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Dragon's Dogma II |šŸ‰| You done fucked it up, Capcom

Spyxos

Member
I only played DD 1 briefly. But I was determined to finally have a proper look at the highly acclaimed game with part 2. It has a few elements that I really enjoy(The pawns and the fact that you're not tied to one class) But as a whole, it seems like something unfinished that shouldnt definitely come out now.
 
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9) Very bad, almost none existant, absolutely unmemorable and terribly written story and characters - you literally don't care about everything what's going on in the game story wise and same goes for all of the characters...

maybe my single most lasting impression of the game after bailing on it after dozens of hours. the irony of a game featuring soulless 'pawns' also featuring an endless number of soulless non-pawn npcs was striking. I haven't experienced the lack of personal attachment I felt during my entire playthrough, almost from the very beginning, since playing division 2 (which was another case of loving the original & feeling nothing toward the sequel)...
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Barely a 7/10 wet fart of a game, they fixed almost nothing of the problems of the first game and made some things even worse.

Plus it crash my pc like no other game, i'm gonna wait some patches and maybe the dlc to see if it is worth to return playing it.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
You convinced me, I will pick up a copy of Dragons Dogma II. That is what I assume you were saying.
 

Dr. Claus

Banned
Episode 2 Whatever GIF
 

Rockman33

Member
Always interesting to read after 100+ hours, then talks about how bad they messed up. Why would you dedicate MAX, more than 10 hours on a game you donā€™t like?!
 

Shake Your Rump

Gold Member
My experience is that they just remade the first game, but left out everything except the mechanics. As a new player, nothing made sense.

The first game has this fantastic tutorial area where you learn everything, and there is lore explaining the pawns, how you became the arisen, and even the term arisen itself is explained. The initial battle on your beach explains it all in a way that is immersive and logical. It was a great way to ease into the game.

The second game is simply: ā€œyou are the arisen for whatever reasonā€, ā€œoh tutorial? Uhā€¦ here is how you carry a stoneā€. No exaggeration, the tutorial is only how to carry and throw a stone. Nothing else. The beach battle has a lame re-creation in game, and it makes little sense why you would even participate let alone become the ā€œarisenā€. Nothing is explained about the pawns, they are just there.

Itā€™s a sequel made for those who already know the game inside and out, and they didnā€™t bother with the immersion or story.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Agent_4Seven Agent_4Seven

Finally got around to reading and you did a fantastic job my man. I can't really say that I disagree with anything you've said. Very detailed and concrete analysis. I'll say that I can't remember ever enjoying a game that is as deeply flawed as Dragon's Dogma 2. I think I must have threatened the game with uninstallation about a dozen times during my playthrough, but I kept coming back because, at the end of the day, I was having fun. But you are completely right that this could/should have been so much better than it is. Great job.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
This is the gold standard open world over a Witcher 3, red dead 2, or Zelda ToTK?

Fuck me. Iā€™m out of this is the new standard.

If I never see another "open world" game with massive blacked out areas in the middle of the map that you can't get to......that would be great. "Standard"? Oh hell no.

dragons-dogma-2-sacred-arbor-2.png
Dragon%27s_Dogma_2_20240320002937.jpg
 
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After seeing the sales report I believe Capcom will continue to invest in the franchise so there's a possibility we'll see a fully realized (or at least better realized) DD game in the future.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
After seeing the sales report I believe Capcom will continue to invest in the franchise so there's a possibility we'll see a fully realized (or at least better realized) DD game in the future.

It would have sold considerably more if it werent for the microtransactions fiasco, nothing shorto f a massive DLC like Phantom Liberty can save this
 

Puscifer

Member
Hell, Red Dead 2ā€™s open world is not only infinitely more interesting than DD2ā€™s, it flat out looks better and has more variety to boot. You basically have grassland, forest, and desert in DD2. Meanwhile RDR2 has deserts, grasslands, forest, snowy mountains, and swamp. Valentine alone has more character than Vermund and Bakktahl combined, and St. Denis makes Vermund look like a joke. Seriously, I can walk through St. Denis which has a far larger NPC population that have full schedules, have more interactions with the player character, and they arenā€™t constantly phasing in and out of existence as you walk around.

Edit: That reminds me, even the weather in DD2 is a disappointment. Compare the rain in RDR2 vs DD2 and itā€™s a night and day difference. Especially when a thunderstorm rolls through in RDR2, it still looks impressive even now. Sometimes you could get a dust storm in RDR2, I saw nothing similar in DD2.
Except Red Dead 2 is boring as shit and this games actually fun. I hear more people talk about that games graphics than any actual gameplay.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
So better to avoid dragons dogma 2

Thanks for info
Weeeeeell, I wouldn't go that far. The game is clearly not finished and half-assed when it comes to story, characters and complete dog shit when it comes to presentation and interaction with characters, but the rest of the game is pretty good for the most part, exploration is great and there's plenty of stuff such as pawn system which you won't find anywhere else and it's such a shame, cuz I can't imagine a party based RPG (not CRPG) without similar system anymore. But I wouldn't recommend anyone buying the game until they fix HORRIBLE performance issues at the very least.

