Dragon's Dogma 2 Review - 160 Hours Later, Here's What I Think.
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- Welcome to my Dragon's Dogma 2 Review after 160 Hours. I've been playing and streaming this game non stop since it's release, here's my thoughts after experiencing everything Dragon's Dogma 2 has to offer.
Game provided by Capcom:
/ @dragonsdogma
#dragonsdogma2 #dragonsdogma #actionrpg
Chapters:
0:00 Dragon's Dogma 2 Review
1:08 What is Dragon's Dogma 2
13:48 Launch Controversy, Performance & MTX
21:57 Visuals, Animations & Sound
24:43 Story, Quests & Romance (No Spoilers)
29:45 Pawn System (Companions)
34:10 Vocations & Class Fantasy
36:10 Combat, Balance, Climbing & Challenge
42:44 The Fast Travel Argument
48:07 Dungeon & Monster Variety Problem
56:07 Spoilers - Story, Sphinx & Endgame - Hry
Most games: Quests ARE the game, travel just connects them.
This game: Travel IS the game, quests just provide context.
True, the story/quests seems like it was a second thought.
Wouldn't want to have something different. People are too damn weak for that apparently.. You're all so hivemind. Just followers.
@@Raptchur thats modern online/youtube gaming, everyone just adopts the same opinions about every game. Either all the generic "good" or "bad" points their favorite youtubers are saying.
@@Raptchurjust cause someone doesn’t like something in a game doesn’t mean they’re apart of a hivemind.
yeah but... it's truely incomplete and multiple aspects of the game feel truely rushed, Again, it's good, but could have been really great, Capcom dropped the ball because they didn't allocate budget and only a skeleon crew of a very small team because capcom doesn't believe in this franchise and it showed, did they do a good job with what they had for a limited team ? yeah, but is it good enough ? it's a minimum viable product that had lots of content was stripped out and cut. It's incomplete.
I miss the first few hours of the game as a fighter, when I really struggled against even the goblins, really feel like an adventure
I'll never forget my first night in batahl, felt like a survival horror fantasy game and I loved it. Now nighttime doesn't phase me in the least
@@notimportant8643same. Got my ass handed to me by a army of skeletons at night lol
Hopefully we'll get a hard mode, like last time, with the DLC (which we should get).
I might be spoiled with how much content was in Dark Arisen, but I feel the game (DD2) doesnt have quite the variety of gear or the random loot in chests like DD1. I’m also in need of a hard mode as I’m no longer threatened by anything less than multiple Gore Minotaurs. I’m hoping they do something like Bitter Black in DD1. I need a dungeon full of the worst monsters and a long adventure.
Sounds to me that you are playing the wrong game. Elden Ring should be up your alley.
@@stevendufournot at all, dark arisen proved his point perfectly
Yeah, it's weird how some great ideas from the first game weren't used here. I miss the respawning, randomized chests.
I loved the everfall. Bitter black isle was dope too.
Micros aside, performance aside, I have 130 hours in the game, played all vocations except Trickster, other than testing it; that thing is a meme. I heard somewhere: "DD2 is a flawed masterpiece" and I totally agree. The true and biggest problem with the game is that it is too easy. Magic Archer and Sorcs literally one-shot all and every single boss, including endgame bosses. NG+ does not level scale, and it has no new or stronger monsters. Overall, I think later bosses need more complex mechanics.
- Combat is S tier. Some vocations are slow and will feel really bad at the beginning but will pick up after level 6 (early levels go super fast, level 5 goes in no time). Some "Core skills" tool tips are garbage. I spent the whole game without knowing how to make the charge attack for the bow because the game never told me to press randomly R3 to start the charge, like, what the heck.
- Traveling in the game is great; the limited fast travel in the game is fine. Going around fighting stuff is the game, and it's great. The problems are monster density; you can't walk more than 10 meters without an ambush, and holy crap, is it goblins, bandits, or lizards. There should be more monster variety.
- The game needs a way to not gain XP or lower your level. You over level and power creep yourself by just playing the game; you literally get punished by exploring. You get to a point where you one-shot everything. A good thing about this is that gear doesn't matter at all, so you can just focus on fashion and the best-looking sets, which I have spent a lot of time with. The game is pretty. You should be able to forge/dup armor to make it usable for all vocations, remove the stats or whatever, not that there is anything unique about armors in the game anyway. (Gear should have stats like you find in rings)
- There should be a way to make an instance of your pawn, lock it at a lower level, and to a vocation. Like this, there can be like 6 instances of my pawn for every vocation so people can choose what they need. Because I can't stop getting XP, I'm almost level 80, and for my friend, it is not worth it to pay a thousand RC to hire my pawn... I feel level 40 is the sweet spot for the game; over that is just power creep.
- Coming from BG3... romance is a joke, not that it matters, but it could have mattered more.
- I played only like 10 hours of DD1, but I know the lore and the universe. Holy crap, if you are new, there is absolutely no way for you to know what's going on. There should have been more connection and Easter eggs with DD1.
SPOILER:
- The dragon plague is an amazing idea executed in the absolute worst way. Such a missed opportunity to make a really involved and cool side quest where you don't have your pawn and you play solo with no pawns for a while. They really wanted to make Dragon Plague something important for the story, especially considering the final cinematic where your pawn turns into a black dragon and helps you. Why this dragon is not a fight. This should have been the way to dump a ton of lore and make the story interesting.
- The endgame world is so damn cool. I agree that the world gets "ugly," but all the new paths you now have because there is no water are super cool (should have more dungeons in those areas though). The constant "harder" monsters were great. I was fighting a dragon, and a griffin, and a chimera ambushed me; the MH experience, and it was a great moment. That said... You are rushed in this world; I don't have a problem with it, but the game should have told me, and the quest log should have had the hourglass icon on it. I was taking my time exploring and gathering materials to max-enhance my gear. Boom, a city gets destroyed, and I was planning on getting enhancements from it. You can reset the world save by killing yourself again with the sword, but it was 8 hours of progress gone...
Very good write-up that I agree with. Just wanted to mention that if someone is on your friend list on the same platform, their pawn is free regardless of level.
