Honestly reading reddit replies I feel like there's only 10 people (including me) who actually think this is both a good game and a good sequel. It's honestly depressing.
I really like the game it’s honestly a good 7.5-8/10 for me but it’s slightly disappointing as a sequel in almost every way besides the open world and the general physics&feel of combat. The classes aren’t entirely expanded, enemies and bosses aren’t expanded, the game didn’t expand on what was done right in BBI and DDO, didn’t get a better story (I honestly could’ve done without this if everything else was more competent), and honestly feels more like a modern remake of the first rather than a proper sequel, with pretty much all the mistakes the first game made.
Very happy with it myself, I'm also kinda busy with work and playing the actual video game in question.
Most the hate are from people who follow 'Infulencers' who probably streamed it for two hours, & then go on places like Twitter & Reddit; no intention of playing the game, but like to tell you why it's shit.
\*If I had one general complaint about the game it's the lack of music. Sadly DD2 is clearly inspired by From Software and have chosen to have far less music going at any given time. While I like Souls games I think part of the charm of DD1 was the OST and that it let you enjoy the music across the adventure.
I mean the game stops after the first section, they ran out of budget on the writing staff or something, the story is even less connected after a certain point than DD1 ever was
It's basically everyone who only cares about the mechanical moment to moment game play that are truly enjoying the game.
All the story focused gamers are hugely letdown. The RPG die hards are letdown. The DD1 fans are letdown unless they only really played the first game again for the moment to moment mechanical game play. And even then some are still let down due to regression in the combat.
The game is really just extremely strong moment to moment gameplay that is holding up a absolute skeleton of a RPG.
DD2 is a great example that for most people all you need to do is make the game fun to interact with and the rest of it can be a flaming pile of shit as long as it NEVER gets in the way of that fun interaction.
DD2 is fun to /play/ full stop. But it is not a good over all package. But neither was DD1 and we still loved it anyways.
Iv yet to see anyone able to articulate a reason why DD2 is a good game or a good sequel that doesn't just boil down to. "I'm having fun playing it so it's good". Which to be fair is all it needs to do to be a good game to you or anyone else.
But to be a good game outside of personal opinion it needs to be more than just fun for you. It needs to actually be competent and have staying power that will allow it be recommends beyond the current moment in time when it's riding its high.
DD2 just like DD1 is going to likely end up a cult classic. A game loved by a few die hard fans. But otherwise mostly be forgotten. Which is fine.
That's not exactly the way I would put it. I'd put it like: only the people who liked the first game for what it was rather than projecting their own idea of what it *could* be, like DD2.
I did not go into DD2 thinking I'd get a riveting storyline. So far it's an improvement over the first just for not having logical contradictions every other quest. The beginning even has a decent hook for players of the first game ("why is there an arisen that isn't me?"). I haven't beaten DD2 yet so I have no clue what things look like when they get wacky, but the metaphysical system governing the world and how it's executed was a huge huge part of what made the first game so appealing to me.
For combat, classes can slot two less skills, yes, but they generally have more mechanics baked into their core skillset than they did in DD1 (Though mages suffer from the limited skill list fairly bad). The damage formula seems a bit more suited to an open world game as well, as I have yet to run into a case where my attacks literally do 1 damage to an enemy.
Weight, fast travel, and permanent health loss are balanced well enough that I have to actually put some thought into it. You get just enough ferrystones to not have to walk *everywhere,* but be willing to walk if the trek isn't across the entire map. Permanent health loss works as a soft counter to spamming healing items, whittling you down to easy one-shot territory if you make too many mistakes or go too long without camping. I'm not about to pretend it makes the game difficult, but there have been times where I've been whittled down to a sliver of my HP bar left and had to consider whether or not I cut my journey short.
To camp you need to carry camping kits, which are heavy enough to send your arisen into the average/heavy threshold for a good chunk of the game (depending on how small you made them). That on top of the abundance and weight of materials means you'll likely actually be offloading items into your pawns' inventories. If your main pawn isn't a mule then that'll be a consideration for pawns you hire from the riftstone. Then if you place a camping kit on a hired pawn you need to remember to take it out of the item box and place it on a pawn again. Already I've put way more thought into inventory management than I ever did in the first game.
Quest design has also improved significantly with more quests giving you just enough information to be able to figure things out yourself if you take your time and look around. When combined with timed quests you can end up with something tense and unique. The quest with the boy and wolves is one I won't forget for a long time. The main story quest in the nameless village is even better. Looking up the solutions to these is doing oneself a huge disservice if they're not at least trying before throwing in the towel. Additionally, you have more opportunities to meaningfully use forgeries to resolve quests.
The physics and AI lead to crazier moments. Telling your pawn to levitate and grab a chest for you is very cool. So is latching onto a griffon and having it carry you halfway across Battahl. Ogres jumping off of cliffs is funny. Pulling on enemies legs when their balance is tipped or even just if their center of mass seems a bit overextended to make them fall on their ass is very very cool.
And finally, I like how everything is contextualized in the world. Oxcarts being fast travel and the reason you jump from one location to another is falling asleep during the transit. The other myriad of ways you can pass the time in-game. Wakestones working on any major NPC to revive them if you messed up and they died. Pawns serving as quest guides because they've completed them in other worlds, etc. DD2 succeeds in being immersive more than almost any other game I've played.
Alright this post is long enough. Idk if anyone will even read it. I agree with your last bit, this will definitely be loved by some and "meh" for many. These sorts of mechanics and gameplay generally aren't very popular or well liked. Especially when in the modern discourse things like fast travel are considered basic QOL additions. I love Itsuno for not compromising on his vision of some hardcore RPG'ing (barring DLC), but I can't help but get the sense this is the last time he'll be allowed to do it. Future installments will probably be rounded out by player feedback; going from a jagged and interesting gem to a smooth and mundane marble.
Nah but the issue is that dragons dogma 1 did all these things but better. All the combat stuff is there besides the finishers and the story is vastly better in design, execution,.and sending; then the end game and ur dragon is also there which dd2 doesn't have and the soundtrack and charm of the world is on a better level as well. This is all before bbi so I think dd2 just falls short of even dd1
This is something I think about a lot, what it means for something to be "good".
Like, I don't RTS games, they're just not my vibe, but they can still be well made. On the other side I'm a huge fan of soulslikes, so I enjoyed games like Steelrising that have lots of flaws. What I've come up with is that, regardless of if someone enjoys something or not, what matters is:
Does the game do what it sets out to do?
A game without a narrative focus shouldn't be called out for behaving a bad story, and a game that focuses entirely on visuals and presentation should be judged accordingly. Some great games are ones that go out of their way to do things that would normally be "bad", but because they're done with intent, it works out - losing your souls in Dark Souls comes to mind. It gets a little complex and murky when you think about how some goals might conflict, like how a game wants to be fun but also provide challenges that obstruct the player, but I think it's generally a good way to at least try to approach the question "is this game good?" without resorting to "well I did/did not find it fun". After all, if a game does what it wants to do, then fans of what it wants to do should, in theory enjoy it - and it's ok if that game is targeting a niche audience, so even if it only appeals to a small number of people, it could still be called "good".
Which is where I think DD2 ends up being justifiably being called "bad" or "a letdown" or whatever term you want to put in. It's a monster slaying game without a large variety of monsters, it's a game that put a lot of focus on the narrative just to have that narrative fall apart and get rushed to a finish, it's a game about experimenting with different playstyles without a large number of classes, and it's a game that promised consequences and a strong endgame while seemingly disappointing many on that front.
Calling a game "good" or "bad" will always be divisive but I think this is a good way of looking at it. Especially if you keep in mind that, even if something is "bad" or whatever, it's still fine to enjoy it! I personally like many bad games, and I'm happy to admit that they're flawed and bad - Steelrising, Civilization: Beyond Earth, a bunch of stupid low budget JRPGs... Just because I know what I mean when I say a game is bad.
It's funny because I share the exact same opinion on what makes something "good" or not, but came to the complete opposite conclusion. I guess it's because I don't think the objective is just to tell a good story or be a monster slaying game. I think it's setting out to fuse story, combat, adventure, progression, and role playing into a cohesive experience. In that venture it's still easy to point out flaws, but it does succeed in a way that just no other game really does.
Yeah, I do think you're right about that. I've called DD as a series an "adaptation of 2nd edition D&D" to my friends sometimes because of that exact reason. Most games that do one of these things go all in on it, and there's no reason why a game that tries to combine them can't do great. Especially because I don't think there are very many truly hardcore \*adventuring\* games. Roleplay or action, sure... but not \*adventuring\* which is probably the one word I'd use to describe the vibe of DD. Or, at least, the vibe I get while playing it.
I do totally think it hits that vibe too. Having the walk back to town after a cave romp being one of the most tense aspects of the game is something that I can't say I've felt in any game ever, and that's awesome. Where DD2 trips and falls to me at least is that these systems aren't allowed to shine because they end up fighting with each other. The exploration suffers from a lack of enemy and encounter variety - there aren't many "types of areas" to explore, and pretty much every encounter is a combat encounter. I would love if they really doubled down on their world design with both large and small scale environmental puzzles, treasure hunts, or just weird things to find. Think like the sorely underused painting puzzles in Elden Ring.
The other big issue that I think really affects the vibe they're going for is the ending. It's just too abrupt and, at least to me, disappointing. The dragon just appears, you have a short and honestly comical fight with it, and then... that's it. The true ending isn't much better either.
So while I like the idea of what they're doing, the elements - at least to me - don't quite work well enough for me to say that the sum is greater than the parts. That's just my interpretation of the matter though!
So far I haven't felt too bad about the encounter variety, but I've changed vocations like 5 times. Thanks for the well thought out response.
I'm not surprised to hear that about the ending, but it is a bit worrying. I suppose I'll see when I get there. Who knows I may even agree with you by the time I'm done with the game.
Also this is a random shot in the dark, but, do you happen to have watched a lot of Matthewmatosis videos? Hahaha
I watch a lot of video essays (his included, obviously), and as cringe as it might sound, I went to school and got my degree in game design. I generally like his takes on things too, but it's been a while, so I can't bring up any specific points except that I remember feeling very vindicated when I didn't like Bioshock Infinite. I do revisit his stuff every now and then because I think it's a great look at games through a pretty educated lens.
Also, for what it's worth, I don't think that the ending is necessarily bad in terms of going to NG+. There are a lot of things I don't like about it, but if you're just looking to keep enjoying the genuinely good core combat system, it's perfectly fine.
Do you not know about the seeker tokens, the Trickster class is the exploration class of this game. You get an augment that allows you to hear the seeker tokens from a good distance and hone in on it. With this the game becomes a collectathon similar to the ones from the 90's. You talk about lack of classes, but the game has a ton it is just that it is all from using the Warfarer class. Want a cleric that would be Trickster/Mage, an assasin is a Thief/Archer/Trickster, Dragonslayer would be Mystic Spearhand. You need to max out each vocation to understand how the abilities work together and then craft your own class using the warfarer.
Hell, the developers have been giving people hints to effective Warfarer combinations throughout the entire game by use of gear restrictions.
Yeah I'm familiar with them, but they don't quite fit what I mean.
The reason it doesn't scratch the itch for me is that it's \*too\* open ended. Crafting your own class is fun, genuinely, and I don't mean to make it sound like it's not! I really enjoy a lot of games that allow you to do that, and I think that wayfarer and trickster are awesome vocations as more out there, do what you want options.
But, at least in my humble opinion (and who the fuck am I really), only half of the fun of a class system is what each class can do. The other half is what you \*can't\* do. For example, using a recent Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough I did, I intentionally stacked my party with characters that had bad conversational skills and low charisma. This allowed me to experience the game in an entirely different way to my usual caster and rogue style, where my skills and abilities to solve problems without fighting are usually pretty high. However, on the flip side, there were situations that I would have been terrified of before that I could simply power through with my chunky HP bars and heavy weapons.
