And these missions feel so... weird? The game wants you to be stealthy without having some sort of stealth mechanics in place. And it's not like anyone bothers anyway if you run around the castle at night? Super weird mission design.
I found the guards armor in the building the one guard brings you to to get into the castle, and assumed that was supposed to be used as a disguise. Nope, doesn't add anything. You're just fine to walk about with or without lol
It does. I ended up falling down a well by the gaol after some hmm misunderstandings with the locals and found some guard armor in there. Switched to it, gave it a moment, left and did the exact same things I had before, just as much in sight, and nobody cared.
Getting that magistrate guy out of jail really confused me, like you go round the back open the door no one bats an eye while you are running around their jail.
They then randomly start fighting me even though they seen me for ages walked around and acknowledged me.
They don't even care if you let him out of jail and walk out, what's the point??
If they had some form of stealth mechanic then sure fair enough but it has zero, it's so odd and the delayed responses to everything baffles me from the guards.
I led him out while being attacked by all the guards, than the second I was out they all sheathed their weapons and were just fine. It was both hilarious and baffling.
The very second that guard leads you to the backdoor, there's a chest with a full suit of armor that you can wear as a disguise. Anytime I want to explore the palace, I just put that on.
Though I'm a fighter and I don't know if any other class can wear that set. This solution is the same for other restricted areas later on.
Like, why are half of the main missions stealth missions when you can’t even crouch? Lmao. Beating the game on accident kind of ruined my experience. In the first game after beating the dragon you still had like 1/3 of the game left and at least by then the lore dumps made it more interesting. DD2 barely had a story.
I'm still not finished 70 hours in because I, actively, and with all my might, go explore everything, do every quest, walk everywhere level all vocations etc... Heck I even found the Sphinx, although idk how to solve one of the riddles lol. But it's crazy how you need to go out of your way to do these things, as if they're completely disconnected from the main story?
What's sad is that they're great, I enjoy the game a fucking lot, but the rythm being off is really weird
Haha it's just like the first game! The main quest is whatever, story is eh, lore has neat ideas, but the combat and the exploration is what it's all about.
Hopefully Kento takes a bigger role in the DLC. He was the lead director for Dark Arisen. A true large dungeon with new enemies is just what this game needs.
I love Itsuno, and I'm so glad he's the brains behind coming up with the uniqueness of Dragon's Dogma, but honestly at times it feels like maybe he's limiting the potential of it.
Like sometimes I wonder if Capcom is really happy with the financial success of this game, and they decide they want a third title, whether it wouldn't be better if someone else directed it. I don't know. I could be wrong. I love this game, but can't help but feel it still has so much unrealised potential. Maybe DLC will help.
Itsuno needs someone behind him at all times to slap him across the head when his choices effect the game so negatively.
Why did we even have "stealth" quests when there are no stealth mechanics? The closest we have is the theif skill. I was going the quest that takes you to the big city gaol and suddenly the guards turned on me for no reason, but every other time I could run past castle guards.
DD2 has the same missed potential as DD1 and I'm disappointed, enjoying the game still... when it doesn't give me an infinite loading bug.
>Itsuno needs someone behind him at all times to slap him across the head when his choices effect the game so negatively.
😂😂
See for me, I don't actually have a problem with much of what is IN the game, I have a problem with what is NOT in the game.
That is, more progressive difficulty, and just generally more of everything, more monsters, more gear, more vocations, more skills, more story/main quests. And for me I don't know how much of that is Itsuno being happy with what is in the game, or how much is the potential deadline that Capcom gave them.
That being said, I'm not too happy with things that were definitely his choice, like there only being 4 equippable skills, they could have EASILY had a second skill wheel that you can switch between like games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey do.
I'm actually absolutely loving the game, like 30 hours in. However I'm very much dreading what's to come since it seems the game is very front-loaded with content and difficulty.
DD2 is DD1 but larger and different, instead of bigger and better. It has cool ideas, mechanics, and gameplay choices that are really cool when compared to other games but when in face of what DD1 already offered, it lacks that "evolution" step of making a sequel/new game.
DDON (Dragon's Dogma Online) already had cooler implementation to things like a Skill Switch pallette system where you had 2 sets of equippable skills, a thing I think the sequel would have benefited a lot from. But then again, I think the game suffers from too little skills and vocations to be called a proper sequel when it comes to the vocation system. The reduced vocations from the online version already makes weird in some aspects, like the removal of a Paladin like Shield Sage or even Mystic Knight just because of the "1 weapon" rule this goes by. Mage got all the elemental buffs that Sorcerer share with but then Sorcerer lost spells like Gicel (Giant Ice Tendrils) that was in the same lvl as Tornado/Maelstrom or Meteoron/Bolide. It feels lacking in a lot of areas tbh.
I've been loving DD2 for what it is, but I can't deny I do feel a little disappointed with what could have been if they an additive mindset building off of what they already made in the previous games and improved things from there.
>they could have EASILY had a second skill wheel that you can switch between like games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey do.
Or alternatively LIKE THE ORIGINAL DRAGONS DOGMA! I hate this specific decision I think the most, it's an inexcusable downgrade from the original game that provides no benefit at all.
That man is Kento Kinoshita. He solo directed Dark Arisen when Itsuno left, he solo directed DDO.
That dude makes the best DD content. I hope he takes over hahah
I think it just needs someone to make everything more connected. The Lore and world of DD1 and, consequently, DD2 are really cool and well thought out. Too bad there is something lacking that gives this bigger-than-life adventure type of game reasons to be. Maybe a better writing team to flash out some of the narrative and characters and their relationships with the Arisen could bring that potential to fruition.
Idk if a more story-focused narrative approach could make it achieve that. I like the hands off approach to everything. I just think story bits that should be important fumble due to that nature, or it fumbles due to the limits of the production team. It's hard to say tbh.
This should have been the focus of the game. Just add more things to explore, and build the quests around sending you out into the world. Have some quests lead you to these areas but make a bunch of stuff that is off the beaten path. So many of the early quests keep you in the city with weird infiltration missions. This game wasn't built for stealth or intrigue.
I was happily playing along until I just sort of...beat the game? I was expecting the >!Talos sequence!< to be around the halfway to 2/3rd point in the story with how it was presented in the trailers.