Yeah, I have 170 hours in the game and I agree with every thing you said, I also feel like this game needs a super dungeon like the everfall or biter black isle
going to chime in just to mention that trickster is definitely not just a meme, you can do some funny shit, but even if your just playing as a support its completely broken. I put on the MA augments to boost pawns, the rings that buff pawns when you revive them and the trickster buff smoke and i was destroying post game, all i had to do was manage the aggro. I can see it getting even crazier with warfare if you weave in the mage's buffs and/or the magick archer's revive and vim arrows
This is exactly how I feel. Now I dont have to type all this out so thank you lol
If this game has issues and it does mtx is the very least of them and if all the people outraged over them had played the game first they would know that.
Bro wolves have never ran a train on me like they do to you lmao
Dude by the end of my last dd1 playthrough i just totally gave in and said that the Arisen is just in love with working class dudes so they always fall for the blacksmith because hes a blue collar chad.
The little things like collisions on monsters after they die is something I really like. The first time i killed an ogre it slumped against the wall in a sitting position instead of clipping through the wall.
I knocked a harpy out of the air and landed below and as the harpy fell, it knocked me out when colliding. shit was hilarious.
I don't get how is it possible for the dev team to have made DD 10 years ago and not make a way better experience with this one. The BIGGEST problem is that the game encourages exploration, but when you actually start exploring this happens
1. You find very few armor / weapons which are better that what you have or you can buy from a vendor. Which is a HUGE HUGE FLAW! Capcom, listen to me! If you want to encourage the player to explore, fucking make it worth while!!! I kept searching cave after cave after cave and mountain top after mountain top hoping and being excited for finding some new gratsword or cool armor for my warrior...and nothing. Disappointment after disappointment until I gave up. There are like 3, 4 interesting / good weapons to be found for a warrior, in the entire game! The rest, you buy.
2. In Battahl especially, you are constantly fighting stupid orcs, harpies, wolves, skeletons, like man...is that a real place where people and beastren live or is it a fucking monster fest? Who is your QA?? Have you never ever wandered how stupid it is that the player needs to have these stupid petty repetitive fights with stupid petty enemies ALL THE FUCKING TIME?? How did you miss this?? There is no sense of adventure, no anxiety, no fear, just stupid fucking orcs and harpies that keep coming and I keep killing them.
Please Capcom, listen to me, learn...do you know what makes for a great expericene? ANTICIPATION. Walking through the world, exploring...hearing the birds sing, meeting other people, patrols, and then walking on a side little road that seems to lead somewhere interesting and then silence, something is wrong, no animals, no birds, too silent. Then you get ambushed by a hoard of monsters or some big monster of both! Then you fight for your life!
ANTICIPATION CAPCOM! NOTE THIS DOWN! Exploring the world and realising that night is coming and there is where all the biggest dangers come to life. Being afraid because you don't know what's out there! Going on some unbeaten path through ravaged villages, following the tracks of some unknown beast you need to find and kill. Beast being illusive, luring you into a place where it can attack, watching you, stalking you!
Have you not played the STALKER, METRO? Have you not felt the fear of going out at night, with monsters sounding in the distance, knowing a chimera could be hiding, watching you? The best part of those games was the atmosphere, the sense of danger, the possibility of being attacked, not knowing when, how, what will come after you next. This is what you could have made, a real masterpiece.
What you did with this game is that you "normalized" the danger, which means it no longer feels dangerous. I keep killing everything, is like nothing, just annoying. Another fucking gonblin, wolf, harpie, saurian just wasting my time. It's tedious, boring, unfullfilling, repetitive. How the hell did you missed this?
I agree with most of the criticism, I just think you were too lenient in your critique of the story. I would say the story in Dragon's Dogma 2 is poor, rating it 2/10 with or without prior knowledge of the first game. And I can't soften my opinion with the hope that the story will be improved with DLC.
Idk it's one of those we buy the game knowing story isn't good. like he mentioned it worked the same as the first, a means to an end rather then immersing the player with cutscenes and story plot it's really your arisen, kill things and when you think your ready go kill dragon. I mean that really speaks for itself so if anything people complaining about the story saying 1 is better it's just weird when if anything it's objectively worse due to not having CGI cutscenes like this one. It had way more plot holes than people think that's why it's memeble so it makes zero sense anyone would claim story matters when it obviously didn't in the first and nobody had issues. but now it's not story heavy and people complain
Scaling enemies is one of the seven deadly sins of game design.
It's weird :) Skyrim did this, the game sucks. Elden Ring and DD2 didn't, everyone why aren't there enemies scaling.
It does take place after the first game, Gran Soren is the Seafloor Shrine.
I just learned yesterday that Dd2 has the least amount of people in the credits than all the last Capcom games. If that is true, it explains a lot about the shortcomings that we all had problems with
I think I read somewhere that they only had 392 people work on the game
Seems capcom still doesnt have much faith in the ip if thats true. Itsuno did have to basically beg them to let him make the first game afterall.
It's a budget title people want to keep acting as though it's not but it is and that's just fine.
@SENATORPAIN1 the game is amazing don't get me wrong, I'm waiting for that DLC like a madman
Good grief Control was made with 60 people, Outward with a dozen people. Elden Ring and Armored Core had 300 total between both games. 400 people makes this a AAA game with bigger studio size than Starfield. You guys are acting like it's an indie title lmao!
One of the big things I wish they would have included is the ability to officially play as more races since Elves and Dwarves are in the game. It is nice we can have the aesthetic of elves and dwarves for our characters, but unless we are addressed as such, our character is still just a human. (unless you play a beastman, but even they are basically just humans that look like cats)
They could easily fix every issue I have with this game by adding a DLC akin to Dark arisen from DD1, that DLC added hardmode, many new monsters, a huge new dungeon with replayability through the bitterblack system. Although I hope this time they add more skills to each vocation because it feels a little lacking, maybe even more vocations too would be perfect.
This is what I'm hoping for.
Are you implying that they can fix it by charging more money for extra content?
@@johnhuddleston1986 I have more than 120 hours in this game im happy with the game, I got my moneys worth.
I think alot of people had way too high expectations, that it would have the same amount of stuff DD1 has, but DD1 didnt come with the Dark Arisen DLC, they made that a while after the game was out. So its unfair to compare the two.
Secondly, even if Itsuno wanted to develop the game for maybe another year or 2 to add more content before release, Capcom probably didnt allow it, I assume they set a 5 year deadline and thats that. Making it a DLC/Expansion atleast allows them to continue working on it.
