, music, and deep storytelling. However, they criticized the actual gameplay for being repetitive, dull and buried with cutscenes. Jeff Lundrigan of NextGen said of the game, "If you've got a lot of patience, it's well worth your time, but D2 desperately needs a better sense of pace." In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 32 out of 40.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Dreamcast23 December 1999Japan · North America 22 August 2000
Panasonic M2CancelledUnreleased

In the same series

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Collections4 collections

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.