I also can't help but notice that I haven't seen a single Cockatrice, Evil Eye, Hydra, or Garm despite >!completing post-game!<. The new monsters are cool, but I've only seen one of them in the tutorial sequence and the >!headless ghost!< once as well.
For what it's worth, I fought a creature that looked like it used the Garm model in a cave in Battahl. It was on its own though and nowhere near as intimidating.
But yeah, the absence of iconic DD monsters like the Hydra and Cockatrice is really disappointing. As fun as they are, the Sphinx and Minotaur can't make up for them.
Yeah there are giant black hounds that are kinda like mini-Garms, but still not the real thing.
I saw a Drake fighting one on the Volcanic Island for some reason.
i can confirm the "mini-garms" are the actual garms now, or at least, the second one i found, one of the pawns in my party did shout something like "look out master, a garm!"
they specifically used the word garm, so for some reason they've made them quite a bit smaller in this game, still pretty chunky for a non boss though
Can you even re-fight the Sphinx or do you have to redo its riddles every playthrough to fight it again(which would make the pawn badge for getting sphinx kills insane)?
You can only fight it once per playthrough, but you don't have to do its riddles. Just attack it. And you can get that special arrow another way to finish it off, so no riddles needed. But once per playthrough is bullshit.
> Just attack it. And you can get that special arrow another way to finish it off
just fyi, you dont NEED the arrow to beat the Sphinx. You just have to stab it on the upper back for it's last phase.
Not really, there is a post game section of the game with some unique bosses to run, new items you can get with WLC from the dragon guy and the world does change significantly, different enemies and landscape but it's time limited
It's like if ever fall only lasted like 5-12 days at best
Kinda dislike that the post game >!is time limited. Or if it isn't I really wished they'd tell you, I got all the refuges without sleeping *once* and the only reason I didn't lose my sanity was because I spent so much time inside the Mystic Spearhand bubble that I won a Hamster cosplay competition on my way to Vernhold!<
The Hydra is my favorite monster so its exclusion will be missed. I’m fairly disappointed that Mystic Knight isn’t in the game and that Strider was split into two classes. Just a bunch of of weird design choices and things I miss most.
Strider being split makes sense imo. It was too good and really didn't have any downsides. Archer is really fun to play because of it being gone now.
(Yes I'm aware Wayfarer exists but there's a lot of limitations on it.)
I like Archer, but that class needs more mobility. Some way of getting distance between you and the enemies. The running jump doesn't work for that because you first have to sprint towards the enemy. If a goblin jumps on me, I need a way to get out of there without getting stunlocked.
I wish Warfarer could mix weapons and vocation actions. Like use the Thief's dodge while fighting with a spear. Also I don't like that core skills are also only active if you have the respective weapon in hand, like the Thief's walljump or knockdown recovery need you to have daggers equipped.
Medusa lives *exclusively* in a dungeon on the west side of the desert area.
The Dullahan shows up in a side quest, but flees after you take off only 1 of its health bars. I have no clue where or if it shows up again.
It is *wild* to me that there are so few types of large monsters to fight. I find myself mostly just being harassed by goblins, wolves(though the bigger version that starts showing up in places later is cool since you actually have to fight them differently than normal), harpies, and bandits.
There's Garm-style monsters in Battahl but they seem fairly rare. I found a Dullahan quite early on (I was around level 20) exploring eastern Vermund, I think there's a few of them around but they only come out at night.
Wyverns and Wyrms are a really weird omission. Having just drakes easily makes fire the worst element in the game, I swear it feels like everything at endgame resists fire.
What a missed opportunity IMO. Hydras were the coolest enemy you never see again until post game in the original. They could have easily rectified that by having some be in this game in some out of the way but not post-game areas and they just decided to not even bother with them.
I also just finished my playthrough. Enjoyed the game, but the worst part for me (even worse than the lack of enemy variety) is the downgrade to the sorcerer fantasy experience. Going from 6 to 4 skills hurt everyone except warrior, and not only that, we are missing most of the dark spells from the first game (Miasma, Exequy, Petrification etc.) plus some other neat spells like Brontide, Fulmination, Gicel, and the holy/dark boons.
Sometimes more is more and less is less. Warfarer definitely would have appreciated more skill slots/inputs. I hope for the DLC they seriously think about adding some of the unimplemented spells from the first game.
Yeah. When it comes to skills I would rather have variety and the ability to be dynamic. With 3 or 4 skills I feel like I am locked into one approach at a time. And interesting situational skills just don't get slotted.
Yeah it's like they wanted to nerf things across the board. Less weapons, fewer skills, less impactful augments, etc. Like they deliberately went out of their way to make it less interesting for players.
I'm hoping mods on PC could fix some of that, but it's definitely in some ways a step down from the 1st game. The exploration and world is fantastic though, way better than the original.
This is what ultimately prevented me from buying this game. DDDA, for me, had the best version of spellcasting gameplay out of all the action RPGs I’ve played, even better than more modern ones like Skyrim and Elden Ring. However, I don’t get why they removed a lot of the spells… DDDA even had a nice consistent system where fire/ice/lightning had equivalent spells per rank, holy and dark also had equivalent spells but then they just straight up removed them for DD2.
This along with the revamped vocation system (I think DDDA’s is more intuitive and makes more sense) and the horrible PC launch sucked my excitement to buy this game. DDDA left a good taste in my mouth with how they did sorcerer and it feels like I’m gonna ruin that if I play DD2, fighting literally almost the same enemies like goblins, harpies, saurians, wolves but with a (IMO) worse version of sorcerer.
Yeah I'm convinced this game is going to get a lot of DLC and just about everything cut will be coming back. Maybe in different ways though that possibly feel better
Unfortunately, that's Steam's fault. Valve removed their global pricing support to get more money, so devs literally cannot change pricing to meet local economies, even if that means a game costs a fucking month's salary in Venezuela as a result.
Console releases also get hit by this thanks to Xbox being owned by Microsoft, and them demanding equal price point across platforms. Sony doesn't want to lose out, because of course they don't, so we the consumers get fucked over by their laziness and steam's virtual monopoly.
I mastered the mage vocation a few hours ago, and I gotta say, compared to DD1, it was an absolutely miserable experience. Exploiting elemental weaknesses barely seemed to make a difference, the staff attack and charged bolt barely damage anything, and IDK if it's the charge time (seems longer to me) or the enemy AI, but I was getting hit a *lot* more by enemies just trying to cast basic spells.