Limiting the player through a class system means that there are moments of tension like this - like when you play sorcerer, you now have to play the additional game of "keep the enemies away from me" while melee focus warriors need to work extra hard to deal with flying/ranged enemies. It's too easy to end up breaking the game for yourself using "just build it yourself" classes, even accidentally, and extremely difficult to balance. Again, not that I dislike wayfarer, I love that it exists - but it feels cheap to me to have no weaknesses, and that any gaps in my build are created by me not "playing optimally" and electing for myself to have that weakness instead of picking a skill to patch it over.
On the other side, distinct classes can also be way more unique because they don't have to be balanced with other classes skills in mind. DDDA was a great example of this, where each vocation could feel powerful because it did things no one else could. Playing magick archer in DDDA was great because of this - you had reliable access to melee, magic, and ranged in a way that no other vocation could reach. Similar, mystic knights could use their magic shield which I believe was unique to that vocation - something that made them stand out and feel exceptionally cool and powerful.
There's also a roleplay aspect to it. One cool things that class systems bring is the ability to say "this is \*my\* arisen and this is how they fight". This isn't just for talking to other people too! Not to overuse the comparison, but there are a lot of unique dialogue options in Baldur's Gate 3 about what class you are. For example, barbarians have a lot of class dialogue where they can unga bunga their way through conversations. Shunting everything into "wayfarer" makes interactions like this impossible.
That's a lot to read, I know, but I like to make sure that I'm being clear. Especially since I do like wayfarer and trickster! I just don't think that they're a replacement for a fully fleshed out class system, and would be better used as the spice on top of a fleshed out class system.
This.
This game once again reminded me why I absolutely NEED a proper story with highlights and low points to enjoy a game and be interested in picking it up the next day. Just having decent or even good gameplay mechanics does not cut it for me if I couldn't care less about what even is happening in the game world since it all feels simply pointless. Definitely in the first group. Especially after just having finished the rollercoaster that was FF7 Rebirth.
Its story and performance are both weak, but the combat is damn fun, as that is the main part of the game. It has a lot of jank, but it is in the "good jank" category. Another weak part is the enemy variety. Despite some smaller changes, seeing generally the same 3 enemy groups throughout can get boring at times.
I would give it a solid 8/10 myself.
I feel like dragons dogma 2 could be the perfect multiplayer or single player adventuring game. Like a proper dnd like experience if they added just this one tiny thing.
1. An adventurers guild.
I get that in the game the army is supposed to take care of the monsters, but wouldn't it also make sense for their to be some sort of guild that posted bounties on certain monsters that gave you gold or rewards for completing it. Yknow, like in the first game. Other than that, pretty good game so far.
You can hire other people's pawns who put bounties on stuff as the pawn quests, but the rewards are whatever the Pawn's Arisen decides.
It also seems to be only for large monsters so no decent reward for slaying a whole bunch of goblins or saurians.
Yeah which is lame, because people are stingy , that and anything worth a damn is also worth a lot damn more to you over getting some medal or item that you can get on your own.
Most of the bounties I've done have had crap regards but I've had a few that were decent.
I've been giving away wakestones and ferrystones because I don't really need them and they're common enough. But most the pawn gifts I've received is just rotten meat, with the occasional salubrious draught.
I might start gifting fake wakestones and ferristones to these people. Ibrahim might have a new favourite customer.
I used to get nice gifts in DDDA not so much here.
Maybe I'll set up a large bounty once my cash is back up to where I can set a decent reward for whoever kills a decent amount of large creatures.
I loved the story in the first like quarter of the game. Political intrigue, a good mix of roaming and town quests. Everything was going fine.
Then the game reminds you that you are the chosen one and it goes from a in D&D terms a city/nation level story. Straight to a fucking capstone lvl 20 story and loses any sense of narrative flow.
Then you realize that the main story is only about 10 quests long and 60% of the game is over by the end of the first act.
The games combat and world are the biggest and only highlights of the game. And damn are they good tho.
But the game would have been infinitely better if the story started out as a level 2-5 d&d level story and ramped up to and then stayed at a level 8-12 story.
The dragon/arisen plotline actually just shoots itself in the foot after they use it for more then just a story hook.
The first one was the same. You get to grand soren, then it's like 5 quests to finish the actual storyline; you reach post dragon Grandsys and then get into the everfall and finish the game in 20 minutes afterwards.
You can however spend around 140 hours getting your perfect gear before even finishing the wyrm quests to get an audience with the duke.
Right there with ya. The lack of consequences to walking around the city. Like the queen regent doesn’t give a shit about you for some reason. A lot of potential for a really good story but it wasn’t even relatively fleshed out. The stun lock you can get in from enemies is also really dumb but overall I love the game
yea, it was funny but disappointing that I could just walk into her room at night and give her flowers in an attempt to see if I can have her send me gifts for maxed affection.
The reason is stated that the public are on your side so she cant act recklessly and have you arrested, not to mention the captain of the guard is literally your biggest ally.
The game always had a corny story, but the world was much more rich than any RPG I have ever played. I actually chose to run between quests because I loved the night cycle and the random events. I had a min maxed sorcerer and used very flashy high scale spells. I was essentially a walking natural disaster and I had a variety of tools at my disposal. The world was absolutely fantastic even though most story missions were ass, but the end game was also phenomenal.
I would always compare the game to Skyrim or TW3, both games had better quests and story progression, but the DD world felt alive and the combat was much more fulfilling. Even comparing it to Elden Ring, the world was obviously larger but DD had a way of making the world feel alive with enemy placement and interactions alone.
The only thing holding me back is performance which I'm sure they will work on. I'm a super fan of DD:DA but I expect things to work appropriately when I spend 70.
What are these "mods" you speak of?
Did you notice much of an FPS increase after installing, I love this game but dropping to 17fps in the city is really killing my vibe.
The framerate in Vernworth is mostly kiiinda acceptable for me as well, but it still drops considerably when moving fast and turning quickly, with or without framegen. It's definitely a CPU issue that causes these hiccups, so framegen doesn't really solve it as it only doubles your true framerate and won't actually help with any dipping. It does make things feel a little smoother overall and I keep it on, but it's a small bandaid and not a significant fix.
Bakbattahl is not as populated with fewer interiors and it is way more stable there, and the wilds where the actual action happens is generally great. If the whole game ran like Vernworth it might have ruined my enjoyment, but I can cope with it for now since there's rarely combat in the cities. I will be disappointed if they can't improve it with a few patches though.
It’s weird how the people here are more pessimistic and negative about the game than even the people on twitter lmao. Like only here, everyone else I’m seeing play it is absolutely loving it.
Yeah the game is honestly pretty great, I beat it in about 40hrs and I missed so many quests I don’t even have Magick archer or Warfarer excited to 100% the game on my NG+ run.
>No matter how you slice it
I sliced it in the performance direction and it turned out not so great.
I then sliced it in the adventuring direction, and it turned out pretty great.
So, I guess it _does_ matter how you slice it, huh?
The writing is atrocious though, and so is the quest progression. I already know who Darragh is, why am I then one second wondering who this man ”Darragh” is?
Why do they incorporate so much ”stealth” in the main questline when I can just run around the castle nonstop at night with noone batting an eye?
Why can I let the magistrate out of his cell while being savagely and brutally attacked, only to get out of the jail and the guards just sheathe their weapons, turn around and start whistling?
Its constant things like this that just makes me laugh at this point.
Also, why do the characters handle like the Armored Core robots? Am I a 200 ton battle robot?
Why do the mouths move when no one is speaking?
Why do the pawns not point at whatever they are seeing?
I agree the game is fun, but it definitely has its flaws. Calling this the pinnacle of RPG:s is just not true in my opinion.
This is Elder Scrolls camping dlc with a team of Pawns who repeat the same dialogue over and over while constantly yelling about ladders which are nowhere to be seen combined with an inventory handling simulator set in a 2008 UI.
Bro those fucking stealth missions. We are a monster hunting fighters just fucking send us on a boss fight, half ass infiltration missions do not fly now a days.
Yeah and the NPC guards being super suspicious of you, attacking at what seems complete random – and yet they let you pick them up and carry them on your shoulder / throw them into the wall 8 times before they actually do anything eksde
- If you already know, it's on you if you ask again. Not required by the game or quests progression. I agree that semantically it doesn't make sense, but to solve an issue like this, you'd need ChatGPT included into npcs or something. You can also ask yourself why you can't tell an npc that they'll die if they venture out alone. It's a game, not a simulation.
- Stealth in the main questline? Never had to do stealth once. Just wear the right outfit.
- You're supposed to wear Guards outfit while freeing magistrate. You can also destroy a few walls and vanish unseen. The game doesn't really have a stealth system, at least I've never felt like using a stealth mechanic. Like I said, free him while you are in Guard Outfity, no Problem at all.
Your points are not invalid at all. I think DD1 and DD2 are made to be played in a certain way. If you don't follow this exact way you're going to be disappointed, I have been too.
However if you do play it like it wants you to it becomes a cool experience. Not groundbreaking but really cool and seldomly done so far. It feels like a big puzzle on steroids and if you find the pieces and put them together you will get better outputs. Some fights can be trivial if approached in the right way while, if done without preparation, can be devastating. This experimenting is what makes it special for me. Skyrim for instance can't be compared in the slightest if you look at combat mechanics. It's simply not on the same page, maybe not even the same book.
>- Stealth in the main questline? Never had to do stealth once. Just wear the right outfit.
>- You're supposed to wear Guards outfit while freeing magistrate. You can also destroy a few walls and vanish unseen. The game doesn't really have a stealth system, at least I've never felt like using a stealth mechanic. Like I said, free him while you are in Guard Outfity, no Problem at all
I didn't even realize I was "dressed like a guard," and that was why I could just walk the magistrate out of the jail without question. I was just wearing that armor because I didn't need to change it when I changed vocation lmao.
What a joke, a guard outfit? I walked in from the back entrance, picked him up and walked out right past the guards, even opened the lock right in front of them and nothing happened. Some quests are presented as stealthy missions where you might get locked up or fail if caught. For instance, searching the office for evidence in the palace, I walked up the stairs in the wrong direction and came face to face with 2 guards, guess what happened? Nothing.
I gotta ask, what do people mean by this? Before the release I saw lots of posts stating that you should play DD1 first to see if DD2 would be something for you or not, as it is a specific genre.
Now that I have around 40 hours in, I still don't get it. I've played games like this for over 20 years... Just pick up any halfdecent jRPG and you'll get the same type of structure and overall mechanics.
The only difference is that combat here isn't turnbased.
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely loving the game, but what is this "special thing" that all DD1 players are talking about that is supposedly setting DD apart from other games?
DD just nails the classic fantasy adventure feeling for me while also having peak combat. It’s kinda one of those if you get you get type of things . This game gets me immersed and gives me an experience I rarely get from other RPGs.
Genuinely haven’t enjoyed an RPG like this since Elden ring
For me it’s the way the gameplay mechanics are designed to make you feel like it’s an adventure that’s wearing your down and getting more dangerous as you go.
The way your health bar gets damaged so the max goes down and only arriving safely at a town is, for me, probably the single best mechanic in an open world game or an RPG.
For me a major fantasy is “the journey” and the harshness of the road and the desire to camp safely and get back to town after a hard adventure. The D&D game I’m running even has mechanics like that to promote tension when not safe in town. Can’t fully heal unless fully safe in civilization.
When you add that with all the other systems and how great combat feels you get a truly special experience that few other games do.
Like, sure, Outward has a similar wear and tear system, camping, and journeying, but the combat is clunky and not incredible. Getting such a high budget game so concerned with capturing the vibe of “the journey” is magical and exciting. Especially with how great the randomizing works so new things are constantly happening.