I find myself wanting to play DD1 again every now and then... But just the Bitter Black Isle portion. The story in the main campaign was awful imo... And the mysterious, less comprehensive narrative in the Ilse somehow felt way better.
@ultramarine2675 I just started a day ago so I guess I will see after completion. Once I acquired some skills for my fighter the fun picked up.
A ring that stops exp gain would be great. Loving fighting the monsters but you just get too strong and your pawn stops getting hired.
If you are on PC there is a mod like that
Once people stop hiring, capcom fake accounts start hiring.
@@deadcaptainjames6045 yeah get the custom difficulty mods, and will have fun playing again !
I was having so much fun tooling around the world because it was brutal and it felt like an adventure and next thing I knew I was level 30 and nothing was a threat. I was so sad.
yup the game is perfect difficulty around lvl 35-40, if you could stop xp gain and just get dcp it would be very good. Silence is King in this game.
What’s with getting 8 million wakestone shards as rewards? I’m at the very endgame and have used 2 and have like 20 wake stones sitting in storage lol… the rewards were also kinda lackluster. Especially since most weapons you can just go get at a store before finding it…
I'm still playing through the game, there's so much I love about it, but my biggest complaint is how narrow the travel paths are. In DD1 I loved going off-road and making my own path. I could either beeline for a destination OR go out of my way to fight everything. In DD2 I know that no matter what direction I go, I'm going to have a small monster encounter every 60 seconds because that's just how the roads are.
My personal thoughts on the game (coming from someone who never played Dragon's Dogma 1), I finished it in 82 hours, no rush
>The story is just "Okay"
>Combat is cool, but very easy once you understand how it works
>The Pawn System was, in my opinion, the highlight of the game, ranging from helping you recover your Stamina when it runs out to saving you from a fall that would kill you and helping you explore the world based on what the Pawn learned from others makes the exploration very organic, I was really surprised and liked it a lot
>But personally, I found the rewards for exploring the world TERRIBLE, I expected to find some interesting weapons and armor in chests that were well hidden, but I rarely found any equipment inside a chest, and when I did find them they were worse or THE SAME as the equipment which I had already purchased from the vendor in the area, I think the rarest item I managed to find in a chest were Ferrystones, of which I used a total of 7 in the entire game (27 are still stored in the inventory).
>While the highlight of the game is exploration with the Pawns, I see no reason to explore the game
>This is the only game where I thought they put too many enemies on a map, I walked around for 30 seconds and a horde of them appeared, maybe the lack of enemy variety was what made this place so boring, fuck Battahln
I still enjoyed the experience, my personal rating: 7/10
Dark Arisen is so much better
@23:23
Bro the first one was a banger!! Right?!
I don't see why we can't switch to that one as well since we have the option to play the DD:DA ost if you bought the DD2 Music & Sound Collection.
Its not a collection if they left out the OG title screen
Copyright issues.
@@Wariyaka Never thought about that Thanks! And dang... 👍
I've been having loads of fun just exploring the map and finding stuff. Not having quest markers and stuff only makes it more exciting. Personally, my top one was finding the Sphinx, which I really liked. Beside getting to another area by the "alternative" passage because there was a gate in the way.
Also, no big reason to rush to the end of the game. I'm 72 hours in and still haven't got to the endgame, even if I'm getting there. Sure, I'm getting a bit tired of the game but EVERY game past ~60 hours I start to get a bit tired of it. Except for MH. :P
Personally, the story, monsters variety and performance hasn't really impacted how much I've been liking the game. Sure, there's performance issues in the cities which I would like to see fixed but like I said, I've still been liking it.
I also spent 161 hours picking up the platinum and exploring the world. And I’m still not sick of it. Went back and am halfway through replaying Dark Arisen right now. Really makes me want Capcom to bring back Dragon’s Dogma Online and finally bring it to the west. I bet it would kill it in the live service market. Still not sure why we never got it over here back in the day. I think it lasted for like 4-5 years in Japan.
Yes, we need that for 2 with all the classes and enemy varieties.
I cant see how how you could still enjoy the world personally. They don't change any of the enemy placement in NG+ And don't even make them any stronger. This game is in dire need of more immersive quests, they really could have done more with the ox carts or smaller settlements. Why couldn't we be even more involved in how towns and villages rebuild? A lot of missed opportunities in this game. Ai in this is is also cack, they flinch for no reason when you save them etc.
I've been trying to play ff7r and granblue relink. And all I can think about is what skills to try and build into warfarer. Loving those games but thinking "I wonder if that spearhand skill would help/synergize with that trickster skill" while cloud rides a chocobo😂.
Same, beat 2 and wanted to go back to dark arisen for a mystic knight run
Very good review, and not just because I agree with pretty much everything you brought up. If you want to start a new game without losing your old save, you should be able to create another Steam account and library share.
The amount of hoops I had to jump through to lock in Julien in the first game! I managed to bag the blond elf who we do the archery thing with. I wanted Sven but got the elf. I didn't like how none of the main male characters we interact with had no romance scenes. That kinda failed. I didn't really like Ulrika so all of a sudden she is smooching my arisen and I was like.....ok. Wilhelmina's quest was good. I just wish some of the guys had romance scenes and quests and at least moved into our home with us! I do love the game and just found out there is a hidden pawn affinity system running in the background with our main pawn....for their ending scene in the true ending. I am absolutely talking to him, high fiving him, taking him for beers and haircuts!
I was so shocked to see the archer dude at the end of the game. Like, all I did was teach him archery and rescue his sister at the start of the game. 60 hours with 0 contact and somehow he's my beloved or whatever
It's more like he has a one sided crush on you rather than being your beloved. It's cool that he uses whatever bow you give him though.
Im not really sad there are no romance scenes with dudes.
@@MikeRavia-xp5ig What an incredibly brave take for a presumably heterosexual guy to have. I salute you sir.
So many people have said this game lacks handholding for quests... no, the quests are broken and underdeveloped.
Elden rings quests lack handholding, and allow for multiple ways to discover or randomly uncover the completion.
Dragons dogma 2 does not, you either complete it the way the intended, or it breaks, but they also dont specify, or even imply, the apporiate way to complete a quest.
You know you need to go somehwere specific to complete a quest? Good, make sure you go in through the right entrance or oops the quest breaks because you didnt hit the interaction zone that triggers the AI system built over 15 years ago...
