Drama:
Before I get into the review I’d like to address the obvious elephant(s) in the room.
Firstly, the performance is absolutely terrible. The cities run very poorly and any encounter out in the wilds with a larger NPC count will be less than cinematic. You will not be powering through it with good hardware either; this game struggles even on the top-end. I suggest waiting for a performance patch before even thinking about buying this game.
Secondly I’d like to mention Microtransactions. While yes they aren’t the worst or most egregious MTX to hit the AAA market, bad is bad and bad should be called out. You could come up with any number of excuses but in the end they shouldn't exist in this single-player game end of story. “It’s just horse armor, just don’t buy it lol”... look where we are now.
Anyway, enough of that.
Review:
Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t really much of a sequel but more so a second-attempt from Capcom at creating the world that they had envisioned back in 2012: only with better technology, knowledge, and skills than they’d had prior. In a funny way Dragon’s Dogma 2 is kind of like Capcom’s ‘New Game Plus’ attempt at Dragon’s Dogma.
It then goes without saying that if you liked the first game or their expanded version back in 2013: ‘Dark Arisen’, then I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you will absolutely adore Dragon’s Dogma 2. Dragon’s Dogma 2 carries over almost all the features and ideas that you remember from the first game and either directly improves on them or brings them up to modern standards.
The exploration, combat, pawn system, and general quest design all see their return in Dragon’s Dogma 2, for better or worse. I can say that after about 50 hours of playing through Dragon’s Dogma 2 that while there are many complaints that I might have about the game, it is ultimately a great improvement over the first installment and is a pretty good game in general.
As expected the combat is very good. The enemy variety can get tired quickly, especially with the drawn out near tedious exploration experience. Boss fights though are always a treat and are definitely one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s greatest selling points.
The feeling of jumping on top of a Griffin and having it fly into the sky while you desperately grasp at it's feathers so you don't plummet to your death, only to run out of stamina and drop 30 feet to your death when suddenly your beautiful pawn catches you in her arms like you're a princess... this simply can't be replicated anywhere else.
On the subject of combat though, vocations are a mixed bag, with most vocations feeling great to play but perhaps lacking in variety in terms of skills/spells available to you. This is further exacerbated by the questionable change from having 2 sets of skill slots in Dragon’s Dogma 1 versus the sad singular set of skill slots in this sequel.
They also feel a little unbalanced, with Trickster and Wayfarer being straight up useless while at the same time Mystic Spearhand (the class I use) gets access to a team-wide invincibility shield that they can essentially spam on repeat. I will also say that while I think Magic was generally better in the first game, Dragon’s Dogma is pretty much unrivaled when it comes to Magic gameplay in open-world RPGs.
I’ve already mentioned it but exploration is unbelievably tedious in this game.. I swear I’ve spent at least 10 hours just running from place to place. This was a problem I had in the first game and it’s a bit annoying to see it persist in the second. Maybe some will point to the game’s ‘Hardcore’ nature but in my opinion boring is boring. While fast travel exists alongside Oxcarts, I would’ve loved something like horses because by the time I reached the capital walking around was starting to do my head in.
Quest design has generally been pretty great and while I haven't found myself enthralled by many of the side quests, I've always found them to be relatively well made. There were a few questlines that I found to be absolute standouts and I’m sure those who’ve done them know what I’m talking about. I also appreciate how some side-quests would weave into one another seamlessly, it made my exploration feel rewarded. The main questline was very good too though I don’t have much to say on it.
The pawn system is as great as it was in the first game and is probably the games main selling point alongside the combat system. Having your pawn learn stuff from other players and come back to you sometimes with gifts always feels cool and adds a bit of community to the otherwise single-player experience. Pawn AI still isn’t great though, with pawns regularly getting themselves killed, using the wrong skills/spells, or just standing in bad places during a fight.
As expected pawn’s themselves don’t have much personality, so while in other RPGs you might have a band of interesting companions to get to know (a la Baldur’s Gate 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc...) the experience in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot more lonely and colorless which speaks to some of the downsides to the pawn system -though ultimately I think in Dragon’s Dogma 2’s case this is a worthwhile sacrifice.
NPCs are also pretty uninteresting with the exception of a few attractive ladies. The whole ‘Inhabitants of the World’ aspect of the marketing definitely feels a little overblown. Any radiant quests I’d gotten from my ‘friend’ NPCs were very boring and felt ultimately meaningless. I suppose they serve the same purpose as radiant quests in other games though so it’s no big deal.
Ultimately Dragon’s Dogma 2 is probably a Dragon's Dogma fan's dream game and I could easily see someone like that giving it a 5/5. For me though as someone who enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 1 but didn’t love it, I feel much of the same feelings that I did for the first game. There’s some great stuff in this game and there aren’t any real big flaws. All it really comes down to is that a lot of the quests didn’t really grip me which is a big deal for me in open-world RPGs. That alongside the general tedium of a lot of the game stops me from really falling in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2.
All that said though, I still think this is a really great game, especially for the type of player that Capcom are targeting. Just because some of the aspects of this game don’t quite match what I enjoy doesn’t mean they should be changed. Having more variety in the space is a good thing and Dragon’s Dogma 2 doing its own things should be encouraged.
3.5/5
Post Review Addendum:
Just wanted to add that the post-game section is amazing and suffers far less from the issues that I had with the main game. The quests, area, and exploration were all superb. The post-game sequence was also stunning and gave the game the conclusion that it needed.
My opinion on the game still stands as it is but I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed this section of the game. Really great stuff.
Before I get into the review I’d like to address the obvious elephant(s) in the room.
Firstly, the performance is absolutely terrible. The cities run very poorly and any encounter out in the wilds with a larger NPC count will be less than cinematic. You will not be powering through it with good hardware either; this game struggles even on the top-end. I suggest waiting for a performance patch before even thinking about buying this game.
Secondly I’d like to mention Microtransactions. While yes they aren’t the worst or most egregious MTX to hit the AAA market, bad is bad and bad should be called out. You could come up with any number of excuses but in the end they shouldn't exist in this single-player game end of story. “It’s just horse armor, just don’t buy it lol”... look where we are now.
Anyway, enough of that.
Review:
Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t really much of a sequel but more so a second-attempt from Capcom at creating the world that they had envisioned back in 2012: only with better technology, knowledge, and skills than they’d had prior. In a funny way Dragon’s Dogma 2 is kind of like Capcom’s ‘New Game Plus’ attempt at Dragon’s Dogma.
It then goes without saying that if you liked the first game or their expanded version back in 2013: ‘Dark Arisen’, then I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you will absolutely adore Dragon’s Dogma 2. Dragon’s Dogma 2 carries over almost all the features and ideas that you remember from the first game and either directly improves on them or brings them up to modern standards.
The exploration, combat, pawn system, and general quest design all see their return in Dragon’s Dogma 2, for better or worse. I can say that after about 50 hours of playing through Dragon’s Dogma 2 that while there are many complaints that I might have about the game, it is ultimately a great improvement over the first installment and is a pretty good game in general.
As expected the combat is very good. The enemy variety can get tired quickly, especially with the drawn out near tedious exploration experience. Boss fights though are always a treat and are definitely one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s greatest selling points.
The feeling of jumping on top of a Griffin and having it fly into the sky while you desperately grasp at it's feathers so you don't plummet to your death, only to run out of stamina and drop 30 feet to your death when suddenly your beautiful pawn catches you in her arms like you're a princess... this simply can't be replicated anywhere else.
On the subject of combat though, vocations are a mixed bag, with most vocations feeling great to play but perhaps lacking in variety in terms of skills/spells available to you. This is further exacerbated by the questionable change from having 2 sets of skill slots in Dragon’s Dogma 1 versus the sad singular set of skill slots in this sequel.
They also feel a little unbalanced, with Trickster and Wayfarer being straight up useless while at the same time Mystic Spearhand (the class I use) gets access to a team-wide invincibility shield that they can essentially spam on repeat. I will also say that while I think Magic was generally better in the first game, Dragon’s Dogma is pretty much unrivaled when it comes to Magic gameplay in open-world RPGs.
I’ve already mentioned it but exploration is unbelievably tedious in this game.. I swear I’ve spent at least 10 hours just running from place to place. This was a problem I had in the first game and it’s a bit annoying to see it persist in the second. Maybe some will point to the game’s ‘Hardcore’ nature but in my opinion boring is boring. While fast travel exists alongside Oxcarts, I would’ve loved something like horses because by the time I reached the capital walking around was starting to do my head in.
Quest design has generally been pretty great and while I haven't found myself enthralled by many of the side quests, I've always found them to be relatively well made. There were a few questlines that I found to be absolute standouts and I’m sure those who’ve done them know what I’m talking about. I also appreciate how some side-quests would weave into one another seamlessly, it made my exploration feel rewarded. The main questline was very good too though I don’t have much to say on it.
The pawn system is as great as it was in the first game and is probably the games main selling point alongside the combat system. Having your pawn learn stuff from other players and come back to you sometimes with gifts always feels cool and adds a bit of community to the otherwise single-player experience. Pawn AI still isn’t great though, with pawns regularly getting themselves killed, using the wrong skills/spells, or just standing in bad places during a fight.
As expected pawn’s themselves don’t have much personality, so while in other RPGs you might have a band of interesting companions to get to know (a la Baldur’s Gate 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc...) the experience in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot more lonely and colorless which speaks to some of the downsides to the pawn system -though ultimately I think in Dragon’s Dogma 2’s case this is a worthwhile sacrifice.
NPCs are also pretty uninteresting with the exception of a few attractive ladies. The whole ‘Inhabitants of the World’ aspect of the marketing definitely feels a little overblown. Any radiant quests I’d gotten from my ‘friend’ NPCs were very boring and felt ultimately meaningless. I suppose they serve the same purpose as radiant quests in other games though so it’s no big deal.
Ultimately Dragon’s Dogma 2 is probably a Dragon's Dogma fan's dream game and I could easily see someone like that giving it a 5/5. For me though as someone who enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 1 but didn’t love it, I feel much of the same feelings that I did for the first game. There’s some great stuff in this game and there aren’t any real big flaws. All it really comes down to is that a lot of the quests didn’t really grip me which is a big deal for me in open-world RPGs. That alongside the general tedium of a lot of the game stops me from really falling in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2.
All that said though, I still think this is a really great game, especially for the type of player that Capcom are targeting. Just because some of the aspects of this game don’t quite match what I enjoy doesn’t mean they should be changed. Having more variety in the space is a good thing and Dragon’s Dogma 2 doing its own things should be encouraged.
3.5/5
Post Review Addendum:
Just wanted to add that the post-game section is amazing and suffers far less from the issues that I had with the main game. The quests, area, and exploration were all superb. The post-game sequence was also stunning and gave the game the conclusion that it needed.
My opinion on the game still stands as it is but I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed this section of the game. Really great stuff.
Getting filtered by this game is a sign that your bloodline is weak and should refrain from touching video games for the rest of your life
Replaying the first game right before this paid off tremendously in the later half of this game. I don't know what got over me in the last play through that got me so invested in uncovering every inch of the lore of this world and the eternal cycle. My curiosity grew after binge-watching the Netflix anime while waiting for release day.
To keep this review blunt for anyone reading this on the fence. Dragon's Dogma 2 is not a direct sequel but more of a soft reboot. I like to use retry to better describe the experience of playing Dragon's Dogma 2. If you have never played the first one, you are okay to hop into this game. Your appreciation for the story and the world is heavily amplified if you immerse yourself in the first game.
Back to the idea of “retrying” to make something you were already passionate in. The first game is a cult classic for a reason. It's brutal, but also highly rewarding. It's open-ended, but also very linear. The open world is nothing more than a prop and setting for you to indulge in flashy combat and dungeon crawling. Though this world isn't Elden Ringish or Ubisoftian with a myriad of points of interest littered about with game changing loot. That little mining nook is just a mining nook. That goblin cave is just a goblin cave. Sometimes that weird cavern will lead to a giant beast like a Chimera or Ogre, but often not you trek through to get maybe a basic sword and some ores.
But that doesn't take away from DD2's world in any way. It's lived in, there's a reason for everything, and not in a gamey way to entice you for loot. Equipment is rather finite. Most weapons and armor can be used to your liking without much need for min maxing. Your character's level and your skill as a player are tested more than if you've upgraded or found that OP mace.
Starting out, traveling between settlements can be tiresome. Oxcarts are untrustworthy. You will be attacked, and traveling on foot waste too many resources recovering from the random encounters. Though you can fast travel, it's not until you are towards the final thirds will you have the money and port crystals needed to build your own fast travel network and effectively use it. But I never got tired of sprinting through the countryside and camping with my pawns eating the meat of that giant Minotaur we fought earlier. With the newest addition of Loss Damage permanently lowering your health until you rest, I felt more attached to the world. Especially with how dangerous nighttime gets, not just with the harder and more ghastly foes that invade, but because of how hard it is to see. I oftentimes stared at the sky to find a trace of a campfire smoke to escape to.
I fell into a hole with this game. I made myself and my pawn as my Cat. Together, with her on the arm of the couch next to me, we tackled anything that came in our way. I lived in this world. I helped that orphan girl, I helped that old dwarf to the hot springs to fix his back pains, I stopped multiple assassination attempts, I snuck into the masquerade party and found the secret entrance to the brothel. I bought a house and frequently traveled back with my sore feet to rest. I talked with the townsfolk and listened to their woes. I slew the dragon and broke the unending ring of will.