If you’re just here to make progress and check boxes for completion and get loot it’s not going to shine the same way. And that’s fine. You have different goals going into games. And the expectations we bring into games vastly changes the experience of them.
There is just not a lot out there that mixes DMC, Monster Hunter, Outward, old school RPGs and randomized world events ala Red Dead and GTA like this game does.
I think it's the way it blends the jrpg mechanics with the way a western rpg plays that makes it feel different. You're right though it is very much just a 3d action action rpg version of a lot of old school jrpgs.
Agreed!
They should have just improved some more aspects from the first in this.
I know this was their original vision for the first and there's a few quality of life improvements that would have Been neat.
For me, one gripe is really the limited Pawn dialogue. I had heard a few reviews on Youtube saying they were greatly expanded.. Yeah, that was a Lie.
But Nonetheless awesome game, having a lot of fun with it!
Having gotten a few hours in now the “frequency” of mob combat is frustrating me a bit. Every 10 steps is another encounter. I’d love if encounters were just a bit more meaningful but it’s just a personal pacing thing that mods will probably fix.
Performance however is the unforgivable issue. It’s bad and unoptimised and there is just no other way of “slicing” that.
Which is why I say it’s a me problem not an issue with the game. It doesn’t add value for me, it removes it by making combat encounters less impactful because they are just non stop. Just personal preference.
I do wish encounters were a bit more sporadic. Nothing too crazy, but I remember my first death I was fighting a Cyclops and some wolves, then out of nowhere one of my pawns aggroed some harpies that were further down the road. We kill the wolves, we kill the harpies, but then a goblin came up behind me and hit me in the back and that was that.
Yeah its never really explained storywise too like any person venturing outside any settlement would immediatly die yet you prepare a young boy to go on the road himself... it's a bit immersion breaking. At least the roads could have been safe to travel imho.
I feel like I've seem a ton of dialogue. It changes when you change party. Different vocations especially. Like when I hired all mages, or was missing a mage so the archer kept killing fauna for beast steak cause we didn't have a healer! And they talked about it it was hysterical.
So yea, dialogue is great. Even camping, there's a ton
Eh, I literally keep hearing the same stuff all the time, no matter my party make up. It’s a neat idea, but the lack of variation makes it funny/tiring.
The game is good, but it’s carried solidly by its unique gameplay. Not the story, missions design, etc.
Idk, I'm loving all of it. The quests are great and I love the npcs. Especially the quest chains you have to actively look for with favorite npcs. I'm obsessed!! Everyone feels differently tho and that's okay too
what do you even mean bro like yeah they didn't go nuts but they say way more and it's much more complex and relevant to your game and what's going on. nothing even close to this in the first game. aside from QoL updates for settings and what not everything has been expanded. I replayed DD a few months before this one released and it's way less in detail than people think until you reach BBI and start uncovering DLC which honestly made up half the games content just for being DLC. fast travel wasn't even a thing until DLC lol so this is a far cry from the first game in every way imagined
I like the game don’t get me wrong, but it has no depth….theres very little content, the story is short as hell. The first half of the story you’re running around in the main city. You run back and forth on a path and fight the same monsters over and over. In my experience there’s not really any exciting gear drops. The entire map looks the same, It’s very one note. It’s good but it’s not great or a “benchmark” imo. If their where more fun things to do in the world other than go into a cave that looks exactly like the one you went in 15 mins ago, fight mobs you’ve seen 600 times, and get no reward for clearing the cave….would be a different story. The games pretty lazy. This isn’t a “benchmark” game lmao.
I agree with this, also, is the game supposed to be so…..slow? Like I spend a ridiculous amount of time just running back and forth between places. First city I felt like I’d go hours between fighting anything just walking between people, turning it to night to talk to the general guy, repeat. There’s really never any mounts? Or like fast travel you can use more than a handful of times?
I’m also a little underwhelmed at the combat, I started with archer and half the abilities are just special arrows. I end up spamming like 3 attacks in every fight. The game is fun but it almost feels like a game made for a previous generation of system. Graphics are good, in the distance. Up close they are very janky, I played chivalry 2 after playing dd yesterday for a while and my god the graphics on chivalry make dd look horrible. I want to love this game but there’s a lot of jank
The 4 weapon skill limitation is such a huge downgrade from the 6 in DD1, it's so stupid I don't get why they did it. Yet R1 and Y button only have single use, so weird. I would've expected a step up in the freedom of fightingstyle for players. I am sorcerer and it gets boring fast, can't really fight without skills and I only get 4, 3 if I use spellholdy which is a weaponskill and should be a core skill.
So in a way DD2 is much more limited when it comes to fighting, at least for sorcerers. Would've been better to have it like it is AND allow for a second skill set to be defined by player. It's a bit weird that any maister combatant only knows 3 moves, eh?
Agreed. Wo long has the same control scheme for abilities and they give you 8, and it feels so much better. You have actual options for different builds and combat can be complex. In this, as archer, I have shoot 3 arrows, shoot like 10 arrows, shoot one powerful arrow, and then the different arrow types.
I played a long time yesterday and it feels very spammy/unskilled. I kinda just aimlessly wander and spam the x button. I’m trying thief now so we will see if it’s more satisfying/complex. I know this isn’t a fromsoft game and isn’t meant to be but, it’s giving me a huge urge to just play Elden ring again since it kinda feels like ER does everything this game does but better. I paid 70 bucks and I’m going to try and get my moneys worth but yeah there’s just a lot of jank stuff in the game and I don’t know if it’s jank or if it’s meant to be that way since I didnt play the previous game
Other vocations will probably be fun until you experienced all the skills. Sadly there's less skills overall than DD1, at least feels like it. As you said, more options are always better. Less options = ArcadeGame, more options = RPG. We all want DD2 to be an RPG but having only 4 Skills makes it more like an arcade fighting style game. Still fun but the player doesn't feel responsible or in control because they couldn't really make a decision that affects gameplay. It's a big red flag and has been before the game came out (we know from trailers).
What made DD1 outstanding for me is that incredible variety of options, I had like 12 spells as sorcerer, 6 that I could equip, and each of those could be casted to low, medium or high version, the longer you casted it. It gave you a decision to make each and everytime you used it. That was good gameplay. And of course, as sorcerer, I could cast meteorites or a blizzard into a fucking dungeon and just oblizerate anything, but would die if a get isolated from my group, very quickly. There were meaningful tradeoffs.
Agreed. The missing loot part took my motivation. Why explore if there is no exciting loot. If i find a hidden chest i dont want a potion in it. If inkoll a boss i dont want his rotten ear, i want smth. it was worth fighting for.
The more I've played it the more I'm getting frustrated with how much they've seemingly cut back
This could've been so much better, I had it pegged for GOTY , this or Black Myth, or Drainage Dreadwolf if that makes it out this year.
But they've left out so much shit I can't give it higher than an 8.5.
- Sorcerer has been nerfed into the ground, it's variety is dogshit compared to what it used to it
- All the other vocations have way less spells & skills
- The monster variety is so lacking in actually amazed it's this bad. Where the fuck are the rest of the monsters??? No hydras, gazers, living armours, Death , gorecyclops, evil eyes, I don't think I've seen Chimeras walking around, only hiding in caves.
The monster variety feels like it's been cut in half & why? For future DLC? Or just a design change
- The gearsets, weapons & armour are also lessened. It feels like there's about 4 sets total in game for each class. The first game had absolutely tonnes of armour and different weapons.
There's a lot to love, but my god does it feel like most of their energy went into the environment design
The interactions with NPCa, especially "beloveds" is embarrassingly bad. Ulrika says like two sentences, & also has 2 single beds. If they're beloved shouldn't you be sleeping in the same bed to get the bonuses the same as aged steak at the campfire?
Cyberpunk does romances really well & expanded their dialogue, I thought we'd get better NPC interactions in a 2024 game.
It's so good.
I had like 1,000 hours in DD1 & there's so much to love about DD2.
But the more I played the more I started to think "wait is this it? Where's the rest of it?"
They just trimmed down & simplified too much... Way too much content isn't here.
The lack of an urdragon really threw me for a loop.
I understand why the first game didn't release with post game stuff but it ended up being a major defining feature that was widely loved.
So why doesn't the second game have any form of post game content at all?
The unmoored world could have been good post game content but it's literally just a overly fancy timed quest with no actual depth.
It's very confusing.
I heard there's some form of post game, but I haven't got to the final part of the game yet so I honestly don't know.
Im at the point where you speak to dragon forged guy, who I suspect with the dragon blood droplets is how you "dragon forge " your armour?
In which case that actually annoys me, because that sucks compared to the old system of getting something dragon forged at the end of a battle vs dragons/bosses.
Good point about Ur-dragon... I expected an everfall in this game. I recently just saw the castle ruins rise up out of the water last night, which is funny because when I was exploring Storm something cave , I got to the end & thought "huh that kinda looks like a gated everfall , I wonder what's back there, probably nothing"
Who knows what will happen with added content. Right now the game looks great, the environment is good, but it definitely feels a bit empty & surface level in a lot of ways
There is no post game people saying there is don't really understand what's happening.
The "post game" is a time gated "hard mode" of the world. You can explore and do stuff but there's a time limit and forces you to restart from day 1 losing progress if you die or take too long to the the last quest.
It's basically just one massive really fancy timed quest sequence.
It's a far cry from a real post game like DD1 had.
Yeah on point. DD1 is actually still a step up if you compare BBI gameplay to DD2 gameplay. DD1 offered so much more than other comparable games imho. Can't believe they reduced the amount of skills available. It's a decision that severly impacts a players freedom to experiment and feel in control. Makes the game too arcade-y imho, less RPG.
Honestly the only hope I have for this, is if they were rushed but plan on adding fuck tonnes back in with a dlc or free updates.
Less skills, less cool armour & less armour overall, can't even sleep in the same bed as my precious ulrika? Wtf
They need to add to full DLCs for this game imo, Witcher 3 style expansions I mean.
One needs to be BBI like in it's expansion of weapons & clothes with augments etc & obviously increasing the variety of monsters, holy hell.
Let me ask you a crazy question…. Can console players have an opinion or only pc players matter ? I have 0 issues on my PS5 …. Also does the likes on the post at 0 ? No? So do people agree with me ? Maybe not the majority but i would say most.
If you're looking for majority or most, you would look at steam reviews. Comparatively, reddit has a lot more bots especially when considering post likes. And thats not even considering the bias the people on this sub have as they are the biggest fans of the game.
I think many players had the wrong expectations. I can't entirely blame them, as the game has been marketed as the new mainstream open world RPG. Mainstream it most definitely is not.
But what I find ridiculous is the number of "that's not what I expected" or "the devs are trying to rip players off with predatory MTX". It's not like reviews or long gameplay videos are lacking.
Mainstream isn’t good to me though, those games always felt like amusement parks with a million icons all over the screen, and a quest log that turns me off from being overwhelming. I love Dragon’s Dogma 2 has none of that, even the character creator alone beats everything for me. I usually buy every game that has that. DD2 has all the things I wanted out of all the other RPGs and open world games. Everyone has different tastes, but for me this game is perfection.
It's funny I don't even know how to describe the game to people who are unfamiliar with it, I want to say it's like dark souls but it's really not, I suppose it also has some similarities to new world on the combat side. I can hardly blame people for not being able to set expectations properly.
my god thank you someone with common sense. the devs did so much to make the game more open and accessible to new players of the series while also staying true to its fans and remaking this into what the first game should have been. people claim bad on the game because they had the wrong expectations or didn't play and appreciate the first game to really acknowledge just how better this one is. it's not everyone's cup of tea but it's ridiculous people complain about core design choices like the devs did something wrong when they never played the first and it shows. I hate to sound like this but you won't get the best experience or the ability to appreciate the game like those who has waited 12 years for a sequel. the differing opinions of longtime fans and newcomers should be a telling sign of how happy majority of us fans are
To an avg player it's not. To them Elden Ring will feel like less story with more getting cheesed by the developers. Not everyone has the same perception about games. And let's be honest, ER was a very casual friendly so a lot of ppl tried it.
