I beat the main game. I was someone who was incredibly excited for this game. The visuals spoke to me, the atmosphere was beautiful and the music was mwah. I picked it up day one and played for hours. My first play session was the best. But as I kept playing I noticed how punishing the game can be with back tracking and getting stuck. The exploration is really fun but at moments it can really feel frustrating. The wonder of the game really started to ware off of the grating design. It kept taking me out of the game whenever I would keep having to redo super hard sections that also have rly annoying checkpoints. Its a really good game, but I think these certain parts of it stops it for being as good as it really is for me. THanks!@!

the "friction" in this game is hotly debated but i think a lot of it stems from this fact that this game is pretty fundamentally flawed on a structural level. the insanely stunted fast travel is done entirely on purpose not to instill a sense of adventure in the player, but because walking across dirt roads and fighting the same three enemies is literally the meat of the game. that is the gameplay, and if you don't REALLY fuck with it then you have my pass to give up on it without feeling like you're losing out on your gamer badge of honor. fighting guys does feel really good but its hard not to feel like -- yet again -- im just playing the demo for the actual dragons dogma.

cant say that i or anybody else should be disappointed because a lotta folks are gonna come to find out thats just what dragons dogma is, but if this game is going to continue that tradition then i gotta come to the same conclusion i think a lot of people come to: dragons dogma is really just ok