A game that presents plenty of good ideas, but stumbles with them in similar ways to the first. The moment-to-moment gameplay and dynamic scenarios you can find yourself in are fantastic, like getting ambushed by a griffin while climbing on top of a cyclops at a cliff's edge; it's the downtime between these moments that's the real rub.
When you're not charting new ground, running back and forth between areas can be a chore. The enemy variety is incredibly lacking for the sheer density of their placement, and the few points of interest on the road usually just lead to a chest or a collectible. The "dungeons", usually caves or mines, are also a mixed bag. Their layouts and aesthetics often blend together, but occasionally you'll come across one that leads you to an underground grotto, or a passage through a mountain trail. There's just enough variety that they didn't feel like much of a chore, but I still believe spending more time on proper dungeons and labyrinths would've been a preferable approach.
The main storyline is shallow and meandering, to put it bluntly, with maybe 4 notable named characters and exactly 4 personality traits between them. Even so, there are payoffs near the end of the game that re-contextualize some aspects of it in a frankly mindblowing way. There's no way to really talk about it without spoiling the whole thing, but if nothing else it gave me something to think about for multiple days.
One element I can't complain about are the sidequests. The jump in quality is pretty astounding; so many of them utilize the game's mechanics to their advantage and offer compelling hooks that make you want to see them through. There's a real sense of consequence as well, be it from explicit time limits or the choice between giving an item to one of two people. Seeing your actions reflected further in the game world would have also been nice to see, but I recognize that's likely beyond the scope of the game.
All this to say, if you liked Dragon's Dogma 1, you'll probably like this one as it's basically a larger-scale do-over. I think a lot of its problems could be fixed with a Dark Arisen update/expansion/or something, but who's to say if that's in the cards. It's definitely worth at least checking out, but I wouldn't blame anyone for shelving it around the 3/5 mark. Peak mid, some would say.
When you're not charting new ground, running back and forth between areas can be a chore. The enemy variety is incredibly lacking for the sheer density of their placement, and the few points of interest on the road usually just lead to a chest or a collectible. The "dungeons", usually caves or mines, are also a mixed bag. Their layouts and aesthetics often blend together, but occasionally you'll come across one that leads you to an underground grotto, or a passage through a mountain trail. There's just enough variety that they didn't feel like much of a chore, but I still believe spending more time on proper dungeons and labyrinths would've been a preferable approach.
The main storyline is shallow and meandering, to put it bluntly, with maybe 4 notable named characters and exactly 4 personality traits between them. Even so, there are payoffs near the end of the game that re-contextualize some aspects of it in a frankly mindblowing way. There's no way to really talk about it without spoiling the whole thing, but if nothing else it gave me something to think about for multiple days.
One element I can't complain about are the sidequests. The jump in quality is pretty astounding; so many of them utilize the game's mechanics to their advantage and offer compelling hooks that make you want to see them through. There's a real sense of consequence as well, be it from explicit time limits or the choice between giving an item to one of two people. Seeing your actions reflected further in the game world would have also been nice to see, but I recognize that's likely beyond the scope of the game.
All this to say, if you liked Dragon's Dogma 1, you'll probably like this one as it's basically a larger-scale do-over. I think a lot of its problems could be fixed with a Dark Arisen update/expansion/or something, but who's to say if that's in the cards. It's definitely worth at least checking out, but I wouldn't blame anyone for shelving it around the 3/5 mark. Peak mid, some would say.