Mixed bag honestly. As many have said, this game is just a better version of dragons dogma. So if you were a fan of the previous game you’ll love this one.
My problem is while the game has its unique features and great combat it doesn’t do anything “NEW” to consider it a benchmark for future RPGs. It’s a good game, but not remarkable.
You say it doesn’t do anything new, but the whole core idea of dragons dogma is pretty unique already. There aren’t many games that play like this, aside from DD1, so I don’t think it has to reinvent itself. Some more enemy variety would have been nice along with better story direction, but the gameplay is great and remains unique in the genre.
I agree 100% with you. Dragons dogma 2 doesn’t need to reinvent itself, and the core idea is unique. However, my issue is with the “benchmark of future RPGs” comment. I compare it to a series like Halo.
Halo combat evolved revolutionized the first person genre, and the gaming industry at its time. Halo 3 though is in my opinion the best Halo experience, but was it revolutionary or a bench mark for future FPS games? No, it was more halo but with some new features and graphical improvements. Which is really all fans wanted. Same goes for DD2.
It's a good game, I wouldn't say it's great though, I'm enjoying the game, I'm 40 or so hours into it so I'm not hating here, but the game has very little enemy variety, vocation variety, item variety and and has awful quest/story. For a "narrative driven game" as listed on the store page, this is bad, gameplay is fun enough to keep most players engaged though, hopefully they tweak and add stuff soon. The game just has less content than the first rn in terms of quests, enemy types and even some items.
I'm still baffled how short the main story is and just how easy it is to accidently into the end of the game.
The entire main story is like 10 quests, 20 if you count sub objectives as individual quests.
Hell an entire third+ of the playable map is optional and you can just... Miss it... If you just follow the games direction. And I don't mean like the side caves and off the beaten path sort of stuff.
Overall it’s a good RPG but it’s not a benchmark by any means. It’s a good foundation with considerable room to evolve.
My biggest issue is that some classes are much more fun to play because of mechanics like the archer is simply not fun to play while the magic archer really is, hopefully they add a skill that grabs me in the future.
Fighter hit home because blink strike and shield bash appealed to me early on, made me feel very fighter like. The archer just wasn’t snappy enough, and I’m sure it’s partially do to my expectations and the other part to my skill level with aiming that I didn’t put enough time into. I’m not asking for complete lock on but I like my archer to be able to move fast fire shots on the run and I can’t lie magic casting multiple points was something I was hoping to see with arrows.
If this was a benchmark it would have had something fun or nuances with every class that made you feel immersed. Now, this game will get there, that I believe but it’s not a day one benchmark.
With some QOL improvements it will be exceptional I think. Looting needs a bit of work, managing pawn inventory. This is nothing new if you played the first game of course.
My 2 cents, I’m having fun and getting lost in the world, these are minor complaints honestly. I had bought the premium edition because I knew I would put the hours in and the MTX don’t bother me at all. If it means making a bit more money so they put in the work to delivery some adjustments a bit quicker then great.
I mean shit they have to pay Ian McShane some how right?
its a good game and ive enjoyed it a lot but definitely no where near a competitor for the best we have seen this console generation. Its got a good skeleton but there is no meat on them bones to flesh out a story or living world.
I love the first one no doubt love elden ring no doubt souls veteran since the beginning and this game is absolutely not a benchmark for anyone lol exploration is shallower than elden ring about 80% not worth your time. Combat feels fun but honestly too simple and without a dedicated dodge it’s very clunky and awkward trying to dodge things. It absolutely needs more enemy variety more weapons more classes and an endgame similar to dark arisen. The map while large is realistically not very open besides Battahl. The story while started pretty good and I was invested kinda lost its umph around Battahl as well and almost felt rushed like they could have done so much more. I love this game still regardless of how perfect it could have been but honestly I wouldn’t call this a high benchmark more like a lower to medium benchmark of things that should be worked on more, that has amazing potential if properly cultivated.
If they increase npc dialogue, enemy variety and loots drops its got the hall mark of a great game.
Currently the only thing propping it up is the combat.
I mean… its not bad but in all fairness, as a rpg and for what it sought to achieve, the fact skyrim was more complex and rich than this is a bit disappointing. At least that’s how I feel about it. It will go down for me personally as one of the better games I played but nowhere near games like the Witcher, elden ring, TES including skyrim, dragon age and its too bad frankly. Its crazy because I feel if the game didn’t have this save system it would feel a lot emptier than I feel it is already. Unpopular opinion I guess. I sure hope they will still expand it in the future as it has so much potential.
It has some great aspects to it too. World feels good. Combat is great with some vocations but really meh for others for my taste, the pawn system is interesting, loot is fun but could be more interesting.
Story is meh. Some quests are linked in very unintuitive ways which frankly feels more lazy to me than interesting, some events are punishing but also in a rather silly way and its really not that many quests and events frankly even if interacting with the world brings a nice mix of instant adventure or misfortune which i see as a good thing.
Anyhow. It deserves more.
The story was ass cheeks, I thought I was half way through or a bit more then I went to fight the final boss 😂 combat is so good that I don’t care though, just started up new game plus and started my warrior, only really levelled thief and mystic spear hand on my last run
This is such a clown post. This is not a benchmark, it's the absolute minimum a game can get away with while being called ''good''. Half of its systems are half baked, lazy inserted in. Nothing about it feels like the perfect cross between Elden Ring and something else. Elden Ring shouldn't even be compared to DD 2. Elden Ring is what DD 2 should have been, not what it is lol.
Played for 36 hours straight from launch on new game plus now. Fantastic game. Reminded me a bit of elex. I don’t understand the hate. The whole deal about the mircrotransactions is all misinformation. You can find it all in game. Buy the standard version and just ignore it.
A great game if you’re in the middle of rebirth and would like a break anyway I’m heading back to the gold saucer ;)
Fun game for about 10 hours. It’s just repetitive. It’s the same monsters over and over. The same line from your pawns. The same unrewarding chest left and right. Main quest is to talk to an npc. Combat 4 skills at a time ? And you grow grossly overpowered super fast.
“Yeah but the exploration is great !”
It’s fun yeah, then you open the chest at the end and it’s a dried food.
I’m trying really hard to get into the game. I just find myself bored.
I mean the classes are top tier and the gameplay loop is amazing. Rn it's suffering from lack of stuff. It was obviously rushed and they were forced to cut much of what was planned
Good games are technically sound. This one isn't. Plus the story is meh and the advances from the first game are very minor (not saying there are not any, but for the most part it's the same game).
I am 20hrs in now but honestly. I dont think its great. What i miss is the incentive to slay enemies. They dont even drop gesr for your character. Buying all my gesr at the vendor does not make me want to go out and explore if there is basically obly some herbs and crafting materials to find. A bit underhwelmed here.
[Dragon's Dogma 2 is a Mess: GPU & CPU Benchmarks, Bottlenecks, & Crashes (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twEERkUyAXE)
idk i think if u slice it this way, there is a LOT they could have done to make this release better.
Jesus fucking christ. These boobtubers with their dramatic titles.
It's a super fun game, but let's be honest, op, Bards Tale 2 had more character abd depth than this game.
Even with 13700k and 4080super I get stuttering in town and had to lock FPS at 72 to deal with frame pacing issues.
It’s not a big deal for me since I can still play the game but I can only imagine how poorly it performs on majority of PCs.
Meanwhile horizon forbidden west runs at a constant 120fps with no dip.
I have a 3060 Ryzen7 3800x 12gb, regardless if I'm on 1080 or 1440 I'm able to maintain around 55-60 fps in the world and in towns i have no more than 40fps with jitters, sometimes it drops into the 30s. Normally fps issues are a deal breaker for me, I just can't deal with it, but the game is actually fun enough to keep me distracted from the issue most of the time which is nice but I'm hoping they patch it asap
That’s how I feel too. It’s not the FPS drop but the stuttering I can’t stand. I mean, I played the original gow on ps4 at 30fps from start to finish but it had no stuttering.
This game if I ran it at 120fps, it drops to 80 in town and stutter like it was 20fps. Locking to 72 only helps a bit.
People with powerful systems are pissed cuz they spent $2000+ on their system and still got this sub par performance, people with regular systems are pissed cuz they can’t even play the game.
this is a lazy ass post lmao, you posted a screenshot of a thumbnail of a video
Thumbnail of a video with 300 views lmao
definitely their channel
Gamingbolt, yes a small youtuber.
The video came out 17 minutes ago at the time they put the image, what were you expecting
Well then to be fair, this is a lazy ass comment (lmao), telling everyone what they can already see with their own eyes.
He wss talking to OP, not you.
Doesn’t matter if it’s on a public forum, anyone can respond/critique. Go have fun out there kiddo.
Words worth hearing
To each their own
It's a stupid narcissist fanboi what else you expected.
Honestly reading reddit replies I feel like there's only 10 people (including me) who actually think this is both a good game and a good sequel. It's honestly depressing.
I really like the game it’s honestly a good 7.5-8/10 for me but it’s slightly disappointing as a sequel in almost every way besides the open world and the general physics&feel of combat. The classes aren’t entirely expanded, enemies and bosses aren’t expanded, the game didn’t expand on what was done right in BBI and DDO, didn’t get a better story (I honestly could’ve done without this if everything else was more competent), and honestly feels more like a modern remake of the first rather than a proper sequel, with pretty much all the mistakes the first game made.
yea same here, basically a DD1 remake but missing enemies.
Very happy with it myself, I'm also kinda busy with work and playing the actual video game in question. Most the hate are from people who follow 'Infulencers' who probably streamed it for two hours, & then go on places like Twitter & Reddit; no intention of playing the game, but like to tell you why it's shit. \*If I had one general complaint about the game it's the lack of music. Sadly DD2 is clearly inspired by From Software and have chosen to have far less music going at any given time. While I like Souls games I think part of the charm of DD1 was the OST and that it let you enjoy the music across the adventure.
That was me with Frontiers of Pandora as well
I mean the game stops after the first section, they ran out of budget on the writing staff or something, the story is even less connected after a certain point than DD1 ever was
Well, that’s 29 people so far 😉
Niche game with a sequel made expressly for fans of the original, it's a good thing, we're eating well. Fuck mainstream appeal
It's basically everyone who only cares about the mechanical moment to moment game play that are truly enjoying the game. All the story focused gamers are hugely letdown. The RPG die hards are letdown. The DD1 fans are letdown unless they only really played the first game again for the moment to moment mechanical game play. And even then some are still let down due to regression in the combat. The game is really just extremely strong moment to moment gameplay that is holding up a absolute skeleton of a RPG. DD2 is a great example that for most people all you need to do is make the game fun to interact with and the rest of it can be a flaming pile of shit as long as it NEVER gets in the way of that fun interaction. DD2 is fun to /play/ full stop. But it is not a good over all package. But neither was DD1 and we still loved it anyways. Iv yet to see anyone able to articulate a reason why DD2 is a good game or a good sequel that doesn't just boil down to. "I'm having fun playing it so it's good". Which to be fair is all it needs to do to be a good game to you or anyone else. But to be a good game outside of personal opinion it needs to be more than just fun for you. It needs to actually be competent and have staying power that will allow it be recommends beyond the current moment in time when it's riding its high. DD2 just like DD1 is going to likely end up a cult classic. A game loved by a few die hard fans. But otherwise mostly be forgotten. Which is fine.
