haleez
2010
Without a doubt, the visuals of Halo game peaked with this one. The beautiful sky boxes of Halo 3 had only gotten better by this one and I have to assume this game took some notes from ODST in the atmosphere of some areas, especially on the darker maps. It really feels like this game hasn't aged visually at all and Infinite looks like a tech demo compared to this. I don't even need to talk about the story that shit is crazy.
The gun selection is also so cool I discarded the lore implications for their existence. DMR instead of BR, I'll take it! Needle Rifle, hell yeah!
I will say though, I played this through the MCC and it's great that it exists (I wish more devs took notes) but the fact that it replaces all the original menus and doesn't even roll credits when you beat the game is an actual hindrance towards the vibes to like ALL of the games in it.
The gun selection is also so cool I discarded the lore implications for their existence. DMR instead of BR, I'll take it! Needle Rifle, hell yeah!
I will say though, I played this through the MCC and it's great that it exists (I wish more devs took notes) but the fact that it replaces all the original menus and doesn't even roll credits when you beat the game is an actual hindrance towards the vibes to like ALL of the games in it.
I must've missed the Merriam-Webster definition of the word "prologue" because I had no idea that it could mean a standalone game that you can easily sink 8+ hours into. It genuinely blew me away how much "game" there was to be had here, and I enjoyed it pretty much the entire time. I have been waiting for YEARS on any news about The Big Catch releasing and a standalone open world tech demo that gets you accustomed to the movement of the full game IS NOT what I expected.
Yes the game is very pretty, and whimsical, and animated BUT I cannot stress enough how fucking WELL this game controls. There's a lot of trial and error when it comes to climbing, and even some aspects of a puzzle platformer, but after enough fails often times something would just click in my brain and I would flow through whatever jump I was struggling with. It feels amazing when it all comes together!
I honestly think with some compass improvements and a map, this game could definitely stand on it's own. Also I didn't mind the open world aspects all too much but I really would like to see how this game could play with some levels. I did see that some people struggled with the difficulty of the platforming so I'm interested to see how much of it actually makes it into the actual game.
Yes the game is very pretty, and whimsical, and animated BUT I cannot stress enough how fucking WELL this game controls. There's a lot of trial and error when it comes to climbing, and even some aspects of a puzzle platformer, but after enough fails often times something would just click in my brain and I would flow through whatever jump I was struggling with. It feels amazing when it all comes together!
I honestly think with some compass improvements and a map, this game could definitely stand on it's own. Also I didn't mind the open world aspects all too much but I really would like to see how this game could play with some levels. I did see that some people struggled with the difficulty of the platforming so I'm interested to see how much of it actually makes it into the actual game.
2024
The second game by this dev team that has been gifted to me and I gotta say I really don't want to try out a third. I hate to bash on other small creatives like this but after 2 fledgling indie horror games that do absolutely NOTHING fun or new; I feel the need to borderline BEG them to make something else! For the love of god please try your creative skills in another genre. There are more than enough horror games that play exactly like this, this was easily the worst of them.
2024
BO4's greatest claim to fame might be that it has now inspired a 3rd dev team to try and make a team based arena shooter with abilities that probably won't have any more staying power than the last. Of course I don't think the amount of twitch viewers or aim highlights for a game correlates to it's quality but I struggle to see how this game will outlast it's predecessors. I'm a sucker for FPS games so I'll admit, I had some genuine fun playing this but your average salary man (the backbone of the free to play FPS genre) probably won't give this more than 3 hours.
Also having 1-2 shot snipers in an FPS with a high ttk is the stupidest shit ever can we be serious.
Also having 1-2 shot snipers in an FPS with a high ttk is the stupidest shit ever can we be serious.
2009
Gameplay aside, I just can't stop thinking about the audio of this game. The sharp drums mixed with the low guttural bass that permeates all of the horde themes. The jingles that play when the special infected spawn. The voice interactions of the 4 distinct but very entertaining protagonists.
Did you know in the first level before they learn each other's names, they call each other silly nicknames. For example: if you ping Coach as Nick, he calls him "Big Man", like that attention to detail is nuts!
This game is a treat to listen to and I'm convinced that I could play this game blindfolded and probably have a good time.
As for the gameplay, definitely the best out of any zombie game I've played which is surprisingly, a very low bar. It's grounded, punchy but fun. And then couple that with some of the nicest looking Source engine environments I've ever seen.
Yeah it's good.
