Game Title: Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon
DLC Title: Time Drifts Through the Moonlit Night
DLC Type: New Story Campaign / New Costumes
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Price: $8.99

Nights of Azure 2 is the first niche Gust title I have played on the Nintendo Switch and it was a fun experience to finally play the series in handheld form. After having played it through with the True End and the Extra Dialogue Sequence, I thought I had pretty much done everything the game had to offer.

This past week proved how wrong I was, when I was browsing Reddit and found out that it got not one, but two Story Expansions, in the form of new DLC. More than excited, I hopped onto the eShop, grabbed em, and have been waiting for my queue to open up so I could dive in and start the review process.

This was originally going to be a Double Review for both expansions, but since one was Paid DLC and the other Free, I am going to do them separates. Here is my review of the first Paid DLC for the game, Nights of Azure 2: Time Drifts through the Moonlit Night!

Story

I will try to keep this as Spoiler-Free as possible. I will make a note in the Video Review if it contains any particular spoilers for those who have not finished the base game.

Time Drifts takes place across nearly the entirety of the main quest, with quests from Chapter 2 all the way to right before the Final Boss. A Massive Boat falls from the sky, rocking the entire area and Aluche goes to investigate. Among many powerful Spirits that are forever tied to the world, she crosses blades with a shadowy spectre that looks just like her. Finding out that the Shadow is a tortured soul unable to move onto the Afterlife, Aluche chases after it to find out who they were and how she can help them.

The plotline of this expansion is intriguing as it is tied to the Moon Queen, herself, and answers questions about a couple things in the final dungeon that are mentioned but never really explained in the base game. From a lore perspective, it helps bring the player to a better understanding of why the Azure Moon Apocalypse is happening.

But let’s not just praise it for the sake of it being entertaining. This campaign stems from two dialogue segments that were in the game that were never explained. It almost feels like this should have been a part of the base game and not something that was released months after. I am not saying it ruins this expansion, but it kind of feels like the story was intentionally held back for the sake of releasing this arc as DLC.

Gameplay

The base gameplay formula is not changed by this DLC campaign, but rather it just adds new content to the game that was not there before, such as the cutscenes for the new story sections and whatnot.

As far as what is added here, there is 1 new dungeon that you can explore, known as the Drifting Ark. This place is used in the beginning and ending of this story arc, but it also serves another purpose. It contains 5 rooms, each with respawning versions of most of the game’s major Boss Fights, which creates a new and better way to exploit grinding for experience and levels in the harder difficulties and New Game Plus for those wanting to cap their stats.

The “Boss Rush” dungeon is for outside of this, though. The main task is going around and fighting the Shadow. You fight them a few different times, with them fleeing each time as you learn more about them and their ties to the Moon Queen. As such, you will want to make sure you’ve got New Game Plus or at least 5 spare days from Chapter 7 to use for each of its quests as you need to return to the Hotel between each of them.

As with most DLC Expansions, there is a certain degree of difficulty to these fights as well. While you can definitely win these boss fights around Level 25-30, there is a certain degree of strategy, as the Shadow moves and fights like Aluche does, and has a lot of knock-back attacks, making it very difficult to get close combos together without dodging well or using Rue’s Anti-Knockback Skill.

Now, as far as length goes, that’s one thing that I want to talk about, like I have with the expansions for the Shantae DLC Expansions. Time Drifts costs around $8, and contains around 2 hours of campaign time. This is if you are already in Chapter 7 and don’t spread it out across the campaign. While I did like the expansion, it isn’t that long for how much you pay for it.

This has been the case in all DLC Reviews I have done so far. I don’t know if this will be a big trend or I will need to adjust how I review expansions.