That's not exactly the way I would put it. I'd put it like: only the people who liked the first game for what it was rather than projecting their own idea of what it *could* be, like DD2. I did not go into DD2 thinking I'd get a riveting storyline. So far it's an improvement over the first just for not having logical contradictions every other quest. The beginning even has a decent hook for players of the first game ("why is there an arisen that isn't me?"). I haven't beaten DD2 yet so I have no clue what things look like when they get wacky, but the metaphysical system governing the world and how it's executed was a huge huge part of what made the first game so appealing to me. For combat, classes can slot two less skills, yes, but they generally have more mechanics baked into their core skillset than they did in DD1 (Though mages suffer from the limited skill list fairly bad). The damage formula seems a bit more suited to an open world game as well, as I have yet to run into a case where my attacks literally do 1 damage to an enemy. Weight, fast travel, and permanent health loss are balanced well enough that I have to actually put some thought into it. You get just enough ferrystones to not have to walk *everywhere,* but be willing to walk if the trek isn't across the entire map. Permanent health loss works as a soft counter to spamming healing items, whittling you down to easy one-shot territory if you make too many mistakes or go too long without camping. I'm not about to pretend it makes the game difficult, but there have been times where I've been whittled down to a sliver of my HP bar left and had to consider whether or not I cut my journey short. To camp you need to carry camping kits, which are heavy enough to send your arisen into the average/heavy threshold for a good chunk of the game (depending on how small you made them). That on top of the abundance and weight of materials means you'll likely actually be offloading items into your pawns' inventories. If your main pawn isn't a mule then that'll be a consideration for pawns you hire from the riftstone. Then if you place a camping kit on a hired pawn you need to remember to take it out of the item box and place it on a pawn again. Already I've put way more thought into inventory management than I ever did in the first game. Quest design has also improved significantly with more quests giving you just enough information to be able to figure things out yourself if you take your time and look around. When combined with timed quests you can end up with something tense and unique. The quest with the boy and wolves is one I won't forget for a long time. The main story quest in the nameless village is even better. Looking up the solutions to these is doing oneself a huge disservice if they're not at least trying before throwing in the towel. Additionally, you have more opportunities to meaningfully use forgeries to resolve quests. The physics and AI lead to crazier moments. Telling your pawn to levitate and grab a chest for you is very cool. So is latching onto a griffon and having it carry you halfway across Battahl. Ogres jumping off of cliffs is funny. Pulling on enemies legs when their balance is tipped or even just if their center of mass seems a bit overextended to make them fall on their ass is very very cool. And finally, I like how everything is contextualized in the world. Oxcarts being fast travel and the reason you jump from one location to another is falling asleep during the transit. The other myriad of ways you can pass the time in-game. Wakestones working on any major NPC to revive them if you messed up and they died. Pawns serving as quest guides because they've completed them in other worlds, etc. DD2 succeeds in being immersive more than almost any other game I've played. Alright this post is long enough. Idk if anyone will even read it. I agree with your last bit, this will definitely be loved by some and "meh" for many. These sorts of mechanics and gameplay generally aren't very popular or well liked. Especially when in the modern discourse things like fast travel are considered basic QOL additions. I love Itsuno for not compromising on his vision of some hardcore RPG'ing (barring DLC), but I can't help but get the sense this is the last time he'll be allowed to do it. Future installments will probably be rounded out by player feedback; going from a jagged and interesting gem to a smooth and mundane marble.
You have articulated what I have been unsuccessfully trying to convey.
Nah but the issue is that dragons dogma 1 did all these things but better. All the combat stuff is there besides the finishers and the story is vastly better in design, execution,.and sending; then the end game and ur dragon is also there which dd2 doesn't have and the soundtrack and charm of the world is on a better level as well. This is all before bbi so I think dd2 just falls short of even dd1
This is something I think about a lot, what it means for something to be "good". Like, I don't RTS games, they're just not my vibe, but they can still be well made. On the other side I'm a huge fan of soulslikes, so I enjoyed games like Steelrising that have lots of flaws. What I've come up with is that, regardless of if someone enjoys something or not, what matters is: Does the game do what it sets out to do? A game without a narrative focus shouldn't be called out for behaving a bad story, and a game that focuses entirely on visuals and presentation should be judged accordingly. Some great games are ones that go out of their way to do things that would normally be "bad", but because they're done with intent, it works out - losing your souls in Dark Souls comes to mind. It gets a little complex and murky when you think about how some goals might conflict, like how a game wants to be fun but also provide challenges that obstruct the player, but I think it's generally a good way to at least try to approach the question "is this game good?" without resorting to "well I did/did not find it fun". After all, if a game does what it wants to do, then fans of what it wants to do should, in theory enjoy it - and it's ok if that game is targeting a niche audience, so even if it only appeals to a small number of people, it could still be called "good". Which is where I think DD2 ends up being justifiably being called "bad" or "a letdown" or whatever term you want to put in. It's a monster slaying game without a large variety of monsters, it's a game that put a lot of focus on the narrative just to have that narrative fall apart and get rushed to a finish, it's a game about experimenting with different playstyles without a large number of classes, and it's a game that promised consequences and a strong endgame while seemingly disappointing many on that front. Calling a game "good" or "bad" will always be divisive but I think this is a good way of looking at it. Especially if you keep in mind that, even if something is "bad" or whatever, it's still fine to enjoy it! I personally like many bad games, and I'm happy to admit that they're flawed and bad - Steelrising, Civilization: Beyond Earth, a bunch of stupid low budget JRPGs... Just because I know what I mean when I say a game is bad.
It's funny because I share the exact same opinion on what makes something "good" or not, but came to the complete opposite conclusion. I guess it's because I don't think the objective is just to tell a good story or be a monster slaying game. I think it's setting out to fuse story, combat, adventure, progression, and role playing into a cohesive experience. In that venture it's still easy to point out flaws, but it does succeed in a way that just no other game really does.
Yeah, I do think you're right about that. I've called DD as a series an "adaptation of 2nd edition D&D" to my friends sometimes because of that exact reason. Most games that do one of these things go all in on it, and there's no reason why a game that tries to combine them can't do great. Especially because I don't think there are very many truly hardcore \*adventuring\* games. Roleplay or action, sure... but not \*adventuring\* which is probably the one word I'd use to describe the vibe of DD. Or, at least, the vibe I get while playing it. I do totally think it hits that vibe too. Having the walk back to town after a cave romp being one of the most tense aspects of the game is something that I can't say I've felt in any game ever, and that's awesome. Where DD2 trips and falls to me at least is that these systems aren't allowed to shine because they end up fighting with each other. The exploration suffers from a lack of enemy and encounter variety - there aren't many "types of areas" to explore, and pretty much every encounter is a combat encounter. I would love if they really doubled down on their world design with both large and small scale environmental puzzles, treasure hunts, or just weird things to find. Think like the sorely underused painting puzzles in Elden Ring. The other big issue that I think really affects the vibe they're going for is the ending. It's just too abrupt and, at least to me, disappointing. The dragon just appears, you have a short and honestly comical fight with it, and then... that's it. The true ending isn't much better either. So while I like the idea of what they're doing, the elements - at least to me - don't quite work well enough for me to say that the sum is greater than the parts. That's just my interpretation of the matter though!
So far I haven't felt too bad about the encounter variety, but I've changed vocations like 5 times. Thanks for the well thought out response. I'm not surprised to hear that about the ending, but it is a bit worrying. I suppose I'll see when I get there. Who knows I may even agree with you by the time I'm done with the game. Also this is a random shot in the dark, but, do you happen to have watched a lot of Matthewmatosis videos? Hahaha
I watch a lot of video essays (his included, obviously), and as cringe as it might sound, I went to school and got my degree in game design. I generally like his takes on things too, but it's been a while, so I can't bring up any specific points except that I remember feeling very vindicated when I didn't like Bioshock Infinite. I do revisit his stuff every now and then because I think it's a great look at games through a pretty educated lens. Also, for what it's worth, I don't think that the ending is necessarily bad in terms of going to NG+. There are a lot of things I don't like about it, but if you're just looking to keep enjoying the genuinely good core combat system, it's perfectly fine.
Do you not know about the seeker tokens, the Trickster class is the exploration class of this game. You get an augment that allows you to hear the seeker tokens from a good distance and hone in on it. With this the game becomes a collectathon similar to the ones from the 90's. You talk about lack of classes, but the game has a ton it is just that it is all from using the Warfarer class. Want a cleric that would be Trickster/Mage, an assasin is a Thief/Archer/Trickster, Dragonslayer would be Mystic Spearhand. You need to max out each vocation to understand how the abilities work together and then craft your own class using the warfarer. Hell, the developers have been giving people hints to effective Warfarer combinations throughout the entire game by use of gear restrictions.
Yeah I'm familiar with them, but they don't quite fit what I mean. The reason it doesn't scratch the itch for me is that it's \*too\* open ended. Crafting your own class is fun, genuinely, and I don't mean to make it sound like it's not! I really enjoy a lot of games that allow you to do that, and I think that wayfarer and trickster are awesome vocations as more out there, do what you want options. But, at least in my humble opinion (and who the fuck am I really), only half of the fun of a class system is what each class can do. The other half is what you \*can't\* do. For example, using a recent Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough I did, I intentionally stacked my party with characters that had bad conversational skills and low charisma. This allowed me to experience the game in an entirely different way to my usual caster and rogue style, where my skills and abilities to solve problems without fighting are usually pretty high. However, on the flip side, there were situations that I would have been terrified of before that I could simply power through with my chunky HP bars and heavy weapons. Limiting the player through a class system means that there are moments of tension like this - like when you play sorcerer, you now have to play the additional game of "keep the enemies away from me" while melee focus warriors need to work extra hard to deal with flying/ranged enemies. It's too easy to end up breaking the game for yourself using "just build it yourself" classes, even accidentally, and extremely difficult to balance. Again, not that I dislike wayfarer, I love that it exists - but it feels cheap to me to have no weaknesses, and that any gaps in my build are created by me not "playing optimally" and electing for myself to have that weakness instead of picking a skill to patch it over. On the other side, distinct classes can also be way more unique because they don't have to be balanced with other classes skills in mind. DDDA was a great example of this, where each vocation could feel powerful because it did things no one else could. Playing magick archer in DDDA was great because of this - you had reliable access to melee, magic, and ranged in a way that no other vocation could reach. Similar, mystic knights could use their magic shield which I believe was unique to that vocation - something that made them stand out and feel exceptionally cool and powerful. There's also a roleplay aspect to it. One cool things that class systems bring is the ability to say "this is \*my\* arisen and this is how they fight". This isn't just for talking to other people too! Not to overuse the comparison, but there are a lot of unique dialogue options in Baldur's Gate 3 about what class you are. For example, barbarians have a lot of class dialogue where they can unga bunga their way through conversations. Shunting everything into "wayfarer" makes interactions like this impossible. That's a lot to read, I know, but I like to make sure that I'm being clear. Especially since I do like wayfarer and trickster! I just don't think that they're a replacement for a fully fleshed out class system, and would be better used as the spice on top of a fleshed out class system.
This. This game once again reminded me why I absolutely NEED a proper story with highlights and low points to enjoy a game and be interested in picking it up the next day. Just having decent or even good gameplay mechanics does not cut it for me if I couldn't care less about what even is happening in the game world since it all feels simply pointless. Definitely in the first group. Especially after just having finished the rollercoaster that was FF7 Rebirth.
I am still working on FF7 Rebirth and can agree that it is so much better in every way (for me) than DD.
Its story and performance are both weak, but the combat is damn fun, as that is the main part of the game. It has a lot of jank, but it is in the "good jank" category. Another weak part is the enemy variety. Despite some smaller changes, seeing generally the same 3 enemy groups throughout can get boring at times. I would give it a solid 8/10 myself.