I say I a lot in this review because I need you to understand this is a very personal experience.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is a very short game if you progress the main quest like you'd expect to. This is the kind of game you get out of it what you put into it. If you stick to one vocation and don't experiment with exploration and combat, you'll think it's dull or one dimensional. You will think enemy variety is lacking if you look at the enemies as mobs to kill and not as living creatures with their own ecosystems. You will think questing is dull or tedious if you're expecting new mechanics or game changing gear to be given for completion. There isn't an endgame, there is a definitive ending.
This all can be said about the first game almost word for word. This game doesn't inert the first game either. They are both very distinct experiences. Dragon's Dogma 2 is all about these emergent experiences and cultivating a playground for the player to mess around in. Your play through of this game will be just as personal as mine was. It is very easy for me to put this up there with one of the best games I've ever played; just like the first game.
To keep this review blunt for anyone reading this on the fence. Dragon's Dogma 2 is not a direct sequel but more of a soft reboot. I like to use retry to better describe the experience of playing Dragon's Dogma 2. If you have never played the first one, you are okay to hop into this game. Your appreciation for the story and the world is heavily amplified if you immerse yourself in the first game.
Back to the idea of “retrying” to make something you were already passionate in. The first game is a cult classic for a reason. It's brutal, but also highly rewarding. It's open-ended, but also very linear. The open world is nothing more than a prop and setting for you to indulge in flashy combat and dungeon crawling. Though this world isn't Elden Ringish or Ubisoftian with a myriad of points of interest littered about with game changing loot. That little mining nook is just a mining nook. That goblin cave is just a goblin cave. Sometimes that weird cavern will lead to a giant beast like a Chimera or Ogre, but often not you trek through to get maybe a basic sword and some ores.
But that doesn't take away from DD2's world in any way. It's lived in, there's a reason for everything, and not in a gamey way to entice you for loot. Equipment is rather finite. Most weapons and armor can be used to your liking without much need for min maxing. Your character's level and your skill as a player are tested more than if you've upgraded or found that OP mace.
Starting out, traveling between settlements can be tiresome. Oxcarts are untrustworthy. You will be attacked, and traveling on foot waste too many resources recovering from the random encounters. Though you can fast travel, it's not until you are towards the final thirds will you have the money and port crystals needed to build your own fast travel network and effectively use it. But I never got tired of sprinting through the countryside and camping with my pawns eating the meat of that giant Minotaur we fought earlier. With the newest addition of Loss Damage permanently lowering your health until you rest, I felt more attached to the world. Especially with how dangerous nighttime gets, not just with the harder and more ghastly foes that invade, but because of how hard it is to see. I oftentimes stared at the sky to find a trace of a campfire smoke to escape to.
I fell into a hole with this game. I made myself and my pawn as my Cat. Together, with her on the arm of the couch next to me, we tackled anything that came in our way. I lived in this world. I helped that orphan girl, I helped that old dwarf to the hot springs to fix his back pains, I stopped multiple assassination attempts, I snuck into the masquerade party and found the secret entrance to the brothel. I bought a house and frequently traveled back with my sore feet to rest. I talked with the townsfolk and listened to their woes. I slew the dragon and broke the unending ring of will.
I say I a lot in this review because I need you to understand this is a very personal experience.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is a very short game if you progress the main quest like you'd expect to. This is the kind of game you get out of it what you put into it. If you stick to one vocation and don't experiment with exploration and combat, you'll think it's dull or one dimensional. You will think enemy variety is lacking if you look at the enemies as mobs to kill and not as living creatures with their own ecosystems. You will think questing is dull or tedious if you're expecting new mechanics or game changing gear to be given for completion. There isn't an endgame, there is a definitive ending.
This all can be said about the first game almost word for word. This game doesn't inert the first game either. They are both very distinct experiences. Dragon's Dogma 2 is all about these emergent experiences and cultivating a playground for the player to mess around in. Your play through of this game will be just as personal as mine was. It is very easy for me to put this up there with one of the best games I've ever played; just like the first game.
less of a "sequel to dragon's dogma" and more of a "what if dragon's dogma had a budget"
the peaks are absolutely insane but there's still a lot of conflicting subsystems and rpgjank - i was really hoping for they'd add more non-boss monsters (they added uh.. slimes) so you're not just fighting saurians 80% of the time but alas. the new big guys are really fun and the world design is spectacular. i just be running around looking for caves. i be in the caves, mining, digging- you wouldnt get it.
let me be clear, i like the limited fast travel, i like the friction, i like the only-one-save-file-deal-with-it approach. but i also wish i could, like, ask a pawn to throw me over a river or whatever, and like, maybe access more than 4 abilities without having to go to the Menu Stone. or co-op! imagine co-op! goodness! these are the kinds of things i expected to be expanded - they were not. maybe thats on me.
oh it does also run like shit but like, cry about it....
the peaks are absolutely insane but there's still a lot of conflicting subsystems and rpgjank - i was really hoping for they'd add more non-boss monsters (they added uh.. slimes) so you're not just fighting saurians 80% of the time but alas. the new big guys are really fun and the world design is spectacular. i just be running around looking for caves. i be in the caves, mining, digging- you wouldnt get it.
let me be clear, i like the limited fast travel, i like the friction, i like the only-one-save-file-deal-with-it approach. but i also wish i could, like, ask a pawn to throw me over a river or whatever, and like, maybe access more than 4 abilities without having to go to the Menu Stone. or co-op! imagine co-op! goodness! these are the kinds of things i expected to be expanded - they were not. maybe thats on me.
oh it does also run like shit but like, cry about it....
do not buy japanese games on the computer.
While many have lamented that Dragon's Smegma II is essentially a remake or, at best, a 1.5 update to the original game, I'm perfectly fine with that because it's been 25 years since the original was released, there's no other RPG or game of any genre like it, and the original is one of the best RPGs ever made.
My concern with Dragon's Dogma II was that Capcom's recent output has been lackluster (I know that this is a minority position, fuck off) and has proven that they are ready to sand away the idiosyncracies of games to appeal to larger audiences. E.G., Monster Hunter.
This concern was reinforced by the amount of positive press the game received, especially from gaming journalists who were ambivalent about the original.
In a way, my concerns are justified. But thankfully, this game still understands what made the original so compelling, even if it is a bit of a step back in many ways.
It still has a beautiful open world to explore with well-designed quests that ask the player to pay keen attention to their surroundings or fuck around until something works. In general, Dragon's Dogma II simply respects your intelligence in a way that most modern AAA games don't.
It also maintains an excellent combat system with some of the best game feel of any genre.
I never tired of wandering through the wilderness, taking on hundreds of foes, experimenting with class synergy, and ensuring my pawn was well-equipped to help other Arisens in distant worlds. Scaling a fucking griffin is just as enjoyable in hour 50 as in hour 10. It gets even better when you realize you can hitch a ride on one's back as it flies away and heads off into uncharted regions.
Speaking of, this game is filled with emergent gameplay and allows the player to find many creative ways to solve problems. Did you know that when you knock a Golem apart, you can pick up his fucking head and fire laser beams at shit?
Fuck man, YouTubers are milking the ever-living fuck out of "Things You Didn't Know You Could Do in Dragon's Dogma II" videos with soyface reaction thumbnails just like they did with Breath of the Wild. I remember when I finished the first half of the Sphinx's questline, and she suddenly took off; I decided to see what would happen if I grabbed onto her tits. She took me for a ride across the entire map and brought me straight to the next destination!
I fucking love gradually making my own efficient fast travel network, the same way I did in the first game. It's still just as gratifying to drop a portcrystal in front of a quest giver to instantly teleport to them when I'm ready to turn a quest in.
I'm so glad that Capcom didn't give in to demands from a particularly vocal minority, primarily those who didn't even like the first game, to add co-op. The pawn system is just as good as the previous game and still shines as one of the game's most unique mechanics. Co-op would have ruined this, as balancing the game around both would be impossible.
While Itsuno has mostly stuck to his vision, some unfortunate compromises were made, just like with Monster Hunter before it. I felt like I was losing my mind recalling how many people complained about this game's "friction," with some accusing the developers of intentionally making the game unforgiving to sell its admittedly fucking stupid microtransactions.
I'm sorry, but anyone with this position is a walking fucking skill issue because this game is much easier than Dragon's Dogma in just about every metric. The combat is easier, the classes are more powerful earlier in the game, the world is much simpler to navigate, there are many more quest markers, etc.
My biggest disappointment with Dragon's Dogma II is just how little friction there was compared to the original. I remember that, for at least the first half of the game, wondering around at night was extremely difficult, and if I found myself unable to return to an inn before nightfall, I would sit and wait for the sun to rise.
There's nothing like that in II. Even traversing the world is much easier due to the increased emphasis on verticality.
Still, this isn't enough to ruin what is otherwise an incredible gameplay loop.
I will say that the post-game felt very rushed and is the most prominent example of a great idea that wasn't followed up on. I don't know; maybe they ran out of money.
Still, though, great fucking game. Even if it isn't the earth-shattering masterpiece that its predecessor was. It is a shame how poorly optimized it is and I won't lie and pretend that the performance didn't bother me at times. But I specialize in Eurojank RPGs, so I'm pretty used to it from this genre.
I'd say that I'm looking forward to playing the third game when it releases in 2035, but I'll probably be dead by then.
My concern with Dragon's Dogma II was that Capcom's recent output has been lackluster (I know that this is a minority position, fuck off) and has proven that they are ready to sand away the idiosyncracies of games to appeal to larger audiences. E.G., Monster Hunter.
This concern was reinforced by the amount of positive press the game received, especially from gaming journalists who were ambivalent about the original.
In a way, my concerns are justified. But thankfully, this game still understands what made the original so compelling, even if it is a bit of a step back in many ways.
It still has a beautiful open world to explore with well-designed quests that ask the player to pay keen attention to their surroundings or fuck around until something works. In general, Dragon's Dogma II simply respects your intelligence in a way that most modern AAA games don't.
It also maintains an excellent combat system with some of the best game feel of any genre.
I never tired of wandering through the wilderness, taking on hundreds of foes, experimenting with class synergy, and ensuring my pawn was well-equipped to help other Arisens in distant worlds. Scaling a fucking griffin is just as enjoyable in hour 50 as in hour 10. It gets even better when you realize you can hitch a ride on one's back as it flies away and heads off into uncharted regions.
Speaking of, this game is filled with emergent gameplay and allows the player to find many creative ways to solve problems. Did you know that when you knock a Golem apart, you can pick up his fucking head and fire laser beams at shit?
Fuck man, YouTubers are milking the ever-living fuck out of "Things You Didn't Know You Could Do in Dragon's Dogma II" videos with soyface reaction thumbnails just like they did with Breath of the Wild. I remember when I finished the first half of the Sphinx's questline, and she suddenly took off; I decided to see what would happen if I grabbed onto her tits. She took me for a ride across the entire map and brought me straight to the next destination!
I fucking love gradually making my own efficient fast travel network, the same way I did in the first game. It's still just as gratifying to drop a portcrystal in front of a quest giver to instantly teleport to them when I'm ready to turn a quest in.
I'm so glad that Capcom didn't give in to demands from a particularly vocal minority, primarily those who didn't even like the first game, to add co-op. The pawn system is just as good as the previous game and still shines as one of the game's most unique mechanics. Co-op would have ruined this, as balancing the game around both would be impossible.
While Itsuno has mostly stuck to his vision, some unfortunate compromises were made, just like with Monster Hunter before it. I felt like I was losing my mind recalling how many people complained about this game's "friction," with some accusing the developers of intentionally making the game unforgiving to sell its admittedly fucking stupid microtransactions.
I'm sorry, but anyone with this position is a walking fucking skill issue because this game is much easier than Dragon's Dogma in just about every metric. The combat is easier, the classes are more powerful earlier in the game, the world is much simpler to navigate, there are many more quest markers, etc.
My biggest disappointment with Dragon's Dogma II is just how little friction there was compared to the original. I remember that, for at least the first half of the game, wondering around at night was extremely difficult, and if I found myself unable to return to an inn before nightfall, I would sit and wait for the sun to rise.
There's nothing like that in II. Even traversing the world is much easier due to the increased emphasis on verticality.
Still, this isn't enough to ruin what is otherwise an incredible gameplay loop.
I will say that the post-game felt very rushed and is the most prominent example of a great idea that wasn't followed up on. I don't know; maybe they ran out of money.
Still, though, great fucking game. Even if it isn't the earth-shattering masterpiece that its predecessor was. It is a shame how poorly optimized it is and I won't lie and pretend that the performance didn't bother me at times. But I specialize in Eurojank RPGs, so I'm pretty used to it from this genre.
I'd say that I'm looking forward to playing the third game when it releases in 2035, but I'll probably be dead by then.
My greatest disappointment of 2024.
This was my most anticipated game of 2024, if not ever and Capcom managed to screwed it up badly.
The original Dragon's Dogma, despite being one of my favourite games, wasn't perfect, but it has charm and passion which is squeal is mostly devoid off.
Lack of enemy variety, uninspired side quests, poorly written half fast main story, the game despite being unfortunately running at 30fps barely runs consistently, some of worst difficult management ever as you either overpowered or a weakling that gets bodied regardless of level, poorly realised post game content.
The music, visuals and to a lesser extent gameplay were fine, but they don't save the game from being a subpar mess.
Stuff like this is the main reason why I don't preorder games anymore.
This was my most anticipated game of 2024, if not ever and Capcom managed to screwed it up badly.
The original Dragon's Dogma, despite being one of my favourite games, wasn't perfect, but it has charm and passion which is squeal is mostly devoid off.
