I didn't play Dragon's Dogma until the PC release of Dark Arisen, but, after a rocky start, it ended up becoming one of my favorite games of all time. I came into Dragon's Dogma II with high expectations, and left with mixed feelings.
I was going to write a big review going into depth on my thoughts, but I just don't want to spend any more time on the game right now, so I'll just write out some of my thoughts off the cuff.
None of the first games problems were fixed, and the conveniences added in Dark Arisen (e.g. eternal ferrystone) are absent as well.
The story lost its fun campiness, but still failed to deliver a solid narrative. Player and NPC motivations needed way more exploration.
My favorite vocations (strider, ranger, assassin) don't really exist this time around and that was a big bummer. Augments are less effective now, which is also a bummer. Combat is still a lot of fun, though.
The exploration itself is good, but travel can be an obnoxious slog. It's a bit baffling that Itsuno was insulting games with fast travel for being uninteresting, but his idea of interesting travel is fighting the same five enemy types every 10 feet. I think a lot of my negative feelings toward the game come from built up annoyance about the travel wasting my time.
The quest design was straight up bad. More clear writing would have gone a long way, but there were some serious missed opportunities to have taverns and the fortune teller give hints for quests. I don't need map markers, but I also don't want to deal with moon logic in a game this big. Undercover quests in particular feel out of place, as they did in the first game.
To sum up my feelings, it's a fun action and exploration game, but everything outside of that is either subpar or actively frustrating. I think I had my hopes set too high. If there's a big DLC/expansion at some point, I'll come back and give it another go. I'll probably include some mods to reduce the tedium the second time around, though. I didn't play the first game before Dark Arisen, and maybe I wouldn't have liked it if I had.
I was going to write a big review going into depth on my thoughts, but I just don't want to spend any more time on the game right now, so I'll just write out some of my thoughts off the cuff.
None of the first games problems were fixed, and the conveniences added in Dark Arisen (e.g. eternal ferrystone) are absent as well.
The story lost its fun campiness, but still failed to deliver a solid narrative. Player and NPC motivations needed way more exploration.
My favorite vocations (strider, ranger, assassin) don't really exist this time around and that was a big bummer. Augments are less effective now, which is also a bummer. Combat is still a lot of fun, though.
The exploration itself is good, but travel can be an obnoxious slog. It's a bit baffling that Itsuno was insulting games with fast travel for being uninteresting, but his idea of interesting travel is fighting the same five enemy types every 10 feet. I think a lot of my negative feelings toward the game come from built up annoyance about the travel wasting my time.
The quest design was straight up bad. More clear writing would have gone a long way, but there were some serious missed opportunities to have taverns and the fortune teller give hints for quests. I don't need map markers, but I also don't want to deal with moon logic in a game this big. Undercover quests in particular feel out of place, as they did in the first game.
To sum up my feelings, it's a fun action and exploration game, but everything outside of that is either subpar or actively frustrating. I think I had my hopes set too high. If there's a big DLC/expansion at some point, I'll come back and give it another go. I'll probably include some mods to reduce the tedium the second time around, though. I didn't play the first game before Dark Arisen, and maybe I wouldn't have liked it if I had.