Did you know in the first level before they learn each other's names, they call each other silly nicknames. For example: if you ping Coach as Nick, he calls him "Big Man", like that attention to detail is nuts!
This game is a treat to listen to and I'm convinced that I could play this game blindfolded and probably have a good time.
As for the gameplay, definitely the best out of any zombie game I've played which is surprisingly, a very low bar. It's grounded, punchy but fun. And then couple that with some of the nicest looking Source engine environments I've ever seen.
Yeah it's good.
2012
I haven't played that many stealth games, but more importantly, I haven't played that many games that "punish" you for killing people, which is kind of a problem for me. I like virtually killing people, but I'd imagine Corvo doesn't.
It's somewhat of a shame too because for all of the benefits of not killing people in Dishonored, this game has some hilarious ways to kill people. Cutting off someones head and killing someone else by throwing it at them over and over again. Using a rewire tool on an Arc Pylon and purposefully drawing guards towards it to watch them get turned to dust. And I can't not mention using the wind blast to throw people off of a building. Dishonored is its own little sandbox of death.
But I decided that Corvo and even the cursed Daud didn't want to kill anymore, so I attempted to not kill people. Of course, there were accidents. A few unconscious people accidentally thrown off a roof. Some guards that got herded into a group of rats. Disgruntled thugs who missed their shot on me and instead hit their brothers. But even through all that I didn't want to kill!
And playing the game this way made it super engaging, I had a great time! I'm sure I'll play this again some day and go Ultrakill mode, making quick work of everyone that I come across and generally causing more chaos, but for now I'm proud of my work.
It's somewhat of a shame too because for all of the benefits of not killing people in Dishonored, this game has some hilarious ways to kill people. Cutting off someones head and killing someone else by throwing it at them over and over again. Using a rewire tool on an Arc Pylon and purposefully drawing guards towards it to watch them get turned to dust. And I can't not mention using the wind blast to throw people off of a building. Dishonored is its own little sandbox of death.
But I decided that Corvo and even the cursed Daud didn't want to kill anymore, so I attempted to not kill people. Of course, there were accidents. A few unconscious people accidentally thrown off a roof. Some guards that got herded into a group of rats. Disgruntled thugs who missed their shot on me and instead hit their brothers. But even through all that I didn't want to kill!
And playing the game this way made it super engaging, I had a great time! I'm sure I'll play this again some day and go Ultrakill mode, making quick work of everyone that I come across and generally causing more chaos, but for now I'm proud of my work.
2010
For a game that really wants you to be scared/creeped out, I could not stop laughing while playing this game. A certain interaction with a log and a swinging ball had me in tears for at least 1 minute. I don't know man, the idea of "solve this puzzle or die a horrific death", works the first time but by the 3rd time the tension is gone and I'm genuinely locked in trying to solve the puzzle. It's at that point that the "horror" elements no longer work on me, and I'm just playing a puzzle game with bad vibes. The puzzles are good too and can even get tricky at times; I remember having to look up guides to some of them. But honestly at that point I think I'd rather just play a puzzle game where I don't have to watch a small child get brutally murdered, even if I manage to laugh at it.
2018
this saved me
2020
I actually think about Juice Galaxy a lot.
It's a weird little game that wears it's weirdness on it's chest like a badge, giving it's world a slew of different scapes while never missing that "Juice Galaxy" vibe.
I'll be honest, at times I thought the combat was a bit cumbersome, and even after beating every boss with a multitude of weapons, I still think that. But I couldn't imagine a combat system more fitting than one where you kinda just flop your weapon around and smack the hell out of shit. Imagine if they built this whimsical and weird world and gave you the basic slash, shield, dodge roll, and parry button that so many Action RPGs love to dish out.
For an early access open world game, you'd expect there to be more dull moments as you traverse the foggy and mostly unchanging over world, but I was constantly at awe when I was traveling. I've told one of my friends about this twice now, but somehow Juice Galaxy perfectly that "Adventure Time vibe" without really trying at all. I think the OST plays a big part in emulating that vibe but even on it's own, just walking around the over world made me think of the Land of Ooo. (The OST is fantastic btw)
But the real meat of this game is in it's boss battles, which combat wise can still be cumbersome, but their presentation tends to kick ass. Traveling through the Wawsp nest swatting away low level wawsps as the music builds up and you're greeted by an open room and the one who controls them all, The Wawsp Queen. I'll never forget my first time fighting her, the tense build up to her theme and the fact that she actually got hands! I died at least 4 times before killing her.