Lack of enemy variety, uninspired side quests, poorly written half fast main story, the game despite being unfortunately running at 30fps barely runs consistently, some of worst difficult management ever as you either overpowered or a weakling that gets bodied regardless of level, poorly realised post game content.
The music, visuals and to a lesser extent gameplay were fine, but they don't save the game from being a subpar mess.
Stuff like this is the main reason why I don't preorder games anymore.
The game automatically drowns your first slave so you don't have to like you had to in the first game. Big improvement. Faces are really ugly but based on the accents I think it's intentional.
Escrevi uma review bem grande sobre esse jogo incrível
https://www.pstalksblog.com/post/dragon-s-dogma-ii-an%C3%A1lise
https://www.pstalksblog.com/post/dragon-s-dogma-ii-an%C3%A1lise
Went into a cave that seemed to go on forever, in the pitch black feeling my way around. While trying not to aggro saurians I went in a room that opened up in a suspicious way, so I stuck to the edge wall to go around just in case. My pawn, however, didn't get the memo: at some point a saurian had caught sight of someone in my party so they were in full attack mode, running straight into the middle of the room. about 5 seconds later I see a huge blue light silhouetting a goats head and a massive health bar appears. I have never run out of a room so fast.
I think its fascinating that theres three dragon's dogma games and being unfinished is their defining trait. Crazy good time but disappointed by the lack of spell variety like the first game, the trickster feels undercooked, and warfarer feels like a band aid last minute fix for a lack of classes they could not ship on time.
I lost 50 hours heavily immersed and the game has had some of my fondest memories playing a game in recent memory, but it is about the same amount of undercooked as the first one. Its a recurring thing I have to say about this game: "This is all pretty good but x problem" or "This feels lacking but it has a lot of potential for expansion later".
The true ending route is truly crazy though, I cannot believe they went somewhere more cowardly devs would defer to a cutscene for a bad end.
The plot sort of stops existing after the first ten hours and it really was funny to see characters i barely interacted with brought in to up the stakes or be part of a readout of "Your best friends 4ever :)"
I lost 50 hours heavily immersed and the game has had some of my fondest memories playing a game in recent memory, but it is about the same amount of undercooked as the first one. Its a recurring thing I have to say about this game: "This is all pretty good but x problem" or "This feels lacking but it has a lot of potential for expansion later".
The true ending route is truly crazy though, I cannot believe they went somewhere more cowardly devs would defer to a cutscene for a bad end.
The plot sort of stops existing after the first ten hours and it really was funny to see characters i barely interacted with brought in to up the stakes or be part of a readout of "Your best friends 4ever :)"
uuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
This is not really a review, just an opportunity for me to rant - because the gaming industry is currently at an absolute low in some ways and I'm sort of reaching a boiling point about it.
So I love the original Dragon's Dogma. It is, to me, the perfect game that just happens to be woefully imperfect. I love its worldbuilding, I love its gameplay concepts, I love its open world. I love so many things about it, but almost every aspect of it that I enjoy comes with a big ol' asterisk that prevents me from being able to give it the bright shiny gold star that I so desperately want to confer. Unfortunately, it languished in that lukewarm spot between "cult classic" and "abject mediocrity" that had me resigned to the sentiment that it would never get a re-release, let alone a sequel.
Of course, my fears ultimately ended up being unfounded, with the game receiving a fantastic PC port in 2016 and a sequel being officially announced a few years later. Seldom in my life have I ever been so excited for a release, and you'd better believe I was there each time Capcom finally loosed new details on the game. And now it's here!
The prevailing sentiment amongst those who have played Dragon's Dogma II seems to be that it is very much the original experience with some nips and tucks. To some, that might be massively disappointing - but to me, that is an absolute godsend. As far as I was concerned, the OG was a rock-solid concept that simply needed some careful polishing. The idea that Dragon's Dogma II could be loosely described as "Dragon's Dogma but better" is the very definition of a perfect sequel for me. As such, my excitement since its release has absolutely rocketed through the roof... Or that's really what I want to say, but the truth is Capcom's really managed to hurt my feelings this time around.
I'm not as flummoxed by these practices as I think some are because I was there when Capcom was shipping games with characters already on the disc that you had to pay extra to unlock. They were very much trendsetters in the hellscape that is the world of in-game purchases, and as a result their more recent monetization practices seem almost amusingly mild by comparison. In the case of DDII, it seemed to me that at the extra purchasable content was purely to "skip the line" with regards to features that already exist in-game, and thus were simply of the bog-standard "baiting the impatient" flavor. Note that I'm not blaming the "impatient" in this equation - I totally understand how irritating it can be when things such as character modification are arbitrarily gated off, and dangling an opportunity to unlock it at any time in exchange for a few extra bucks is unquestionably a dick move. However, it's not being excised from the base game altogether to be sold to you, so at least in that respect you have the option of ignoring it and simply working your way around it. To me, that's much more benign, even for as lame as it is at the end of the day.
But it IS lame. And so is the $70 price tag, and the shitty PC performance, and Capcom's usual shrugging off of player's complaints, and the fact that I have to reckon with all of these things if I want to play this game that I have eagerly been awaiting for years. I just moved to a new house - a life event that I am very glad for, but also one that is unquestionably a drain on one's finances. I'm really not in a position where I can go tossing every spare cent I have at the next big shiny thing, which already makes my primary hobby a very difficult one to entertain in 2024. However, more and more I'm running into the issue that even if I was the kind of person that could afford to pick up every new release, I don't know that any of these companies actually deserve it. Sony and Microsoft are selling $500 Netflix machines with barely any software to actually justify their existence. Nintendo is out here knocking over emulators and fan projects as if it's ever going to prevent people from pirating their games. Rockstar's assuredly going to ride off of Shark Cards from Grand Theft Auto 6 until I'm in a retirement home, CD Projekt Red is doing their best to pretend like they didn't sell lies to a whole generation of gamers based almost wholly on their Witcher 3 clout, Todd Howard found a way to resell Skyrim another time by dressing it up as a space sim, Konami is proving they will abuse their IPs as many times as it continues to make them money - and yeah, it's still making them all money! People are still buying the games! Day one! Repeatedly! Knowing full damn well it's probably not going to be worth it! And yet, the reason why I'm so miffed about this is because for once I feel like it absolutely would be worth it - because Dragon's Dogma II really does seem like it's the game I've wished for, but does that mean I should be dumping my wallet out for Capcom yet again? I don't know that I should. I know that if I buy the game in its current state, no matter how much I ultimately may enjoy it, it's going to make me feel dirty. And I hate that. I love games and I hate this. It makes me want to tear my hair out.
I can't roast anybody who has purchased the game and is having a good time with it right now. Life's hard enough and damn, if you're having a fun enough time that it makes your 70 bones feel like they were well-spent, who am I to deny you that pleasure? But just once - just once - I wish everybody would be willing to throw their hands up and say "I don't care if this game is the next coming of Digital Jesus, I want you to quit jerking me around". Because I'm tired of getting jerked around. I have massive respect for the people who worked a bajillion hours to make this game match the vision they had in mind for it. I know this isn't their fault. I want to reward them for their hard work by making this game a success, and I know my dumb ass is probably still going to buy the game once I can afford to (and once the game isn't melting people's CPUs). But another year of this and I'm likely to start writing off modern gaming as a whole in favor of diving into the "good old days" - because even if I feel like an old codger for saying it, there was at least a time when I didn't have to feel like a jackass for being excited about my hobby.
This is not really a review, just an opportunity for me to rant - because the gaming industry is currently at an absolute low in some ways and I'm sort of reaching a boiling point about it.
So I love the original Dragon's Dogma. It is, to me, the perfect game that just happens to be woefully imperfect. I love its worldbuilding, I love its gameplay concepts, I love its open world. I love so many things about it, but almost every aspect of it that I enjoy comes with a big ol' asterisk that prevents me from being able to give it the bright shiny gold star that I so desperately want to confer. Unfortunately, it languished in that lukewarm spot between "cult classic" and "abject mediocrity" that had me resigned to the sentiment that it would never get a re-release, let alone a sequel.
Of course, my fears ultimately ended up being unfounded, with the game receiving a fantastic PC port in 2016 and a sequel being officially announced a few years later. Seldom in my life have I ever been so excited for a release, and you'd better believe I was there each time Capcom finally loosed new details on the game. And now it's here!
The prevailing sentiment amongst those who have played Dragon's Dogma II seems to be that it is very much the original experience with some nips and tucks. To some, that might be massively disappointing - but to me, that is an absolute godsend. As far as I was concerned, the OG was a rock-solid concept that simply needed some careful polishing. The idea that Dragon's Dogma II could be loosely described as "Dragon's Dogma but better" is the very definition of a perfect sequel for me. As such, my excitement since its release has absolutely rocketed through the roof... Or that's really what I want to say, but the truth is Capcom's really managed to hurt my feelings this time around.
I'm not as flummoxed by these practices as I think some are because I was there when Capcom was shipping games with characters already on the disc that you had to pay extra to unlock. They were very much trendsetters in the hellscape that is the world of in-game purchases, and as a result their more recent monetization practices seem almost amusingly mild by comparison. In the case of DDII, it seemed to me that at the extra purchasable content was purely to "skip the line" with regards to features that already exist in-game, and thus were simply of the bog-standard "baiting the impatient" flavor. Note that I'm not blaming the "impatient" in this equation - I totally understand how irritating it can be when things such as character modification are arbitrarily gated off, and dangling an opportunity to unlock it at any time in exchange for a few extra bucks is unquestionably a dick move. However, it's not being excised from the base game altogether to be sold to you, so at least in that respect you have the option of ignoring it and simply working your way around it. To me, that's much more benign, even for as lame as it is at the end of the day.
But it IS lame. And so is the $70 price tag, and the shitty PC performance, and Capcom's usual shrugging off of player's complaints, and the fact that I have to reckon with all of these things if I want to play this game that I have eagerly been awaiting for years. I just moved to a new house - a life event that I am very glad for, but also one that is unquestionably a drain on one's finances. I'm really not in a position where I can go tossing every spare cent I have at the next big shiny thing, which already makes my primary hobby a very difficult one to entertain in 2024. However, more and more I'm running into the issue that even if I was the kind of person that could afford to pick up every new release, I don't know that any of these companies actually deserve it. Sony and Microsoft are selling $500 Netflix machines with barely any software to actually justify their existence. Nintendo is out here knocking over emulators and fan projects as if it's ever going to prevent people from pirating their games. Rockstar's assuredly going to ride off of Shark Cards from Grand Theft Auto 6 until I'm in a retirement home, CD Projekt Red is doing their best to pretend like they didn't sell lies to a whole generation of gamers based almost wholly on their Witcher 3 clout, Todd Howard found a way to resell Skyrim another time by dressing it up as a space sim, Konami is proving they will abuse their IPs as many times as it continues to make them money - and yeah, it's still making them all money! People are still buying the games! Day one! Repeatedly! Knowing full damn well it's probably not going to be worth it! And yet, the reason why I'm so miffed about this is because for once I feel like it absolutely would be worth it - because Dragon's Dogma II really does seem like it's the game I've wished for, but does that mean I should be dumping my wallet out for Capcom yet again? I don't know that I should. I know that if I buy the game in its current state, no matter how much I ultimately may enjoy it, it's going to make me feel dirty. And I hate that. I love games and I hate this. It makes me want to tear my hair out.
I can't roast anybody who has purchased the game and is having a good time with it right now. Life's hard enough and damn, if you're having a fun enough time that it makes your 70 bones feel like they were well-spent, who am I to deny you that pleasure? But just once - just once - I wish everybody would be willing to throw their hands up and say "I don't care if this game is the next coming of Digital Jesus, I want you to quit jerking me around". Because I'm tired of getting jerked around. I have massive respect for the people who worked a bajillion hours to make this game match the vision they had in mind for it. I know this isn't their fault. I want to reward them for their hard work by making this game a success, and I know my dumb ass is probably still going to buy the game once I can afford to (and once the game isn't melting people's CPUs). But another year of this and I'm likely to start writing off modern gaming as a whole in favor of diving into the "good old days" - because even if I feel like an old codger for saying it, there was at least a time when I didn't have to feel like a jackass for being excited about my hobby.
DRAGON'S DOGMA was one of the most interesting RPGs ever made. a bold game that tested many experimental mechanics and carved a tiny niche for itself.
it was also very clearly unfinished. messy in many different regards and with a degree of friction that turned off many players. it was a canonical 7/10 videogame.
but now... with a decade+ of experience under his belt, HIDEAKI ITSUNO returns to the directing throne. for DRAGON'S DOGMA II. also known as: DRAG-DOG 2.
with this new game, itsuno and CAPCOM tinker with and enhance many of the eld dragdog mechanics. leading to a game that masterpiecishly coalesces into a powerful work of digital artistry.
managing the impossible... turning a 7/10 game into an 8/10 game... which is, secretly at its core, a 10/10 game.
it was also very clearly unfinished. messy in many different regards and with a degree of friction that turned off many players. it was a canonical 7/10 videogame.
but now... with a decade+ of experience under his belt, HIDEAKI ITSUNO returns to the directing throne. for DRAGON'S DOGMA II. also known as: DRAG-DOG 2.
with this new game, itsuno and CAPCOM tinker with and enhance many of the eld dragdog mechanics. leading to a game that masterpiecishly coalesces into a powerful work of digital artistry.
managing the impossible... turning a 7/10 game into an 8/10 game... which is, secretly at its core, a 10/10 game.
eu tentei gostar bastante, eu sou um fã do DD1, mas esse foi estranho, não sei explicar
Dragon's Dogma II is a smoother but somehow a less full experience than Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
I've been thinking of how to "review" this game for at least 8 hours now, and it's all because whenever I think of something DD2 does good I remember that Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen did it equally well or even better which I know I shouldn't do because technically this isn't a sequel to Dark Arisen but a reimagination of the original Dragon's Dogma, but you can't just get the original anymore so I can only do a comparison to Dark Arisen.