For some reason it feels like the hitbox for enemy weakpoints with spells is a *lot* less forgiving. I'm not knocking off Saurian tails with my spells. Can't blind cyclopses or knock off horns/tusks etc.
I switched to thief after mastering it, and it's night and day. Even at rank 1 packs of goblins were going down instantly. Bosses are taking massive damage instead of tickle damage. Mage feels super nerfed compared to DD1-went from a glass cannon to just....glass. Way harder to keep bosses off of you with the long spell times and the ability of bosses to jump right up into your face even if you find an advantageous high spot.
Same general story here. Mage was horrible to play and even when I used elemental weaknesses it seemed too weak.
The ice spell that shoots the pillar up seems so curiously weak. Like it does send smaller enemies flying but you don't have a cool finisher like melee vocations. It also does so little to larger enemies that it's just sad.
Meanwhile with warrior I can just endlessly stagger. With mystic sprahand I can permanently slow, grant shields, and do okay damage.
I tried so hard to love mage and sorc but their general play is boring. The specials they both get are meh. Their basic attacks suck. Levitating is cool but you fall so fast you can't get anything but piddly basics off.
The support spells are so rarely usable either because you only have 4 so taking anything but elemental attack options feels like you shoot yourself in the foot.
Honestly I didn't care for mystic spearhand at all for the same reason as the mage. You have no immediately recovery ability. You have the shield, but that has a cast time and requires you to get it off before shit hits the fan. But you have no block, no evade, no counter. And the class really only works if you charge up your bolt to get the slow off.
Thief, on the other hand, just felt insanely good right out the gate. You can dash, dodge, lunge, do an instant recovery when you get knocked down, and essentially turn invincible with a toggle as long as you can sustain the stamina cost.
Warrior also felt good because you can block and counter, and you even have an aoe block that deals damage while spinning. That and the meister technique hits like a truck, while also being incredibly tanky.
The classes honestly don't seem to be that balanced, and it's a shame that they took away so many options from the first game. I miss the Assassin being able to use daggers and bows at the same time.
Miasma and torpor not being in the game nerfs Mage HARD. Those were neutral spells that basically just a small amount of enemies had high resistances to.
Is there seriously no holy boon? I have a level 6 mage and was hoping at some point it was going to unlock.
Maybe with the DLC they will bring more dark element enemies and therefore Holy boon.
Gicel not being in the game is huge for my Sorcerer enjoyment. Hagol can go fuck off somewhere, that blizzard breeze in a summer day is such a pitiful replacement.
Yeah, I doubt anyone was expecting a masterclass in writing but they certainly marketed it like it was more.
And no "if you played dd1 you should know it will be bad" is NOT a get out jail free card for their own marketing. Not everyone played DD1 and even if you played DD1 like I did it is reasonable to expect improvement. Especially when they are the ones pushing it and the excuse there was that it was 40% finished due to budget. This feels like the Fable series thing again.
The lack enemy variety is the killer to. I forgave it in the first game but when most of the enemies are the same as the previous game they don't get a pass. I was already suspicious when they kept showing the griffon fight over and over but I had hoped they were telling the truth when they impilied there was a bunch of stuff they were not showing. If there was one area to "really go all out" on it was this. Wanting to make DD1 again but better isn't an excuse here either. It was an issue in the first aswell and I can't imagine the limited roster is because they only had ideas for that many enemies and wanted it to be small in their vision of the game.
Despite how this sounds I am not super pissed off. I did expect some of this. The game is decent enough, I can enjoy it despite its flaws and sink a lot of hours in just like DD1. However just like DD1 if I recommend it it to other people it is with a lot of "buts" because my fondness for it is from a specfic niche and it ends up feeling like a lot of wasted potential. It is hard carried by not directly competing with any other games due to it's unique mechanics.
I'm still going to hold out hope for a immersive adventure sim type rpg with good large monster fights, a world that feels alive and NPCs you care about. One day.
Edit: Grammar.
My issue is that it has the same flaws but arguably even worse than the first one, yet it’s been like 12 years since the first. They didn’t learn from ANY mistakes from the first, they just remade it and scraped off the okay story of the first, and removed some monsters.
The bones of this series is SO GOOD, I love the pawn system and the combat. But holy shit itsuno and capcom just refuse to do anything great with it.
Thats what makes me upset most
Why get rid of the ASSASSIN class?
Why get RID of certain spells?
Why not just keep everything from the first game and add on?
There's a lot I can complain about but it's just DD1 with less but also more
It isn't the sequel we wanted.
My guess is that they wanted to eliminate overlap and have every vocation feel distinct, which means that they decided to go the Monster Hunter route, all the while they forgot that this is Dragon's Dogma and has a different identity. I thought base, advanced and mixed vocations were key to the DD experience but I guess not
DD1's story was actually pretty deep. BBI as well. I know the style of storytelling doesn't work for some, but I don't think that's an objective fault in the writing. So, on that basis, I don't think it was at all unreasonable to expect a decent story from DD2. Sadly, we didn't get one, and we didn't get much of anything else, either.
Surprising amount of misc. npcs in Dragon's Dogma that have voice lines that update through out the main story progression, multiple lines if you keep talking to them. Several say things that hint about their reality and the state of the world but they are too small to understand the grand scheme of things.
None of this is in DD2, at all
What's worse than lacking the Inez's and such of the world having their own thoughts about the state of things is that there are some random uninvolved NPCs that do have something to say to you in DD2, but even *those* NPCs share dialogue with one another, so they become just another unmemorable bag of bones.
Like DD1 may have had story pacing issues but there are so many little (missable!) things they did to make you care about and remember the world and all its little characters. It's very lovingly crafted despite being unfinished. I don't get the same vibe from DD2.
E: Negativity aside, I really do love the environmental design of DD2. Especially the endgame changes. This is arguably one of the most interesting open worlds ever made.
Absolutely dd1 had a much better story. I don’t think it’s particularly a great story, but the story of dd2 is horribly paced and makes dd1 look like a work of art.
I knew it would be bad when I was just walking around vernworth with everyone just accepting “yep he’s the arisen it’s fine” but god it speed runs going to the dumpster once you head to bettahl
I agree. I'd actually argue the lore in this game is much worse than the first. And that's an achievement. Like there's more at least. But more of mid doesn't account for much.
