Equin 2: The Warren Peace is a 2021 PC roguelike RPG by DXF Games. It is a sequel to Equin: The Lantern and the fourth game in the series after the little known Equin Adventures and the cancelled Equin Village. The story involves a Xtoli adventurer on a journey to be rid of the titular Warren Peace, a massive book written by a evil wizard that induces slumber and death upon all those who read it.
The playable classes are the Warrior, the Thief, the Wizard and the Cleric — with the Cultist having been replaced by the Monk. As before, the player must explore dungeons and face monsters in turn-based battles, but there are a handful of new or rebalanced mechanics to get used to.
Tropes featured in this game include:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The game includes instructions via the H key and is very transparent about how each stat works. The player character's attributes are always visible during battles.
- There's no complex set of mechanics replacing the Lantern from the previous game.
- Your initial items will be automatically equipped, unlike how the previous game always started with a reminder about setting them up manually.
- You can pick up flowers on the ground to recover stamina later instead of immediately eating them.
- Oddly, walking speed is now set between Normal and Fast on the main menu instead of being a convenient in-game function with multiple levels.
- The compass is always visible on the interface if you own one.
- Anti-Magic: Anti magic field events prevent use of magic from both the player and enemies. Look out for the switch that disables the field to earn bonus experiece points.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: The Monk is a Glass Cannon class who gets a power boost while barehanded. Also, being unarmed as the Monk enables the One-Inch Punch, a 50% more powerful attack with a slight chance to instakill even bosses.
- Betting Mini-Game: There are Dungeon Casinos with a dice minigame.
- Big "YES!": In the End-Game Results Screen after clearing the game, the narrator has this reaction to the player character having eventually died of old age.
- Blackout Basement: A floor type is set on the dark, reducing the visible area to the tiles around you and making it more likely for enemies to have the combat initiative and dodge your attacks. You can light the screen back up with a torch or a campfire if it's not raining at the same time.
- Bottomless Pits: The Wizard's Tower features bridges set over deadly pits.
- Cast from Hit Points: The Cultist Dens feature items that are sold in exchange for the player's HP. Clerics will refuse to enter those shops.
- Chest Monster:
- Seemingly normal item chests might be mimic monsters in disguise and only Thieves can detect them beforehand.
- Crates can randomly hurt the player character from getting poked with splinters and several interactible objects like rocks, vases and windows on the walls may hide tough enemies.
- Combos: The streak meter increases with each hit on enemies and grants a 50% xp boost when it is full. The meter is reset upon missing an attack or resting at bonfires.
- Degraded Boss: Ghosts have been demoted from powerful rare bosses to elite mooks.
- Demoted to Extra: The Cultist class isn't available, so the cultists only appear as NPCs.
- Difficulty Levels: Difficulty can be set to make areas a floor longer or shorter, though the Wizard's Tower cannot be made shorter. A short playthrough will have strong enemies and bad item drop rates, while a longer one has the opposite traits.
- Early Game Hell: Upon choosing a starting bonus, the player is now required to also choose a penalty that ranges from starting with 3 less HP, with no items or with 25$ in child support debt. As the Monk cannot have initial items at all, players can instead choose to start at critical health and stamina conditions.
- Escape Battle Technique: Chicken Stones can be used to attempt to retreat from battles but require zero stamina.
- Excuse Plot: Like in the previous game, the plot simply involves getting rid of a dangerous artifact at a particular location.
- Grimy Water: Polluted bodies of water damage the player character with every step and greatly weakens enemies.
- Have a Nice Death: The game over screen shows a random gag, your equipment, cause of death and play time. This information is not stored in text files outside of the game like in the previous installment.
- Honor Before Reason: Clerics refuse to flee from combat, so pick your battles well...
- Informed Equipment: Averted as equipment does show up on the player character's sprite this time.
- Interface Screw: There's a small chance to get drunk upon drinking beer at guilds. This will reverse controls and scramble the compass for the current floor.
- Joke Item:
- The Warren Peace is a combat item that puts the player to sleep, leaving them vulnerable for multiple turns while recovering a tiny amount of STM.
- The Robe simply raises defense by 1, but the narrator specifically considers it the worst armor in the game.
- MacGuffin: The protagonist's goal is taking the Warren Peace book to the Wizard's Tower and destroying it. It can be equipped for battles, but all it does is make him sleep for a random number of turns while recovering just 3 STM.
- Nerf:
- The Shovel's function has changed from skipping a floor to digging gravestones, which like other objects can contain treasure, spawn enemies or just hit your character with the plague.
- Campfires that grant full recovery now can only be used once unless you have a torch to relit them.
- Notice This: There are certain powerful enemies that can spawn even in the first set of levels. They'll be marked with a skull to warn players.
- Oxygen Meter: You can swim on water tiles that often contain unique enemies, but that costs stamina and eventually health until the hero finds solid ground or drowns. Swimming also reduces evasion during fights. Both of those penalties can be removed by the Aqua Potion.
- Prison Rape: Alluded to by the Soap item, which is found in the Subterranean Prison and raises evasion by 2% while carried.Somebody dropped it... Keep in your pack to gain its power!
- Timed Mission: Time-bomb levels require you to find the exit under a certain amount of steps, or else it's an instant game over. Unlike in the previous game, you can actually find the bomb and attempt to disarm it.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: The Cleric class is now prejudiced against the dark cultists and won't enter their shops, even though they could in the previous game.
- Wizard Needs Food Badly: The player will take constant damage when the hunger meter is fully depleted until they eat something or die.