I just checked and only about 10% people seen what I tried to not spoil as best as I could, so it clearly shows that 90% of people who bought the game haven't even finished it or maybe even got to the endgame. I guess it's mostly cuz of performance issues cuz not a lot of people have high end enough hardware to run the game at least at 30FPS on PC.
And new monster hunter probably gonna suck, so people remember no preorders!!!
No pre-orders for sure of anything at all gaming related, but I actually like what they did with Monster Hunter Stories 2, except maybe really bad visual design when it comes to the world and such. I'd love to see what they can do with a PS5/XSX/PC only game like this, I don't have high hopes for Wilds cuz I'm sure it's going to be 99% Monster Hunter and 1% Story. I just don't like bog standard Monster Hunter, it's just not for me and never was tbh.

*edit*
Your screen shots are fantastic, I really like all the header/section choices.
Thanks, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've plenty more rendered at 10K, maybe I'll post some in PC screenshots thread at some point. RE Framework is the way to go here cuz in-game Photo Mode is shit!

Mystic Spearhead is legit esp. stacked with 3 sorc pawns.
In late game after switching to Fighter again, I has a mage, sorcerer and Warrior for high melee damage, but with Dragon's Dogma you can do great damage as well as it gets stronger with each hit and as long as you don't get hit.

Don't fret over the Spynx, more of that stuff in DLC.
Idk man, I don't have high hopes personally, especially considering the fact that they 100% won't be fixig story stuff. At this point my biggest hope is that they'll make a true sequel in a few years with MUCH better story, characters, presentation and shit ton of lore to read. I think everything will be pretty clear for DD IP this year one way or the other. DLC / Expansion will probably get released next year.

Bruhā€¦.put this shit on Audible
I though about writing a book, but no publishers agreed to do it:messenger_pensive:

I ain't gonna read all that, but I'm gonna assume you fucking loved everything about Dragon's Dogma 2.
What the did good, great or amazing, yes, for sure, not everything else though.

Did you get the True ending? There's a whole massive epilogue.
It's not that massive, great and worth experiencing from a pure story standpoint though. There's some amazing stuff there (like... two), but I already explained why it didn't matter. But I'll say this, if you liked the game and found a way to get to the endgame, it's worth going through all of it just to get great gear like armor sets, weapons and stuff to be ready for Expansion / DLC. Cuz iirc, what they did in the original game with Dark Arisen is that NG+ was practically necessary to even start playing Dark Arisen cuz it was too difficult otherwise.

That's a shame ... I was looking forward to reading the OP's long piece about Dragon's Dogma, but now I'm not sure if it's worth it if the ending sucks.

BTW I don't get your comment about story and characters. I thought the OP posted a long form review, but he managed to stick a short story in it, too ...? :pie_confused:
If you want to understand why story, chacracters and presentation suck, it's in the full review in dedicated section. Or better yet, wait for performance fix and play the game yourself, then play FFXVI (if you haven't already) and you'll get the full picture.

This game being almost a carbon copy of the original, with the almost same issues is almost meta with the very heavy theme of cycles that repeat itself.
And they did absolutely nothing to make the story, everything related to it and the dialogue system better than in the original game, outside of very few amazing pre-rendered moments and one cool thing you can experience and participate in.

What is left is to wait for a substantial DLC by Idago (the director of DDAA and DDO)
I hope they'll at least give it a lot more time to cook and maybe take 1-1,5 years to develop it and fix the main game in terms of performance at least, cuz they sure as shit can't do anything with the story and the rest of the really bad stuff related to it - it's too late for that. They also can fix a few issues related to combat and exploration. We'll see. Performance should be a top priority though.

Yeah, but that is hard to notice. I thought the idea was kind of interesting at first, but then after I revived a couple of people in the morgue in order to continue on the quests I was actively playing, they just disappeared completely. So I have a couple of orphaned side quests right now. Pretty much sucked all the interest I had in completely the game.

Waiting on a patch to see if this is addressed. If it is, I'll continue on. Otherwise, I'm just done.

Pretty much said it above. NPCs that were killed because of dragons plague disappeared completely after being revived in the morgue. I needed those NPCs to compete the quests.
I had this one quest soft locked for me cuz a related NPC was in the morgue (who knows what killed him), but as soon as I revived him it was all good and I finished the quest. It's really cool system though, it's just it sucks that there's nothing in the game to tell you that maybe you should check the morgue or maybe hear this from a Pawn as a hint or something, I'm sure it can be done as Pawn remember a lot of shit, but if it is not programmed for them to specifically know about this.... I guess the existence of morgues in the cities is not for nothing, but then again you can't really tell if it is a guaranteed fix or if the game is bugged and locked you out.

I just saw the quick summary and the nitpicking is wild af OP alto I would admit the game is far from perfect. Kudos on the effort tho and the banners are well done too
It's extremely surface level stuff there, I'm going into way more detail as to why I think so about this and that. Read the full thing if you can, there's a lof of stuff I haven't even mentioned in quick summary as well.