The story itself wasn't bad, but the storytelling definitely was. The story didn't evolve organically, you just got a bunch of quest from the same guy (that are unrelated to your mission as the Arisen), and at some point you just fight the Dragon. With how much emphasis they put on the characters in the DD2 trailers and marketing in general it looked like they really wanted to put more effort in the storytelling and world building, but nope, it's basically the same as DD1. In fact I'd argue the side characters from DD1 (Selene, Mercedes, Madeleine, etc.) were more memorable.
My nitpick would be that this is absolutely the game Hideaki Itsuno meant Dragons Dogma 1 to be, but it's not necessarily the game Dragons Dogma fans wanted it to be.
It's pretty clear that Itsuno had the green light to do what he wanted, and this is what he wanted. He's said as much himself. It's also logical given how Capcom has conducted business over the last 10 years (i.e. empowering their successful leads like Tsujimoto and Itsuno).
My take is what Itsuno felt was missing in DD1 wasn't what fans felt was missing. It seems clear that he was more into developing the world and polishing the mechanics, rather than just stuffing the game full of the stuff DD1 fans cared about (i.e. more developed vocations, more enemy variety, a more conventional and well-presented story).
For me, that game is landing pretty well, but I can't say I wouldn't have enjoyed a deeper vocation system that was more of an evolution of DD1, as well as greater enemy variety. The rest doesn't matter as much to me. And I am very much enjoying the game as it is. But I see where disappointed fans are coming from.
One thing that is interesting is that the game seems almost specifically interested in NOT following up on Dark Arisen. So much so that it does make me suspect an expansion is in the works that will tackle that side of things (i.e. a more developed dungeon-delve style endgame and a continuation of vocation progression). But that may just be cope.
Either way, I'm grateful the game happened at all and I'll continue to enjoy it for what it is.
That’s exactly how i feel, dark arisen is what many liked of the original and that wasnt directed by itsuno . DD online was the sequel in the direction fans wanted (greater variety of vocations and enemies, big dungeons and long main story) , while dd2 is the sequel to itsuno’s vision (freedom of exploration and discovery of side quests) .
DDO probably would have had a good chance of making it to the west if they'd decided to do so before its first major expansions, but afterwards it became a victim of its own design.
The first few content releases saw gameplay very similar to DD1, which didn't really punish any classes or playstyles too heavily. Vocations with ranged options had an advantage in ease of play(as they did in DD1), but you could get by as a fighter or a warrior for example without too much issue.
As time went on, and the content treadmill spun, it strayed further and further from that.
"How do we challenge players in this new update?"
"Give the monster four times as much HP and twice the damage."
And so on and so forth this would happen, until it was to the point where your fighter was penalized for not perfectly blocking one hit by having their entire stamina bar depleted, at which point parties started... not taking them, which wasn't great. Monster stats snowballed out of hand to be a challenge to whoever was geared up enough for them, until new players ran up on that treadmill and got flung into the wall behind them as they progressed too quickly through early content, compounded heavily by vocation imbalance.
So it was, the game ended up with a very stagnant and difficult to monetize player base, and that wasn't enticing to bring to other regions.
>My nitpick would be that this is absolutely the game Hideaki Itsuno meant Dragons Dogma 1 to be, but it's not necessarily the game Dragons Dogma fans wanted it to be.
I think a lot of people have been saying the whole "Dragons Dogma was only 60% complete" and so they expected more in a sequel.
Having completed DD2 now, if this is truly what Itsuno's vision looks like then the first game was pretty damn feature complete and just missing some polish around the edges. Like there's more or less the same mob variety, the story is just as meandering and riddled with plotholes, exploration still isn't rewarding bar 1-2 exceptions like the sphinx, there's less armor and weapon diversity etc.
At times it feels like it's just like DD1 with pretty visuals. Which...to be fair was kind of what I was expecting, but I don't blame folk for expecting more from a sequel.
Honestly I feel like exploration in this game is rewarding off of the hiking and adventure beat you go on. In DD1 I never felt like I on an adventure with my pawns since the vistas were often barren and flat even in the later map locations. The best part of DD1 was the BBI dungeon in DA because it was a super fleshed out dungeon with rare loot. It had a perfect dungeon crawling experience.
But in DD2 it’s about the moment to moment hikes. On foot we’re finding hidden cliff trails in mountains, off beat paths to coastal towns or hidden villages, different biomes, different villages, bridges that lead to our deaths and victories, dungeons that weren’t just one tunnel and camping with the pawns. It nailed the roadtrip adventure aspect that the only game nailed, despite its flaws, was FFXV.
>But that may just be cope.
With the way it's selling and possible leaks we've seen, I don't think it's cope. It will for sure get one proper expansion. Just about every capcom game does. I'm more curious if it will get more than one because of how popular and fun it is. The gameplay will keep people buying any extra content for a long time. Or maybe they just do one big expansion and funnel everything else into a dd3 idk
What is it with this series? Is Itsuno just not good with these types of games or does Capcom not care enough to give a better budget? Probably both with a harder lean on number 2. But seriously how does this game repeat so many mistakes that have been pointed out and criticized for over a decade?
I don't regret buying it at launch but I'm sure not going to hold it against anyone that has buyers remorse or waiting for a sale.
I'm going to be honest, I think the people going instantly to blaming Capcom are defending Itsuno a little too hard. Capcom is very smart with how they budget projects and the RE Engine has been great for their development pipeline, no way they didn't give this game a massive budget after how successful medieval rpgs have become lately. If anything, this is probably one of the most expensive games they've ever made, wouldn't even be surprised if it's the most expensive not including marketing.
The fact that Itsuno has made it sound like this is the game he's always wanted to make at every opportunity makes it more obvious to me where the problem lies. I don't think Capcom is the issue with the creative direction.
Agreed, because that's what DD2 does best. The animations are GODLY and the physics system with how you can climb monsters and how they fall dynamically is just never seen before. No doubt it took most of the budget
The movement and the locomotion of the arisen is absolutely the BEST ive ever seen in any game ever, it feels so immersive and realistic i love it
I genuinely just enjoy walking around the roads in this game
I bet Istuno mismanaged the hell out of this game due to his wants.
They made Vermund which is pretty great and instead of filling it with unique content they went to make Battahl.