I am so tired of people ignoring that not everyone has 60+ hours a week to run around this game. If you don't like fast travel, just don't use it! You don't have to use escalators or elevators in malls either, but loads of people do, because it saves them a limited resource, time. Same thing here. Feel free to walk around the mall all day, I only have an hour before I have to to sleep for my next shift, so I'm going to mod the game to add some basic conveniences to the game.
100% agree. For example, I rarely used fast travel in AC Odyssey. However, I didn’t mind it being there for the times I wanted to use it from time to time. JUST IGNORE IT!! With DD2, I ran out of gas because I got tired of running all over the damn map 🙄
Tbh it was very fun for the first 20 Hours but the constant traveling and the encounters become boring real fast.
I have to agree with your sentiments about the fast traveling around when you were doing the Sphinx riddles. I felt the same way while I was going for the true ending and was using ferrystones to travel to the cities to have them evacuate.
I died a few times in the very beginning. Aside from that I agree. So many items and next to no need for them
I play Skyrim on survival legendary difficulty with no HUD.
With that being said, I fuckin LOVE this game, and I never played the first one.
Thanks for your final thoughts on the game. I myself am only about 80 hours in on my first playthrough and many of the criticisms and praises you give are indeed valid and warranted.
As I've been ranking up every vocation as I travel, probably the biggest criticism I personally have is related to having to purchase inclinations for pawns to change them instead of just switching if you have already unlocked them. My kindhearted pawn got huge praise as an archer, but when they became a warrior, it was like someone hit them with a stupid spell and they kept running around. I know they are cheap and easy to purchase, but I'd rather use rift crystals on other things. Granted, this will be a moot point once I level up every vocation for them and go back to archer, but it would be nice. Same for woodland wordsmith, forger, etc. Minor nitpick, but worth mentioning.
Besides that, I am indeed having a blast.
This game is not for me. No disrespect, but I find it obtuse and boring. It’s not hard, it’s just purposefully getting in your way. I have no problem when what’s getting in your way is fun like a boss, but in my opinion the challenge here lies in kicking you when you’re down. (I didn’t know that all three of my pawns were going to walk off a cliff and then get attacked by 3 large enemies simultaneously and the game quicksave in the middle of that fight then force me to reload 2 hours of gameplay back to an inn. 😂) You’re competing against the games systems - not competing against the game. The pawn system is probably the only thing I commend in this game and is actually doing something new and different. The other 85% of the game is fine, not good, not bad, just fine. When playing it I find myself daydreaming of Elden Ring, Monster Hunter, Tears of the kingdom, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, Red dead redemption 2 etc. all signs this is just mediocre for me. If it’s for you, it’s for you and I’m happy you’re enjoying it.
Vocations are awesome too. I do like that it feels like playing a new game every time you switch. Akin to monster hunter and its diversity of weapons
Eini ended up being the NPC the dragon captured at the end of my playthrough even after I did Ulrika's questline lmao
One monster that was in DD1 that I really missed in DD2 was the hydras. I really enjoyed the mechanics of the hydra fights in DD1 with the multiple heads and their potential fast strikes. It was a fun monster that I wish they had kept in DD2.
Though I did try the first Dragon's Dogma I didn't get very far. This time I settled in the let myself experience the game and I now have nearly 200 hours and just completed my first play through. Immediately started NG+ because I just wasn't done. The sense of adventure in this game is world class. There is nothing else out there like it. It definitely has its flaws (the story, the non-pawn npcs are boring, and the performance) but what a masterpiece. I had completely soured on open world games - the endless and repetitive tasks, the feeling that I was just completing a checklist and wondering why I was doing it, I was ready to write them off completely. I went in Dragon's Dogma apprehensively, but my friend who loved the originally kept telling me this one was different and I am so very thankful I did.
I went back to DD1 and I still the combat is way more fun. Moreover, there are more monster variety. Like the cockatrice, and the Bitterblack isle is so good. I am doing it in hard mode.
People in the comments complaining about the difficulty getting easy later on seem to forget that's exactly how it was in the first game, even on hard mode the game got easy by the mid point. You shouldn't have been expecting soulsborne difficulty.
I agree but it's not wrong to expect hard mode on release. it would have at the very least held over difficulty issues until dlc, or just make leveling not as quick. I remember it taking forever just to reach lv 200 because after lv 150 it stagnated so bad you had to really grind for those last 50 levels. but it's not something I personally think is worth complaints until dlc. If the game is still this easy come dlc then there's a problem lol
The lack of fast travel wasn’t an issue for me it’s the lack of traversal options - after a while just being on foot got tiring to me especially since you’re going to run through some of the same areas for different quests and the lack of enemy variety doesn’t help. Being a medieval fantasy game they could have got creative with the different classes/vocations like different types of mounts or traversal options to change it up a little it would have really opened up the world.
The Bhattal system with pullies/levers should have been instant travel, instead it is WORSE than running.
oxcarts were very handy
I completely agree, my only issue was just the constant walking as well. I think they way that system could work is if it's a part of the pawn system. Have a mount at the sacrifice of having only you main pawn, so that both of you can ride. You sacrifice your offensive capabilities with traversal speed.
@@deerlow1851 I had 5 of the 6 oxcarts (not counting the tutorial one with the goblins) I tried riding on my first run be broken on the first few moments of the fight or by random griffin. The only one time it didn't break it was because I didn't get attacked.
It was painful.
@@justanotherLunny The oxcarts respawn. To avoid them breaking u gotta lure the fight away from the cart if possible
I agree with you 😅
Thank you for review and have good days 🍻
Loving the game so far! Only issue on my side on ps5 i’ve been unable to connect with the network to enjoy the pawn system. Was working until 5days ago i’ve tried everything and reinstalled the game doesn’t work :(
what did you think of enemy density.
i loved exploring and actually traveling places but i could only care about goblin and wolf hordes so many times. I feel like enemy density in many places made the issues of variety, overleveling and "exhausting" travel so much more noticeable .
it's like helldivers, you always have the choice to just run past enemies which is a better way to go than possibly having too few encounters.
@@justice4g idk about anyone else but literally though, most of the flipping time i'm booking it past and gathering up a small army of enemies -_-
@@-404notfound-74 if you have teeny legs like this guy I could see that happening but they don't even seem to try to pursue me.
The forgotten art of letting the player breathe. Lords of the fallen had the same issue.
I wouldn't mind it if there was more range in density.
