Destiny: The Taken King Review

Eyes Up, Guardians.

Destiny: The Taken King fixes almost everything that was bad about Destiny when it first released a year ago. When Destiny first hit store shelves and digital outlets around the world, I succumbed to the hype. I played hours upon hours for three weeks straight until I hit Light Level 28 and stopped because I was just plain bored with it. It was the same grind over and over. Since then, I have gone through a love/hate relationship with Bungie's galactic space adventure game. The Dark Below expansion felt half baked, and it wasn't until House of Wolves, the 2nd expansion, that I really started to come back and start grinding out more hours trying to get that 34 Light Level cap. Eventually I did and the game became super fun. Loot rewards still weren't rewarding me for the time I was putting in, some weapons were overpowered thus leaving others excluded from Raids because they didn't have those exotic weapons, etc. But The Taken King has fixed all of that and more. 

My single biggest problem with Destiny when I reviewed it last year was the fact that there was no cohesive story. There was a universe that Bungie had built, with lore tied behind Grimoire Cards obtained by playing the game, but the Destiny vanilla campaign was extremely lackluster. The Taken King(referred to as TTK from here on out), brought back gorgeous cinematic cutscenes, wonderful written dialogue, and a self-contained story with a single villain, Oryx. The story is simple, Oryx, The Taken King, wants revenge because you and your fellow Guardians killed his son, Crota, in The Dark Below. The six hour campaign was entertaining, sometimes scary, and a ton of fun. The different characters in the Tower all have new written dialogue, making them feel way more important than they were in the vanilla campaign. Cayde-6, for instance, steals the show. Nathan Fillion does a brilliant job bringing this awesome character to life. Peter Dinklage has been replaced by Nolan North as Ghost, a welcome change considering the lackluster performance by Dinklage. RIP Dinklebot. Hello Nolanbot. I think Nolan does a great job with Ghost and makes the bond between your Guardian and your Ghost feel more important. 

The leveling system has been reworked to better benefit everyone. The level cap has been raised to 40 and you get there through experience, just by playing the game. A light level still remains, and now it's calculated by the average number of attack and defense on your weapons and armor. For example, LL 240 is the minimum recommended for the Daily Heroic Story mission and LL 290 is the recommended for the new raid, King's Fall. With the new loot system rewarding better drops more frequently, the climb to 290 is relatively easy by just playing the game and doing the new strikes, missions, and things you enjoy.

Oryx, the Taken King

There are more new weapons to acquire in TTK then there were in the original release of Destiny. These new Year 2 weapons had me dropping my trusty Fatebringer to pick up a random "Uncommon" Hand Cannon that had a better attack rating. Many legendaries and exotics were left behind in Year 1 but some have transferred over to TTK and Year 2 like Red Death, Hawkmoon, Hard Light, and others. I have yet to find a new Year 2 Exotic weapon but for now I'm using the Dead Orbit legendary Scout Rifle. I love all the new weapons and armor. They have also added Artifacts which can be obtained one you reach level 40. They contribute to your Light Level and carry different perks. Bungie has added quest tracking, for a more familiar RPG style of questing, more vault and bounty space, and loads more, not to mention a sword weapon that is used as a heavy. 

Bungie has also added a new playable location, Oryx's ship the Dreadnought. It's massive caverns and halls are filled with enemies and delicious secrets and rewards. With the Dreadnought comes two new strikes, one of them having an extremely intense and nerve-racking boss fight which I won't spoil. As well as a new public event arena called, Court of Oryx. Court of Oryx uses different tiers of runes that you present to statues which then summon enemies and bosses into the arena. Tier 1 is the easiest with Tier 3 arguably needing a Fireteam of 6 people but it is tons of fun. Heroic and Nightfall strikes have now been turned into playlists, with an added streak that allows you to earn higher rewards the more strikes you play without going to orbit. The new Taken enemies will sometimes appear in classic strikes from Year 1 changing things up a bit. Speaking of the Taken, they are the new enemy that consist of every other race from Destiny with added features. Taken Fallen Captains can blind you, Taken Vex Goblins can give other enemies invincible shields, Taken Knights can spew fire, and that's just to name a few. 

There are three new Subclasses for the Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. The Hunter Nightstalker can summon a bow and arrow from the void and use it to tether enemies allowing you and your friends to do more DPS. The Titan Sunbreaker can summon a flaming hammer and throw it into groups of enemies. And the Warlock Stormcaller can fly around shooting lightning out of their fingertips like a Sith Lord from Star Wars, pretty cool and useful for crowd control. They all come with different perks just like the original subclasses, and being a Hunter I am really enjoying the Nightstalker and I can't wait to try out the Sunbreaker on my Titan character. New trophies and achievements have been added for TTK and they are tied to finishing the main story and different side quests that open up after the initial campaign has concluded. The new Raid, King's Fall, has received massive amounts of praise for it's puzzles, intense and mechanical boss fights, and loot rewards. I myself will be trying it out later this week with my buddies and I can't wait! 

Overall, Destiny: The Taken King is a huge improvement over the Destiny that was released last year. A better loot system, new weapons, a captivating new story campaign with great voice acting and dialogue, a villain with motivation, new Strikes, new Crucible maps, more vault space, simpler bounties, more weapons and armor, and tons of other things! The Taken King has been one of my favorite releases this year and looks totally different from what Destiny used to be. If you stopped playing Destiny after awhile last year, I don't blame you, but now do yourself a favor and download The Taken King. I promise, you won't regret it. 

9.5

+New Loot system

+King's Fall raid

+Story and dialogue

+New strikes

+Leveling system