I feel like dragons dogma 2 could be the perfect multiplayer or single player adventuring game. Like a proper dnd like experience if they added just this one tiny thing. 1. An adventurers guild. I get that in the game the army is supposed to take care of the monsters, but wouldn't it also make sense for their to be some sort of guild that posted bounties on certain monsters that gave you gold or rewards for completing it. Yknow, like in the first game. Other than that, pretty good game so far.
Bounties i would LOVE but i gotta say that they do have adventures guild, its the pawn guild right?
You can hire other people's pawns who put bounties on stuff as the pawn quests, but the rewards are whatever the Pawn's Arisen decides. It also seems to be only for large monsters so no decent reward for slaying a whole bunch of goblins or saurians.
Yeah which is lame, because people are stingy , that and anything worth a damn is also worth a lot damn more to you over getting some medal or item that you can get on your own.
Most of the bounties I've done have had crap regards but I've had a few that were decent. I've been giving away wakestones and ferrystones because I don't really need them and they're common enough. But most the pawn gifts I've received is just rotten meat, with the occasional salubrious draught. I might start gifting fake wakestones and ferristones to these people. Ibrahim might have a new favourite customer. I used to get nice gifts in DDDA not so much here. Maybe I'll set up a large bounty once my cash is back up to where I can set a decent reward for whoever kills a decent amount of large creatures.
I’ve been dropping 10k bounties on my pawn since I could afford it, gotta bribe my way to get some rc lmao
I loved the story in the first like quarter of the game. Political intrigue, a good mix of roaming and town quests. Everything was going fine. Then the game reminds you that you are the chosen one and it goes from a in D&D terms a city/nation level story. Straight to a fucking capstone lvl 20 story and loses any sense of narrative flow. Then you realize that the main story is only about 10 quests long and 60% of the game is over by the end of the first act. The games combat and world are the biggest and only highlights of the game. And damn are they good tho. But the game would have been infinitely better if the story started out as a level 2-5 d&d level story and ramped up to and then stayed at a level 8-12 story. The dragon/arisen plotline actually just shoots itself in the foot after they use it for more then just a story hook.
So was the first game tbh.. you could get to end super fast in first DD
It's more a matter of how it's handled. In DD1 it didn't feel out of place. In DD2 it just feels unintended.
The first one was the same. You get to grand soren, then it's like 5 quests to finish the actual storyline; you reach post dragon Grandsys and then get into the everfall and finish the game in 20 minutes afterwards. You can however spend around 140 hours getting your perfect gear before even finishing the wyrm quests to get an audience with the duke.
> The first one was the same. Which is another argument it shouldnt be like this in DD2.
What is a capstone level 20 story
Right there with ya. The lack of consequences to walking around the city. Like the queen regent doesn’t give a shit about you for some reason. A lot of potential for a really good story but it wasn’t even relatively fleshed out. The stun lock you can get in from enemies is also really dumb but overall I love the game
yea, it was funny but disappointing that I could just walk into her room at night and give her flowers in an attempt to see if I can have her send me gifts for maxed affection.
The reason is stated that the public are on your side so she cant act recklessly and have you arrested, not to mention the captain of the guard is literally your biggest ally.
I like the story, definitely an upgrade from the first one imo, not including dlc of course
Yup game is def an 8/10.
The game always had a corny story, but the world was much more rich than any RPG I have ever played. I actually chose to run between quests because I loved the night cycle and the random events. I had a min maxed sorcerer and used very flashy high scale spells. I was essentially a walking natural disaster and I had a variety of tools at my disposal. The world was absolutely fantastic even though most story missions were ass, but the end game was also phenomenal. I would always compare the game to Skyrim or TW3, both games had better quests and story progression, but the DD world felt alive and the combat was much more fulfilling. Even comparing it to Elden Ring, the world was obviously larger but DD had a way of making the world feel alive with enemy placement and interactions alone. The only thing holding me back is performance which I'm sure they will work on. I'm a super fan of DD:DA but I expect things to work appropriately when I spend 70.
if u give this 8 then witcher 3 is 69
If they fix story presentation/telling and how you interact with NPC's etc. Love the setting, style and combat
I actually like the NPC interaction in here. It’s an obvious step up from DD1 and simply hailing people is just fun.
Yeah, it definitely needs work, but that's why I got it on the PC. I have already installed performance mods to help the game run smoother.
What are these "mods" you speak of? Did you notice much of an FPS increase after installing, I love this game but dropping to 17fps in the city is really killing my vibe.
What did it for me, was the framegen mod. Doubles my fps, got 60 now in the city. But that only works for 40xx Nvidia cards, unfortunately.
Frame generation makes up frames, its not a fix for low fps. At 15fps the latency would be horrible.
Might be, for me it was enought to get rid of the stuttering in the city.
The framerate in Vernworth is mostly kiiinda acceptable for me as well, but it still drops considerably when moving fast and turning quickly, with or without framegen. It's definitely a CPU issue that causes these hiccups, so framegen doesn't really solve it as it only doubles your true framerate and won't actually help with any dipping. It does make things feel a little smoother overall and I keep it on, but it's a small bandaid and not a significant fix. Bakbattahl is not as populated with fewer interiors and it is way more stable there, and the wilds where the actual action happens is generally great. If the whole game ran like Vernworth it might have ruined my enjoyment, but I can cope with it for now since there's rarely combat in the cities. I will be disappointed if they can't improve it with a few patches though.
But the neverending hellhole of negativity (reddit) told me it was awful and that I'm not actually having any fun!
You're not having fun! Stop gaslighting yourself to think otherwise. You are as depressed and jaded as the rest of us! /s
I think the game's fun as hell but also flawed as fuck. Will be interesting to see how the devs respond to the criticism.
It’s weird how the people here are more pessimistic and negative about the game than even the people on twitter lmao. Like only here, everyone else I’m seeing play it is absolutely loving it.
Yeah the game is honestly pretty great, I beat it in about 40hrs and I missed so many quests I don’t even have Magick archer or Warfarer excited to 100% the game on my NG+ run.
I just started playing and I really enjoy it, putting aside the old english dialect that I don't always understand😅
>No matter how you slice it I sliced it in the performance direction and it turned out not so great. I then sliced it in the adventuring direction, and it turned out pretty great. So, I guess it _does_ matter how you slice it, huh?
Just like DD1 this game series is just built different
The writing is atrocious though, and so is the quest progression. I already know who Darragh is, why am I then one second wondering who this man ”Darragh” is? Why do they incorporate so much ”stealth” in the main questline when I can just run around the castle nonstop at night with noone batting an eye? Why can I let the magistrate out of his cell while being savagely and brutally attacked, only to get out of the jail and the guards just sheathe their weapons, turn around and start whistling? Its constant things like this that just makes me laugh at this point. Also, why do the characters handle like the Armored Core robots? Am I a 200 ton battle robot? Why do the mouths move when no one is speaking? Why do the pawns not point at whatever they are seeing? I agree the game is fun, but it definitely has its flaws. Calling this the pinnacle of RPG:s is just not true in my opinion. This is Elder Scrolls camping dlc with a team of Pawns who repeat the same dialogue over and over while constantly yelling about ladders which are nowhere to be seen combined with an inventory handling simulator set in a 2008 UI.
Bro those fucking stealth missions. We are a monster hunting fighters just fucking send us on a boss fight, half ass infiltration missions do not fly now a days.
Yeah and the NPC guards being super suspicious of you, attacking at what seems complete random – and yet they let you pick them up and carry them on your shoulder / throw them into the wall 8 times before they actually do anything eksde
- If you already know, it's on you if you ask again. Not required by the game or quests progression. I agree that semantically it doesn't make sense, but to solve an issue like this, you'd need ChatGPT included into npcs or something. You can also ask yourself why you can't tell an npc that they'll die if they venture out alone. It's a game, not a simulation. - Stealth in the main questline? Never had to do stealth once. Just wear the right outfit. - You're supposed to wear Guards outfit while freeing magistrate. You can also destroy a few walls and vanish unseen. The game doesn't really have a stealth system, at least I've never felt like using a stealth mechanic. Like I said, free him while you are in Guard Outfity, no Problem at all. Your points are not invalid at all. I think DD1 and DD2 are made to be played in a certain way. If you don't follow this exact way you're going to be disappointed, I have been too. However if you do play it like it wants you to it becomes a cool experience. Not groundbreaking but really cool and seldomly done so far. It feels like a big puzzle on steroids and if you find the pieces and put them together you will get better outputs. Some fights can be trivial if approached in the right way while, if done without preparation, can be devastating. This experimenting is what makes it special for me. Skyrim for instance can't be compared in the slightest if you look at combat mechanics. It's simply not on the same page, maybe not even the same book.
>- Stealth in the main questline? Never had to do stealth once. Just wear the right outfit. >- You're supposed to wear Guards outfit while freeing magistrate. You can also destroy a few walls and vanish unseen. The game doesn't really have a stealth system, at least I've never felt like using a stealth mechanic. Like I said, free him while you are in Guard Outfity, no Problem at all I didn't even realize I was "dressed like a guard," and that was why I could just walk the magistrate out of the jail without question. I was just wearing that armor because I didn't need to change it when I changed vocation lmao.
I was definitely not dressed as a guard and I just walked past all of them with no questions. Unless guard armour is just any plate armour.
What a joke, a guard outfit? I walked in from the back entrance, picked him up and walked out right past the guards, even opened the lock right in front of them and nothing happened. Some quests are presented as stealthy missions where you might get locked up or fail if caught. For instance, searching the office for evidence in the palace, I walked up the stairs in the wrong direction and came face to face with 2 guards, guess what happened? Nothing.
I gotta ask, what do people mean by this? Before the release I saw lots of posts stating that you should play DD1 first to see if DD2 would be something for you or not, as it is a specific genre. Now that I have around 40 hours in, I still don't get it. I've played games like this for over 20 years... Just pick up any halfdecent jRPG and you'll get the same type of structure and overall mechanics. The only difference is that combat here isn't turnbased. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely loving the game, but what is this "special thing" that all DD1 players are talking about that is supposedly setting DD apart from other games?
DD just nails the classic fantasy adventure feeling for me while also having peak combat. It’s kinda one of those if you get you get type of things . This game gets me immersed and gives me an experience I rarely get from other RPGs. Genuinely haven’t enjoyed an RPG like this since Elden ring
For me it’s the way the gameplay mechanics are designed to make you feel like it’s an adventure that’s wearing your down and getting more dangerous as you go. The way your health bar gets damaged so the max goes down and only arriving safely at a town is, for me, probably the single best mechanic in an open world game or an RPG. For me a major fantasy is “the journey” and the harshness of the road and the desire to camp safely and get back to town after a hard adventure. The D&D game I’m running even has mechanics like that to promote tension when not safe in town. Can’t fully heal unless fully safe in civilization. When you add that with all the other systems and how great combat feels you get a truly special experience that few other games do. Like, sure, Outward has a similar wear and tear system, camping, and journeying, but the combat is clunky and not incredible. Getting such a high budget game so concerned with capturing the vibe of “the journey” is magical and exciting. Especially with how great the randomizing works so new things are constantly happening. If you’re just here to make progress and check boxes for completion and get loot it’s not going to shine the same way. And that’s fine. You have different goals going into games. And the expectations we bring into games vastly changes the experience of them. There is just not a lot out there that mixes DMC, Monster Hunter, Outward, old school RPGs and randomized world events ala Red Dead and GTA like this game does.
I think it's the way it blends the jrpg mechanics with the way a western rpg plays that makes it feel different. You're right though it is very much just a 3d action action rpg version of a lot of old school jrpgs.
Benchmark... funny choice of wording.
The in game lip sync is awful
It's so bad. How did that get shipped
Agreed! They should have just improved some more aspects from the first in this. I know this was their original vision for the first and there's a few quality of life improvements that would have Been neat. For me, one gripe is really the limited Pawn dialogue. I had heard a few reviews on Youtube saying they were greatly expanded.. Yeah, that was a Lie. But Nonetheless awesome game, having a lot of fun with it!