What did DD2 bring to the table compared to DDDA: a better more interesting map, exploration is mostly fun, a vastly improved warrior vocation, overall combat feels smoother, 3¹ new races, better enemy and pawn² AI/pathfinding, neat pawn interactions like high-fives after battle and commenting of what other players who hired them did, some unique creatures like the Sphinx³, an ending that made me go "absolute cinema" at my screen, some very good-looking armors⁴, item use shortcuts, open-world being actually open meaning you can grab onto a griffin and just go flying and better⁵ graphics... I think that's it
What DD2 threw away from the table: Combat despite being smoother is less varied thanks to limiting vocations to only 4 skill slots instead of 3 per weapon, reduced vocations from bow & dagger users (strider, assassin & ranger) into dagger or bow (thief and archer), different arrows are only usable if a specific arrow skill is chosen for archer, sorcerers have fewer spells with no area debilitation spells like lassitude or miasma, dark and holy attributes are pretty much gone (supposedly a couple mage spells can do holy), 3 new vocations with 1 being a neat idea but useless (trickster), 1 being a mediocre melee with range (mystic spearhand) and 1 just to make the number bigger compared to DDDA (warfarer), ¹only 1 of the races is playable (beastren), ²While pawns seem smarter overall it feels like they don't really learn anything which is not helped by the fact that you choose your pawns' inclination from the creation screen with only 4 choices available, ³cool idea but very underutilized and unsatisfying end, ⁴armor got simplified into 4 slots because they didn't want all people to run same armors, yet it still happens thanks to there being 1 obviously better than rest option, post-game is very disappointing, and it's time-limited, ⁵thanks to TAA, DLSS and whatever else modern not native rendering tricks everything is either blurry or has ghosting...
AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF: the absolutely PATHETIC item, combining and tool systems. Did you know that in DDDA you could fill a flask with oil and either fill your lantern or equip it and throw it at an enemy causing them to get the tarred debilitation which causes it to take double fire damage and catching fire instantly or how you could combine items into a throwblast equip it and throw it at enemies to do big damage OR at an ore deposit so it breaks all the ore off, and you can pick up the ores without mining? What about combining rotten meat and foreign knife to get backfat oil that restores 600 stamina? Magick medal + ancient ore into monk's periapt?! The only tools that remain are grimoires and lesser versions of periapts that don't seem to stack. I was shocked and stared at my screen with my mouth open for at least 5 minutes when I first tried to equip lantern oil to throw at an enemy and there was... nothing... what downgrade.
There is a pretty known claim that the original Dragons's Dogma was barely what it was fully planned to be [https://imgur.com/a/h4nMo] and I truly feel like Dragon's Dogma II has experienced the exact same thing despite Itsuno claiming that his vision has been realized and if this game ever gets an expansion you know he was straight up lying.
So while the game isn't awful, it has really tough competition at its $70 price while its earlier entry exists fully playable, has more stuff, feels overall more complete and is almost always on sale for only 5 DOLLARS.
I've been thinking of how to "review" this game for at least 8 hours now, and it's all because whenever I think of something DD2 does good I remember that Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen did it equally well or even better which I know I shouldn't do because technically this isn't a sequel to Dark Arisen but a reimagination of the original Dragon's Dogma, but you can't just get the original anymore so I can only do a comparison to Dark Arisen.
What did DD2 bring to the table compared to DDDA: a better more interesting map, exploration is mostly fun, a vastly improved warrior vocation, overall combat feels smoother, 3¹ new races, better enemy and pawn² AI/pathfinding, neat pawn interactions like high-fives after battle and commenting of what other players who hired them did, some unique creatures like the Sphinx³, an ending that made me go "absolute cinema" at my screen, some very good-looking armors⁴, item use shortcuts, open-world being actually open meaning you can grab onto a griffin and just go flying and better⁵ graphics... I think that's it
What DD2 threw away from the table: Combat despite being smoother is less varied thanks to limiting vocations to only 4 skill slots instead of 3 per weapon, reduced vocations from bow & dagger users (strider, assassin & ranger) into dagger or bow (thief and archer), different arrows are only usable if a specific arrow skill is chosen for archer, sorcerers have fewer spells with no area debilitation spells like lassitude or miasma, dark and holy attributes are pretty much gone (supposedly a couple mage spells can do holy), 3 new vocations with 1 being a neat idea but useless (trickster), 1 being a mediocre melee with range (mystic spearhand) and 1 just to make the number bigger compared to DDDA (warfarer), ¹only 1 of the races is playable (beastren), ²While pawns seem smarter overall it feels like they don't really learn anything which is not helped by the fact that you choose your pawns' inclination from the creation screen with only 4 choices available, ³cool idea but very underutilized and unsatisfying end, ⁴armor got simplified into 4 slots because they didn't want all people to run same armors, yet it still happens thanks to there being 1 obviously better than rest option, post-game is very disappointing, and it's time-limited, ⁵thanks to TAA, DLSS and whatever else modern not native rendering tricks everything is either blurry or has ghosting...
AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF: the absolutely PATHETIC item, combining and tool systems. Did you know that in DDDA you could fill a flask with oil and either fill your lantern or equip it and throw it at an enemy causing them to get the tarred debilitation which causes it to take double fire damage and catching fire instantly or how you could combine items into a throwblast equip it and throw it at enemies to do big damage OR at an ore deposit so it breaks all the ore off, and you can pick up the ores without mining? What about combining rotten meat and foreign knife to get backfat oil that restores 600 stamina? Magick medal + ancient ore into monk's periapt?! The only tools that remain are grimoires and lesser versions of periapts that don't seem to stack. I was shocked and stared at my screen with my mouth open for at least 5 minutes when I first tried to equip lantern oil to throw at an enemy and there was... nothing... what downgrade.
There is a pretty known claim that the original Dragons's Dogma was barely what it was fully planned to be [https://imgur.com/a/h4nMo] and I truly feel like Dragon's Dogma II has experienced the exact same thing despite Itsuno claiming that his vision has been realized and if this game ever gets an expansion you know he was straight up lying.
So while the game isn't awful, it has really tough competition at its $70 price while its earlier entry exists fully playable, has more stuff, feels overall more complete and is almost always on sale for only 5 DOLLARS.
The Dogma of Dragons 2.0
I remember my brother playing through the first game and me being super interested in it as at the time I was playing P3FES for the first time. Primarily this game got a niche audience mainly to play the demo of the best horror game ever RE6!! When I played it I grew super addicted to it like many of friends did and had a unique formula to it.
When it comes to the sequel I was hyped to see what the sequel had in store for me. An even better character creator, new classes to mess with, new places to explore, a new race! And to my surprise all of the sudden, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth as the credits finally rolled as this long journey came to a close.
I like the idea of wanting to explore everything with very minimum fast travel, but with the atrocious stamina bar slowing me down every few minutes it made it more daunting once I made it so many hours into the game. The little golden trove beetles are a welcome addition an do help out a teeny weeny bit but still not enough to solve the encumberment issue even with giving half my stuff to my pawn on a long expedition. The lack of new enemies and giant monsters was also quite disappointing. I was expecting to see a lot of new enemies, but there was not too many and the whole right side of the map and main city was very reminiscent of the first game. Honestly, there were so many times where I felt like this game was more of a remake of the first then a sequel with the enormous amount of similar things happening.
I think the new classes and enhanced combat is great and the best part hands down, the world is so vibrant and gorgeous to look at especially when you get towards Battahl and the beautiful water on the beaches. The Sphinx was pretty crazy too and really cool. Kinda wish there were more things like it in the game. The amount of side content compared to the original is a huge boost as well with seeker tokens and side quests, but like I said with the carry weight and stamina issues it is a daunting endeavor to take on.
Overall, I can say for the most part I had fun with it even though this is not the type of "sequel" I had in my hopeful mind. For my fellow Dragon's Dogma lovers you will feel right at home when you get to experience this game. Just know many of your issues you had with the first game will probably still be here unfortunately. I'm sure we will get Dark Arisen 2 as well! Even throughout my complaints I will be looking forward to that! Not a bad game in the slightest, just not that good of a sequel in my opinion. If so many things were gonna be as similar as the first, you could of at least gave us "Into free -dangan-" as well!!
I remember my brother playing through the first game and me being super interested in it as at the time I was playing P3FES for the first time. Primarily this game got a niche audience mainly to play the demo of the best horror game ever RE6!! When I played it I grew super addicted to it like many of friends did and had a unique formula to it.
When it comes to the sequel I was hyped to see what the sequel had in store for me. An even better character creator, new classes to mess with, new places to explore, a new race! And to my surprise all of the sudden, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth as the credits finally rolled as this long journey came to a close.
I like the idea of wanting to explore everything with very minimum fast travel, but with the atrocious stamina bar slowing me down every few minutes it made it more daunting once I made it so many hours into the game. The little golden trove beetles are a welcome addition an do help out a teeny weeny bit but still not enough to solve the encumberment issue even with giving half my stuff to my pawn on a long expedition. The lack of new enemies and giant monsters was also quite disappointing. I was expecting to see a lot of new enemies, but there was not too many and the whole right side of the map and main city was very reminiscent of the first game. Honestly, there were so many times where I felt like this game was more of a remake of the first then a sequel with the enormous amount of similar things happening.
I think the new classes and enhanced combat is great and the best part hands down, the world is so vibrant and gorgeous to look at especially when you get towards Battahl and the beautiful water on the beaches. The Sphinx was pretty crazy too and really cool. Kinda wish there were more things like it in the game. The amount of side content compared to the original is a huge boost as well with seeker tokens and side quests, but like I said with the carry weight and stamina issues it is a daunting endeavor to take on.
Overall, I can say for the most part I had fun with it even though this is not the type of "sequel" I had in my hopeful mind. For my fellow Dragon's Dogma lovers you will feel right at home when you get to experience this game. Just know many of your issues you had with the first game will probably still be here unfortunately. I'm sure we will get Dark Arisen 2 as well! Even throughout my complaints I will be looking forward to that! Not a bad game in the slightest, just not that good of a sequel in my opinion. If so many things were gonna be as similar as the first, you could of at least gave us "Into free -dangan-" as well!!
Chock full of all the growing pains and nagging annoyances of both the title that preceded it as well as that of the open world genre at large, DDII offers a satisfying moment to moment exploration experience and a fulfilling conclusion only earnt after a poorly structured main story quest. Familiar narrative elements line your path like markers illuminating the way forward as this title exists as a simultaneous remake and sequel; there is a Dragon who threatens a far away kingdom, there is an Arisen who must rise to His challenge, and there is a Pawn conjured of pure thought at their side, all as the infernal chain demands of this world. The unique roleplaying capabilities the Arisen storytelling model provides remains a captivating experience just as it did in the first entry, further explored with the underdog nature of this iteration's Arisen and their place of weakness as a victim of stolen valour, and once again the dynamic between master and Pawn invite many interpretations to the nature of their relationship beyond surface level character customisations available ingame.
A reader would note I place a lot of bearing on the narrative of the Dogma titles and it's because I see it as their strength, there's little I can constructively say about the vocation-based combat that hasn't already been said by those better written than I. Of course all games which allow character customisation to some capacity leave wriggle room for roleplay on the player's part, to explore regarding individual reactions to events and splinter canons or endings, and the Arisen/Pawn dynamic illustrates this potential stronger than other titles. It is purely because of DD's vagueities and space between major quests (especially utilising the breathing room of methodical travel) that allows one to fill in their own blanks and organically develop characteristics through gameplay.
I acknowledge mine is a special case as my sentimental tie to DD extends beyond mere rose tinted glasses or nostalgia. My family was homeless and hotel/sharehouse-hopping for an extended length of time during my teenage formative years, a period hazy even to myself as I still underestimate its effects on my current personhood and mental condition. It was a special and difficult circumstance in which my brother and I kept our heads down while my mother worked the hardest years in her life, and the video games I had the opportunity to play during this period endure as those closest to me: NieR, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Dragon's Dogma. The destined heroism of the Arisen and having their fate so clearly etched into the very order of reality proved an escape from my own unmoored existence, kicking off the most artistically inspired years of my time drawing and seeing the creation of numerous individual original characters all brought to life from the same narrative device, their scribbled intricacies lost to sketchbooks long gone. DD was so much more than just a jank open world game to me then, it was where I first explored my own transgenderism without a prior outlet and where I could receive acknowledgement of my being alive from strangers across the Pawn network. I was here and existed, and I could aid others even if in an insignificant way.
I've yet to see a similar burst of unabashed creativity following this period not even seen during my exploration of FFXIV character development, and while DDII couldn't possibly foster a child's productivity in me, I feel the inkling of potential within once again. Yeah that one Nadinia quest bothered me, yes the pacing felt really off at times, yes the loss gauge is abysmally unfair, but it's more Dragon's Dogma. How could I not love it? Thank you to my partner for allowing me to use his PC with far better specifications than mine.