I read about half. Basically, exploration and combat is good, story, quests and characters are dogshit. Is that an accurate tldr?
It's not that simple and you forgot to mention the killer feature which is Pawn System, but yeah, story and characters as quite a few other things are dogshit, imho at least.

I will have to come back and read this when I put my time in and avoid spoilers.. But from what little I've played, and being a massive fan of the original, there were already several wtf moments in all the previews.

The 2 big glaring issues for me, were the lack of feminine stance and walks for the posture sliders. Everyone walks like they have something shoved up their ass. Why was this neutered to unisex shit??

2nd, the biggest head scratcher to me, was the lack of layered armor... Serious fucking downgrade... Let alone, being limited to vocations. The excuse Itsuno had for this,... wasn't buying it. Sure, you can dump content on us, but this feature alone allowed infinite fashion looks. Not sure what he was talking about.

Again, I'm still way too early in the game (I only get 7-8 hours a week), and it's no doubt my GOTY easy... But it will always bother me why such unique features were omitted.

Still glad Capcom allowed this game to exist. With recent sales, there may be a chance they greenlight DD3.
Yeah, the lack of female walk animations is just... WTF? Maybe modders will fix this via RE Framework. Layered armor as well as painting could be great, yes. For example there's really cool endgame armor set with cold and blue paint which looks AMAZING, but I want to apply this to other armor sets as well and you can't do that:messenger_loudly_crying:

I think ferrystones should be easier to obtain, but that's the only real complaint I have about fast travel. And that isn't really much of a complaint on PC where I modded it so ferrystones never go away when used. I actually like that I can pop down a port crystal and jump back and forth to it.

So much good stuff in this game though. I know my main issue is specific to me so I'm not going to go on and on about it. I may just give it some time and start a new game at some point. That's a testament to how much I've enjoyed playing it because most games I would have uninstalled and never looked back.
Here's the thing with Ferrystones, they must be infinite after NG cuz there's absolutely no reason to force us to have only a certain amount. The price is outrageous as well. In the late game before the endgame, I just installed a mod which let's you use one Ferrystone and get it back after use cuz I've vacuum cleaned everything in the game up to that point so fuck your stupid fast travel restrictions, Capcom.
You are obliged to read the whole thing. It cost this guy at least 2 weeks of work, and 2 weeks of lost income just to write this piece.
It was 1,5 weeks but c'mon, no one is obligated to read if they don't want to, I understand :messenger_relieved:

Hell, Red Dead 2ā€™s open world is not only infinitely more interesting than DD2ā€™s, it flat out looks better and has more variety to boot. You basically have grassland, forest, and desert in DD2. Meanwhile RDR2 has deserts, grasslands, forest, snowy mountains, and swamp. Valentine alone has more character than Vermund and Bakktahl combined, and St. Denis makes Vermund look like a joke. Seriously, I can walk through St. Denis which has a far larger NPC population that have full schedules, have more interactions with the player character, and they arenā€™t constantly phasing in and out of existence as you walk around.

Edit: That reminds me, even the weather in DD2 is a disappointment. Compare the rain in RDR2 vs DD2 and itā€™s a night and day difference. Especially when a thunderstorm rolls through in RDR2, it still looks impressive even now. Sometimes you could get a dust storm in RDR2, I saw nothing similar in DD2.
Comparing DD''2''.... or just about any other open world game to RDR2 is kinda unfair bro, c'mon. It's not in the same league even.

Always interesting to read after 100+ hours, then talks about how bad they messed up. Why would you dedicate MAX, more than 10 hours on a game you donā€™t like?!
Cuz I liked and even loved the game? It was my goty after 50-60 hrs of playtime, until very serious cracks started to appear - I mostly didn't touch the story and explored everything I could (which is most of the world before the endgame).

My experience is that they just remade the first game, but left out everything except the mechanics. As a new player, nothing made sense.

The first game has this fantastic tutorial area where you learn everything, and there is lore explaining the pawns, how you became the arisen, and even the term arisen itself is explained. The initial battle on your beach explains it all in a way that is immersive and logical. It was a great way to ease into the game.

The second game is simply: ā€œyou are the arisen for whatever reasonā€, ā€œoh tutorial? Uhā€¦ here is how you carry a stoneā€. No exaggeration, the tutorial is only how to carry and throw a stone. Nothing else. The beach battle has a lame re-creation in game, and it makes little sense why you would even participate let alone become the ā€œarisenā€. Nothing is explained about the pawns, they are just there.

Itā€™s a sequel made for those who already know the game inside and out, and they didnā€™t bother with the immersion or story.
It wasn't explained in the original game as well and in a way this IP deserved it. DD''2'' did even worse job than original cuz it didn't fix anything and FFXVI's existence is a huge problem as well - I explained why.