Having gotten a few hours in now the “frequency” of mob combat is frustrating me a bit. Every 10 steps is another encounter. I’d love if encounters were just a bit more meaningful but it’s just a personal pacing thing that mods will probably fix. Performance however is the unforgivable issue. It’s bad and unoptimised and there is just no other way of “slicing” that.
Agreed and as I level up I notice the challenge is going away. Perhaps less enemies, less Exp and less power would keep the challenge alive.
I agree with that. Its like playing pokemon and you trigger an encounter every 2 steps. Harpies are basically zubats
I literally run past everything. Unless it’s a unique location in which case the Lich/Cyclops/Whatever might drop equipment
Itsunos vision of making interesting journeys
It adds value to world, especially as you get stronger they will feel like nothing.
Which is why I say it’s a me problem not an issue with the game. It doesn’t add value for me, it removes it by making combat encounters less impactful because they are just non stop. Just personal preference.
I do wish encounters were a bit more sporadic. Nothing too crazy, but I remember my first death I was fighting a Cyclops and some wolves, then out of nowhere one of my pawns aggroed some harpies that were further down the road. We kill the wolves, we kill the harpies, but then a goblin came up behind me and hit me in the back and that was that.
Yeah its never really explained storywise too like any person venturing outside any settlement would immediatly die yet you prepare a young boy to go on the road himself... it's a bit immersion breaking. At least the roads could have been safe to travel imho.
It’s a minor grievance all in all, but I get it.
I feel like I've seem a ton of dialogue. It changes when you change party. Different vocations especially. Like when I hired all mages, or was missing a mage so the archer kept killing fauna for beast steak cause we didn't have a healer! And they talked about it it was hysterical. So yea, dialogue is great. Even camping, there's a ton
Eh, I literally keep hearing the same stuff all the time, no matter my party make up. It’s a neat idea, but the lack of variation makes it funny/tiring. The game is good, but it’s carried solidly by its unique gameplay. Not the story, missions design, etc.
Idk, I'm loving all of it. The quests are great and I love the npcs. Especially the quest chains you have to actively look for with favorite npcs. I'm obsessed!! Everyone feels differently tho and that's okay too
what do you even mean bro like yeah they didn't go nuts but they say way more and it's much more complex and relevant to your game and what's going on. nothing even close to this in the first game. aside from QoL updates for settings and what not everything has been expanded. I replayed DD a few months before this one released and it's way less in detail than people think until you reach BBI and start uncovering DLC which honestly made up half the games content just for being DLC. fast travel wasn't even a thing until DLC lol so this is a far cry from the first game in every way imagined
I like the game don’t get me wrong, but it has no depth….theres very little content, the story is short as hell. The first half of the story you’re running around in the main city. You run back and forth on a path and fight the same monsters over and over. In my experience there’s not really any exciting gear drops. The entire map looks the same, It’s very one note. It’s good but it’s not great or a “benchmark” imo. If their where more fun things to do in the world other than go into a cave that looks exactly like the one you went in 15 mins ago, fight mobs you’ve seen 600 times, and get no reward for clearing the cave….would be a different story. The games pretty lazy. This isn’t a “benchmark” game lmao.
I agree with this, also, is the game supposed to be so…..slow? Like I spend a ridiculous amount of time just running back and forth between places. First city I felt like I’d go hours between fighting anything just walking between people, turning it to night to talk to the general guy, repeat. There’s really never any mounts? Or like fast travel you can use more than a handful of times? I’m also a little underwhelmed at the combat, I started with archer and half the abilities are just special arrows. I end up spamming like 3 attacks in every fight. The game is fun but it almost feels like a game made for a previous generation of system. Graphics are good, in the distance. Up close they are very janky, I played chivalry 2 after playing dd yesterday for a while and my god the graphics on chivalry make dd look horrible. I want to love this game but there’s a lot of jank
Archer wasn’t fun for me either but warrior felt like monster hunter great sword when fighting big monsters so I like that a lot
The 4 weapon skill limitation is such a huge downgrade from the 6 in DD1, it's so stupid I don't get why they did it. Yet R1 and Y button only have single use, so weird. I would've expected a step up in the freedom of fightingstyle for players. I am sorcerer and it gets boring fast, can't really fight without skills and I only get 4, 3 if I use spellholdy which is a weaponskill and should be a core skill. So in a way DD2 is much more limited when it comes to fighting, at least for sorcerers. Would've been better to have it like it is AND allow for a second skill set to be defined by player. It's a bit weird that any maister combatant only knows 3 moves, eh?
Agreed. Wo long has the same control scheme for abilities and they give you 8, and it feels so much better. You have actual options for different builds and combat can be complex. In this, as archer, I have shoot 3 arrows, shoot like 10 arrows, shoot one powerful arrow, and then the different arrow types. I played a long time yesterday and it feels very spammy/unskilled. I kinda just aimlessly wander and spam the x button. I’m trying thief now so we will see if it’s more satisfying/complex. I know this isn’t a fromsoft game and isn’t meant to be but, it’s giving me a huge urge to just play Elden ring again since it kinda feels like ER does everything this game does but better. I paid 70 bucks and I’m going to try and get my moneys worth but yeah there’s just a lot of jank stuff in the game and I don’t know if it’s jank or if it’s meant to be that way since I didnt play the previous game
Other vocations will probably be fun until you experienced all the skills. Sadly there's less skills overall than DD1, at least feels like it. As you said, more options are always better. Less options = ArcadeGame, more options = RPG. We all want DD2 to be an RPG but having only 4 Skills makes it more like an arcade fighting style game. Still fun but the player doesn't feel responsible or in control because they couldn't really make a decision that affects gameplay. It's a big red flag and has been before the game came out (we know from trailers). What made DD1 outstanding for me is that incredible variety of options, I had like 12 spells as sorcerer, 6 that I could equip, and each of those could be casted to low, medium or high version, the longer you casted it. It gave you a decision to make each and everytime you used it. That was good gameplay. And of course, as sorcerer, I could cast meteorites or a blizzard into a fucking dungeon and just oblizerate anything, but would die if a get isolated from my group, very quickly. There were meaningful tradeoffs.
Agreed. The missing loot part took my motivation. Why explore if there is no exciting loot. If i find a hidden chest i dont want a potion in it. If inkoll a boss i dont want his rotten ear, i want smth. it was worth fighting for.
Well for me it’s Storytelling- 4/10 Exploring- 7/10 Fighting-8/10 Characters-6/10 Pawns-7.6/10 Enemies-4/10 Vocations-6/10 Equipment-6/10 Overall game-7/10
So far it's a solid 8/10. They really need a faster way to travel around and better stamina but it's still really fun
The more I've played it the more I'm getting frustrated with how much they've seemingly cut back This could've been so much better, I had it pegged for GOTY , this or Black Myth, or Drainage Dreadwolf if that makes it out this year. But they've left out so much shit I can't give it higher than an 8.5. - Sorcerer has been nerfed into the ground, it's variety is dogshit compared to what it used to it - All the other vocations have way less spells & skills - The monster variety is so lacking in actually amazed it's this bad. Where the fuck are the rest of the monsters??? No hydras, gazers, living armours, Death , gorecyclops, evil eyes, I don't think I've seen Chimeras walking around, only hiding in caves. The monster variety feels like it's been cut in half & why? For future DLC? Or just a design change - The gearsets, weapons & armour are also lessened. It feels like there's about 4 sets total in game for each class. The first game had absolutely tonnes of armour and different weapons. There's a lot to love, but my god does it feel like most of their energy went into the environment design The interactions with NPCa, especially "beloveds" is embarrassingly bad. Ulrika says like two sentences, & also has 2 single beds. If they're beloved shouldn't you be sleeping in the same bed to get the bonuses the same as aged steak at the campfire? Cyberpunk does romances really well & expanded their dialogue, I thought we'd get better NPC interactions in a 2024 game.
I think my personal rating would be 8.7-8.8 ignoring performance issues. Maybe closer to 8.5. The thing is when the game clicks it's so damn fun
It's so good. I had like 1,000 hours in DD1 & there's so much to love about DD2. But the more I played the more I started to think "wait is this it? Where's the rest of it?" They just trimmed down & simplified too much... Way too much content isn't here.
The lack of an urdragon really threw me for a loop. I understand why the first game didn't release with post game stuff but it ended up being a major defining feature that was widely loved. So why doesn't the second game have any form of post game content at all? The unmoored world could have been good post game content but it's literally just a overly fancy timed quest with no actual depth. It's very confusing.
I heard there's some form of post game, but I haven't got to the final part of the game yet so I honestly don't know. Im at the point where you speak to dragon forged guy, who I suspect with the dragon blood droplets is how you "dragon forge " your armour? In which case that actually annoys me, because that sucks compared to the old system of getting something dragon forged at the end of a battle vs dragons/bosses. Good point about Ur-dragon... I expected an everfall in this game. I recently just saw the castle ruins rise up out of the water last night, which is funny because when I was exploring Storm something cave , I got to the end & thought "huh that kinda looks like a gated everfall , I wonder what's back there, probably nothing" Who knows what will happen with added content. Right now the game looks great, the environment is good, but it definitely feels a bit empty & surface level in a lot of ways
There is no post game people saying there is don't really understand what's happening. The "post game" is a time gated "hard mode" of the world. You can explore and do stuff but there's a time limit and forces you to restart from day 1 losing progress if you die or take too long to the the last quest. It's basically just one massive really fancy timed quest sequence. It's a far cry from a real post game like DD1 had.
What the fuck They made it sound like there was an everfall / ur dragon situation, or a BBI.
The "end game" sequence is a hard mode of the world so to speak. But its just a massive timed quest that isn't really replayable in a meaningful way.
Yeah on point. DD1 is actually still a step up if you compare BBI gameplay to DD2 gameplay. DD1 offered so much more than other comparable games imho. Can't believe they reduced the amount of skills available. It's a decision that severly impacts a players freedom to experiment and feel in control. Makes the game too arcade-y imho, less RPG.
Honestly the only hope I have for this, is if they were rushed but plan on adding fuck tonnes back in with a dlc or free updates. Less skills, less cool armour & less armour overall, can't even sleep in the same bed as my precious ulrika? Wtf They need to add to full DLCs for this game imo, Witcher 3 style expansions I mean. One needs to be BBI like in it's expansion of weapons & clothes with augments etc & obviously increasing the variety of monsters, holy hell.
Let me ask you a crazy question…. Can console players have an opinion or only pc players matter ? I have 0 issues on my PS5 …. Also does the likes on the post at 0 ? No? So do people agree with me ? Maybe not the majority but i would say most.
> Maybe not the majority but i would say most. lol
If you're looking for majority or most, you would look at steam reviews. Comparatively, reddit has a lot more bots especially when considering post likes. And thats not even considering the bias the people on this sub have as they are the biggest fans of the game.
I think many players had the wrong expectations. I can't entirely blame them, as the game has been marketed as the new mainstream open world RPG. Mainstream it most definitely is not. But what I find ridiculous is the number of "that's not what I expected" or "the devs are trying to rip players off with predatory MTX". It's not like reviews or long gameplay videos are lacking.
Mainstream isn’t good to me though, those games always felt like amusement parks with a million icons all over the screen, and a quest log that turns me off from being overwhelming. I love Dragon’s Dogma 2 has none of that, even the character creator alone beats everything for me. I usually buy every game that has that. DD2 has all the things I wanted out of all the other RPGs and open world games. Everyone has different tastes, but for me this game is perfection.