Every boss fight in this game feels like some grand battle, even though you're a floppy weird guy fighting another probably floppy weird guy. I love it so much.
I will be watching this game with curious eyes, I'm excited to see where Fishlicka takes it!
It's a weird little game that wears it's weirdness on it's chest like a badge, giving it's world a slew of different scapes while never missing that "Juice Galaxy" vibe.
I'll be honest, at times I thought the combat was a bit cumbersome, and even after beating every boss with a multitude of weapons, I still think that. But I couldn't imagine a combat system more fitting than one where you kinda just flop your weapon around and smack the hell out of shit. Imagine if they built this whimsical and weird world and gave you the basic slash, shield, dodge roll, and parry button that so many Action RPGs love to dish out.
For an early access open world game, you'd expect there to be more dull moments as you traverse the foggy and mostly unchanging over world, but I was constantly at awe when I was traveling. I've told one of my friends about this twice now, but somehow Juice Galaxy perfectly that "Adventure Time vibe" without really trying at all. I think the OST plays a big part in emulating that vibe but even on it's own, just walking around the over world made me think of the Land of Ooo. (The OST is fantastic btw)
But the real meat of this game is in it's boss battles, which combat wise can still be cumbersome, but their presentation tends to kick ass. Traveling through the Wawsp nest swatting away low level wawsps as the music builds up and you're greeted by an open room and the one who controls them all, The Wawsp Queen. I'll never forget my first time fighting her, the tense build up to her theme and the fact that she actually got hands! I died at least 4 times before killing her.
Every boss fight in this game feels like some grand battle, even though you're a floppy weird guy fighting another probably floppy weird guy. I love it so much.
I will be watching this game with curious eyes, I'm excited to see where Fishlicka takes it!
2022
To me, it felt like an upgrade to Gunfire Reborn in almost every way. The movement feels way more fluid and with the use of gadgets you can literally fly through some of the stages. Gun and enemy variety is also there and at the higher difficulties the game actually becomes a good challenge.
But what irks me the most about this game, and it's a complaint I had about Gunfire Reborn as well, is that so many of the higher rarity items follow this blue print:
"Increases (some random stat) by a marginal amount but now there's a percent chance that your head blows up when opening a door."
Here's one directly from the game: "Deals 22 cryo damage to enemies damaging you but taking damage has 10% chance to freeze you."
WHY WOULD I PICK THIS UP? I ALREADY DON'T WANT TO GET HIT WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ITEMS ABOUT GETTING HIT. I still don't think any roguelike I've played has done the "get this but lose this" kind of item balancing as well as Lunar items in ROR2.
Both this game and Gunfire Reborn feel like they're filled with them and they always feel useless to the point I almost never pick them up. I don't think they're very fun in this game and tend to pollute the loot pool.
Other than that though the game is pretty solid, but I must mention how B.S. the second phase of the final boss is, literally like 4 different "fuck you" attacks.
But what irks me the most about this game, and it's a complaint I had about Gunfire Reborn as well, is that so many of the higher rarity items follow this blue print:
"Increases (some random stat) by a marginal amount but now there's a percent chance that your head blows up when opening a door."
Here's one directly from the game: "Deals 22 cryo damage to enemies damaging you but taking damage has 10% chance to freeze you."
WHY WOULD I PICK THIS UP? I ALREADY DON'T WANT TO GET HIT WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ITEMS ABOUT GETTING HIT. I still don't think any roguelike I've played has done the "get this but lose this" kind of item balancing as well as Lunar items in ROR2.
Both this game and Gunfire Reborn feel like they're filled with them and they always feel useless to the point I almost never pick them up. I don't think they're very fun in this game and tend to pollute the loot pool.
Other than that though the game is pretty solid, but I must mention how B.S. the second phase of the final boss is, literally like 4 different "fuck you" attacks.
2024
Genuinely so happy creative people are embracing the Horror Co-op genre because jesus christ I had given up on the genre after the 3rd Backrooms game. I'm sure the 3rd extraction horror game will be the end of my interest with the sub - genre but I'll take it any day over all the phasmophobia and DBD clones.
Just like Lethal Company, the presentation is all there. I love the contrast between the silly and colorful new world against the dark gritty but still silly stuff of the "old world". Not to mention the game being focused around making a video means you have to stick around your friends and "perform" to get the highest view count possible. It's a great twist on the "horror" aspect of the game because you WANT to see these scary monsters. You WANT to die in funny ways because it'll make the video better.