A reader would note I place a lot of bearing on the narrative of the Dogma titles and it's because I see it as their strength, there's little I can constructively say about the vocation-based combat that hasn't already been said by those better written than I. Of course all games which allow character customisation to some capacity leave wriggle room for roleplay on the player's part, to explore regarding individual reactions to events and splinter canons or endings, and the Arisen/Pawn dynamic illustrates this potential stronger than other titles. It is purely because of DD's vagueities and space between major quests (especially utilising the breathing room of methodical travel) that allows one to fill in their own blanks and organically develop characteristics through gameplay.
I acknowledge mine is a special case as my sentimental tie to DD extends beyond mere rose tinted glasses or nostalgia. My family was homeless and hotel/sharehouse-hopping for an extended length of time during my teenage formative years, a period hazy even to myself as I still underestimate its effects on my current personhood and mental condition. It was a special and difficult circumstance in which my brother and I kept our heads down while my mother worked the hardest years in her life, and the video games I had the opportunity to play during this period endure as those closest to me: NieR, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Dragon's Dogma. The destined heroism of the Arisen and having their fate so clearly etched into the very order of reality proved an escape from my own unmoored existence, kicking off the most artistically inspired years of my time drawing and seeing the creation of numerous individual original characters all brought to life from the same narrative device, their scribbled intricacies lost to sketchbooks long gone. DD was so much more than just a jank open world game to me then, it was where I first explored my own transgenderism without a prior outlet and where I could receive acknowledgement of my being alive from strangers across the Pawn network. I was here and existed, and I could aid others even if in an insignificant way.
I've yet to see a similar burst of unabashed creativity following this period not even seen during my exploration of FFXIV character development, and while DDII couldn't possibly foster a child's productivity in me, I feel the inkling of potential within once again. Yeah that one Nadinia quest bothered me, yes the pacing felt really off at times, yes the loss gauge is abysmally unfair, but it's more Dragon's Dogma. How could I not love it? Thank you to my partner for allowing me to use his PC with far better specifications than mine.
Dragon's Dogma II is one of those games that I yearned for, I wished for it, and now that it is here, it is exactly what I wished for. Dragon's Dogma concerns you with the mundane as much as the extravagant, concerns about how much of your pack is taken up by herbs and equipment, your character's height and weight. it all matters as much as the fact that a dragon stole your heart and now you are the rightful sovereign of the country and must slay said dragon in an epic quest. it is the contrast between relaxing in an oxcart and then moments later it is attacked by a monster, wild and strange, that makes this game what it is
Dragon's Dogma II is basically just more of the first game, but with a bigger budget and more polish and in some ways it's better than the first, but in others it simply is not. If you're a Dragon's Dogma fan you know what you're getting, but if this is your first experience with the series here's a little bit of a run-down.
You play as a chosen one known as the Arisen, you've been marked by a great dragon and it has stolen your heart, now you're on a hunt to fell the beast and reclaim what was stolen from you. The actual story is pretty simplistic and barebones but where the game makes up for that is in the world-building and lore that is fascinatingly detailed and in-depth alongside some solid optional quests that help flesh out the side characters more.
A unique thing Dragon's Dogma is known for is the Pawn system. Pawns are other-worldly beings that only the Arisen can summon and command, Pawns are AI controlled, but function like player controlled avatars and act as your travel companions and party members. Players get to create both their Arisen player avatar and their main Pawn which other players can summon thanks to a shared in-game lobby. While Dragon's Dogma is a completely single-player game, the Pawn system gives a sense of camaraderie comparable to that of a legit co-op game in a way no other game does knowing that the Pawns you're summoning were create by other real people.
The crowning jewel of Dragon's Dogma has always been its combat and much like the first game, combat is what carries Dragon's Dogma II as well. There's 10 different Vocations which act as your various classes that range from a sword and shield user known as a fighter to an archer, a dagger wielding thief or a spell-slinging mage among others making for tons of variety to suit nearly every playstyle. The combat in Dragon's Dogma II is more streamlined thanks to making each vocation only able to utilize one type of weapon and only 4 skills at a time, (I lament the loss of my Mystic Knight vocation and magic classes having far less spells as well) but the game makes up for the lack of complexity with polish because combat feels more weighty and satisfying than ever before and since each vocation only has one weapon type (Other than the newly added Warefarer) that allows for them to feel more fleshed out with deeper move-sets.
Exploration is the other major focus of Dragon's Dogma and it does so in the least handholdy way possible akin to a Souls-like, so much so that I would say roughly 70% of the game is entirely missable from side quests to entire portions of the map especially if you were to just do the main story missions because the game incentivizes you to go out into its world, explore and create your own adventures. The level of freedom the game gives you even extends to quests making for a more authentic RPG experience allowing the player to complete most objectives in more than one way. Exploration itself was a double-edged sword for me because while it was one of my favorite things about the game because when it was good, it was GOOD and finding cool new areas like the Ancient Battleground, Misty Marshes, Mountain Shrine or Dragon's Breath Tower were some highlights of my playthrough but, it was also my least favorite seeing as how the map is 4X bigger than that of the OG Dragon's Dogma, but the amount of actual content in both is roughly the same and it certainly doesn't help that the map doesn't have enough variety and most of what you're going to be exploring is mountain sides and forests. Having such a massive map and limited fast travel just feels like unnecessary padding as far as I'm concerned and I would've preferred a smaller, more condensed map like the first game.
The actual locations and unique dungeons are spread so far and between that a huge part of the map is just empty space to be filled with tedious combat encounters and sometimes they just get too repetitive especially when most of what you're going to be fighting is just goblins and wolves. Even fighting massive creatures like the griffin or cyclops starts to lose its luster later in the game when you've fought them 50 times each, I just think the game could've done with more enemy variety to spice things up and it's disappointing neither the Hydra nor the Cocatrice made a comeback from the first game and special enemies like Medusa or the Sphinx can only be found in one location in the entire game.
I also want to make a special mention to the endgame/post-game content being very lackluster basically turning the game into a pseudo rogue-lite and doing the Majora's Mask 'If you don't compete this in so many days, the game ends' thing. There's only a couple optional bosses and there's not really anything new to explore either despite some new parts of the map opening up, it's just more empty space. The 'Unmoored World' is a cool concept and works well with the lore and narrative, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and the fact once you finish the game you just immediately get thrown into NG+ kinda sucks too.
Despite it's lack of enemy variety, slightly empty world at times and rushed 3rd act, Dragon's Dogma II more than makes up for its flaws by being a game with a fun and polished combat system that has plenty of variety and depth to suit all kinds of playstyles, tons of small details to really immerse you into its world, a fantastic sense of freedom that let's you play however you want and a truly top notch sense of adventure and exploration at times. Dragon's Dogma II much like its predecessor is a very flawed game, but it's also a great one with tons of undeniable heart and soul behind it and is easily one of the best open-world RPGs in years right alongside Elden Ring and the Witcher 3.
You play as a chosen one known as the Arisen, you've been marked by a great dragon and it has stolen your heart, now you're on a hunt to fell the beast and reclaim what was stolen from you. The actual story is pretty simplistic and barebones but where the game makes up for that is in the world-building and lore that is fascinatingly detailed and in-depth alongside some solid optional quests that help flesh out the side characters more.
A unique thing Dragon's Dogma is known for is the Pawn system. Pawns are other-worldly beings that only the Arisen can summon and command, Pawns are AI controlled, but function like player controlled avatars and act as your travel companions and party members. Players get to create both their Arisen player avatar and their main Pawn which other players can summon thanks to a shared in-game lobby. While Dragon's Dogma is a completely single-player game, the Pawn system gives a sense of camaraderie comparable to that of a legit co-op game in a way no other game does knowing that the Pawns you're summoning were create by other real people.
The crowning jewel of Dragon's Dogma has always been its combat and much like the first game, combat is what carries Dragon's Dogma II as well. There's 10 different Vocations which act as your various classes that range from a sword and shield user known as a fighter to an archer, a dagger wielding thief or a spell-slinging mage among others making for tons of variety to suit nearly every playstyle. The combat in Dragon's Dogma II is more streamlined thanks to making each vocation only able to utilize one type of weapon and only 4 skills at a time, (I lament the loss of my Mystic Knight vocation and magic classes having far less spells as well) but the game makes up for the lack of complexity with polish because combat feels more weighty and satisfying than ever before and since each vocation only has one weapon type (Other than the newly added Warefarer) that allows for them to feel more fleshed out with deeper move-sets.
Exploration is the other major focus of Dragon's Dogma and it does so in the least handholdy way possible akin to a Souls-like, so much so that I would say roughly 70% of the game is entirely missable from side quests to entire portions of the map especially if you were to just do the main story missions because the game incentivizes you to go out into its world, explore and create your own adventures. The level of freedom the game gives you even extends to quests making for a more authentic RPG experience allowing the player to complete most objectives in more than one way. Exploration itself was a double-edged sword for me because while it was one of my favorite things about the game because when it was good, it was GOOD and finding cool new areas like the Ancient Battleground, Misty Marshes, Mountain Shrine or Dragon's Breath Tower were some highlights of my playthrough but, it was also my least favorite seeing as how the map is 4X bigger than that of the OG Dragon's Dogma, but the amount of actual content in both is roughly the same and it certainly doesn't help that the map doesn't have enough variety and most of what you're going to be exploring is mountain sides and forests. Having such a massive map and limited fast travel just feels like unnecessary padding as far as I'm concerned and I would've preferred a smaller, more condensed map like the first game.
The actual locations and unique dungeons are spread so far and between that a huge part of the map is just empty space to be filled with tedious combat encounters and sometimes they just get too repetitive especially when most of what you're going to be fighting is just goblins and wolves. Even fighting massive creatures like the griffin or cyclops starts to lose its luster later in the game when you've fought them 50 times each, I just think the game could've done with more enemy variety to spice things up and it's disappointing neither the Hydra nor the Cocatrice made a comeback from the first game and special enemies like Medusa or the Sphinx can only be found in one location in the entire game.
I also want to make a special mention to the endgame/post-game content being very lackluster basically turning the game into a pseudo rogue-lite and doing the Majora's Mask 'If you don't compete this in so many days, the game ends' thing. There's only a couple optional bosses and there's not really anything new to explore either despite some new parts of the map opening up, it's just more empty space. The 'Unmoored World' is a cool concept and works well with the lore and narrative, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and the fact once you finish the game you just immediately get thrown into NG+ kinda sucks too.
Despite it's lack of enemy variety, slightly empty world at times and rushed 3rd act, Dragon's Dogma II more than makes up for its flaws by being a game with a fun and polished combat system that has plenty of variety and depth to suit all kinds of playstyles, tons of small details to really immerse you into its world, a fantastic sense of freedom that let's you play however you want and a truly top notch sense of adventure and exploration at times. Dragon's Dogma II much like its predecessor is a very flawed game, but it's also a great one with tons of undeniable heart and soul behind it and is easily one of the best open-world RPGs in years right alongside Elden Ring and the Witcher 3.
In 2012, I accepted DD1 as an unfinished game with incredible potential to be developed upon in the future. I don't know if I have the heart to accept that DD2 to be in the exact same state. The combat so good but everything else is not done or just bad. I don't think waiting for potential patches or DLC is going to fix the game.
I like different, brutally difficult things. I just don't get enough out of this one to be up for the punishment. Is it incredible at times? Yes absolutely. Is it worth putting up with the bugs and balancing WORSE than the first game? No.
I think I need all the DLC to be out, subtle cheats, and some mods to get the most out of this game. It is a huge bummer to even feel like I got duped into waiting for another unfinished, unfocused, unpolished game because the ingredients are here to make one of the finest games to ever exist. It was just cooked wrong.
I like different, brutally difficult things. I just don't get enough out of this one to be up for the punishment. Is it incredible at times? Yes absolutely. Is it worth putting up with the bugs and balancing WORSE than the first game? No.
I think I need all the DLC to be out, subtle cheats, and some mods to get the most out of this game. It is a huge bummer to even feel like I got duped into waiting for another unfinished, unfocused, unpolished game because the ingredients are here to make one of the finest games to ever exist. It was just cooked wrong.
Failed horribly to improve on the first game. Has all the same problems 1 had and more.
DD1 suffers from lack of enemy variety but the game is short enough that burnout never managed to set in for me. DD2's world is about twice as big and somehow manages to even less to do in it.
The world feels lifeless. Towns look cool but are filled with generic NPCs that have copy pasted dialogue. The quests can be pretty unique but it's hard to care about anyone when 99% of the NPCs have no purpose in the world.
The pawn system remains half-baked. Pawns repeat the same dialogue endlessly, and the quest knowledge system just leads to pawns going "follow me!" and taking you directly to where you need to go.
Combat is still great but the enemies that carried over from DD1 don't feel much different to fight so I was already tired of fighting them from the start. 2 adds a SINGLE common large monster, and lacks a couple from the first game.
The story retreads the first game's but fails to have any of its impact. The lore and events of the game are interesting but the story fails to deliver it in a satisfying manner.
Hopefully whatever DLC they have planned fixes the enemy variety, but it can't repair how lackluster the rest of the game is.
DD1 suffers from lack of enemy variety but the game is short enough that burnout never managed to set in for me. DD2's world is about twice as big and somehow manages to even less to do in it.
The world feels lifeless. Towns look cool but are filled with generic NPCs that have copy pasted dialogue. The quests can be pretty unique but it's hard to care about anyone when 99% of the NPCs have no purpose in the world.
The pawn system remains half-baked. Pawns repeat the same dialogue endlessly, and the quest knowledge system just leads to pawns going "follow me!" and taking you directly to where you need to go.
Combat is still great but the enemies that carried over from DD1 don't feel much different to fight so I was already tired of fighting them from the start. 2 adds a SINGLE common large monster, and lacks a couple from the first game.
