Dive into this Japanese hack n’ slash adventure. With it’s pastel colours and unusual setting, will ChickenPerm be all in? Or will the Dusk be setting in on this anime inspired game? Find out in his Dusk Diver Switch review.

*To note, a review copy of the game was supplied by the game’s publisher PQube Games.*

A School Girl and her Chimera, I mean, Guardian…

Yang Yumo is tasked with protecting her hustling and bustling city from a dimensional rift that has caused Gods, Phantoms and Humans to cross paths. It’s kind of like Astral Chain’s story, only replace playing as a Police Officer with a schoolgirl and instead of Chimeras, Guardians aid you.

Warriors meets Astral Chain!

Dusk Diver’s gameplay is just like most other Musou/Warriors type games. Hack and slash your way through enemies with a standard and powerful attack. Use them in different successions to do different combos. You can use your guardian to help with crowd control as long as the blue bar under your health bar is full. Furthermore, there is also a special attack that VERY SLOWLY fills up above your health bar as well.

When not in a battle stage you can run around the city to find hidden items, eat foods, and shop at stores. All of the city activities were not worthwhile to me whatsoever, but some are necessary to get to the battles.

Sights & Sounds

The visuals were the best aspect of this title to me. I liked how all the citizens were colored with various pastels until you got close to them, then their details were revealed. I imagine this was done to help with frame rate or load times, which is clever. The Guardians have a cool design and varied enough to my liking. The game is definitely vibrant as advertised and appealing to the eye.

The music in the game made no impact on me and was rather forgettable. That is not the worst thing in the world. Honestly, it’s better than remembering the music to be obnoxiously bad. It is there but did not help or hinder the game. The voice acting had no English option and was narrated in Japanese. Just another thing to make note of, I’m not holding it against the game.

Questions, Comments Concerns

Personally, I did not like that levels were locked behind cubes. I could understand locking more difficult levels until you are strong enough to handle them, but it annoyed me that I was required to go out of my way to find collectibles just to advance the game. If the cubes were obtainable without going out of your way, then that would have been fine as well. However, you need to get S ranks on levels to get some cubes, which means playing levels more than once, or run around the city looking for hidden ones. There are too many bland requirements and effort necessary to simply play the game. It felt like a complete hassle to me.

Honestly, I could not even get the name of this game right until I went to write this review. I thought it was Disk Driver, then for a long time I was certain it was Disk Diver. Color me red when I finally realized the game is called Dusk Diver (right?). The point is- the game failed to make a positive impression on me like other reviews I have seen.

Final Words:

I have seen several other reviewers really love Dusk Diver, but this was not the case for me at all. I would have preferred a level-to-level type game over the route the developers took. The way they force you to do trivial tasks that are normally side quests and collectibles is ridiculous to me. If a player wants to collect or replay levels then let them, but do not require them to do it just to get to the next stage/main mission. This factor is the most important aspect of whether the game would be enjoyable for you or not. Some do not mind it, but I did. I would recommend Dynasty Warriors 8: Extreme Legends Definitive Edition for the Nintendo Switch if you are looking for a game with this hack n slash Musou gameplay style for the exact same $39.99 price.

Therefore, I give Dusk Divers by JFI Games and PQube my rating of

What did you think of ChickenPerm’s Dusk Diver Switch review? Are you and Atral Chain fan and want some similar hack n’ slash action? Let us know over on Twitter or come and tell us on Discord!

Game Info

Switch Release Date: October 29, 2019

Price: $39.99

File Size: 3 GB

Mode(s): 1 Player

Genre: Action Adventure/Musou

Publisher: PQube

Developer: JFI Games

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