This game does share the same problem I have with vanilla Lethal Company in that restarting after a long and difficult run feels so bad, to the point where you're just waiting for the game to be scary again. I do wonder how much more I'll play this game but from I played I'd say it's a great game. Also it was completely free for an entire day! Who does that?
Just like Lethal Company, the presentation is all there. I love the contrast between the silly and colorful new world against the dark gritty but still silly stuff of the "old world". Not to mention the game being focused around making a video means you have to stick around your friends and "perform" to get the highest view count possible. It's a great twist on the "horror" aspect of the game because you WANT to see these scary monsters. You WANT to die in funny ways because it'll make the video better.
This game does share the same problem I have with vanilla Lethal Company in that restarting after a long and difficult run feels so bad, to the point where you're just waiting for the game to be scary again. I do wonder how much more I'll play this game but from I played I'd say it's a great game. Also it was completely free for an entire day! Who does that?
2024
This review contains spoilers
TLDR; Exploring and combat is fun. Quest design varies greatly, sometimes good, sometimes very bad. Ending came so abruptly I wasn't able to do all that I wanted to do, it also bored me. True ending left me annoyed.
As my first RPG since Bowser's Inside Story, I think Dragon's Dogma 2 served as a great re-entry into the genre. I'd been anticipating this game since January after watching a friend play the first game while describing the sequel as a "re-imagining of that world." While that seems to be the case, I can't help but feel that DD2 is like 80% there. If DD1 suffered from being overambitious in it's vision, then DD2 suffers from being able to nail that vision but now it's weighed down by quest design that felt under-cooked. I can assume that both games share that same problem. It's this feeling of being unfinished that just slowly crept it's way in as I kept playing, but really showed it's ugly head in my last 5 hours or so.
I really can't praise enough how much fun it was to explore this fantasy world. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Open World games but this was the most fun I've had exploring one since BOTW. Couple that world with great combat and monsters that truly feel threatening to fight and it's a fantastic time. There's nothing more "epic" than when you're fighting a cyclops with your pawns and you notice a bird like shadow fly overhead. 10 seconds later you hear a whooshing sound and a griffin lands to 3rd party the fight. The spontaneity of it all is just so good.
And then you enter a town. Your frames decrease. Your mini-map fills with a slew of icons that just BECKON to be interacted with. You're on your way to the icon that looks like a big sword, and then a little girl steals the control of the camera away from you. "Hello Arisen the holy chosen one, gifted powers from the Dragon that my little mind can barely understand, can you do me a favor and pick up my groceries from the store?" A loud sound plays, and there's a prompt in the top right asking if you want to make picking up groceries your focused quest. You deliver her groceries some time later, and she responds with "Thanks for delivering my groceries! Come back in a few days to taste my soup!" The quest updates, "RETURN IN A FEW DAYS TO TRY HER SOUP". You return to try her soup but see a sad look on her face as you walk up. It turns out she was missing garlic for the soup that YOU need to go get. The quest updates. You return with the garlic, she adds it to the soup, and the quest ends. +5000 Coin, +1 Vegetable Soup.
DD2 loves this kind of quest design, and uses it in literally every town at least once. To be fair, this seems to just be an RPG thing™, but I guess I missed the memo and paid the price for it. In general I enjoyed most quests that are like "Go to this place with me there's something freaky over there 👅", but those became rarer by the end of the game, while there was still more map to be explored.
I guess I should say the quest design isn't bad, but just mixed, which still kind of sucks because the bad quests are like pretty bad. It's like the devs couldn't decide if they wanted the player to use context clues to solve the quests or just listen to what the quest menu says. A certain quest about a boy taken by wolves at the Checkpoint Rest Town had me confused on whether I was supposed to listen to the villagers or the quest menu, and in the end I just had to look up a guide for the quest because the flashing clock icon had me tweaking. On top of that, sometimes quests seemingly become stuck, or bugged. In the case of the noble in Vermund who was pretending to be a beggar, I did everything the quest told me to do only for the quest menu to just not change. You find out days later from a random guard walking around that he was killed. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential quest. Anything with escorting is also just plain awful. You can't carry them lest they struggle and you're forced to drop them. You can't sprint because they will just straight up stop moving if you go too far. You can't walk because then they'll just start sprinting. It's just bad.