The story retreads the first game's but fails to have any of its impact. The lore and events of the game are interesting but the story fails to deliver it in a satisfying manner.
Hopefully whatever DLC they have planned fixes the enemy variety, but it can't repair how lackluster the rest of the game is.
oh no mtx
re4r and dmc5 with mtx: ...
oh no bad performance: ... thats correct, capcom make the game run like shit, i admit, but is funny see grown man outraged because your frames run below 30 fps
in moment i am 20 hour in game, and its great game, fix the performance and its become a more great game
Edit: finished the game, is about the jorney
re4r and dmc5 with mtx: ...
oh no bad performance: ... thats correct, capcom make the game run like shit, i admit, but is funny see grown man outraged because your frames run below 30 fps
in moment i am 20 hour in game, and its great game, fix the performance and its become a more great game
Edit: finished the game, is about the jorney
Dragon's Dogma 2 diverte com sua bela gameplay, mas peca demais na história sem graça, sidequests são mais interessantes que a main questline mas não são nenhuma referência nesse quesito, temos pouca variedade de inimigos e um mundo aberto que passa a ficar bem monótono quanto mais você o entende, sem contar com o desempenho tenebroso em todas as plataformas. GOTY Material? Acho que não, mesmo estando no começo do ano, já temos títulos bem mais fortes lançados nos últimos meses.
6/10 - Vale a pena dar uma olhada por conta do ótimo combate que carrega o jogo nas costas, mas se estiver procurando um RPG com um mundo fantástico e história envolvente, irá se decepcionar.
*Dropado com 40 horas de jogo. A história do jogo não me motiva a continuar e ao uma quest bugar após uma longa caminhada, me desanimou de continuar a campanha. Nota baseada apenas nas 40 horas de jogo.
Agradeço a Capcom e TheoGames pelo envio do jogo.
6/10 - Vale a pena dar uma olhada por conta do ótimo combate que carrega o jogo nas costas, mas se estiver procurando um RPG com um mundo fantástico e história envolvente, irá se decepcionar.
*Dropado com 40 horas de jogo. A história do jogo não me motiva a continuar e ao uma quest bugar após uma longa caminhada, me desanimou de continuar a campanha. Nota baseada apenas nas 40 horas de jogo.
Agradeço a Capcom e TheoGames pelo envio do jogo.
A good game held back by some of the absolute worst game writing and quest design I've ever seen.
There are some new elements that are a step forward on what the first game offered, but what Dark Arisen and DDO perfected, DD2 seems content to take two steps backwards and trip on it's shoelaces.
The open world is much bigger and there's much more satisfaction to be had in wandering around with your pawns and seeing the sights, but it's strongly hampered by a lack of enemy variety and severely reduced mobility options. There is no more long jump, double jump, or dodge rolling; meaning your only option avoiding damage and traversing terrains is a pathetic bunny hop. The hitboxes of bosses are surprisingly forgiving to compensate, but this just sacrifices the good game feel that came from navigating ledges and leaping out of the way of big attacks.
Returning classes are universally nerfed and the couple of new additions are underwhelming at best. The Trickster is an intriguing idea for a class in a game such as this, but the environmental hazards are not as common as the trailers would have you believe. Most of my time using it I spent waiting for my pawns to to most of the work. Getting your enemies to jump to their death seems to be the best use of it, but you can't deploy your illusory double from any major distance away from you. All you can do is hope that one of your pawns can push them off when they run up to a ledge. The one time I did use it to some effect of luring a cyclops out of the city and into a ditch, it spontaneously teleported back into the city. It feels more like a class designed for challenge runners to post meme runs and compilations on youtube with. Wayfarer is similarly disappointing, in that it does not allow for more than three skills across any weapon type in the game, and requires two additional button presses to activate them.
Lastly, the writing and quest design is an absolute mess. For starters, the game will routinely waste your time with quests, the object of which is: go to a place, then go back, and then sometimes go back and forth again. This is a decent way to train the player's navigational skills, however far too many quests operate in this realm and no other, making these quests feel pointless on a replay. More plainly put, there is usually nothing worthwhile to do once you've gotten to point B, other than run back to point A. Lord help you reach point B, you didn't bring a certain item needed to progress that the game never explicitly stated you needed, adding another pointless rotation into your expedition. (Pro tip, when the elf asks you to come watch him train, make sure you've switched to the archer class)
Other times, the game will accidentally skip over important information with cutscene triggers, and sometimes straight up change the rules on you. For example, in one quest, you need to give an NPC some items for a trip, and the game explains that they'll need enough items of sufficient quality to make it back safely. I give them two items that I think will do the trick, but there's a third slot and I have nothing to give them. Normally you can hand in two items and come back with a third in situations like this, but on this occasion, after backing out of the dialogue, the quest proceeds without giving me a chance to say yes or no. You're given the chance to go and save the NPC, but he got pounded into the dirt by goblins the second I showed up. Again, there's usually an out in scenarios like this. Dead NPCs are supposed to go to a morgue where you can revive them with a wakestone. Not this one apparently!
For a better example of poor game writing, that isn't a personal fuck up, we can look at the quest where you have to rescue the elf girl from an ogre. The elves talk about the Ogre with phrases like "Even our strongest are no match for it." which is all well and good for if this were introducing the Ogre as a boss, but it's highly unlikely that the player hasn't already killed or at the very least seen an Ogre up until now, and they aren't the toughest of foes to begin with. But the real cognitive-ludonarrative-buzzprefix-dissonance comes when you fight and a completely different Ogre en route to the cave, accompanied by the Elf escorting you there in the first place. Like hey guys, Ogres aren't actually that tough, just bring more than three people and you're fine.
Other small little things like this crop up routinely. Due to the close up nature of the camera, you can pass near key game triggers without realizing you're supposed to be interacting with them, but the game will stop you in your tracks for an NPC to announce themselves as though you sought out them deliberately. Special shoutout to the old woman who proclaimed it took special intuition to find her from behind a wall while I was randomly jumping around a rooftop, and didn't actually see until after I fell off the roof and spent another two minutes trying to find again.
For a sequel to come out 12 years after it's predecessor, one would hope they had enough time to playtest more than one full playthrough.
There are some new elements that are a step forward on what the first game offered, but what Dark Arisen and DDO perfected, DD2 seems content to take two steps backwards and trip on it's shoelaces.
The open world is much bigger and there's much more satisfaction to be had in wandering around with your pawns and seeing the sights, but it's strongly hampered by a lack of enemy variety and severely reduced mobility options. There is no more long jump, double jump, or dodge rolling; meaning your only option avoiding damage and traversing terrains is a pathetic bunny hop. The hitboxes of bosses are surprisingly forgiving to compensate, but this just sacrifices the good game feel that came from navigating ledges and leaping out of the way of big attacks.
Returning classes are universally nerfed and the couple of new additions are underwhelming at best. The Trickster is an intriguing idea for a class in a game such as this, but the environmental hazards are not as common as the trailers would have you believe. Most of my time using it I spent waiting for my pawns to to most of the work. Getting your enemies to jump to their death seems to be the best use of it, but you can't deploy your illusory double from any major distance away from you. All you can do is hope that one of your pawns can push them off when they run up to a ledge. The one time I did use it to some effect of luring a cyclops out of the city and into a ditch, it spontaneously teleported back into the city. It feels more like a class designed for challenge runners to post meme runs and compilations on youtube with. Wayfarer is similarly disappointing, in that it does not allow for more than three skills across any weapon type in the game, and requires two additional button presses to activate them.
Lastly, the writing and quest design is an absolute mess. For starters, the game will routinely waste your time with quests, the object of which is: go to a place, then go back, and then sometimes go back and forth again. This is a decent way to train the player's navigational skills, however far too many quests operate in this realm and no other, making these quests feel pointless on a replay. More plainly put, there is usually nothing worthwhile to do once you've gotten to point B, other than run back to point A. Lord help you reach point B, you didn't bring a certain item needed to progress that the game never explicitly stated you needed, adding another pointless rotation into your expedition. (Pro tip, when the elf asks you to come watch him train, make sure you've switched to the archer class)
Other times, the game will accidentally skip over important information with cutscene triggers, and sometimes straight up change the rules on you. For example, in one quest, you need to give an NPC some items for a trip, and the game explains that they'll need enough items of sufficient quality to make it back safely. I give them two items that I think will do the trick, but there's a third slot and I have nothing to give them. Normally you can hand in two items and come back with a third in situations like this, but on this occasion, after backing out of the dialogue, the quest proceeds without giving me a chance to say yes or no. You're given the chance to go and save the NPC, but he got pounded into the dirt by goblins the second I showed up. Again, there's usually an out in scenarios like this. Dead NPCs are supposed to go to a morgue where you can revive them with a wakestone. Not this one apparently!
For a better example of poor game writing, that isn't a personal fuck up, we can look at the quest where you have to rescue the elf girl from an ogre. The elves talk about the Ogre with phrases like "Even our strongest are no match for it." which is all well and good for if this were introducing the Ogre as a boss, but it's highly unlikely that the player hasn't already killed or at the very least seen an Ogre up until now, and they aren't the toughest of foes to begin with. But the real cognitive-ludonarrative-buzzprefix-dissonance comes when you fight and a completely different Ogre en route to the cave, accompanied by the Elf escorting you there in the first place. Like hey guys, Ogres aren't actually that tough, just bring more than three people and you're fine.
Other small little things like this crop up routinely. Due to the close up nature of the camera, you can pass near key game triggers without realizing you're supposed to be interacting with them, but the game will stop you in your tracks for an NPC to announce themselves as though you sought out them deliberately. Special shoutout to the old woman who proclaimed it took special intuition to find her from behind a wall while I was randomly jumping around a rooftop, and didn't actually see until after I fell off the roof and spent another two minutes trying to find again.
For a sequel to come out 12 years after it's predecessor, one would hope they had enough time to playtest more than one full playthrough.
Masterfully crafted RPG. I just can't express in words how i love this game, there is so many things to talk about.
Right now i just want to play it again with different class and i will do that.
Right now i just want to play it again with different class and i will do that.
Dragon's Dogma 2 types of enemies
Dragon's Dogma 2 FPS in cities
Dragon's Dogma 2 voice lines for pawns
Dragon's Dogma 2 hours of content padded by 28 hours of walking
Dragon's Dogma 2.99€ to buy a fast travel item
Dragon's Dogma 2 times they've made the exact same mistakes because they've learned nothing at all
Dragon's Dogma 2 FPS in cities
Dragon's Dogma 2 voice lines for pawns
Dragon's Dogma 2 hours of content padded by 28 hours of walking
Dragon's Dogma 2.99€ to buy a fast travel item
Dragon's Dogma 2 times they've made the exact same mistakes because they've learned nothing at all
Having never played the first Dragon's Dogma, I was relatively surprised to see the buzz Dragon's Dogma 2 was receiving on social media up to and after its release. In addition to the normal marketing materials, users that had bought and played the game were almost uniformly glowing in their assessment of the title. Twitter was abound with clips of their exciting battles and exploits, and the phrase "Game of the Year" had been bandied about. Now, recency bias is a potent thing, but I was certainly intrigued by this reception. So, after making the conscious effort to temper my expectations, I bought the game and dove in.
There's a lot of elements to Dragon's Dogma 2 that impress. Chief among them is that the game has a complete and total commitment to immersion. Going through the quests, both side and main, demands an approach in which the player views them as events coherent with the world as if it was a real environment and not a complete work of artifice. The game leaves things up to the player's common sense to suss out, which is much more satisfying than endless prompts and quest markers that have become standard in open world games over the past couple of decades.
This is an attitude that permeates much of the game's design. Fast travel, while possible, is minimized in an effort to make players immerse themselves in the world. At times inconvenient mechanics such as encumbrance and the effort needed to make a safe campfire for resting are real concerns of would-be adventurers that other titles regularly choose to gloss over. Monsters aren't drones lurking in designated places doing nothing until activated by the player. Instead they are convincingly wild in the ways they show up unexpectedly in would-be "safe" areas such as towns, or they are much stronger and larger than the player could ever hope to be at the time of their chance encounter.
There's many more examples one could list, but when playing Dragon's Dogma 2 you feel like an adventurer in a fantasy world with all of the responsibilities that would entail. It's not always easy or glamorous, but that's why it's an adventure and not a theme park.
This approach to design is so respectable that it breaks my heart that the moment-to-moment gameplay of Dragon's Dogma 2 has been so utterly fumbled.
Combat is an integral part of the experience that no player could possibly hope to avoid, and yet it is so bland. Physical attacks carry no weight in their hits, magic barely registers as connecting, and monster health pools can be so large that encounters regularly feel like slogs. The pawns one can hire have the potential to carry the player even while below their level, thereby removing any feeling of contributing to a fight at all.
While problematic on its own, this flaw is doubly severe in how it compounds the issues Dragon's Dogma 2 already has. With players not having so many fast travel options, at least in the early game, they will be traveling on foot quite often. This, in turn, means they will be getting into many combat encounters. Exploration is thereby discouraged, as excursions out into the wild bring with them the drudgery of combat. In turn, viewing monsters as boring instead of threatening shatters the immersion the fast travel decision was supposed to promote in the first place.
This is not the only example of poor game design clashing with the mission statement of the game. Pawns, as a system, are a baffling choice to me. The developers want players to feel engrossed in their world, but the pawn system is one of the most grossly artificial I could conceive of. While there are in-universe explanations for their existence, the amount of player-made mommies I encountered with immersion breaking names scuttled that meager effort almost instantly.