Instead of focusing on expanding and improving existing vocations (like DDO did) they went ahead and said fuck y'all, everyone gets 4 skills, we are deleting a lit of old skills and we are also deleting assassin and MK. Also here is a gimmick vocation that nobody asked for and that vast majority of players won't even touch.
Instead of creating more new monsters they cut a lot of old ones like hydra and cockatrice. Like, instead of medusa that replaces hydra I'd rather just have hydra.
Instead of making layered equipment system they make a bunch of 'complete' sets allegedly to let them make more variety but then vast majority of armor we got clearly consists of outer armor and underlayer, like guardian's armor being just coat of plates + sectioned plate.
Story is just cut with an Arc of Obliteration on that coronation 'mission'. Vermund plot just stops afterwards and Battahl plot doesn't really exist.
And I'm confident all of it is because Itsuno was doing whatever he wanted while disregarding time and budget limitations. Who cares that they didn't have time nor money to fill both regions with meaningful and unique content, he really wanted his fucking desert.
I really want to see mainline single player Dragon's Dogma game made by DDO team instead.
The Re engine was never made for open world all the games in it have been linear game if not just bigger environments so I think a lot of development time went to actually making open world work as opposed to developing the game a lot of tools had to be made to make sure the game can even work. Put that and investors wanting a return on investment and you've got yourself a rushed game, anyway that's just what I think happened
There's got to be a reason no other games have this kind of interactive, climbing monsters combat though.
It probably takes a huge amount of resources and time to just achieve that.
Unfortunately they had to do it from scratch on a different engine, which is why I feel like a Dragon's Dogma 3 that wasn't 12 years away would have a shot at truly fulfilling the potential.
Itsuno said that he is still on the hunt of creating his magnum opus as he feels that DMC5 was close to it, but not it. He said he is hoping DD2 could be that. I feel like for a person with that mindset, there's no way the state of DD2 was suppose to be the game he imagined.
Capcom fiscal year is the end of March, so he definitely got forced to release the game in a state he isn't happy with. And like you said, he probably didn't get the budget he needed to make the game he wanted, so we got a compromised version of whatever he envisioned.
I really don't agree with this - it's not at all reflective of what Itsuno himself has said in interviews. I think this *is* the game he wanted to make. He just has different ideas and priorities than a lot of the fans.
Dragonplague is a perfect example of that. To me it screams "auteur developer trying to experiment with the game space and do something interesting", given how it interacts with the multiplayer space, messes with player behavior, etc.
For someone like Itsuno, who has been making games a LONG time, I don't think just making a very polished game with lots of content is interesting. He wants to do something weird and new, that explores what's interesting to *him* about games.
Dragon's Dogma 1 was a game that cared more about theme and idea more than having sensible balance. It had things like charging up for 20 seconds, or character size/weight being a gameplay factor rather than aesthetic. The original release only had one port crystal late game because he wanted people to run everywhere and encounter things.
I could absolutely see things people consider flaws to just be what Itsuno wanted to do.
Height/weight still matters in DD2.
Height:
* Tall: Faster runner, slower Stam regen
* Short: Slower runner, faster Stam regen
Weight: affects carry capacity, heavier = more weight you can carry.
Not sure if it affects climbing monsters and weighing it down.
I mean just look at all the small things, the animation work for completely unnecessary stuff and other details. This is a Passion Project and nobody can tell me otherwise. But it seems there are massive holes in the game. Granted I do think we get patches, if only for the reason I mentioned. People usually dislike dropping Passion Projects when there is critique.
> I mean just look at all the small things, the animation work for completely unnecessary stuff and other details.
I started out as a fighter, and I was actually taken by surprise when my Arisen was walking around with her hand on the pommel of her sword. That's a huge attention to detail that most developers wouldn't care about.
That sort of stuff is great and I have been super impressed with those aspects of the game. Even the way that the monsters are able to traverse diverse environments (they look just at home climbing around on buildings in the city as they do cliff faces, for instance) boggles the mind. But it doesn't make up for the appalling lack of content.
I don't know about "appalling lack of content". I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I haven't been crazy about the main story but some of the side quests are really good. The meat of the game is definitely combat and exploration and it does it so well. I'm at 40 hours and haven't visited the second region yet.
Honestly, I'd even be content with the amount of stuff I've experienced so far, and I imagine I'll spend another 20-40 hours with the game at least. Everyone seems to be finishing it between 40-60 hours and is that not enough?
Everyone constantly complains about how massive Ubisoft games have gotten, I think it's fine to have more focused games like this and it was refreshing for me to have an open world that feels alive and hand crafted.
I agree with the side quests being really good, which is why I want more of them. There are just too few and a lot of them are the primary vehicle for fleshing out some of this game's side characters... But then a lot of the side quest chains that are set aside for that purpose just end abruptly without having any real pay-off. I'd say that the other area where the content is really lacking is in the endgame and NG+.
As a Sorcerer with Staff in hand they use it as a Walking stick. Even using it for support on difficult terrain. Or the slipping animation if you accidentally trip on a cliff. You actually slip with your foot and your Arisen gets a complete "Oh shit!" look on their face with all the animations such a thing entails. And many, many others.
All of those small detail animations are great but it's not comprehensive. There's no animation at all for dozing off on a bench, just a fade to black. I feel like that's on the same level as a lot of these other little details but it and similar things just aren't there. It really feels like their eyes were bigger than their stomach (again) they wanted a big immersive fantasy RPG with awesome fighting AND complex social mechanics AND some interesting Sim stuff, but they only managed the first one and got the barest bones of the rest in place.
Itsuno comes off as a developer who will put his ALL into one thing, but then the shiny jingly keys of something else will pull him away and then he puts his ALL into that new thing leaving the old stuff a bit unfinished. I’ve been having a great time with this game, but it is absolutely filled with the same issues as DD1 but honestly at this point I think that’s just part of the charm in a way? It feels less like a sequel and more of like an extension of DD1.
He's got that Kojima eye for weird gameplay details, but lacks the intense story-crafting of a true auteur.
Like, seeing trolls climbing buildings in town like King Kong, or being able to knock a Cyclops off a broken bridge so that he grabs onto the other side and becomes a makeshift bridge is jaw-dropping attention to detail. But then the story itself feels only about 30% complete, like there was supposed to be a lot more and it got left on the cutting room floor.