The desert is definitely more dense, like holy hell.. it's why they have cable cars and don't use ox carts, makes sense world wise.
I would like to see less monsters or weaker monsters closer to town and stronger monster the more into the unknown you go.
Like there being a Cyclops right over the west bridge in Vermound don't make too much sense to me lol.
the resting mechanic basically doesn't matter if you have the explorer camping set
I don't have this game but for the first game you can make up to 4or 5 additional steam accounts and enable family sharing and hav more savs that way?
The issue with the system in the game as it pertains to fast travel is the fact that you have to report back in and that sucks. Every time you finish a mission you have to run cross country just to tell this person and then continuously do that over and over. It would have been ok it they just let the mission complete without having to turn every one in unless needed. At first it was cool and then it become tedious.
I absolutely agree on traveling being important, having to prepare, plan the route and so on is great but the problem is enemies stop scalling early, and once that happens and that traveling tension is gone all you are left with is waiting on stamina for more sprinting.
Should it scale better to remain challenging - and to retain the feeling of being rewarded for mastering the game mechanics, gearing the character. It only works if the content is challenging. And with better monster variety, more unique bosses and more random, vastly different monsters in the areas each time they respawn this game would sustain the intented fantasy, but sadly for me it runs out of possible permutations around 30h in. There is a huge stretch of samey content before Unmoored world. Elden Ring had similar problem, but it only started running out of tricks around 150h for me, meanwhile DG2 started getting repetitiive around 35h in.
Micro transactions are the absolute least of this games problems.if people had of played the game first before bitching about it they would know.
Seriously dude. What sucks is that people’s legitimate concerns are drowned out by the bitching of micro transactions.
@@yourehorrible8082the microtransactions are a legitimate concern. both the performance and microtransactions are valid criticisms
No, microtransactions are absolutely a big problem.
They should not exist at all.
@@benito1620 there's nothing wrong with them.wouldnt have even known the game had them if not for the discourse.
@@benito1620micro-transactions are a problem in general yes…but this game isn’t the right game to pick that fight with. The micro-transactions you can get in DD2 are literally fucking worthless, everything you can buy can be gotten in game very easily and pretty early on if you just explore. If you’re playing the game “correctly” you won’t even consider the possibility of buying anything.
This is the game where if you buy any micro-transaction you’re genuinely r€tarded.
You wanna pick the micro-transaction fight? Go over to any game where pay to win is an actual thing. Or bitch about CoD skins being literally half the games selling price. Go fight a battle where it actually matters, instead of trying to tank a game off its non-issues when it has other REAL issues.
I wish the enemy encounters were just a tad more spread out instead of being every other 6sec to 20 sec. Wouldve been neat of there some lovely theme songs playing in places of importance. and would love if they added in a actual dlc the old armor variety system. Loved the Review Ruri and loved the game
My only big frame drop was when i was fighting a griffin, got ambushed by some raiders, some goblins, and then a golem decided he wanted to get involved. Being yeeted by the golem spanking was surprising, frame drops, were understandable.
Had a blast with this game. About to finish endgame after watching this. Hard agree on the scaling though. I don't want to play vocations that I have less fun with to kneecap myself enough for a challenge. Thief's Meister skill making them completely invincible if you can handle basic stamina management is also just goofy.
Thanks for your thoughts! What did you think of the Trickster? I'm 1/3 of the way through Battahl and pondering whether I should give it a go before Magick Archer but, while the concept does look interesting, I'm not sure I can justify funky, potentially janky illusion gameplay that requires long setup times instead of dealing (large amounts of) damage.
I agree with the scaling. I don't mind that enemies don't scale. I love the fantasy of destroying esrly game mobs after becoming stronger. However, leveling up is WAY too fast. I explore a bit and suddenly I'm already overpowered. This is especially true for a DD veteran (I never died against an enemy in this game; only from out-of-combat falls). I wished the leveling was much slower.
NG+ definitely doesn't scale in my experience. With a lack of hard mode, I had to use a mod to make enemies tougher without making them too spongey.
Hey, how do you feel about most of the best loot being in shops?
I'm making a mod now that moves over 130 items from the shops and places them out into the world, and I'm wondering what you're opinion is on shop loot.
Would be amazing if you would try the mod too!
PLEASE link me when it´s over. shop loot is so fucking stupid
Exploration in this game is amazing! The landscapes are hella beautiful, combat/skills are 10/10.. only thing lacking is the questing.. 7/10.. the other two make up for it though 💪🏼
Sphinx , how many quests : getting there counts as a riddle , running away : you just need to pay attention to the quest and notice you cant hit her chest and head.
If you'd asked me my opinion of this game when I was 50 hours in and still in Vermund I would've told you this was one of the best games I'd ever played. But man do things go downhill when you get to Battahl. The story, literally and figuratively, goes south after the coronation and the enemy variety problem hits then too as mobs get even more dense. I still loved the hell out of stuff like the Talos battle, and entering the true endgame, but I really wanted a comfy dungeon crawl loop at the end like the Everfall in the first game. The changes to the world and seeing it without the brine was cool af, but then the suddenness of the true ending and the ambiguity it brought with the dragonplague was intriguing, but even briefer than the first game. It's so frustrating because this game is only missing a little connective tissue that would've made it a goat. I'd still give it an 8/10 though because those first 50 hours were a joy.
I think the main issue is that they called this game DD2 is they were more honest and said... this is a remake wait and see how we improve of this. People would be more forgiving as this game was defo rushed. The core game like dd1 is amazing but since then we've have elden ring and witcher3 which have really set the bar.
Imagine is they took inspiration from w3 and added quest board sin each town. Would have really added more the the exploration
I couldn't wait to get out of Vermund and am enjoying it more now but I don't even pay attention to the story
The story is that I rode a griffin across the map to its nest to petrify it with the head I cut off of medusa because an npc quest dialogue I heard 6 hours before made me think it was a good idea 😂
They knew about Arisen. The whole kingdom of men is for the Arisen. So the lore must been there at start. It was DD1 that had the lore from since there was an Arisen before the main character became on. The actual king was an former Arisen in DD1, so they should have known about the whole concept in DD1.
Asking for clarification, but by “actual king” in DD1, do you mean not the Duke in DD1, who was an Arisen, but by implication by his title, the king we do not meet that he was a duke under?
This is a parallel world sir!
