The first Dragon's Dogma released in 2012 (followed by the Dark Arisen version a year later) and quickly garnered a cult following for its unorthodox approach to Western RPG game design -- obtuse, often time-sensitive quests; minimal fast travel; varied and unique vocations that play more like a spectacle fighter than a "grounded" contemporary like Skyrim. I admire Dragon's Dogma for these qualities, but I also share some of the most common criticisms -- the story is terrible, the world is too sparse and repetitive for the limited fast travel to be interesting, and the combat, fun as it may be, loses its luster as you generally fight the same enemies over the course of the entire game. It's no secret, even amongst the game's biggest fans, that Dragon's Dogma is an unfinished game with its potential handicapped by a limited budget and development time -- the Dark Arisen expansion improved the experience, but allegedly, the main game has less than half of the original planned content. Now, 12 years later, Dragon's Dogma II has arrived, with director Hideaki Itsuno claiming that it encapsulates the scope of his original vision for the first game. Unfortunately, Dragon's Dogma II is more or less a bigger budget remake of the first game, with all its strengths and flaws, just with the best elements more frontloaded this time.
The combat system, already a highlight of the first game, shines. I played both Archer and Magick Archer over the course of my playthrough, and had a blast with both. Skills feel powerful and weighty, and the fights with larger creatures are epic affairs. Of course, there's still plenty of the enjoyable and wacky quirks from the first game; it's still viable to pick up a stumbling foe and throw them towards one of their comrades, or straight off a cliff.
One of the biggest problems with the first game -- the uninteresting world -- has been mostly fixed here, at least in the first half. Vermund, with its thick forests and multiple settlements, is much denser than the barren expanses of Gransys in Dragon's Dogma. The beginning of the Dragon's Dogma II is the strongest, when you have multiple paths to traverse and enemies can be deadly, but the pacing and exploration are mostly engaging until you first step foot in the second country, Battahl. Battahl feels much less dense than Vermund in terms of meaningful content; there are fewer quests and points of interest, and there aren't any new enemies (that aren't just recycled enemies with different armor). The number of encounters in Battahl, however, is dramatically higher than in the first half of the game; hordes of identical goblins swarm you every time you round a new corner, making even simple traversal tedious. In fact, the game at large takes a turn for the worse once you hit the halfway point.
Frankly, the story in the first game sucks, but it somehow has a better sense of pacing and feels more complete than whatever is going on here. The first half of the story in Dragon's Dogma II is a standard-but-serviceable political intrigue plot that tasks the Arisen with gathering information on Disa, an evil queen who, by proxy, is controlling the throne that rightfully belongs to the player character. It's a bit incredible how every character you interact with is immediately aware of your identity and also wants to take down the queen, and the stealth sections are broken at best, but it's all functional. Until you are sent to Battahl at what is ostensibly the end of the first act...and the main quest wraps up three or four short quests later. The story is an unfinished mess that reeks of being cobbled together; major players in the first half (such as the queen herself!) are never seen again, and the game speedruns through the introduction of a few new characters and locations with laughably low impact. The dragon is reintroduced for a final boss fight, and the game unceremoniously ends.
Dragon's Dogma II was blatantly released early to its severe detriment. The story is embarrassingly unfinished, easily missing an entire act, if not two. The later areas have no new enemies or surprises to offer, meaning that the entire experience feels like a slowly deflating balloon after it peaks in the strong opening hours. As a whole, I can't necessarily say it's worse than the first game, but it's certainly not better. Unfortunately, though, I don't see a hypothetical expansion fixing the issues with the game, as there are fundamental shortcomings in the presentation and amount of existing content, especially the story. I'd love to know what went on behind the scenes with this one.
The combat system, already a highlight of the first game, shines. I played both Archer and Magick Archer over the course of my playthrough, and had a blast with both. Skills feel powerful and weighty, and the fights with larger creatures are epic affairs. Of course, there's still plenty of the enjoyable and wacky quirks from the first game; it's still viable to pick up a stumbling foe and throw them towards one of their comrades, or straight off a cliff.
One of the biggest problems with the first game -- the uninteresting world -- has been mostly fixed here, at least in the first half. Vermund, with its thick forests and multiple settlements, is much denser than the barren expanses of Gransys in Dragon's Dogma. The beginning of the Dragon's Dogma II is the strongest, when you have multiple paths to traverse and enemies can be deadly, but the pacing and exploration are mostly engaging until you first step foot in the second country, Battahl. Battahl feels much less dense than Vermund in terms of meaningful content; there are fewer quests and points of interest, and there aren't any new enemies (that aren't just recycled enemies with different armor). The number of encounters in Battahl, however, is dramatically higher than in the first half of the game; hordes of identical goblins swarm you every time you round a new corner, making even simple traversal tedious. In fact, the game at large takes a turn for the worse once you hit the halfway point.
Frankly, the story in the first game sucks, but it somehow has a better sense of pacing and feels more complete than whatever is going on here. The first half of the story in Dragon's Dogma II is a standard-but-serviceable political intrigue plot that tasks the Arisen with gathering information on Disa, an evil queen who, by proxy, is controlling the throne that rightfully belongs to the player character. It's a bit incredible how every character you interact with is immediately aware of your identity and also wants to take down the queen, and the stealth sections are broken at best, but it's all functional. Until you are sent to Battahl at what is ostensibly the end of the first act...and the main quest wraps up three or four short quests later. The story is an unfinished mess that reeks of being cobbled together; major players in the first half (such as the queen herself!) are never seen again, and the game speedruns through the introduction of a few new characters and locations with laughably low impact. The dragon is reintroduced for a final boss fight, and the game unceremoniously ends.
Dragon's Dogma II was blatantly released early to its severe detriment. The story is embarrassingly unfinished, easily missing an entire act, if not two. The later areas have no new enemies or surprises to offer, meaning that the entire experience feels like a slowly deflating balloon after it peaks in the strong opening hours. As a whole, I can't necessarily say it's worse than the first game, but it's certainly not better. Unfortunately, though, I don't see a hypothetical expansion fixing the issues with the game, as there are fundamental shortcomings in the presentation and amount of existing content, especially the story. I'd love to know what went on behind the scenes with this one.