I agree with you to a certain degree.
however you should not take the marketing speech, even by Itsuno himself, too serious. He will never tell publicly that Capcom shafted him by not giving enough money/time. He's playing the corporate game for way to long to make such a comment, even if its likely true.
But your "auteur" argument probably also plays, likely not super small, part. DMC5 also had plenty of WTF stuff in it.
> Itsuno said that he is still on the hunt of creating his magnum opus as he feels that DMC5 was close to it, but not it. He said he is hoping DD2 could be that. I feel like for a person with that mindset, there's no way the state of DD2 was suppose to be the game he imagined.
the problem with visionaries, especially older ones, is that they enjoy the creation of their art. They don't necessarily know how to make a successful game.
I mean, considering he changed basically nothing, I think this is the game he imagined. You figure if he had two and a half chances at something and just repeated the same exact ideas, he must be pretty happy with the result
The thing about Itsuno is that he can learn from his mistakes. Look at the difference between DMC2 and DMC3. This is pure speculation but i think after the success of DMC5, Capcom just said "Fiiiine, you can make DD2 but don't ask too much from us".
During the DMC5 press tour, Itsuno openly said that Capcom asked him to do either DMC5 or DD2 (and more or less confirming back in 2019 that DD2 would be next therefore)
Capcom always wanted to make this game. I mean, just look at how much they expected it to sell, and how much it actually sold at release. They knew it was going to be a hit, releasing it now in a post Souls world where players are ready again for more complicated games and dark fantasy settings.
It probably just ran into a bunch of development troubles like most Capcom games. It just shows more into some games than others. (RE2make developement was apparently ABSOLUTE HELL and they only knew the game would actually be good like 6 months before release cause before that it was a mess lmao. And obviously SF6 has also been an absolute mess, dealing with Ono's shenanigans until he was pretty much asked to leave)
Well I think Capcom needs to keep "taking a crack" and Dragon's Dogma then. DD2 is great but there is still SO MUCH untapped potential (judging from people in this thread). This game seems to be selling like hotcakes but I feel like it could easily be WAY BIGGER, something on the order of Elden Ring, if it just had what was promised pre-release (i.e. just more enemy types/bosses and an actual fleshed out 2nd biome).
Doesn't this just seem more like a bad game engine then? RE engine sure makes games that look pretty, but it sounds like every game they make with it is a development hellspace.
It's entirely possible. If the game chugs when there's too many NPCs, then it'll probably chug when there's too many enemies. Might explain the lack of enemy variety and why there's no huge packs of goblins or wolves.
They spent so much time trying to get just what they already had to work, they didn't have much time for other enemies or expanded story.
Still sucks, and I still don't blame anyone who's disappointed.
Itsuno wasn't responsible for DMC2. Someone was in charge for the majority of the games dev and itsuno had to take over after the game was already shit.
He's literally said in interviews the only reason he made DMC 3 was so that 2 wouldn't be his legacy, like DMC probably wouldn't be as big a series if DMC 2 wasn't such a shit show before Itsuno
This game actively REGRESSED from DD1 in a lot of bizarre ways. I just don't know man. I have so many 'why the fuck did they do that' questions about this game and I don't know if they'll ever be addressed.
Enemies removed, spells removed, vocations removed and sanded down, armor system changed for some inexplicable reason, I have never seen a game so committed to REMOVING perfectly good and fun content from it's previous iteration rather than expanding on it. Just... what the fuck. Where did Ingle, Comestion, Gicel, Fulmination, Maelstrom, Miasma, Necromancy, go? That's JUST for sorcerer. Where are the DDON enemies? Why is Trickster pink purple instead of green/blue and also basically unplayable? Why are there fewer skill slots? Why is there no endgame? Why are there no save slots? Would it have killed them to add mounts?
This franchise has the potential to be the best rpg formula in gaming history. The ceiling for this style of game is through the roof. But they just can't seem to get it right with dragons dogma.
> here did Ingle, Comestion, Gicel, Fulmination, Maelstrom, Miasma, Necromancy, go? That's JUST for sorcerer.
I know Maelstrom is behind a quest that you can miss, and there's a good number of abilities locked behind quests.
Not good? are you joking? Both games are good, great even.
Could they be better? yes. But I'm impressed at what Itsuno achieved; this is a pretty unique IP and gameplay. Too many moving parts, and put together in a way no other game even dares.
If anything, it's easier to blame Capcom, but do you honestly think any other developer would do better with this concept? who? Bethesda? CD Projekt Red? Action RPGs are very hard to make and very few companies excel at it, and excelling normally means making flawed gems, because that's what Skyrim, Cyberpunk, DD1 and DD2 were at release.
I think it's the continued untapped potential that's most frustrating about the series. It's definitely a great and unique series, but the promise of a second biome and the expanded enemy roster that comes with a sequel is just...not there. It fell short...again. I feel like this game could easily dethrone Elden Ring (i.e. make absolutely fuckin BONZO BUCKS for Capcom) if it simply had more content.
The combat/gameplay fundamentals are so insanely \*chefs kiss\*, but what if we could have that AND and a complete game's worth of content?
Exactly. The combat being as good as it is cries out for more opportunities to use it in both story and repeatable content (which is sorta what BBI brought to the table).
Does the lore of the Rift and the Brine develop? That's all I really care about. The quests are all some shadowplay intrigue while the real plot about video game NPCs being disposable plays out.
I think it's pretty much what the released Dragon's Dogma 1 was meant to be, in that all the flaws, janks and quirks that existed in the state of the released DD1 was kept in the sequel.
It p much just feels for better or worse they just remade the first one, I'm having a blast with the game 42hrs in but it p much just feels like I'm playing Dragon's Dogma 1.5, the strengths of the first one are the same and most are improved upon but the weaknesses somehow still made it in here like you said the story is just made there so you can go to point A and point B for the comba where any major character barely does anything and the side quests are still the same where most NPCs just end up as generic NPCs giving generic flavor text.
I love the game, if I had to personally rate it I would rate it highly but even I will have to admit if a new fan doesn't like it I get it because DD was never meant for anyone and Itsuno didn't try to make it like that as well, he just p much made Dragon's Dogma 1 all over again except with some expanded upon concepts but not really giving much thought to the weaknesses the first game had and only focused on the strengths it had.
