Unlike most people, my time with the original Destiny was short-lived. When it first came out, I finished the single-player campaign (about 8 hours) then sent it back to GameFly, never to touch it again. I was disappointed with Destiny, to say the least. It was a game that played incredibly well, but that was about it. I heard from many people that the DLCs all changed the game for the better, but I was so turned off by the original iteration of Destiny to ever try it again. With that being said I was hopeful for Destiny 2 (or Des2ny) that all the problems I had with the original would be fixed in the sequel until I played the beta earlier this year. That beta lowered my expectations so low that I had already written off Destiny 2 until I finally got my hands on it.
Destiny 2 begins by answering questions its predecessor relegated to a website and companion app. What the Traveler is, what it does, and why it's important, are all explained in the opening cinematic. But just as soon as you get comfortable with the massive orb of space magic, the Cabal (a race of hulking brutes from the first game) and their leader Ghaul invade Earth in an attempt to harness the power of the Traveller for themselves. The story that follows isn't particularly great but isn't completely terrible either. It goes exactly the way you expect so there's not much detail I need to go into here, but I would like to call attention to what may be the single most atrocious character I've ever experienced in a game. During the pre-release trailer, it was clear that Cayde-6, a metallic fellow guardian, was meant to be a comic relief character. Cayde-6 is not only a miserable failure at comedy, an entire mission strand requires you to go out of your way to save him from his own stupidity. I cannot throw enough negative adjectives at this character, but it's not like any of the other characters are noteworthy either. I will also point out that most of the dialogue is rather terrible as well (this coming from someone who found the dialogue in Life is Strange to be hella endearing). While the story itself is mediocre at its best, there is no denying what the Destiny franchise does best.
Much like the original, the core shooting of Destiny 2 feels fantastic. Every fight is a blast to play through and every element of the gameplay is endlessly enjoyable. Often times I found myself just running around shooting enemies instead of moving to the next story mission and never felt like I was missing out on anything. Honestly, the best choice Bungie made was to bring the gameplay from the first and make minimal changes. The game plays so well that I can overlook the fact that they only partially addressed the bland and repetitive mission design from the first game. Destiny 2 is just slightly better than the original in enough ways that I didn't completely hate this one.
And that leads to my entire point on Destiny 2. It's hard to talk about this game on its own without comparing it to its predecessor. Based on its own merits, Destiny 2 is an okay game, with amazing gameplay and a meh story. But in comparison to my feelings on the original, this one is slightly superior in almost every way. I would go as far as to say that my level of dislike for Destiny is what led me to actually liking Destiny 2. I may never return to this game, but at least it didn't aggressively disappoint me like the original. And really that's all I can ask from a sequel to Destiny.
Thanks for reading.