Agent_4Seven Agent_4Seven

Finally got around to reading and you did a fantastic job my man. I can't really say that I disagree with anything you've said. Very detailed and concrete analysis. I'll say that I can't remember ever enjoying a game that is as deeply flawed as Dragon's Dogma 2. I think I must have threatened the game with uninstallation about a dozen times during my playthrough, but I kept coming back because, at the end of the day, I was having fun. But you are completely right that this could/should have been so much better than it is. Great job.
Thank you!:messenger_smiling_with_eyes:
I haven't had the need or desire to write so much about a game in like 10 years since Dragon Age Inquisition came out. It really shows that I do care about it deeply and love some things about it, otherwise I could've just written a few words and called it a day. I think I did something much less gigantic for FFXVI, but I don't remember. It was also very flawed game and in some ways similar to DD"2".

If I never see another "open world" game with massive blacked out areas in the middle of the map that you can't get to......that would be great. "Standard"? Oh hell no.

dragons-dogma-2-sacred-arbor-2.png
Dragon%27s_Dogma_2_20240320002937.jpg
Horizon games did a much better job with this. I guess it makes sense if you could fly through the world and clean it all up, but you can't like the Forbidden West. What I found out is that you can clean a lot by just exploring the world and finding hidden passages, caves and such. But you can't climb mountains to clean the rest. It really sucks that there's no grappling hook which you can use to bring down flying enemies as a Warrior for example and use it to climb stuff faster, cuz forcing people to switch classes so that they could finally get to a treasure chest is stupid and you can't tell a pawn to specifically go and get the treasure just cuz most of the time they're telling you that you must find another way or something like that.

After seeing the sales report I believe Capcom will continue to invest in the franchise so there's a possibility we'll see a fully realized (or at least better realized) DD game in the future.
We can only hope it won't take another 12 years. It's kinda surprising given how shit performance is on every single platform.

Game is 6/10 at best. Boring, dated, flawed, repetitive, annoying and with very few redeeming qualities.
7,5/10 for me at best. I love most of is to death cuz there's nothing like it and they did improve things a lot and added new features which are cool. But it could've been SO MUCH MORE!:messenger_weary:

It would have sold considerably more if it werent for the microtransactions fiasco, nothing shorto f a massive DLC like Phantom Liberty can save this
I think it's overblown to death. You don't need to buy any of this and there's also mods to fix what you may not like in the game. Expansion and DLC can add a lot of cool stuff, let's just wait and see. But it won't fix problems with the story, characters and presentation for sure in the main game.
Going to hard disagree with you about warrior, it's one of the most engaging vocations due to the timing based gameplay(pressing buttons at the right time for more damage/quicker combos). I found mystic spearhand to be pretty lame.

Otherwise yes, the game is rather mid. Though it's the best average game.
Well, I've said that you need to learn how to use Warrior properly, didn't I? But it's not good against flying enemies and when it comes to climbing big stuff - it's way to slow for that to the point that it's pointless.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
The game's quite enjoyable imo because what you spend 90% of your time doing, which is exploring and combat, is so, soooo good that you almost forgot the fact that the story is kinda shit and that the game is quite obviously half-finished.

Here's hoping third time's the charm, DD offers a quite unique approach to those kind of games and it'll be quite sad to see this franchise's potential go to waste.
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
Except Red Dead 2 is boring as shit and this games actually fun. I hear more people talk about that games graphics than any actual gameplay.
Relax bro, I have all but one vocation maxed (I find Trickster boring because itā€™s very passive). I wouldnā€™t have bothered spending 100+ hours on the game so far if it wasnā€™t fun at some level. This isnā€™t a zero sum situation, DD2 has a lot of problems and Itsuno spent a lot of time in interviews Peter Molyneuxing his game. This was my most anticipated game after 100%ing the original on two different platforms when it was brand new, because I was obsessed and couldnā€™t get enough at the time.

The criticism is warranted, and the open world is utterly squandered. Just as the complaints about controlling Arthur in RDR2 feeling like molasses mixed with dog shit are completely valid.

I am sincere when I say that I want DLC that makes this game better akin to Dark Arisen for the original.

Comparing DD''2''.... or just about any other open world game to RDR2 is kinda unfair bro, c'mon. It's not in the same league even.
Capcom charged more money for their game than Rockstar did for theirs at the time, so I donā€™t think Iā€™m completely out of line. While I donā€™t expect every game to be at Rockstarā€™s level visually because thatā€™s just unreasonable, but I do find DD2ā€™s world incredibly underwhelming, uninspired, and underutilized.

I canā€™t help but think of the Consecrated Snowfield in Elden Ring. Itā€™s almost universally agreed upon that out of all the areas in that game, that section felt super undercooked. Especially when you compare the sheer scale and density of stuff to see everywhere else like in Liurnia, Altus, Siofra, etc.

Well, thatā€™s how I feel about the entirety of Dragonā€™s Dogma 2ā€™s world. The desire to explore was strong from the outset, but once I had finished pouring through most of what is there, it feelsā€¦ meh. When I pay money for a wooden table, I expect wood. What I got was particle board with veneer over it.

I agree with you in that the game is a 7.5 out of 10, and thatā€™s purely because of the combat. Thereā€™s just nothing like it.
 