And the craziest part is that NONE of that is even that bad. No, the reason this game went from a 4 to a 3 is because of the last 4 hours of gameplay and how much they soured the experience. See early in that session I had just switched back to Thief and I was exploring more of Battahl. I was having a great time doing quests as I went. Something the game doesn't tell you is that once you give Ambrosius those 15 wyrmslife crystals, you've already activated the last quest of the game, which THE GAME DOES NOT TELL YOU. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled by Alan Wake II which I had completed prior to this game, because that game straight up tells you at the final quest that this is the end. Dragon's Dogma II tells you nothing. I guess I was the victim of a compounding issue. It's not that the main story quests are badly designed but they don't really have an affect on the outside world. So while I'm out fighting mythical beasts, I had completely forgotten how important Ambrosius and his studies were to the main story. And for that I paid the ultimate price.
Upon receiving the Empowered Godsbane Blade from Ambrosius, the beginning of the end starts, locking you from doing literally anything else. You can't go finish the Sphinx quests, can't complete your map, can't turn in your seekers tokens; etc. You're done. It hurt even more because I was literally on my way to the Volcanic Island camp for the first time to complete a quest, which I couldn't do now. I quickly accepted this blow to the stomach but little did I know there were more strikes on the way.
The titan rises from the sea, and the race to the excavation site begins. I would be lying if I said I felt literally any tension from this. I guess I was still stinging from having my game cut early but I thought everything about the moving statue section was so god damn boring. The dragon fight was more fun I guess but it also didn't feel that different from any of the other dragon fights, just more difficult. But fuck it, I killed them both and we're done right? No, I heard there was a true ending so I found out how to get to it and honestly I wish I didn't. I killed the dragon around 5:30 AM, and wasn't done with the true ending until 8:30 AM. I had no idea it was that extensive.
In the true ending you are thrown back into the world but now there's a timer and the end of the world is coming. It was at this point that I was reminded of all that I didn't get to do by the abrupt ending and the kettle is starting to whistle. I'm tired, figured I can't close the game and do the ending without fighting the dragon again, so I thug it out. I'm tasked with going to every town and telling them to evacuate, and that's fine. Almost all of those unfinished quests didn't appear in the quest menu anymore, but there was one that remained from the actual game, talking to fucking Hugo in that prison, WHICH I WASN'T ABLE TO COMPLETE EARLIER BECAUSE HE JUST DISAPPEARED. Why was it here now, at this tumultuous time. It even had a location that I went to to find literally nobody. Come to find out later that he died fighting his old boss, and the quest finally ended. The kettle is whistling a little louder. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential CHARACTER, FUCK HUGO.
Evacuating Bakbattahl reminded me of another inconsequential quest. I traveled there to talk to whoever is in charge after I let the empress die (whoops) only to find out that she's just miraculously alive! WOW. Literally a quest so inconsequential that her death changed nothing about Bakbattahl AND was retconned. And I find out later that she had quests of her own that she gives out. More quests I missed out on. Speaking of missed quests, evacuating the Sacred Arbor genuinely made me so mad. Because I hadn't restored life to the Holy Elven Tree in another side quest given by the leader's daughter, he refused to leave. Mfs on Reddit were saying to just keep sleeping and asking him when you wake up but that didn't work. I literally slept like 9 days in a row, he still refused to leave and at that point I just didn't give a fuck about ANY of it. I got the true ending, and the cherry on top, the game reminds me that my #1 NPC was the Elven dude who can't use Elven bows. I do not give a fuck about that dude.
Those last 5ish hours soured my experience of this game so much that I wanted so badly to give a 3, but I had to remind myself of all the fun I had exploring and calm down a bit. I think with some more time Dragon's Dogma II could've been an all timer but it remains just Good.
P.S. The framerate is a way bigger issue than the micro transactions that people won't shut up about. DMC5 had MTX and you hear no one talking about it, just how motivated Vergil is or whatever the fuck. I was more accepting of the 50 fps out in the world because I had just finished playing AWII which also beat my PC up, but there's no sugar coating it. This game does not run good and I'm not sure if it is something they can fix in a patch.