It's not only the intrusion of other players' inclinations into my fantasy world that makes the pawn system a poor design choice. The adventuring party, as a concept, has been central to the RPG genre all the way back to early titles like the first Final Fantasy. The appeal of the party as a mechanic is two fold: In terms of gameplay, one can balance their approach with characters of different specializations. In terms of story, many players enjoy growing alongside and getting to know their certain characters over a game's runtime. The pawn system of Dragon's Dogma 2 executes the first premise decently enough, though it's not so necessary when the player can change their own class so easily, but it actively bungles the second.
With half of my party so blatantly being temporary, man-made golems instead of anything resembling a character it is so hard to accept the party as a legitimate, in-world construction. If I am constantly going to be reminded that most of the people on screen come from the world of XxDickSucker420xX, how in the world is a restricted amount of fast travel going to draw me into the world of the game?
And boy, one will be reminded of that often. The pawns in this game chatter incessantly. They chat about elements of mild import to the player, such as locations of items, and they also chat about absolutely nothing often to comedic effect. The former has its uses, though I still would prefer it toned down in frequency, but the latter is incredibly misguided. For party chatter to be interesting, the party needs to have personality. Pawns, by design, have no personality.
The artificiality of it all cannot be ignored. Even the name, pawn, drives home the point that these are beings with no humanity. So then, why is the game so insistent on contradicting that with attempts at endearment to the player?
The pawn dialogue highlights a separate issue: the writing. The outmoded form of English chosen for the game's dialogue is incredibly jarring. Other series of games and certainly other works from other mediums have certainly gone down this road before; "old English" is nothing new to people who have been around the block. But Dragon's Dogma 2 sticks out as uniquely weird in its phrasing. Rather than sounding natural the dialogue reads as a deliberate attempt at old English.
I'm not particularly interested in discussions of the accuracy of the words themselves. Art exists as a deliberate work by, and as such it is graded on the impressions of legitimacy, taste, and sense it leaves rather than its actual accuracy. Maybe people really did run around saying "yon chest", but in this game it comes across as ham-fisted.
Doubly jarring is the disconnect between this localization and the game's native Japanese. I played with English subtitles to a Japanese dub. I speak both languages. The dub had no attempt at using an archaic, period form of Japanese. To state the obvious, such a thing does exist and has been used for period pieces in the past. Localization discussions are simultaneously outside of my interest and above my pay grade, so all I'll say is that when a script constantly makes me incredulously cock an eyebrow, I am once again being drawn out of the game's world rather than the reverse.
There are other, smaller issues with Dragon's Dogma 2. The design of the monochromatic minimap is not at all a wise choice for dense areas such as towns; spell targeting is finicky at best; and the camera draws in too close during combat to properly see enemies. These, however, are not glaring flaws. No game is perfect, and most foibles are easily forgotten.
The reason I find Dragon's Dogma 2 to be so disappointing is that there is a clear indication of what the developers wanted to do with their game and how they wanted the player to experience it. The clashing of that intent with various mechanical decisions is a death knell, and a good example for others on how games must be coherent packages if they are to rise to the top of their field.
There's a lot of elements to Dragon's Dogma 2 that impress. Chief among them is that the game has a complete and total commitment to immersion. Going through the quests, both side and main, demands an approach in which the player views them as events coherent with the world as if it was a real environment and not a complete work of artifice. The game leaves things up to the player's common sense to suss out, which is much more satisfying than endless prompts and quest markers that have become standard in open world games over the past couple of decades.
This is an attitude that permeates much of the game's design. Fast travel, while possible, is minimized in an effort to make players immerse themselves in the world. At times inconvenient mechanics such as encumbrance and the effort needed to make a safe campfire for resting are real concerns of would-be adventurers that other titles regularly choose to gloss over. Monsters aren't drones lurking in designated places doing nothing until activated by the player. Instead they are convincingly wild in the ways they show up unexpectedly in would-be "safe" areas such as towns, or they are much stronger and larger than the player could ever hope to be at the time of their chance encounter.
There's many more examples one could list, but when playing Dragon's Dogma 2 you feel like an adventurer in a fantasy world with all of the responsibilities that would entail. It's not always easy or glamorous, but that's why it's an adventure and not a theme park.
This approach to design is so respectable that it breaks my heart that the moment-to-moment gameplay of Dragon's Dogma 2 has been so utterly fumbled.
Combat is an integral part of the experience that no player could possibly hope to avoid, and yet it is so bland. Physical attacks carry no weight in their hits, magic barely registers as connecting, and monster health pools can be so large that encounters regularly feel like slogs. The pawns one can hire have the potential to carry the player even while below their level, thereby removing any feeling of contributing to a fight at all.
While problematic on its own, this flaw is doubly severe in how it compounds the issues Dragon's Dogma 2 already has. With players not having so many fast travel options, at least in the early game, they will be traveling on foot quite often. This, in turn, means they will be getting into many combat encounters. Exploration is thereby discouraged, as excursions out into the wild bring with them the drudgery of combat. In turn, viewing monsters as boring instead of threatening shatters the immersion the fast travel decision was supposed to promote in the first place.
This is not the only example of poor game design clashing with the mission statement of the game. Pawns, as a system, are a baffling choice to me. The developers want players to feel engrossed in their world, but the pawn system is one of the most grossly artificial I could conceive of. While there are in-universe explanations for their existence, the amount of player-made mommies I encountered with immersion breaking names scuttled that meager effort almost instantly.
It's not only the intrusion of other players' inclinations into my fantasy world that makes the pawn system a poor design choice. The adventuring party, as a concept, has been central to the RPG genre all the way back to early titles like the first Final Fantasy. The appeal of the party as a mechanic is two fold: In terms of gameplay, one can balance their approach with characters of different specializations. In terms of story, many players enjoy growing alongside and getting to know their certain characters over a game's runtime. The pawn system of Dragon's Dogma 2 executes the first premise decently enough, though it's not so necessary when the player can change their own class so easily, but it actively bungles the second.
With half of my party so blatantly being temporary, man-made golems instead of anything resembling a character it is so hard to accept the party as a legitimate, in-world construction. If I am constantly going to be reminded that most of the people on screen come from the world of XxDickSucker420xX, how in the world is a restricted amount of fast travel going to draw me into the world of the game?
And boy, one will be reminded of that often. The pawns in this game chatter incessantly. They chat about elements of mild import to the player, such as locations of items, and they also chat about absolutely nothing often to comedic effect. The former has its uses, though I still would prefer it toned down in frequency, but the latter is incredibly misguided. For party chatter to be interesting, the party needs to have personality. Pawns, by design, have no personality.
The artificiality of it all cannot be ignored. Even the name, pawn, drives home the point that these are beings with no humanity. So then, why is the game so insistent on contradicting that with attempts at endearment to the player?
The pawn dialogue highlights a separate issue: the writing. The outmoded form of English chosen for the game's dialogue is incredibly jarring. Other series of games and certainly other works from other mediums have certainly gone down this road before; "old English" is nothing new to people who have been around the block. But Dragon's Dogma 2 sticks out as uniquely weird in its phrasing. Rather than sounding natural the dialogue reads as a deliberate attempt at old English.
I'm not particularly interested in discussions of the accuracy of the words themselves. Art exists as a deliberate work by, and as such it is graded on the impressions of legitimacy, taste, and sense it leaves rather than its actual accuracy. Maybe people really did run around saying "yon chest", but in this game it comes across as ham-fisted.
Doubly jarring is the disconnect between this localization and the game's native Japanese. I played with English subtitles to a Japanese dub. I speak both languages. The dub had no attempt at using an archaic, period form of Japanese. To state the obvious, such a thing does exist and has been used for period pieces in the past. Localization discussions are simultaneously outside of my interest and above my pay grade, so all I'll say is that when a script constantly makes me incredulously cock an eyebrow, I am once again being drawn out of the game's world rather than the reverse.
There are other, smaller issues with Dragon's Dogma 2. The design of the monochromatic minimap is not at all a wise choice for dense areas such as towns; spell targeting is finicky at best; and the camera draws in too close during combat to properly see enemies. These, however, are not glaring flaws. No game is perfect, and most foibles are easily forgotten.
The reason I find Dragon's Dogma 2 to be so disappointing is that there is a clear indication of what the developers wanted to do with their game and how they wanted the player to experience it. The clashing of that intent with various mechanical decisions is a death knell, and a good example for others on how games must be coherent packages if they are to rise to the top of their field.
Thats that game of the year u were all talking about so much 🤣🤣
It's upmost rare to stumble upon something so obnoxiously obtuse in a time of excessive signposting and way-finding, even more when such stubbornness is perfectly coherent with all the aspects of its own design.
Dragon's Dogma II is exactly that - unwilling to accommodate its structure to the modern demands, unapologetically stuck in its own idea of commitment and restrains, and unfathomably fascinating when all those things come together.
Fortunately, they all work together way better in this sequel than its original, and that's because of the egregious amount of polishing that the weakest factors of Dragon's Dogma got. The open world got by far the best treatment, delightfully explorable, even with climbing not being an option in the game, which restricts you to jumping and platforming. This alone marks an unquantifiable step forward from the original. Fetch quests are gone for good - they're replaced by more wisely paced events which you may stumble upon in the world - or may not. Escort quests are too part of a more authentic approach to the game's role-playing features. Main quests and sides quests - they are all true to the elegance of a better written world. Time-gating is here too - featured in less quests, but more involved, more cleverly designed, better written, and overall way more remarkable. One of those, which you may access to even in the most early stages of the game, involves you fighting one of the most fearsome bosses of the game. You may get onboard, do an hike comparable to the original's griffin run, get to the quest, and ultimately fail it. That still counts as completed.
Failure as a state is one of the many accepted outcomes in Dragon's Dogma II. It perfectly fits how much this game is willing to make you miss stuff, purposely hiding chunks of (in corporate speak) content, where other games would basically bend to you and pray "please, experience this thing and extend your playtime", even if at the cost of immersion. DDII is not expecting you to do so - it's simply designed this way. It does not care about you, in that regard. This game's indifference to the player's concerns befalls in every aspect of its journey. The best way to experience it, then, is to live it without fear.
Such is the world you're brought into. One of the first quotes from the game recites how you will come to learn and understand from it - so you might be able to banish all the evil there is in. Nothing was more true than that: explore, learn its ins and outs, understand its opportunities and its threats, find new paths, discover new places, and then backtrack your steps. The reality of transforming a journey from the discovery of the unknown to the sheer mastery of its terrain and what lies ahead only by the knowledge gained its unique to this game - thanks only to how much it conceals itself from the player. There's not bar, value, number or anything that may encompass this feel - it's all about you experiencing things.
Here the real journey in the world of DDII starts. It begins when you stop thinking about the game as checklist in order to experience the game as it is, when you decide to let the flow of things guide you, even if just a bit. You still have the agency you had in the original, but the deepened combat system, the physicality of it, the rag-doll, the environmental interactions, the AI, the game's structure, the depth of the quests and their outcomes - everything is tailor-made to suit curiosity and resourcefulness before all. The consequences of basically everything you may stumble upon are so much deeply rooted in your actions that you may as well recount your findings to a friend playing the game - chances are, he's gonna tell you a whole different story.
Story which is not only a far better suited tale for a game of the likes of DDII, but it's a blank slate of sorts for you ingenuity to manifest. Chosen one yes, but no one gives a shit about it. Hell, some (if not most) even despise you because of that. You'll have the time and the chances to build your affinity with other characters, get to know others, gift them presents, follow them in enormous and entirely missable quest-lines and more. The involvement and commitment you see in every aspect of the game does not fall short here. Instead, some of the strongest story beats and choices you're going to come across are not outspokenly announced by the game. DDII simply requires your attention on most of the times in order to make sense of things. On that, if you come from the original you surely have the upper-hand, but then again - I do, and yet I couldn't keep track of the numbers of times I was left surprised by the game's machinations.
On that regard, it's almost eye-watering how much DDII respects not only your time (even with the commitment required to only enable fast travel) but also your dedication to the game's world and its systems: it knows the player's not here to be hand-holded or to be scolded, but to witness the sheer audacity by which this game is dedicated, obsessively so, to its involvement in things. Keep in mind that there's been an egregious UX pass from the previous but, truth to be told, the updates in accessibility did not detriment the game design. Crazy, right?
On that note, challenge is not born out of the gameplay itself - that's not the point. Apart from the initial hours, the plateau of DDII's dynamic difficulty is quickly reached - and its hardships soon become a memory, apart from some specific outliers. The truest of the test to the player resides in how he undertakes the game's structure. Will he engage the game to the fullest of its extent, or will he fall behind because of the game's unwillingness to please every single soul in this world?
True sovereignty of the world of DDII lies in using to its maximum extent every system that is given in game. You may come to a point when fast travel becomes not only a must - but also cheap and, in that regard, sustainable, even with a lot of upfront expenses to merchants. You can always sell stuff around - and there are small glimpses of an economy in the game, which you may use to your own advantage, such as some goods available only in specific countries of the game's world. You will find out how enhancing an item is not a do-and-done thing, but something with more depth and complexity than before. Camping starts as a luxury, for only to become one of the ways to maximize buffs for the upcoming boss fights. Nights start frightening - and then they become an opportunity to collect things you won't find elsewhere. Same goes for dungeons and bosses. You may find some items only if you visit such dungeons, and some monsters become a treat for your business as an Arisen. One of the vocations being literally the ultimate show of mastery of all of the move-sets of the game, alongside their abilities and spells. It really feels like a power climb of sorts, but in the best way possible. You're not asked to do so: you're doing this out of your own volition. On that, again - a game so coherent in and out of itself.
