12 years on from the strange, incomplete original, DD2 is more of the same, uneasily sitting between the uncompromising Souls series & more conventional narrative ARPGs. At times evoking a desolate offline MMO, DD2 is at its best when out in the wilds, the sun setting at your back & two or more beasts landing on the path ahead, all Arising out of dynamic systems.

The main questline unfortunately does not play to these strengths, with much of Act I confined to the capital & some really dull writing. Fortunately, writing does not maketh a game, and side-quests that take you out into the unreasonably huge map are much more interesting, and really need to be sought out in the crowds and corners of the world. Keeping track of these with the bizarre quest tracker is uneven and obtuse: you’re either reading the landscape and tracing clues or just beating your head against a wall figuring out what the game requires of you.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is singular, not quite fully realised, a beautifully rendered physics-heavy oddity. The art direction is profoundly generic, but so deceptively understated it at times resembles a Ray Harryhausen film, full of weight, movement and character. DD2 makes you feel like you have friends, albeit stupid friends, who'd throw themselves off a cliff for a view of yonder.

Graphically, it's stunning, the environments are just beautiful and colorful throughout. The machine designs are still just as good and the characters in particular are really well animated.

Gameplay wise, it works well, but has some issues. The roll is a bit weak in favor of a clunky to use slide, and the machines track your movements very strongly. This is usually fine when fighting a single machine, but makes encounters against multiple (especially multiple big ones) an unfun mess, particularly at the beginning where you feel quite weak. Otherwise the general loop of exploiting elemental weaknesses and tearing off parts is still very fun.

The upgrade also systems take a bit too much resources, especially in the late game, but this is mitigated by the fact that generally weapons are still usable even if not fully upgraded.

The open world is fun enough to explore, though it feels like it has a bit too much to do. The game definitely has a bit of needless bloat, though fortunately a lot of it isn't required for all achievements, which is quite enjoyable to pursue.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, it's not quite as strong and felt like a fair bit more cliché than zero dawn (the evil bad guys are very evil), but still entertaining. The DLC story in particular is very campy, in both good and bad ways, but has some great spectacle.

Overall, I had a very good time with this game, will probably go for a NG+ playthrough after a break.

OOPS it kinda went and DESTROYED any goodwill I felt back for the original release. hard to still appreciate those glimmers of 'PROMISE' and ''''POTENTIAL'''' that maybe shined through before when on this big chance at a do-over they give us that same unpolished, dlc typical "the game, but worse!!!" treatment (in this case tho - A LOT WORSE!!!! :O ).

Even that ever potent Sonic "SOUL" factor you'd wanna see manifest DOESN'T HIT thanks to all the plot happenings looking like shit and coming off so RANDOM and abrupt in delivery. Not a very cool time!!

we cannot trust these old names to carry on the will of our beloved memories! their time has come and gone!!

I don't have the right words to describe my feelings towards LISA: The Painful. It's impacted me on such a deep level that I don't know how to formulate the right sentences in the right order to explain it. It's a deeply personal game to me, a game that feels like only I and a niche of others could love. It's as if on some level, it understands me. And yet, it challenges my own beliefs. My own morality. It's one of those pieces of media that leaves me reflecting with questions of, "what would I have done? What could have happened to prevent all this?". It's one of the rare few video games that's left me reflecting like this — a sign of a great work.

And this is coming from a game with a fucking talking fish lawyer. This game is stupid, it is SO STUPID—

I really don't think I could do it justice here in this format, so I'll keep this brief. LISA: The Painful is a gift. It's simultaneously one of the most soul crushing and gut-bustingly hilarious games I've ever played. It has some of the craziest, coolest, absolutely bonkers music in a video game. It's a nightmare, it's a trip, it's an must-have experience. Not everyone will love it. Some may find it annoying. But with all my heart, I love it. You might love it too. Go play it and find out for yourself.