D2

D2 (Ｄの食卓2 Dī no Shokutaku Tsū?) is a 1999 survival horror video game developed by WARP and published by Sega in Japan and the United States for Dreamcast. D2 is a sequel to D, despite having no connection to the first game whatsoever, save for the appearance and given name of the protagonist, Laura. This game was written and directed by Kenji Eno who also wrote and directed the original D.

Development
Development for D2 started as a premier game for the cancelled Panasonic M2 console, the successor for the 3DO console.[2]

In this early version, a pregnant Laura was to have been attacked by a supernatural force during a passenger flight, her unborn child kidnapped from her womb, magically aged, and sent back in time. The player would have taken the role of Laura's son - now a teenager - trapped in a large, European castle, from which he had to escape while being assaulted by supernatural phenomena.

The game was "about 50 percent finished" when Panasonic officially announced that the M2 was not going to be released,[2] leaving WARP with no way to sell the title. When given the chance to release D2 for other systems, Kenji Eno decided to abandon this concept and create an entirely new game for the Dreamcast.

Like the M2 version, D2 became the first officially announced game for a new console, the Dreamcast.

Plot
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.

Gameplay
Laura searching for items in the polar environmentsThe 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 will encounter 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.

In terms of the hunting feature, animals Laura kills for meat are totaled up during gameplay and on the Options screen, players can see how many kills she has collected as well as any medals given. Additionally, Laura has a camera that she can use to take pictures any time in the game (except during cinematics). Players can also save the pictures to a VMU and view them later on.

Reception
D2 aroused universally conflicting reactions in fans and critics alike as well as a large online cult following. Most reviewers lauded the game's detailed graphics,[3] music,[3] and deep storytelling.[3] [4] However, they criticized the actual gameplay for being repetitive, dull[4] and buried with cut scenes.[3] Both GameSpot and IGN gave it a score of 6.2.[3] [4]

Trivia

 * In Japan, a demonstration version of D2 was packaged with another WARP produced game, the Dreamcast "remake" of the sound-only Sega Saturn title, Real Sound: Kaze no Regret (Winds of Regret). This early preview of the game, known as D2 Shock Demo, features modified opening credits and "heads up display" compared to the completed game released later. Additionally, this demo version contains a save file that copies to the Dreamcast VMU and unlocks a "secret movie" in the retail Japanese version of D2. This secret movie is a preview of the shelved M2 version of D2.
 * This secret movie was removed from the North American version but can briefly be seen as in-flight movie during the hi-jacking sequence.
 * In the mine on Disc 1, the player comes across a group of lunchboxes, each bearing the name of a crew member from the Aki in WARP's previous game, Enemy Zero.
 * After the end credits, a clock will appear displaying the current time and either the time left till December 31, 1999 or time elapsed after, depending on the time kept on console. If the Dreamcast's internal time is changed so that the clock reaches midnight on New Year's Day when it appears, the message "Welcome to the 21st Century!" will appear beneath the date and the time as midnight passes.[5]
 * The initials on Laura's compact change between LH in the game and LP in the change disc screen, referencing the Laura Harris of the first "D" game and Laura Parton of present game.
 * As with many survival horror games, the game over screen states that the player has died, in this instance using the words "You Perished".