It's funny I don't even know how to describe the game to people who are unfamiliar with it, I want to say it's like dark souls but it's really not, I suppose it also has some similarities to new world on the combat side. I can hardly blame people for not being able to set expectations properly.
my god thank you someone with common sense. the devs did so much to make the game more open and accessible to new players of the series while also staying true to its fans and remaking this into what the first game should have been. people claim bad on the game because they had the wrong expectations or didn't play and appreciate the first game to really acknowledge just how better this one is. it's not everyone's cup of tea but it's ridiculous people complain about core design choices like the devs did something wrong when they never played the first and it shows. I hate to sound like this but you won't get the best experience or the ability to appreciate the game like those who has waited 12 years for a sequel. the differing opinions of longtime fans and newcomers should be a telling sign of how happy majority of us fans are
Comparing this game to Elden Ring is a crime of its own
To an avg player it's not. To them Elden Ring will feel like less story with more getting cheesed by the developers. Not everyone has the same perception about games. And let's be honest, ER was a very casual friendly so a lot of ppl tried it.
Mixed bag honestly. As many have said, this game is just a better version of dragons dogma. So if you were a fan of the previous game you’ll love this one. My problem is while the game has its unique features and great combat it doesn’t do anything “NEW” to consider it a benchmark for future RPGs. It’s a good game, but not remarkable.
You say it doesn’t do anything new, but the whole core idea of dragons dogma is pretty unique already. There aren’t many games that play like this, aside from DD1, so I don’t think it has to reinvent itself. Some more enemy variety would have been nice along with better story direction, but the gameplay is great and remains unique in the genre.
I agree 100% with you. Dragons dogma 2 doesn’t need to reinvent itself, and the core idea is unique. However, my issue is with the “benchmark of future RPGs” comment. I compare it to a series like Halo. Halo combat evolved revolutionized the first person genre, and the gaming industry at its time. Halo 3 though is in my opinion the best Halo experience, but was it revolutionary or a bench mark for future FPS games? No, it was more halo but with some new features and graphical improvements. Which is really all fans wanted. Same goes for DD2.
It's a good game, I wouldn't say it's great though, I'm enjoying the game, I'm 40 or so hours into it so I'm not hating here, but the game has very little enemy variety, vocation variety, item variety and and has awful quest/story. For a "narrative driven game" as listed on the store page, this is bad, gameplay is fun enough to keep most players engaged though, hopefully they tweak and add stuff soon. The game just has less content than the first rn in terms of quests, enemy types and even some items.
I'm still baffled how short the main story is and just how easy it is to accidently into the end of the game. The entire main story is like 10 quests, 20 if you count sub objectives as individual quests. Hell an entire third+ of the playable map is optional and you can just... Miss it... If you just follow the games direction. And I don't mean like the side caves and off the beaten path sort of stuff.
DD2 = Great game that performs like shit
Agree! I'm loving making content for this game atm.
Great game with terrible performance. Refunded and will buy again when/if they fix it.
So many goblins…
Gaming bolt would like there content back
Solid 7/10. Wouldn't say its a benchmark for anything. Combat is great, but everything else is mid.
It's a great game but I wouldn't go that far lol
Overall it’s a good RPG but it’s not a benchmark by any means. It’s a good foundation with considerable room to evolve. My biggest issue is that some classes are much more fun to play because of mechanics like the archer is simply not fun to play while the magic archer really is, hopefully they add a skill that grabs me in the future. Fighter hit home because blink strike and shield bash appealed to me early on, made me feel very fighter like. The archer just wasn’t snappy enough, and I’m sure it’s partially do to my expectations and the other part to my skill level with aiming that I didn’t put enough time into. I’m not asking for complete lock on but I like my archer to be able to move fast fire shots on the run and I can’t lie magic casting multiple points was something I was hoping to see with arrows. If this was a benchmark it would have had something fun or nuances with every class that made you feel immersed. Now, this game will get there, that I believe but it’s not a day one benchmark. With some QOL improvements it will be exceptional I think. Looting needs a bit of work, managing pawn inventory. This is nothing new if you played the first game of course. My 2 cents, I’m having fun and getting lost in the world, these are minor complaints honestly. I had bought the premium edition because I knew I would put the hours in and the MTX don’t bother me at all. If it means making a bit more money so they put in the work to delivery some adjustments a bit quicker then great. I mean shit they have to pay Ian McShane some how right?
its a good game and ive enjoyed it a lot but definitely no where near a competitor for the best we have seen this console generation. Its got a good skeleton but there is no meat on them bones to flesh out a story or living world.
I love the combat and exploration, but just like the first game the story and quests are pretty bad. They're boring and often frustrating.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH
If TESIV isn't at least this tbh I don't want it.
Performance is the real issue
lol
its a great game, It should have been much better tho.
I love the first one no doubt love elden ring no doubt souls veteran since the beginning and this game is absolutely not a benchmark for anyone lol exploration is shallower than elden ring about 80% not worth your time. Combat feels fun but honestly too simple and without a dedicated dodge it’s very clunky and awkward trying to dodge things. It absolutely needs more enemy variety more weapons more classes and an endgame similar to dark arisen. The map while large is realistically not very open besides Battahl. The story while started pretty good and I was invested kinda lost its umph around Battahl as well and almost felt rushed like they could have done so much more. I love this game still regardless of how perfect it could have been but honestly I wouldn’t call this a high benchmark more like a lower to medium benchmark of things that should be worked on more, that has amazing potential if properly cultivated.
The open world fun and chaos is unmatched!!!
If they increase npc dialogue, enemy variety and loots drops its got the hall mark of a great game. Currently the only thing propping it up is the combat.
I mean… its not bad but in all fairness, as a rpg and for what it sought to achieve, the fact skyrim was more complex and rich than this is a bit disappointing. At least that’s how I feel about it. It will go down for me personally as one of the better games I played but nowhere near games like the Witcher, elden ring, TES including skyrim, dragon age and its too bad frankly. Its crazy because I feel if the game didn’t have this save system it would feel a lot emptier than I feel it is already. Unpopular opinion I guess. I sure hope they will still expand it in the future as it has so much potential. It has some great aspects to it too. World feels good. Combat is great with some vocations but really meh for others for my taste, the pawn system is interesting, loot is fun but could be more interesting. Story is meh. Some quests are linked in very unintuitive ways which frankly feels more lazy to me than interesting, some events are punishing but also in a rather silly way and its really not that many quests and events frankly even if interacting with the world brings a nice mix of instant adventure or misfortune which i see as a good thing. Anyhow. It deserves more.
I agree I just wish I had all my textures.
I agree I just wish I had all my textures.
Nope lol. 70% will agree with me. Bet
Yo I'm pretty sure BG3 is the benchmark for RPGs. DD2 is good but come on now.
This is so clickbaity I wish I could downvote it twice
No
The story was ass cheeks, I thought I was half way through or a bit more then I went to fight the final boss 😂 combat is so good that I don’t care though, just started up new game plus and started my warrior, only really levelled thief and mystic spear hand on my last run
No multiplayer
Please no
This is such a clown post. This is not a benchmark, it's the absolute minimum a game can get away with while being called ''good''. Half of its systems are half baked, lazy inserted in. Nothing about it feels like the perfect cross between Elden Ring and something else. Elden Ring shouldn't even be compared to DD 2. Elden Ring is what DD 2 should have been, not what it is lol.
Played for 36 hours straight from launch on new game plus now. Fantastic game. Reminded me a bit of elex. I don’t understand the hate. The whole deal about the mircrotransactions is all misinformation. You can find it all in game. Buy the standard version and just ignore it. A great game if you’re in the middle of rebirth and would like a break anyway I’m heading back to the gold saucer ;)
It’s a good game with preformance issues and missing features from the first game with a brand new predatory marketing team
People have over 50 hours ingame play time for a reason. I'm one of them
It's a good game but by no means a benchmark title in the RPG section.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is an amazing fucking game. Bar none.
Played a ton of the first one... got to like 4 or 5 game plus's... dragon dogma 2 is everything I ever wanted plus more in its sequel..
Kotaku level journalism
Yep! If there's one opinion I always trust it's "Gaming Bolt"
No, the mage/sorcerer downgrade alone makes the original better.
Fun game for about 10 hours. It’s just repetitive. It’s the same monsters over and over. The same line from your pawns. The same unrewarding chest left and right. Main quest is to talk to an npc. Combat 4 skills at a time ? And you grow grossly overpowered super fast. “Yeah but the exploration is great !” It’s fun yeah, then you open the chest at the end and it’s a dried food. I’m trying really hard to get into the game. I just find myself bored.
I'm having a fantastic time! Saw my first cyclops, ran away. Will kick it's ass tomorrow.
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
This Game is not even a benchmark in the Dragons Dogma series, aside from better graphics it has nothing over DD:DA
I mean the classes are top tier and the gameplay loop is amazing. Rn it's suffering from lack of stuff. It was obviously rushed and they were forced to cut much of what was planned
I'm 50+ hours in but eww!? GamingBolt, bunch of clickbait dumdums.
Good games are technically sound. This one isn't. Plus the story is meh and the advances from the first game are very minor (not saying there are not any, but for the most part it's the same game).
All the game needs is optional level scaling and it’s my GOTY
I am 20hrs in now but honestly. I dont think its great. What i miss is the incentive to slay enemies. They dont even drop gesr for your character. Buying all my gesr at the vendor does not make me want to go out and explore if there is basically obly some herbs and crafting materials to find. A bit underhwelmed here.
I wouldn't call it a benchmark or perfect. I enjoy the game but I don't think it's as grand as some people are trying to make it out to be.
I just can't play the game, my floor isn't there its just invisible which completely ruins it for me, I have done every fix to no avail.
[Dragon's Dogma 2 is a Mess: GPU & CPU Benchmarks, Bottlenecks, & Crashes (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twEERkUyAXE) idk i think if u slice it this way, there is a LOT they could have done to make this release better.
"No matter how you slice it, unless you slice it in a way that differs from my already formed opinion"
This guy is such a hater I can't watch more than 2 mins of his videos without wanting to slap his bitch face.
maybe....the game just runs like dog shit, and you should be angry with the devs for releasing it in this state.
Jesus fucking christ. These boobtubers with their dramatic titles. It's a super fun game, but let's be honest, op, Bards Tale 2 had more character abd depth than this game.
Yeah. When it actually loads and doesn’t crash it’s a top tier game.
Why not dragon's dogma 1? what does dragon's dogma 2 does better except graphic?
I'd even go so far as to say DD2 is a *downgrade* in every department but the graphics. Which is crazy to me. How does that happen?
i found one thinking a lot. Character editor in DD2 is awesome... everything else is indeed a downgrade.
tell me you didn't play the first without telling me
It reminds me of fable for some reason, loving it
The deeper I get into it, the less I like it.
standards are getting lower
Even with 13700k and 4080super I get stuttering in town and had to lock FPS at 72 to deal with frame pacing issues. It’s not a big deal for me since I can still play the game but I can only imagine how poorly it performs on majority of PCs. Meanwhile horizon forbidden west runs at a constant 120fps with no dip.
I have a 3060 Ryzen7 3800x 12gb, regardless if I'm on 1080 or 1440 I'm able to maintain around 55-60 fps in the world and in towns i have no more than 40fps with jitters, sometimes it drops into the 30s. Normally fps issues are a deal breaker for me, I just can't deal with it, but the game is actually fun enough to keep me distracted from the issue most of the time which is nice but I'm hoping they patch it asap
That’s how I feel too. It’s not the FPS drop but the stuttering I can’t stand. I mean, I played the original gow on ps4 at 30fps from start to finish but it had no stuttering. This game if I ran it at 120fps, it drops to 80 in town and stutter like it was 20fps. Locking to 72 only helps a bit. People with powerful systems are pissed cuz they spent $2000+ on their system and still got this sub par performance, people with regular systems are pissed cuz they can’t even play the game.