@@DANCERcow It's not
@@withoutwarmthif you, you know
In DD1 its made cery clear the arisen and the dragon are part of a cycle that has repeated for ages and even the active "god" of the world is a former arisen, as well as the duke who lies about his victory. The arisen is a known quantity in both worlds, the actual surprise is the truth behind the cycle
Curious for anyone playing on console (not sure if this is a problem for PC) but more often than not, when ever the game autosaves, it brings down the resolution and pixels in the game. Like all the textures in the environment won’t load in. I’m on Xbox Series S, and I have to press the center button to get into the mini menu, then exit out just so that red save ring goes away and for everything in the environment to pixelize again… hope isn’t confusing, but was just wondering if this is happening to anyone else and if there’s a way to fix it?
Play on ps5 and I've never had this issue personally. Maybe check the subreddit and see if anyone else is asking about it
The final fight with the Dragon was just a basic fight and was way too easy as well.
The selling point for me that I was in a different kind of game: I'm a thief and my party had 2 mages and a tank. I'm walking through a canyon and look at a nice vista to admire when I suddenly hear singing. I try to find where it's coming from and these harpies swoop on top of us and put us to sleep. They then proceed to pick us up. I'm still trying to get over the fact NPCs put me to sleep when I see one harpy drop my tank pawn off the cliff. Killing him. Quickly turning into an oh shit moment I start pressing every single button on my controller and manage to break free. I have a rope dart thing so I chuck it at one of the other harpies to try and free my mage. The harpy originally carrying me swoops after me and I side stepped out of the way . The mage I freed I see flying..FLYING by me and starts sunmoning lightning on that last pawn. Then that last mage gets up levitates and starts shooting ice crystals. We ended up killing the harpies. Rip to Upper the pawn though.
This was after about 10 hours of gameplay so far. This game is insane
Most seem to think that DD1 or even DA>DD2 is most area's and I tend to agree. Especially when it comes to music.
Wish we got memorable quests like defending a town from a large scale attack or helping them prepare for it, or like in the first game where you liberate a fortress from Goblins...iquests here are more or less talk to people in correct order or escort an npc to this location.
had fornival as my romance in the first game since i completed his questline and purchased tons of piligrim's charm 💀
😭
Reaching the unmoored world was a peak gaming moment for me
Until you find out you can’t reset the enemy’s and eventually your forced to go to NG+ which doesn’t reward you like the first game
yeah but... it's truely incomplete an aspect of the game feel truely rushed, again, they didn't had budget and very small team because capcom doesn't believe in this franchise and it showed, but did they do a good job with what they had for a limited team ? yeah, but is it good enough ? it's a minimum viable product that had lots of content stripped out and cut. It's incomplete.
@@Tigerhearty they had a bigger budget than they did for dragons dogma 1 they could’ve just made a smaller map and just gave it more content and more enemies, and better story but above or else better endgame content you know like you said they were given a budget and just like what they did with the first game it looks like they went over budget and failed to add the extra content that they should’ve could’ve if they would have made a smaller map I feel like they should just remade dragons dogma 1 but with a bigger budget that they had now instead of trying to make pretty much a whole new game they could’ve updated dragon dogma1 mechanics, graphics added extra stuff and I feel like that would’ve been better
I think this game will be a solid 9 or 10 in a few years after all the updates and dlc much like its predecessor. It's a shame that there are still some areas that don't feel completely realized even though this was supposed to be the game the DD creative team wanted to make 12 years ago.
So far my only disappointment is having only four skills per vocation. It's bad enough having only one weapon but only getting four skills feels very limiting especially for my mage main pawn.
Is it true to say that some maister skills are locked behind quests? So far that has been my major issue. Personally I am totally supportive of the journey behind more important than the destination, but the game is designed around you REACHING the destination in order for you to obtain "highest level upgrades" that are otherwise unreachable. That pretty much runs counter to the philosophy.
I love this game, lots of things feel natural. I enjoy exploring and soloing bosses. I leave my pawn across the map.
Great video, truly glad to have found your channel at the time of scrolling for DD2 before release.
I do recommend trying Custom Difficulty Tweaks mod to play around with combat in NG+. Lets you tweak the game hoe'ver you like, have ye grown overpowered.
It doesn't need to be Fromsoft levels of difficulty, but they really need to add Fromsoft difficulty level dungeons and bosses. Thats my only gripe. Performance is fine for me since on Xbox its stable 30 most times after the recent update, and when it dips slightly below, the Xbox VRR makes it unnoticeable
You are spot on about the fast travel. It's fine. A little more enemy variety and 2 or 3 more portable port crystals would be welcome tho. Your points about monster and dungeon diversity and scaling are also absolutely spot on.
If two or three more portable port crystals would be welcomed, then the fast travel isn’t “fine.”
Game runs pretty good on xbox now since setting to max 30
"If you think the game is wasting your time, don't play it"
Well, I just dropped 80 bucks.
Question. Did anyone get a bug on PS5 that causes the game to stutter and moving the camera makes the game freeze for a bit?
The first time I got it I just loaded a save from an inn and that seemed to fix it, but now it persists even after I loaded from an inn. I just don't know what to do.
Bug? It's called terrible performance
Nope
If the game is too easy, is it possible to only have you and your main pawn (so youre 2 people) to make it harder?
Or even olay it alone without pawns? Or do you get staggered every 1 second til you die if youre not 4 party members?
You can have just your pawn, or you can throw your pawn into the brine and roll solo 😂. You will struggle with that on certain classes though yeah
I played through with just my pawn and I preferred it. Some vocation combos with your pawn will be harder or easier. I played warrior with a sorcerer pawn and it worked well
It depends, if you play warfarer you can still steamroll most encounters solo without any pawns though in fairness you only unlock that towards the end of the game anyway
I tend to not use the best weapons only the most fashionable ones. Then hire a low level mage with no attack skills. Then a level 17ish third pawn. You help someone else's pawns gain a bunch of knowledge about stuff they'll experience later and they won't melt the shit out of everything in 12 seconds.
Trying to focus on your points, Ruri, but all I can think of at 21:15 is WEEEE!!😂
Great game in the TES vein, like the TES games it has its ups and downs but I really enjoyed how it would create this feeling of setting out on adventures and ending up in wild places. Also all vocations feel good to play imo, even if I have little interest in some. The use of animation and physics is phenomenal to put you in the world. I want more rpgs to take this much care with that, it's just amazing to weave through terrain and settlements and crowds.
