Dragon’s Dogma 2:

Spoilers for both the first game and this one in regards to the dragon ONLY. No other story beats.
BE WARNED

I recently played Dragon’s Dogma 1 in preparation for the sequel. It was always a game that I would hear people talk about and it always seemed right up my RPG loving alley. Finally after years of having it in the backlog, I played an experience like no other. What the first game could do in the year it was released is nothing short of spectacular. My anticipation for the sequel was lit aflame and now I can talk about if it all lived up to that burning.

The sequel reflects the first games cycle of endless Arisen, the character made by the dragon to fight it in an eternal battle. Sometimes the playable character, other times certain NPC’s around you. Taking what the first game built up, the sequel sticks to the roadmap that was given to us all previously. You are the Arisen, your heart has been taken by a dragon and you must defeat it in order to keep the cycle continuous unless you mayhap find, another way.

The story for its most part, is just a copy and paste of the first. This to me, is either seen as a genius way to say “The cycle never ends” or it is a lazy attempt to fill in a games world with the same story beats so they could earnestly “remake” the original. I almost felt like I was playing the same game at points in how the game tracks as a plot line. However, there is something missing from this that the first game nailed and with a discussion with a friend, I realised what this was. The dragon.
In the first Dragon’s Dogma, Grigori was a constant reminder to you, the playable character. He would taunt you, show up throughout the story and speak whispers in your mind. He would play with you and that made him a much more interesting threat. It also helped his voice actor David Lodge gave Grigori one of the best dragon performances ever.
In this sequel however, the dragon is so much of an afterthought that it feels just…kind of there. It doesn’t do anything. I honestly forgot the dragon was meant to be why I was in this predicament in the first place.

Unrelated to the dragon, there is a moment near the end of the game that makes you give a character a certain object that makes no sense whatsoever and they do not explain to you why on earth you’d ever give this character that object with everything the game makes you believe about them.
The story is a mess and is the greatest weakness to an otherwise fantastic game, which I will go into now because this review is sounding too negative!

The overall gameplay of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is so fantastic and fun. I almost never used the fast travel or carts that could dart you between towns. I loved running around with my main pawn, my friends and (insert random pawn from the rift here) as we ran across the landscape of each location. It was a blast to try out all the different vocations and see which class really stuck with me. Each one was so unique in the way it handled combat and traversal. Shout out to Mystic Spearhand for making me do sick flips and gauging out Cyclops eyes faster than I could breathe.

The combat in this game feels really good and there are a lot of extremely enjoyable in game moments that happen with the different kind of “mini boss” varieties. One enemy will jump onto a wall and if you have clinged onto them, you will go with them and can knock them down to the floor to wail on them with all your might. Drakes will smash through the ground they’re on and you can go down with them on crumbling stone.

There are a lot of fantastic gameplay elements that give a great sense of adventure in the main open world locations you will explore. I must note that the only issue I did have running around was that the enemy variety is quite limited. Despite a lot of terrain switches in the large locations, you will ultimately see the same enemies repeated without much of a difference. It is a shame that there couldn’t be more added in but it personally didn’t bother me TOO much, however it is worth noting.

Two other big issues that folks had I would like to bring up was Dragonplauge. I had a hilarious time with this in game disease because despite pawns being infected with it, before the patch that made it less likely, I never saw it. I wasn’t careful with inn sleeps either. The hidden disease that would make pawns kill an entire town while you slept sounded so awesome and people hated it online. I never saw it and thus, cannot form an opinion on it at all despite that, this is such an awesome idea that would have been so cool to talk about at school with friends and they wouldn’t believe you that it was real. I love the concept personally.

The second issue was Capcom slapping the publisher “WE MUST MAKE MONEY” hammer and dropping microtransactions at launch for a single player game. I must make this clear, this is a publisher issue and Capcom do this with ALL their games. It is not a practice I think should exist and honestly, I hate that it is here at all.
However, you don’t need them. Not a single microtransaction in this game is needed and can be easily avoided. It isn’t hard to get anything you could buy with real life money. It is a shitty business practice and should nave have seen this game but I will not knock it down because of it. Itsuno would never have wanted these here and it shows, because it really is easy to live without them.

I had an absolutely fantastic time with Dragon’s Dogma 2 overall. Maybe it was due to having my friends pawn along with me. Maybe it was because I loved the first game so much, I just needed more of it.
It has MAJOR flaws overall but I had a great time going for the platinum and hope that we do see some DLC or even just big updates to expand what they have here. It may not be as good as the first but my golly, the gameplay is just so much fun. I can’t help but love it.

Much like other reviews when you go down my page, this was written at the time of the games release

So around June last year my best friend, my partner and I decided to play through Fatal Frame 1-5 together. Sadly we couldn't play 4 since it is stuck in Japan with no official translation.
However through lockdowns and moving houses, we all did it. We played some of the best horror video games have to offer and then, we played Maiden of Black Water.
This game is a tough one. It changes so much about the series and makes it less old school horror and almost anime etchi horror.
First off, this game isn't as scary as the first 3. I'm still not sure if it's due to them trying to make it more modern but it loses so much scare factor in favour of a more action packed game where you combo forever with your camera.
Sadly the game does kick itself in the behind due to it's lack of respect for the past series. They grab characters who had a great ending and character development and crush it. It was sad to see strong characters be thrown into a place where they were helpless and were given a plot that didn't need to exist. It spits on how 3 ends.
As an entry point, it's not going to be the wost thing but if you play the rest, I'm sorry in advance.
Also the re-use of areas is just not great at all. Halfway through the game, you have seen every area and then the game just repeats every area multiple times in the same chapter. It's a huge shame.
What the game did good for me was be fun. I genuinely had a blast with it. I do love how stupid it is. I still love the series tropes of using a camera to kill spirits. I love the gameplay so much. It feels like a weird hack n slash with a camera.
I do like the lolita and kimono outfits you can put them in but I am a degen sooooooo they got me there.
Overall, I do believe my enjoyment with this game came from the banter and making fun of the game together as a group.
Playing it on my own for the nightmare S+ rank was a dreadful experience. Which made it even more obvious it was the company I kept that made this game fun.

I cannot believe the whole franchise rests on this games success