As my first RPG since Bowser's Inside Story, I think Dragon's Dogma 2 served as a great re-entry into the genre. I'd been anticipating this game since January after watching a friend play the first game while describing the sequel as a "re-imagining of that world." While that seems to be the case, I can't help but feel that DD2 is like 80% there. If DD1 suffered from being overambitious in it's vision, then DD2 suffers from being able to nail that vision but now it's weighed down by quest design that felt under-cooked. I can assume that both games share that same problem. It's this feeling of being unfinished that just slowly crept it's way in as I kept playing, but really showed it's ugly head in my last 5 hours or so.
I really can't praise enough how much fun it was to explore this fantasy world. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Open World games but this was the most fun I've had exploring one since BOTW. Couple that world with great combat and monsters that truly feel threatening to fight and it's a fantastic time. There's nothing more "epic" than when you're fighting a cyclops with your pawns and you notice a bird like shadow fly overhead. 10 seconds later you hear a whooshing sound and a griffin lands to 3rd party the fight. The spontaneity of it all is just so good.
And then you enter a town. Your frames decrease. Your mini-map fills with a slew of icons that just BECKON to be interacted with. You're on your way to the icon that looks like a big sword, and then a little girl steals the control of the camera away from you. "Hello Arisen the holy chosen one, gifted powers from the Dragon that my little mind can barely understand, can you do me a favor and pick up my groceries from the store?" A loud sound plays, and there's a prompt in the top right asking if you want to make picking up groceries your focused quest. You deliver her groceries some time later, and she responds with "Thanks for delivering my groceries! Come back in a few days to taste my soup!" The quest updates, "RETURN IN A FEW DAYS TO TRY HER SOUP". You return to try her soup but see a sad look on her face as you walk up. It turns out she was missing garlic for the soup that YOU need to go get. The quest updates. You return with the garlic, she adds it to the soup, and the quest ends. +5000 Coin, +1 Vegetable Soup.
DD2 loves this kind of quest design, and uses it in literally every town at least once. To be fair, this seems to just be an RPG thing™, but I guess I missed the memo and paid the price for it. In general I enjoyed most quests that are like "Go to this place with me there's something freaky over there 👅", but those became rarer by the end of the game, while there was still more map to be explored.
I guess I should say the quest design isn't bad, but just mixed, which still kind of sucks because the bad quests are like pretty bad. It's like the devs couldn't decide if they wanted the player to use context clues to solve the quests or just listen to what the quest menu says. A certain quest about a boy taken by wolves at the Checkpoint Rest Town had me confused on whether I was supposed to listen to the villagers or the quest menu, and in the end I just had to look up a guide for the quest because the flashing clock icon had me tweaking. On top of that, sometimes quests seemingly become stuck, or bugged. In the case of the noble in Vermund who was pretending to be a beggar, I did everything the quest told me to do only for the quest menu to just not change. You find out days later from a random guard walking around that he was killed. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential quest. Anything with escorting is also just plain awful. You can't carry them lest they struggle and you're forced to drop them. You can't sprint because they will just straight up stop moving if you go too far. You can't walk because then they'll just start sprinting. It's just bad.
And the craziest part is that NONE of that is even that bad. No, the reason this game went from a 4 to a 3 is because of the last 4 hours of gameplay and how much they soured the experience. See early in that session I had just switched back to Thief and I was exploring more of Battahl. I was having a great time doing quests as I went. Something the game doesn't tell you is that once you give Ambrosius those 15 wyrmslife crystals, you've already activated the last quest of the game, which THE GAME DOES NOT TELL YOU. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled by Alan Wake II which I had completed prior to this game, because that game straight up tells you at the final quest that this is the end. Dragon's Dogma II tells you nothing. I guess I was the victim of a compounding issue. It's not that the main story quests are badly designed but they don't really have an affect on the outside world. So while I'm out fighting mythical beasts, I had completely forgotten how important Ambrosius and his studies were to the main story. And for that I paid the ultimate price.
Upon receiving the Empowered Godsbane Blade from Ambrosius, the beginning of the end starts, locking you from doing literally anything else. You can't go finish the Sphinx quests, can't complete your map, can't turn in your seekers tokens; etc. You're done. It hurt even more because I was literally on my way to the Volcanic Island camp for the first time to complete a quest, which I couldn't do now. I quickly accepted this blow to the stomach but little did I know there were more strikes on the way.
The titan rises from the sea, and the race to the excavation site begins. I would be lying if I said I felt literally any tension from this. I guess I was still stinging from having my game cut early but I thought everything about the moving statue section was so god damn boring. The dragon fight was more fun I guess but it also didn't feel that different from any of the other dragon fights, just more difficult. But fuck it, I killed them both and we're done right? No, I heard there was a true ending so I found out how to get to it and honestly I wish I didn't. I killed the dragon around 5:30 AM, and wasn't done with the true ending until 8:30 AM. I had no idea it was that extensive.