Zug

Member
I really like DD2, but I can't help thinking that they barely improved what already worked well in DD1 (combat, exploration), and pretty much didn't touch what was already bad 12 years ago (story, characters, UI, save system, inventory management ...)
As it stands the game seems also to be missing real endgame dungeons like BBI from Dark Arisen. It might be wise to wait for the DLC.
Still a good game, I love the warrior vocation even more here.
 
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DaciaJC

Gold Member
Agreed with a lot of your points. I'm 40 hours into my playthrough and only just reached Battahl, and as a big fan of the first game (300 hours across PS3/PC), my feelings towards this sequel so far are mixed. The core experience of journeying out into vast world and fighting monsters with the support of pawns is still intact and enjoyable, but in so many other areas, issues from the first game have remained unaddressed or in some cases even regressed.

- the art design is ugly (like the first game), requiring mods to remove the awful vignette and tinting to make colors appear more naturalistic
- the story is thus far almost completely absent, and what little there is of it is very uninteresting, and I say that as someone who actually enjoyed the story and writing of DD1
- they removed the armor/clothing layers system, WTF
- every single vocation barring Warrior has fewer ability slots compared to DD1, WTF
- the weapon progression system is still the same boring shit from the first game, with weapons being simple straight upgrades of each other, no moveset variety, and the way attack/defense works forcing you to drop lower-tier weapons you liked (aesthetically) for higher-tier options if you want to deal any damage at all later in the game; I was really hoping for the sequel they would take a page from the Souls model of making every weapon viable with pros and cons from start to finish, alas no

This isn't to say that I don't appreciate some of the improvements they've made. For example, the inclusion of camping does a lot to enhance the immersion of being on an extended journey, I love this feature. But then there other cases of one step forward, two steps back. Pawn quests are a neat addition, but they removed the ability to leave a comment and star rating when returning a pawn to their master. Receiving a warm compliment for your pawn was such a great feeling in the original game and gave you a sense of pride and attachment to your creation; now it's just a thumbs up or a heart symbol, what is even supposed to be the difference?

All in all, for a follow up game that's had, what, twelve years to improve upon the original, I was expecting much better.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
The game's quite enjoyable imo because what you spend 90% of your time doing, which is exploring and combat, is so, soooo good that you almost forgot the fact that the story is kinda shit and that the game is quite obviously half-finished.
Well, yes and no. After FFXVI it's not a valid argument to me anymore. If they wanted to make a game without story and characters to remember, they could've made another DMC, but istead they decided to make a grand scale Action RPG and completely failed at that, which is pretty clear as CBUIII viped the floor with DD''2'' story as a whole and character's wise in their game last year, which is very similar to DD"2". FFXVI is far from perfect too, but story as a whole and characters are amazing and the best part of the game.

Capcom charged more money for their game than Rockstar did for theirs at the time, so I donā€™t think Iā€™m completely out of line.
$70 is way too much for an unfinished story, very bad presentation and bad characters, not to mention horrible technical state on all platforms. So I don't recommend anyone buy the game now and until they fix performance on all platforms.
HexWorks dedicated more than half a year to provide free and new content updates just cuz the launch was so bad (it all ended with the latest updated a few days ago), I'm pretty sure that Capcom don't even have something like this in their brains as a thought floating around that maybe the should do something similar.

I canā€™t help but think of the Consecrated Snowfield in Elden Ring. Itā€™s almost universally agreed upon that out of all the areas in that game, that section felt super undercooked. Especially when you compare the sheer scale and density of stuff to see everywhere else like in Liurnia, Altus, Siofra, etc.

Well, thatā€™s how I feel about the entirety of Dragonā€™s Dogma 2ā€™s world. The desire to explore was strong from the outset, but once I had finished pouring through most of what is there, it feelsā€¦ meh. When I pay money for a wooden table, I expect wood. What I got was particle board with veneer over it.
I don't agree with you in regards to DD''2''. The world they've designed is great and far better than in the original game and in most open world games. But as I explained in the review, the rewarding part aside from exploration itself is just not there, you can simply buy all good and new gear from vendors. That's very bad design in my book, but FFXVI is much, much worse and there's practically nothing there to explore and find, have you played it?

It might be wise to wait for the DLC.
This and performance patch, for sure. I mean, performance is SHIIIIIIIIT, but I still have no regrets buying the game at launch and even with all its flaws. But I can't say that everyone should go and buy it even when performance will be fixed and DLC will be released. Fans of DD for sure, but you not a fan and if want a great story, presentation, characters and it's not something you don't care about at all in Action RPG, then you should go and buy FFXVI right away.

Agreed with a lot of your points. I'm 40 hours into my playthrough and only just reached Battahl, and as a big fan of the first game (300 hours across PS3/PC), my feelings towards this sequel so far are mixed. The core experience of journeying out into vast world and fighting monsters with the support of pawns is still intact and enjoyable, but in so many other areas, issues from the first game have remained unaddressed or in some cases even regressed.
At the 40 hour mark it was the best game I've played this year. After almost 140 hrs... it's definitely not the case, but experiece with much improved Pawns and Pawn systems is forever imprinted into my brain, absolutely unforgetable and amazing experience.