Would say other than the launch controversies, the downsides for me is that the story team was given about one page to write the story, so even if it's actually got some cool moments it's just not enough. Even for the type of game it's light imo. The other one is that the whole dynamic with new game and saves etc, I don't really know if it's warranted. I've ran into the "issue" that there is a ng+ system but there's 0 reason for me to play it, I am just too overpowered, and I also can't start a new game without losing my save unless I move files around and catalogue them. Imo this is also just something that deters from the game, the way it is now.
I find managing Portcrystals and Ferrystones quite frustrating and I have unlimited patience, so I can't imagine what it's like for less patient players. There are several fairly long and linear stretches of road or path which must be travelled repeatedly as you quest back and forth, particularly between the North and Battahal. I try to think of it as an opportunity to rank vocations but the journey is still very repetitive and tedious when you have already picked over the area with a fine tooth comb once.
And I know the Devs didn't have it in mind but I would play a multiplayer version of this game for 1000 hours.. Coop and online. I think not much would have to be changed to make it workable, you could play 2 player coop with a friend taking your main pawn very easily. Maybe Capcom could do a Dragons Dogma Online 2?
so what you’re saying is you want a completely different game. god forbid a game do ANYTHING different. every game needs to be tailored to me by being the exact same copy pasted shit that a million other games do
That's.. Not what I said at all.
I said I think the way fast travel works could be frustrating for some players, and I think a multiplayer option would have been cool.
I am gonna pick it up on a sale as I have a few concerns, but well done review I will definitely play it eventually.
I just passed 100 hrs. this game completely took me by surprise (never played the first one). no end in sight, really taking my time!
They do have original music from first game. Change settings on starting menu settings gives u old soundtrack
No the game did count right with the Sphinx riddle. There is one you "actively" solve but don't at the same time and that one can trip people up with that specific riddle. Also the Eternal Wakestone isn't really the most important reward, it's getting her to dupe a portcrystal especially if you are early on and maybe only have one.
Maaan Caxton scarred me for life. I'm still having visions of the campfire scene.
I'm obsessed by this game. It feels like a D&D session, and with mods it gets even better.
To be fair you can make your own difficulty, you can just not use extra pawns. You can even try doing it solo.
Wasn’t dark arisen basically them adding a new game plus and making it harder in dragons dogma 1? If so maybe we will get something like that for DD2
Horses would have been a good balance for fast travel. I can go clear a route, take an ox cart along that same route, the next day, and the cart gets attacked. 8 out of 10 ten times, the cart gets attacked. And if a griffin, ogre etc hits that cart, it gets detroyed. A simple horse would help make a lot of difference.
24:23 What is that weird box?!? 😱
52:20 I don't think the game need more monster's type.
The game have enough obstacles (monster) to entertain you without distracting you from the main objective.
I think the game was well-thought, not like any other souls games.
54:40 Dude! That's the point of the whole game! To be so powerful to even defeat the Gods!
What has you been playing? The NG+ is what make this game awesome! ❤
I wouldnt mind if DD gets like zelda where each game is pretty much a different iteration of the same events
I don’t get why people want an open world and then just fast travel from point to point. Open worlds should be part of the game, not just optional scenery that’s inconvenient most of the time
Idk. I'd like to fast travel from city to city and then leave the city and wander around. Porting back to the previous city but have like a 1 hour cool down would be nice.
The game was amazing. In terms of difficulty that varies depending on the person. Most gamers these days understand the mechanics here and how to go about it, it's not meant to be a souls like experience but so many souls players came into this game not realizing they have experience with this sort of combat. There was people even saying Elden Ring was to easy. This isn't meant to be that and I'm sure even Hard mode won't pose much of a challenge for those individuals. That aside combat is really fun just like DD1, Quest are weak also like DD1 tbf I went into this simply expecting fun gameplay and interesting monsters which sadly on that last part we didn't get much of, I feel like vanilla DD1 had more monsters including the variations so I am disappointed in that. Biggest thing they could do for this game is adding a better fps option and an expansion introducing a new area, new monsters and new vocations. That would be a massive improvement for this title
I think the main issue is the past games had a hard mode, this would have made a. lot of the complaints much easier to deal with tbh. Are they saving hard mode for the dd2 expansion?
I also think they should not be given a pass on the quests, this game is dd2. Not a remake. They should have the same variety of quests of other open world rpg games. How hard would it have been to add quest boards in each town to check? These could have also meant upgrading towns after they were destroyed by dragons etc.
@@ed61730 I would jump for joy at a freaking quest board tbh, I'm not even that far in and I'm already at the point where I'm like "k......now what? :/"
I don't wanna go around beating up enemies to fill the gap, I already run past most of them if I can help it
What is this retarded take i keep seeing that finding the game too easy means "it wasn't souls difficulty". The game is too easy as in its a problem how easy it is. If the game is so easy its boring, its beyond a point. I literally did not die a single time in combat in the entire game. Not even close. I'm not even super good at games. There's just no challenge. Albeit the combat was at least fun for the first 10 hours. But its become such a mind numbing repetitive cycle of fighting the same group of 5 enemies, that I dont want to take another step in that hell world again. One of the most boring games I've ever played.
Guilty as charged. "Masterworks all, can't go wrong."
Can they really not add a % health or damage modifier for the new game plus? That can be coded in over night.
I enjoyed the game and got a good 40 hours before I started feeling the drag. Overall, DDDA felt more fleshed out.. which is saying a lot. Dragons Dogma was one of my favorite games, and I tore through it top to bottom. A lot of little things, and some big, were left behind for the sequel that just kinda ruined the experience later in the game. One thing I will say is DD2 made me want to play Outward so badly I went and sunk 60 hours into a new Outward playthrough. I'll go back to DD2, I'm sure, but for now, I am gonna need some patches/balancing/updates before I do.
Honestly I am you right now
To be fair dark arisen was the expansion a year later, vanilla DD had less content than DD2 launched with. Though I did prefer its endgame, despite everfall save scumming being buns
@@feircy It came out 11 years ago. DD2 has had the time. There is nothing to be "fair" about, imo.
@@telkaivokalma DD2 only started in development after DMC5, and unlike DMC5, they didn't do any concept work or any work at all for DD2 before hand, so those 5 years of development is pretty much used to develop the game AND configuring how REengine would work for an open world game.