All of this ultimately became clear as day as soon as you stumble in the end-game. The original game holds nothing compared to this, and the way it's graciously intertwined with the game's world and narrative is just - chef kiss, really. All of this happens while the game unravels itself in the boldest way possible and, dare I say, unmatched even by the likes of other games which tried that thing before. All the systems you've got used to get turned around, and all the items which were collecting dust in your inventory have to be used, and extensively so. As if it wasn't enough, a spectacle which by itself alone eclipses the original Dragon's Dogma final stretch reveals itself right before your eyes. It's remarkable how much this game resonates and communicates with the original and its expansion in a way that, in my opinion, almost requires experiencing the full original game in order to truly taste the accomplishments performed here. I cannot delve more on this in fear of spoilers, but you won't be disappointed.
Some minor criticism can be done regarding the balancing of the vocations, with some really strong exceptions: nothing new if you come from the original game. Other minor things, truly nitpicks from my side, are the more streamlined systems (like the layered armor and dragon-forging) which are more straightforward in expense of... I dunno, flavor? The enemy variety is just a tad better than the original game, with some additions coming straight from Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. Some iconic monsters of the original game are, instead, inexplicably missing from the sequel: they do have their replacement, though, in the form of new bosses. Dungeons are way more than before, some of these even bigger than before, but less remarkable from the ones of the first game, level-design and environment art wise. The music in the sequel is missing the electric guitar from the original. Again, I'm really trying to be a pain in the ass to an otherwise phenomenal game.
What would be an unadulterated experience is sadly only stained by micro-transactions, which serve no purpose and have no place here, and the performance, which is still bearable, but subpar in some specific moments of the game. I cannot stress enough how those things are, in my point of view, not detrimental at all to the game's experience. With or without those - the game's still here, and it'll have the same things which will make you either fall in love with it or absolutely despise it. This remains unchanged from the previous iteration of the series - since this game is basically an exponential increase of all the things you adored and loathed of the original. Take it or leave it, really.
In the end it truly is, and I cannot understate it, a case of you get exactly what you're looking for in this game. The more you delve into the game's intricacies, the more you will be rewarded, in a way no other game can achieve. Do take your time with this one - you'll be thanking your past self for that.
Dragon's Dogma II was never about just its gameplay, or its stubbornness in the game systems, or its loose writing - it was always about everything coming all together. The single writings on the wall may encompass only some the strongest or weakest sides of the project, but it's when they become whole that its magic is finally revealed. It's about the war stories of your battles, the tales of your journey from a place to another. It's the unexpected, the unpredictable, the unaccounted for.
And all of that is unique - remarkably so. You'll never find anything like this in any other game for the time being.
Must-Play.
Dragon's Dogma II is exactly that - unwilling to accommodate its structure to the modern demands, unapologetically stuck in its own idea of commitment and restrains, and unfathomably fascinating when all those things come together.
Fortunately, they all work together way better in this sequel than its original, and that's because of the egregious amount of polishing that the weakest factors of Dragon's Dogma got. The open world got by far the best treatment, delightfully explorable, even with climbing not being an option in the game, which restricts you to jumping and platforming. This alone marks an unquantifiable step forward from the original. Fetch quests are gone for good - they're replaced by more wisely paced events which you may stumble upon in the world - or may not. Escort quests are too part of a more authentic approach to the game's role-playing features. Main quests and sides quests - they are all true to the elegance of a better written world. Time-gating is here too - featured in less quests, but more involved, more cleverly designed, better written, and overall way more remarkable. One of those, which you may access to even in the most early stages of the game, involves you fighting one of the most fearsome bosses of the game. You may get onboard, do an hike comparable to the original's griffin run, get to the quest, and ultimately fail it. That still counts as completed.
Failure as a state is one of the many accepted outcomes in Dragon's Dogma II. It perfectly fits how much this game is willing to make you miss stuff, purposely hiding chunks of (in corporate speak) content, where other games would basically bend to you and pray "please, experience this thing and extend your playtime", even if at the cost of immersion. DDII is not expecting you to do so - it's simply designed this way. It does not care about you, in that regard. This game's indifference to the player's concerns befalls in every aspect of its journey. The best way to experience it, then, is to live it without fear.
Such is the world you're brought into. One of the first quotes from the game recites how you will come to learn and understand from it - so you might be able to banish all the evil there is in. Nothing was more true than that: explore, learn its ins and outs, understand its opportunities and its threats, find new paths, discover new places, and then backtrack your steps. The reality of transforming a journey from the discovery of the unknown to the sheer mastery of its terrain and what lies ahead only by the knowledge gained its unique to this game - thanks only to how much it conceals itself from the player. There's not bar, value, number or anything that may encompass this feel - it's all about you experiencing things.
Here the real journey in the world of DDII starts. It begins when you stop thinking about the game as checklist in order to experience the game as it is, when you decide to let the flow of things guide you, even if just a bit. You still have the agency you had in the original, but the deepened combat system, the physicality of it, the rag-doll, the environmental interactions, the AI, the game's structure, the depth of the quests and their outcomes - everything is tailor-made to suit curiosity and resourcefulness before all. The consequences of basically everything you may stumble upon are so much deeply rooted in your actions that you may as well recount your findings to a friend playing the game - chances are, he's gonna tell you a whole different story.
Story which is not only a far better suited tale for a game of the likes of DDII, but it's a blank slate of sorts for you ingenuity to manifest. Chosen one yes, but no one gives a shit about it. Hell, some (if not most) even despise you because of that. You'll have the time and the chances to build your affinity with other characters, get to know others, gift them presents, follow them in enormous and entirely missable quest-lines and more. The involvement and commitment you see in every aspect of the game does not fall short here. Instead, some of the strongest story beats and choices you're going to come across are not outspokenly announced by the game. DDII simply requires your attention on most of the times in order to make sense of things. On that, if you come from the original you surely have the upper-hand, but then again - I do, and yet I couldn't keep track of the numbers of times I was left surprised by the game's machinations.
On that regard, it's almost eye-watering how much DDII respects not only your time (even with the commitment required to only enable fast travel) but also your dedication to the game's world and its systems: it knows the player's not here to be hand-holded or to be scolded, but to witness the sheer audacity by which this game is dedicated, obsessively so, to its involvement in things. Keep in mind that there's been an egregious UX pass from the previous but, truth to be told, the updates in accessibility did not detriment the game design. Crazy, right?
On that note, challenge is not born out of the gameplay itself - that's not the point. Apart from the initial hours, the plateau of DDII's dynamic difficulty is quickly reached - and its hardships soon become a memory, apart from some specific outliers. The truest of the test to the player resides in how he undertakes the game's structure. Will he engage the game to the fullest of its extent, or will he fall behind because of the game's unwillingness to please every single soul in this world?
True sovereignty of the world of DDII lies in using to its maximum extent every system that is given in game. You may come to a point when fast travel becomes not only a must - but also cheap and, in that regard, sustainable, even with a lot of upfront expenses to merchants. You can always sell stuff around - and there are small glimpses of an economy in the game, which you may use to your own advantage, such as some goods available only in specific countries of the game's world. You will find out how enhancing an item is not a do-and-done thing, but something with more depth and complexity than before. Camping starts as a luxury, for only to become one of the ways to maximize buffs for the upcoming boss fights. Nights start frightening - and then they become an opportunity to collect things you won't find elsewhere. Same goes for dungeons and bosses. You may find some items only if you visit such dungeons, and some monsters become a treat for your business as an Arisen. One of the vocations being literally the ultimate show of mastery of all of the move-sets of the game, alongside their abilities and spells. It really feels like a power climb of sorts, but in the best way possible. You're not asked to do so: you're doing this out of your own volition. On that, again - a game so coherent in and out of itself.
All of this ultimately became clear as day as soon as you stumble in the end-game. The original game holds nothing compared to this, and the way it's graciously intertwined with the game's world and narrative is just - chef kiss, really. All of this happens while the game unravels itself in the boldest way possible and, dare I say, unmatched even by the likes of other games which tried that thing before. All the systems you've got used to get turned around, and all the items which were collecting dust in your inventory have to be used, and extensively so. As if it wasn't enough, a spectacle which by itself alone eclipses the original Dragon's Dogma final stretch reveals itself right before your eyes. It's remarkable how much this game resonates and communicates with the original and its expansion in a way that, in my opinion, almost requires experiencing the full original game in order to truly taste the accomplishments performed here. I cannot delve more on this in fear of spoilers, but you won't be disappointed.
Some minor criticism can be done regarding the balancing of the vocations, with some really strong exceptions: nothing new if you come from the original game. Other minor things, truly nitpicks from my side, are the more streamlined systems (like the layered armor and dragon-forging) which are more straightforward in expense of... I dunno, flavor? The enemy variety is just a tad better than the original game, with some additions coming straight from Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. Some iconic monsters of the original game are, instead, inexplicably missing from the sequel: they do have their replacement, though, in the form of new bosses. Dungeons are way more than before, some of these even bigger than before, but less remarkable from the ones of the first game, level-design and environment art wise. The music in the sequel is missing the electric guitar from the original. Again, I'm really trying to be a pain in the ass to an otherwise phenomenal game.
What would be an unadulterated experience is sadly only stained by micro-transactions, which serve no purpose and have no place here, and the performance, which is still bearable, but subpar in some specific moments of the game. I cannot stress enough how those things are, in my point of view, not detrimental at all to the game's experience. With or without those - the game's still here, and it'll have the same things which will make you either fall in love with it or absolutely despise it. This remains unchanged from the previous iteration of the series - since this game is basically an exponential increase of all the things you adored and loathed of the original. Take it or leave it, really.
In the end it truly is, and I cannot understate it, a case of you get exactly what you're looking for in this game. The more you delve into the game's intricacies, the more you will be rewarded, in a way no other game can achieve. Do take your time with this one - you'll be thanking your past self for that.
Dragon's Dogma II was never about just its gameplay, or its stubbornness in the game systems, or its loose writing - it was always about everything coming all together. The single writings on the wall may encompass only some the strongest or weakest sides of the project, but it's when they become whole that its magic is finally revealed. It's about the war stories of your battles, the tales of your journey from a place to another. It's the unexpected, the unpredictable, the unaccounted for.
And all of that is unique - remarkably so. You'll never find anything like this in any other game for the time being.
Must-Play.
Um dos jogos que mais aguardava no ano. Decidi ir totalmente no escuro, só vi um trailer e uma entrevista do Itsuno. Dragon’s Dogma 2 é muito mais uma reimaginação do primeiro do uma sequência. O jogo mantem todos os pontos fortes do original, corrige erros, e expande de maneira certeira quase tudo que o primeiro entregou, mas o principal acerto do jogo que me fez ficar tão viciado nele foi manter aquele sentimento maravilhoso de uma aventura totalmente descompromissada com o que vai acontecer ou com o que você vai encontrar durante a jornada, apenas se divirta e aproveite...até pq, no final das contas, você moldara sua própria história.
O world design é ótimo e o jogo tem uma das explorações mais recompensados de um RPG, é um mundo denso, vivo, que te puxa pra dentro dele, cheio de segredos e lugares pra descobrir, encontros inesperados, situações inusitadas, você fica instigando a explorar todo canto do mapa sem temer o que vem pela frente. O combate é lindo, LINDO! Já virou um dos meus favoritos da história, é fluído, variado e versátil, as possibilidades a sua disposição são muitas e as vocações são espetaculares, você fica com vontade de testar os limites de todas as classes, a liberdade entregue te deixa com um sorrisão no rosto, você implora por mais batalhas, e tudo fica melhor com a incrível IA dos peões, que não só evoluem ao longo do jogo, mas também improvisam com os obstáculos encontrados, as batalhas do jogo caminham pra finais que você nunca imaginaria no início.
A ost poderia ser melhor, em alguns momentos as músicas não acompanham o tom do jogo e os acontecimentos durante a trama. A variedade de inimigos poderia ser maior, num certo momento vc percebe a repetição forçada de inimigos. E principalmente, o design de missões poderia ser mais bem feito e mais maleável...
Gostei bastante de Dragons Dogma 2 e posso dizer que minhas expetativas foram cumpridas. E só não será 5 estrelas pq o port do PC me deu problemas de desempenho insuportáveis.
O world design é ótimo e o jogo tem uma das explorações mais recompensados de um RPG, é um mundo denso, vivo, que te puxa pra dentro dele, cheio de segredos e lugares pra descobrir, encontros inesperados, situações inusitadas, você fica instigando a explorar todo canto do mapa sem temer o que vem pela frente. O combate é lindo, LINDO! Já virou um dos meus favoritos da história, é fluído, variado e versátil, as possibilidades a sua disposição são muitas e as vocações são espetaculares, você fica com vontade de testar os limites de todas as classes, a liberdade entregue te deixa com um sorrisão no rosto, você implora por mais batalhas, e tudo fica melhor com a incrível IA dos peões, que não só evoluem ao longo do jogo, mas também improvisam com os obstáculos encontrados, as batalhas do jogo caminham pra finais que você nunca imaginaria no início.
A ost poderia ser melhor, em alguns momentos as músicas não acompanham o tom do jogo e os acontecimentos durante a trama. A variedade de inimigos poderia ser maior, num certo momento vc percebe a repetição forçada de inimigos. E principalmente, o design de missões poderia ser mais bem feito e mais maleável...
Gostei bastante de Dragons Dogma 2 e posso dizer que minhas expetativas foram cumpridas. E só não será 5 estrelas pq o port do PC me deu problemas de desempenho insuportáveis.