- the art design is ugly (like the first game), requiring mods to remove the awful vignette and tinting to make colors appear more naturalistic
I don't agree. Art is great in the game, but what you're talking about are post FX.

- they removed the armor/clothing layers system, WTF
Yeah, I wonder what was even the reason for doing it. Clearly some leftovers are still in the game cuz you can put on a mask and a helmet at the same time for example, but everything else is just one single piece. I don't like wide and round iron gauntlets, but there's no way to change them cuz it's a single piece with the chest armor. Modders are already trying to fix this but so far it's only armor alterations. My guess is that since they can't figure out how to deal with horrible clipping issues in the game in regards to capes, something similar is probably happening to layered armor in RE Engine as well.

- every single vocation barring Warrior has fewer ability slots compared to DD1, WTF
There must be at least 2 presets for each vocation to choose from on the fly with 8 or at the very least 6 skills in total.

- the weapon progression system is still the same boring shit from the first game, with weapons being simple straight upgrades of each other, no moveset variety, and the way attack/defense works forcing you to drop lower-tier weapons you liked (aesthetically) for higher-tier options if you want to deal any damage at all later in the game; I was really hoping for the sequel they would take a page from the Souls model of making every weapon viable with pros and cons from start to finish, alas no
Weapon and armor upgrade system definitely needs MUCH more stuff but not something similar to Nioh games and other modern Team Ninja games. What From and HexWrorks (probably even more so) did is the way to go here. Maybe in the next game. Simple +50 to damage or whatever is boring af and not intereting. It's very surface level and means that they didn't have enough time or budget to think of something better.

This isn't to say that I don't appreciate some of the improvements they've made. For example, the inclusion of camping does a lot to enhance the immersion of being on an extended journey, I love this feature. But then there other cases of one step forward, two steps back. Pawn quests are a neat addition, but they removed the ability to leave a comment and star rating when returning a pawn to their master. Receiving a warm compliment for your pawn was such a great feeling in the original game and gave you a sense of pride and attachment to your creation; now it's just a thumbs up or a heart symbol, what is even supposed to be the difference?
I think Pawns and Pawn System is 95% complete and the best feature of the game, but as I also said in my review, there's still things they can improve and add to make it a god-like masterpiece.

All in all, for a follow up game that's had, what, twelve years to improve upon the original, I was expecting much better.
Same here. I got some much needed impovements which are really cool and amazing, but there's a lot of other aspects which are not improved or even finished and as Duke would say - Well, after 12 fuckin' years, they better be![/QUOTE]
 
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hemo memo

You can't die before your death
Great OP. Lots of time and effort. If you could sum it all up in one sentence though, what would that be?
Dragon's Dogma 2 offers fun combat, a great pawn system, and beautiful environments but suffers from repetitive dungeons, a weak story, and technical issues.
 
While it's not as good as the first one in some ways, playing current-gen Dragon's Dogma is still better than nothing and it's awesome in its own right. I can see myself playing both for a long time. The art direction, music, and overall presentation is top-tier. Love that the gameplay is true to the original as well.

My biggest complaint so far is that it's not as challenging as the first one. Armored Cyclops and Garms were scary fights in part 1. In 2 they're barely stronger than their normal variants. And as cool as the Dullahan fights are, they should be way harder. No Mystic Knight and Assassin is also not good. Other than that, I've been having a blast cosplaying as Guts in current-gen Dragon's Dogma. I have faith they're going to bring it with the dlc.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
While it's not as good as the first one in some ways, playing current-gen Dragon's Dogma is still better than nothing and it's awesome in its own right. I can see myself playing both for a long time. The art direction, music, and overall presentation is top-tier. Love that the gameplay is true to the original as well.

My biggest complaint so far is that it's not as challenging as the first one. Armored Cyclops and Garms were scary fights in part 1. In 2 they're barely stronger than their normal variants. And as cool as the Dullahan fights are, they should be way harder. No Mystic Knight and Assassin is also not good. Other than that, I've been having a blast cosplaying as Guts in current-gen Dragon's Dogma. I have faith they're going to bring it with the dlc.
After level 50 or so, you're basically unstopable killing machine. At the endgame I masacared every single boss and enemy at level 74. In NG+ you'll be killing everything in 1-2 hits.
NG+ was clearly not a priority for Capcom at all, amongst other things, but good thing here (before they'll patch it or not) is that you can go through the story quests in like one-two days and then be ready for future Expansion / DLC, which you can't do in original game.

OP needs to hire an editor, but I feel a bit bad for him because he put so much time into that novel
I don't have that kind of money :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Who wants to read the whole thing - will do it eventually, the rest... well, they have the right to do what they want. At least now I can move on to do other things :messenger_relieved:
 
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Soodanim

Member
I don't have that kind of money :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Who wants to read the whole thing - will do it eventually, the rest... well, they have the right to do what they want. At least now I can move on to do other things :messenger_relieved:
I read the good/mixed/bad/ugly, but didn't want to spoil too much more because I haven't played it yet. Shame about it not being out and out better than the original, but I could always play the original again if I get the itch.