@telkaivokalma the game was not in development for 11 years. By that logic elder scrolls 6 has been in development for 13. DD1 was a passion project itsuno had to basically beg to get made, and he agreed to work on dmc5 if he got another personal project, and once again he made DD lol.
I’ve been taking my time with the game, not having progressed far enough to get magic archer which I can’t wait to try out. As a normal archer I accidentally fell into a gryphon nest. My pawns didn’t follow me since the drop was too great so I was in for a fight. It wasn’t easy, but I actually killed it with no pawns. It also felt good because it was my first gryphon kill in the game after being harassed by these things for so long
Question about the water graphics: I'm playing on PC, am I the only one who gets weird water ghosting and resolution? Something is just off about water when you get close. Am I the only one?
I got jumped by three birds when I was alone. I was pissed. Laughed about the next day. 😂
Excellent review
I love this one, like I love the first one, but my big complain comes with the story, too many plots without ends, the story start super strong and end dead flat imo. Thats too bad they did not put more efforts on the scenematic for the main story, like make it epic, that game is epic as it is so it also deserve more love to the story, something more like movie cutscenes, important and close characters being killed on the spot, like may be Capt Brant could have been killed, because Disa discover his treachery, something like the pawn not being allowed at all to walk in Bakbatthal and fiercely push back by its inhabitant, I feel like there was a lot of nice interesting sets up, and no stories or follow up other than npc giving you mind less unrelated quest out of it, or npc talking to you about a certain thing, like pawns are not welcome, but thats it, there is no reprecotion, even though they are staging it as very important since when you arrive in Bakbatthal, you are welcome into a tavern outside the main town, but then can circulate freely in the city without anyone shouting at you or else (except one small event where you have to fight, but its staged and after that, the pawns not welcome does not matter at all... meanwhile your pawn cant enter the castle vicinity in Vernworth for some reason, when they are actually welcome and appreciated in that city... it does not make sense, its like if they wanted to set up a story but end up forgetting about it... having more persecution on pawn would have created a deep felling for pawns, from the players because they are your companions and you care for them, while they are being assaulted by beastren for instance in their city... that is the emotional respond you want from players, just like RDR2 gave us, and what make good stories, good games but DD2 does not it. Its dead flat, the interaction with the hookers are also deadflat, and should be like 2000 gold max, 20 000 is a rip off for the no scene, fading into black as soon as it can because they could not bother.
I like when games are not holding your hands but DD2 is very confusing about it, to a point where you think the quest just started and its already delt with and there is no way to go back to have a better experience and explore fully the stories of some character. Some quest are time sensitive meanwhile others are not, and thats my big issue, if you make this in game, do it good so people understand, for most part its ok, but some of them, put the players into failing situation immediately without any warning. For instance the Thalos and the Hugo quest... On my first play through I completely miss Thalos, because I was very far away when I saw the first cutscene where he gets out of the water, so I decided to go toward where he was heading, my issue is that there are so much creature everywhere, you cant just outrun them, they follow, the more there is the more you get fucked. So you waist time fighting them, to discover that you are right in the middle of the rock maze before getting to the volcanic island and yeah Thalos is already extremely advanced and you wont be able to participate in this quest, giving you another cutscene where he is stopped... I am gonna be honest, I was genuinely extremely disapointed that such a quest was time based rather than staged, lets say you get out of the rock maze, and there is the cutscene where he is getting out of the water and from there you got to reach that point where he is going, that would make it more realistic and set the players to be able to enjoy this very unique boss... nope, too bad if you cant realisticaly get there in time, you should have put a portcrystal, but you know, on your own... that type of thng I dont like, because that means its not well developed. Did they tested, also the player have no ideas how long it takes for the cutscene to rollout, anyway.
The Hugo quest is also bad for this, you get to a point where there is nothing to do but wait because he get silent after telling him something... what you dont know is that he is going to kill someone and escape, meanwhile if you decide to come back a couple of days later because exploring in this game takes a long time, its possible you come back and the quest is already ended without even telling you to not bother and not going to a certain point. What I mean is there is a timer on this one, but not trigger at the right moment. The timer should be set when you comes back to see him in prison. At that point, the guards tell you something and now the timer should start, instead, you come back from 3 to 4 days explorations and the quest is ended, but you are not even aware until you get to a place where you are supposed to go to help him, but you find nothing except bandits waiting there for you, not even Lanzo, not even the bodies of Lanzo or Hugo... but the marker is still there on the map and as player, this is confusing as fuck, because this quest is also known to have a certain number of bugs, is it a bug? Found out its not, when you comes back to Bakbatthal someone stop you and tells you what happened... again, flat out missed on this quest because its timed for one moment, but not for other moments and the game does not discretely tells you. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW HE CAN ESCAPE PRISON! I find it very very disapointing because I like the story, but the story give you a big finger, too bad you should have known in this quest that was not even timed base at first but hey this is it now. Like I am ok with time sensitive quests if they are well built and let planty of clues to the player that its happening... in this case, Capcom should definitely start the timer when you go to the jail and a guard tells you he escaped. But hey you can have the sculptor wait for weeks on the road for him to take a sketch of the griffin and he will still be there waiting for you... Like time matters or not? I dont like it because the Hugo ark is pretty good imo and I wanted to play through it, but hey this game dont offer hard saves options, so if something happen and the game played the story by itself, you cant go back to actually play it. Another thing they could have done for Hugo quest is telling you right when the quest start, that some part might be timed, or I guess the timed icon in the quests menue. So you dont know exactly when it matters but certainly suspect something may happen and therefore you spend less time outside the city and concentrate all of your efforts on the one quest said timed!
Currently got 200+ hours on DD I plan on to keep playing it game is very enjoyable
My biggest issue with the game is the pawn pathing, other than that it was smooth.
I crashed 1 time and never bugged out in my 133h playthrough.
Maxed all vocations as well and fully upgraded my endgame gear.
Warfarer is good, but I wish it was baseline incorporated with the vocations were all vocations can use any armor or weapon they want to.
I wanted to romance Doireann honestly, ended up with Sara as my romance.
Pawns somehow feel dumber than they were in the first game, I'm actually kind of impressed lol
i still think they couldve placed 3 or 4 port crystal at certain locations you could fast travel from with no ferrystones, you can still have that exploration experience but you dont have to worry bout ferry stones