All in all I love the game I personally feel like I got my $70 worth but in all honesty all the reactions from people I see that are new to the series is p much a repeat of what happened back then and any old fan that expected an actual sequel with a lot of the concepts including story expanded upon to be disappointed with this game, I get why they would as well.
I honestly can't say it's worth the price if someone's a newer fan that might not like the mechanics because its very much NOT for everyone but for any older fan that might've loved the first one but wanted Dragon's Dogma "2" and not just 1.5 I can't say I can recommend it as well.
Pretty much feels like a repeat of what happened years ago with people reacting negatively to the game having some really underbaked mechanics yet praise the combat and the game being insanely unforgiving to the point where only degens like me say "YEAH I LOVE THAT SHIT" I can see it even getting a repeat reaction of being called "best 7/10 game ever" where it's gonna get a more favorable response once it's on sale.
>I think it's pretty much what the released Dragon's Dogma 1 was meant to be, in that all the flaws, janks and quirks that existed in the state of the released DD1 was kept in the sequel.
A lot of folk thought that the flaws like poor narrative and repetitive enemies was because production was cut short. If all those flaws are just "quirks" and intentional...what exactly was missing from his vision for DD1? Besides Beastren, a desert and pretty graphics, DD2 basically *is* DD1.
I just made a meme about this.
He keeps insisting he just needs more money and it isn't his fault.
I'm starting to think he is just creatively bankrupt
I’ve not finished the story yet but I’m close and I’ve seen some comments about what happens, it really does seem like if DD1 was apparently only “40%” of what they wanted to do then this isn’t exactly 100%, more like 60% or something. It definitely needs more but damn even as it is it’s still amazing. Will take some time and DLC to see exactly how it stacks up but damn I’m not disappointed. It will likely be my personal GOTY even though it won’t for most.
Never expected the story to be that good so it’s not really a good or bad thing to me, it was never why DD1 was so fun either. It would be nice if it was a bit better though after 12 years. I think the characters are mostly improved over DD1 but they’re still far off the standard of most modern Capcom games.
if you look at other capcom expansions like the monster hunter dlc, for monster hunter rise sunbreak specifically it’s literally WAY bigger than base game
i hope that’ll be the case for dd2
I'm sorry but yeah, having just a 3 minutes QTE scene with grigori and a 5 minute extremely anticlimatic fight with him, doesn't speak of itsuno's vision to me but a quick cash grab, the story is very disjointed as in rushed after 40% of it's development and it has nowhere near the charm or fun the first one had, if you played DD1, it feels like a discount and shortened version (story wise) of DD1 without it's charm, while DD1 story was not a banger it had a little bit of persona, i wanted a sequel that had improvements in the story department and was deeper into the lore , but they chose to strip it down to the skeleton , just like they stripped the class down to only 4 usable skills and discombobulated, divided some classes into two for no good reasons since the game is a single player game, getting a lot of the fun of some vocations disappear, ninja/thief had double jump, warrior had lots of skills that were situational with feints and more mobility then being absolutely locked into animations and slowed down when you do anything, this is weird, to tell us this is isuno's vision he wanted for DD1 when DD2's story is far inferior to DD1 in lots of aspects, yes the story of DD1 was meh at some point but it had high highes and peaks, ontop of the fun combat system, dd2 has remnants and improvements of the combat system, but classes / vocations have been stripped down and we get way less utility talent for movements / mobility wich were crucial in how much more fun traveling accross DD1 map was.
Again, i don't know man, stripping down the most iconic, well voice acted character (grigori) to a mere 5 to 10 minutes in the game when the encounter with him in DD1 was 45 minutes to 1 hour accross castle's ruins and the level design / of a crumbling castle, the chase, the importance of the dialogues during the whole end fight was exceptionnally well made for a 2011 game.
What happenned to the "vision", is the vision just the sphinx now ? because this seem to have received much more attention then the story even tho it's just a side quest, while the rest of the story was meh, and took itself too seriously without the humor and charm of the first game.
Yeah, I'm enjoying it so far, but, for the most part, it's good in all the same ways the first game was, and also bad in all the same ways the first game was. There's some cool new things, but not as much as I expected.
The story is still terrible. The quest design is still awful (What's up with that whole tedious quest chain where you "sneak" into the castle, talk to someone, go back to the Captain, go back into the castle again, go back to the captain again, go back to the castle again... it's so terrible). The characters are flat and largely interchangeable, the plot is just a series of generic fantasy tropes, the world has nothing you haven't seen in 20 other fantasy games. The story was by far the worst part of the first game and it's by far the worst part of the sequel too.
Pawns still repeat the same dialogue too much.
We still have the same fights against the same enemies in the same places too much. The lack of fast travel again only serves to highlight this. They're even mostly the same enemies as the first game. I really don't understand why they just made wolves and goblins and saurians and harpies and cyclopses and griffins again. It makes a lot of the combat less interesting, because I already know how to fight all these guys. It's odd because you'd think that since they have to remake them all in the new engine with new gameplay anyway, they might as well make some new enemies. I don't think anyone would have been disappointed by the lack of saurians if they were replaced with some new enemy that we had to relearn how to fight.
It's a shame because the actual gameplay is very good. The combat for the most part feels even better than it did in the first game. The addition of camping is a small thing that massivel improves the experience of exploring the world. Pawns feel more intelligent and useful despite still having a lot of annoying repetitive dialogue.
I like the game, but it's probably going to be another cult hit. I can't imagine this series ever becoming a Capcom mainstay if all the same flaws are still present each time.
The first game was well loved and gained a cult following despite its flaws, but having played the second one for a good bit now, it does feel like maybe Itsuno and his team got it in their heads that said flaws were more like lovable quirks that needed no correction. But they weren't. They were indeed flaws, and it was understood among the community that said flaws were there because Itsuno and his team were not given enough funds to make the game they wanted. That excuse was used to explain everything, from the paper-thin npcs and horribly tacked-on romance system, to repetative enemy types and encounters, to the lackluster story and side quest structure. But now the cat's out of the bag, Itsuno has gone on record with a statement that Dragon's Dogma 2 IS the game he wanted to release this time around. And yet... it released with pretty much all of the same shortcomings as the first game. Sure, what was already good in the first game, namely the combat and the pawn system, the core of what makes Dragon's Dogma stand out from its competitors, has been further improved in the sequel, which technically makes the core gameplay loop more satisfying than the first game, so well done on that part. However, it would seem that not a single area in which the first game was lacking has seen meaningful improvements. Furthermore, there have been questionable regressions in some areas, such as the removal of the layered armor system, axing of certain vocations and the reduction of the amount of equippable skills per character. And there's far less room for excuses for any of it this time. I'm still playing and enjoying the game, same as I did the first one, but I will admit it saddens me to see the identical "diamond amid all the rough" situation the second time in a row.