Also...no Mystic Knight?!
 

NeoLed

Member
I stop reading when he said Fighter and Warrior don't have elemental weapon. 140 hours... of what..?
 

BlackTron

Member
I know the post is long but give the guy some credit for making a post that is actually being a geek about a video game on a game forum.

More interesting than reading 3 pages of posts about Tomb Raider and Stellar Blade updates.
 

Sentenza

Member
This just reminded me that I didn't launch the game in a month or so.

We aren't even past the first half but it's already a strong candidate for my personal disappointment of the year.
 

ungalo

Member
Yeah i think i was right not to take the game on launch. I liked the first game for its originality but after several years i think it got an undeserved amount of praise,
 

Markio128

Gold Member
Iā€™ve tried a couple of times to get properly stuck into it now, and overall I just think itā€™s just an okay game, all things considered. Everything is pretty mid in the game, from the visuals, combat, exploration, story, characters, you name it. I also hate the map and those abundant non-traversable areas. It makes getting from A-B a tedious affair after a while. Nobody will ever convince me that fast travel ruins a game - without it even the best open world games like Elden Ring would have been a chore, especially when farming. Fuck that shit.

If the devs improve that aspect in a patch, then I may give it another go.
 
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Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
I read the good/mixed/bad/ugly, but didn't want to spoil too much more because I haven't played it yet. Shame about it not being out and out better than the original, but I could always play the original again if I get the itch.
If you haven't played the game yet, don't read anything. Just wait for a performance fix along with DLC and give it a try, they've improved a lot in comparison to the original game, but unfortunately not in all crucial areas. Since I loved the original game, there was no question whether I should buy the remake or not, even though at first I thought that I'll be buying and playing the game later. There's still nothing like it though and I love it for what it is, but it doesn't mean that they should't learn on their mistakes and not try to do better next time, cuz they absolutely should and must.

Honestly, it makes me kinda worry about Pragmata cuz I just don't think that they know what the hell it is and what it's supposed to be even, so they could fuck it up and not give it enough time and go through proper QA.

Also...no Mystic Knight?!
Yeah... *sigh*
There's also not a lot of cool shields in the game for a Fighter, only about 3 and + - all of them are in late/endgame. Fighter and Warrior also don't have magical swords at all, only Warrior has two weapons with magical elements and it's not swords.
I wonder why they decided to ditch the Mystic Knight. They could've instead combined Fighter and Mystic Knight into one new class like Paladin for example which could use small and huge shields along with magical weapons, but alas. Maybe in the Expansion/DLC. We'll have to wait and see.

Yeah i think i was right not to take the game on launch. I liked the first game for its originality but after several years i think it got an undeserved amount of praise,
There's plenty to praise about original and especially remake, there's no other game like it and given that after 12 years no one even tried to do something similar before Capcom did it again and better.... It sucks that most of the devs not trying to risk it and think of something new and exciting in this genre, with cool and unique gameplay mechanics etc.
 
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Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
I didn't want to bump this up, but after playing NG+ and seeing some shit and cuz of what I've said about one particular character... I think I need to clarify some things here, not in the OT.

So, first of all, Wilhelmina is not that bad, but to actually find out why.... I'll spare you the details and frankly don't want to spoil the whole thing, so I'll just say this - go fuckin' read the quest guide cuz her quest related to at least 4-5 different quest (believe me, it's not just about her) and you absolutely never figure it out on your own and 100% fuck things up in the proccess more times than one even after two playthroughs. But even still, I think they could've done a lot more with Wilhelmina, make a few more quests related to her to explain things better and not rush things like they did.
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And second, ffs quest design in the game is absolutely terrible (if it's not some relatively straightforward task), I'd say it's on the same level of what From did with quests in Souls games, but Capcom actually managed to make things even worse here, not to mention that guests can even stop working if they feel like it or will be infinitely stuck with absolutely no way for you to know wtf are you supposed to be doing.

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I can't stress this enough, quest design like this must not be in the next game or any game for that matter, cuz it's terrible, horrible and fuckin' convoluted to a point that you want to say FUCK YOU! and don't give a shit anymore. That's not how quest should work, goddamnit, it's fuckin' stupid and braindead, period.
 

Dr. Claus

Banned
I didn't want to bump this up, but after playing NG+ and seeing some shit and cuz of what I've said about one particular character... I think I need to clarify some things here, not in the OT.

So, first of all, Wilhelmina is not that bad, but to actually find out why.... I'll spare you the details and frankly don't want to spoil the whole thing, so I'll just say this - go fuckin' read the quest guide cuz her quest related to at least 4-5 different quest (believe me, it's not just about her) and you absolutely never figure it out on your own and 100% fuck things up in the proccess more times than one even after two playthroughs. But even still, I think they could've done a lot more with Wilhelmina, make a few more quests related to her to explain things better and not rush things like they did.
nSj3Ari.jpeg
FkTSGTp.jpeg

o6S8dwX.jpeg
HduXsTS.jpeg


And second, ffs quest design in the game is absolutely terrible (if it's not some relatively straightforward task), I'd say it's on the same level of what From did with quests in Souls games, but Capcom actually managed to make things even worse here, not to mention that guests can even stop working if they feel like it or will be infinitely stuck with absolutely no way for you to know wtf are you supposed to be doing.