In the true ending you are thrown back into the world but now there's a timer and the end of the world is coming. It was at this point that I was reminded of all that I didn't get to do by the abrupt ending and the kettle is starting to whistle. I'm tired, figured I can't close the game and do the ending without fighting the dragon again, so I thug it out. I'm tasked with going to every town and telling them to evacuate, and that's fine. Almost all of those unfinished quests didn't appear in the quest menu anymore, but there was one that remained from the actual game, talking to fucking Hugo in that prison, WHICH I WASN'T ABLE TO COMPLETE EARLIER BECAUSE HE JUST DISAPPEARED. Why was it here now, at this tumultuous time. It even had a location that I went to to find literally nobody. Come to find out later that he died fighting his old boss, and the quest finally ended. The kettle is whistling a little louder. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential CHARACTER, FUCK HUGO.
Evacuating Bakbattahl reminded me of another inconsequential quest. I traveled there to talk to whoever is in charge after I let the empress die (whoops) only to find out that she's just miraculously alive! WOW. Literally a quest so inconsequential that her death changed nothing about Bakbattahl AND was retconned. And I find out later that she had quests of her own that she gives out. More quests I missed out on. Speaking of missed quests, evacuating the Sacred Arbor genuinely made me so mad. Because I hadn't restored life to the Holy Elven Tree in another side quest given by the leader's daughter, he refused to leave. Mfs on Reddit were saying to just keep sleeping and asking him when you wake up but that didn't work. I literally slept like 9 days in a row, he still refused to leave and at that point I just didn't give a fuck about ANY of it. I got the true ending, and the cherry on top, the game reminds me that my #1 NPC was the Elven dude who can't use Elven bows. I do not give a fuck about that dude.
Those last 5ish hours soured my experience of this game so much that I wanted so badly to give a 3, but I had to remind myself of all the fun I had exploring and calm down a bit. I think with some more time Dragon's Dogma II could've been an all timer but it remains just Good.
P.S. The framerate is a way bigger issue than the micro transactions that people won't shut up about. DMC5 had MTX and you hear no one talking about it, just how motivated Vergil is or whatever the fuck. I was more accepting of the 50 fps out in the world because I had just finished playing AWII which also beat my PC up, but there's no sugar coating it. This game does not run good and I'm not sure if it is something they can fix in a patch.
2016
Honest to god I enjoyed this one more than the original which is funny because this game could literally be a Doom WAD; even the jump feels like it doesn't belong. More of a puzzle game than the original but in the end I just stopped caring at some point.
2014
Thought this game was going to be a simpler but cleaner predecessor to Neon White but I ended up just hating the game and figuring that the genre just isn't for me. It's hard to hate on a game this indie/old but such a unique hatred was born of just me playing through Episode 5 and I need to make it known. Every god damn minute of this game is filled to the brim with the flattest visuals I've ever seen and one of like 5 songs that are incapable of giving me any positive emotion. In one ear out the other, my mind keeps wanting to call it mobile game music. I keep seeing people say "Oh the game is cute! It's got hearts and rainbows and candy and giant m16 statues!" and I can't help but overwhelmingly disagree with them! Did they forget about the evil apple like demon that will end your life if you let it touch the floor? This game is only cute to people who have Instagram pages for their pets. This game is cute to people who generate puppy pictures on Bing. This game is only cute to people who have never played Katamari, THAT GAME IS CUTE. This game is as cute as a baby hippo, in that it looks sweet at first but give it time and it'll crush your windpipe. And people talk about movement, WHAT MOVEMENT? The gross floaty and unresponsive Unity movement? The bounce pads? The speedrun routes that most players won't know exist on the first playthrough? I'm so confused! I forced myself to finish this and I think in the end this game just somehow made me hate Neon White even more. I had Lonely planet 2 and Remix on my wishlist and they instantly got removed once I finished the game. I think I'm just not a fan of this genre!
1992
It's insane to me that this game released, singlehandedly defined the FPS genre, and then a year later the same dev team released Doom which is an upgrade to this game in literally every way. Then 3 years after Doom they released Quake. Innovation after innovation after innovation. This game is nigh unplayable now, but it's probably fire on the computers at the library though.