A series that I always wished to get into, after my initial 25h playthrough, the last time I tried to play DD1 was right after a date was announced for DD2, and when I inevitably dropped the prequel again, needless to say, I was not holding my breath for the sequel.
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.
The Dogma
The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.
A world worth exploring
What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.
The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.
Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.
One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.
Interactivity beast
This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.
I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.
All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.
Micro optimization
A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.
"2"
For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.
9.8/10
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.
The Dogma
The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.
A world worth exploring
What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.
The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.
Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.
One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.
Interactivity beast
This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.
I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.
All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.
Micro optimization
A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.
"2"
For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.
9.8/10