GJQOwxL.jpeg

I can't stress this enough, quest design like this must not be in the next game or any game for that matter, cuz it's terrible, horrible and fuckin' convoluted to a point that you want to say FUCK YOU! and don't give a shit anymore. That's not how quest should work, goddamnit, it's fuckin' stupid and braindead, period.
part brother GIF
 
I never played a game where my enjoyment dropped off so drastically. I was probably at a 9 or 9.5/10 for the first 25hrs. By the time I got to Batthal everything just became super repetitive. When it came to combat, it was a jack of all trades, master of none problem. It wasn't deep or enjoyable enough to carry the game. And every enemy encounter just felt repetitive by the time I hit Batthal. I still have not finished it

Still glad I bought it and I look forward to what the developers do with a bigger budget with DD3. It's certainly a unique franchise that has a ton of potential
 
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Bry0

Member
Still glad I bought it and I look forward to what the developers do with a bigger budget with DD3. It's certainly a unique franchise that has a ton of potential
I said this about DD2 after loving DD1 and I honestly think 2 is worse in a lot of ways.

Canā€™t say Iā€™m as optimistic as I used to beā€¦
 
I said this about DD2 after loving DD1 and I honestly think 2 is worse in a lot of ways.

Canā€™t say Iā€™m as optimistic as I used to beā€¦
The difference is DD2 was a financial success compared to DD1. It is a miracle DD2 got made at all. But I doubt it cost more than 50 mil to develop, which is probably why not much was improved upon DD1

Capcom recently came out and said they considered DD a staple franchise. I bet DD3 will have double or even triple the budget and resources to fix a lot of the shortcomings of DD2. There is so much potential in this franchise and I trust Capcom to figure it out
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Wonder who'll be in charge of DD3. Honestly I don't trust Itsuno too much after DD2, dude was hyping the NPCs left and right and in the end they are the most basic NPCs ever put in a game. I'm not sure he knows why DD1 is as beloved as it is.
 
Wonder who'll be in charge of DD3. Honestly I don't trust Itsuno too much after DD2, dude was hyping the NPCs left and right and in the end they are the most basic NPCs ever put in a game. I'm not sure he knows why DD1 is as beloved as it is.
The interaction with NPC's is pretty mediocre, but they did a great job making the world feel "lived in". Every NPC seemingly has a daily schedule to abide by, which most games don't do
 
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Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
The difference is DD2 was a financial success compared to DD1. It is a miracle DD2 got made at all. But I doubt it cost more than 50 mil to develop, which is probably why not much was improved upon DD1
To be fair, what was possible with the given budget, they improved a lot, but overall it definitely wasn't enough to fix all of the original games shortcomings and design decisions.

Capcom recently came out and said they considered DD a staple franchise. I bet DD3 will have double or even triple the budget and resources to fix a lot of the shortcomings of DD2. There is so much potential in this franchise and I trust Capcom to figure it out
If (and that's a big if) they'll be given double or triple the budget of this remake and if they'll look at what they did wrong with the critical eye, read a lot of feedback and criticism (as they should) and make the right decisions during development, I'm not even kidding, DD3 could be the best game they ever made and you can already see in it this remake... well, the potential for it that is.

Wonder who'll be in charge of DD3. Honestly I don't trust Itsuno too much after DD2, dude was hyping the NPCs left and right and in the end they are the most basic NPCs ever put in a game. I'm not sure he knows why DD1 is as beloved as it is.
Maybe what he said was badly translated and he meant something else? In any case, NPC aren't the best part of the game for sure, not to mention quest design in some cases. I think Itsuno and the whole dev team deserve to be given a second chance to make things right and learn from their mistakes, no one should rob them of this.

The interaction with NPC's is pretty mediocre, but they did a great job making the world feel "lived in". Every NPC seemingly has a daily schedule to abide by, which most games don't do
Yup, the fact that interactions are so effin' ancient is cuz of the very low budget no doubt. As for the "lived in" feel, yeah, I agree, but they fucked up when it comes to performance here big time - also a budget problem.

If they truly mean what they said about DD as an IP and how important it is for them now, then they should try and fix what they already did similar to what CDPR did for Cyberpunk.
 
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Chukhopops

Member
I can't stress this enough, quest design like this must not be in the next game or any game for that matter, cuz it's terrible, horrible and fuckin' convoluted to a point that you want to say FUCK YOU! and don't give a shit anymore. That's not how quest should work, goddamnit, it's fuckin' stupid and braindead, period.
But the Hugo quest isnā€™t that bad, thereā€™s a guy 10 meters away from him who tells you exactly what to do.

The fact that you can completely fail quests is actually one of my favorite things in this game, plus it adds some replayability.
 
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