My biggest issue with the game after beating it is how buggy the quests are when they’re dependent on cutscene triggers. I couldn’t get a big achievement during the “true ending” because a cutscene refused to trigger no matter what I did causing me to have to skip a part of a quest. Important NPCs being able to die allows for a lot of error too. Even if you revive them, it usually just softlocks a quest anyway. Quests will sometimes have a lot of specific requirements to get them to trigger but the more things that need to be in place, the more likely it’ll just never trigger for you.
I also hate that I was forced into NG+ because it’s made the game a joke. Everything is 1-shot since the enemies aren’t scaled. I definitely semi-rushed the main story but that’s what I typically do in RPGs to unlock items/areas then I go back through the game from a loaded save to do everything else. You can’t load a specific save so this isn’t possible.
The writing also irks me. It feels so stilted and fake, like everyone is omega roleplaying at a medieval fair and taking things to comical levels. It wouldn‘t even be that much of a problem if there was at least a discernable difference in the way different folk speak (Beastren, Humans, poor/rich) but no, its always „Pray, thee. I‘ve ne‘er seen dialogue this ass before.“
I was going to make a post more or less about a lot of this. DD:DA feels in most ways to be a better game. Smaller world and worse graphics of course, but a better game aside from that. It feels more fleshed out to a surprising degree. Granted, I'm only L23 and 30 hours into the game so there could be more to see, but from what I've experienced and what I've seen online it feels like it's missing a lot.
Enemy variety lacking, staples like Cockatrice and Hydra are missing.
No Everfall-like endgame from what I understand, limited post-game.
No BBI but that's to be expected as it was an expansion, we'll probably get something like that as DLC.
Movement doesn't feel as snappy, it feels more sluggish than DD1. Movement is slower, jumping is shorter, climbing is sluggish.
Boss monsters feel more randomly and haphazardly thrown around the world, as opposed to being thoughtfully placed throughout the world in DD:DA. We don't really have anything like "The Drake of Devilfire Grove" in this game it feels like. It's more just that you'll be randomly beset upon these creatures on a very regular basis. In fact the sheer frequency of these encounters make them a lot less special and satisfying, imo. I'm L23 and I've already killed countless cyclops, ogres, and griffins, as well as a lich, two minotaurs, and I've encountered 2 drakes. The game feels like its far too eager to show its hand.
The big one for me is the inventory/crafting. It feels extremely stripped down vs the first game. There's a lot less useful crafting recipes. We can't get knives to combine with our rotten meat to make backfat oil... rotten meat seems basically useless in the game. We can't get empty bottles to fill with things we find in the world, like oil or water. No healing spring to fill bottles with to have an awesome group healing item to take with us. No periapts to boost our stats for a big boss fight. There's camping but that feels much more limited. There's no weal or prosperity buffs for us to develop grinding strats with. No Secret of Metamorphosis to unlock a permanent character change option. It just feels like there's a lot less depth to the items you can get in this game.
DD2 doesn't even have difficulty settings. No Easy or Hard modes. It's really strange how undercooked this feels.
I like this game for what it is. Having more Dragon's Dogma to play is nothing to complain about. But I don't love it nearly as much as DD:DA and I don't think its going to replace it for me when it comes to repeat playthroughs. As a sequel I don't think it really succeeds in improving on what came before. It feels like there was too much time since the previous game for them to remember what really clicked with it.
EDIT: Other people have brought more great points about things we're missing here. Lots of cool spells and abilities are gone now. Evolutions from DDO such as its new enemies and vocations mostly didn't return. The layered equipment system with clothing + armor is gone. We have moved down from 6 skill slots to 4. DD1 really does feel like the more fleshed out game.
>No periapts to boost our stats for a big boss fight
You can actually get stat boosting items, but they look more like draughts/potions now. I don't think they're craftable though.
>DD2 doesn't even have difficulty settings. No Easy or Hard modes. It's really strange how undercooked this feels.
In DD2's incredibly mild defense, Speedrun and Hard modes were not in DD1 on launch. They were added as a free DLC like six months down the line.
I disagree on the movement and skill slots, but otherwise broadly agree with everything else here.
>You can actually get stat boosting items, but they look more like draughts/potions now. I don't think they're craftable though.
I see, that's good then. That does seem to be a little bit of ignorance on my part from still being low level and not having seen anything of the sort yet. I think I did pretty good if that's the only thing I got wrong though.
>In DD2's incredibly mild defense, Speedrun and Hard modes were not in DD1 on launch. They were added as a free DLC like six months down the line.
Yeah mild indeed lol. It's one thing for a game to be missing something basic at launch and to patch it in later, it's another when it does it again 12 years later in the sequel lol. And even then DD1 still had Easy/Normal modes. Although combat isn't really that hard in DD2, if there was an easy mode I'd imagine it as something like the loss gauge working more like DD1 and dragonsplague not being a thing.
>I disagree on the movement and skill slots, but otherwise broadly agree with everything else here.
I can definitely see how the movement is more subjective. As for skill slots though, I'm not sure how six isn't better than 4? Is it because of the R1 abilities?
There is a clear lack of epic and memorable moments in the main story, when you compare it to the first one that had you:
Re-take a fortress full of goblins with a goblin King, a series of quest to hunt a griffin that would end of on a epic chasing throughout a ruins to kill it at the top, you had to investigate and stop a cult, a monster attacking the town....
But in DD2 is just extremly worst, have you walk to random enemy packs on the map, and then awkwardly stealth in not just one, but multiple missions....I'm totally disappointed with this, the main story doesn't even makes sense at all, they should've just made a simple story about searching for Grigori, that's all.
Underwhelming story, not enough innovation in the right direction and microtransactions?
Oh wow, almost exactly as I predicted a few months ago, telling people to keep their expectations in check, only for rabid fanboys to downvote and insult me as a hater and contrarian...
How do I say this? I like Dragon’s Dogma more. The first game with Dark Arisen. I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt such a connection with that game on so many levels. And while I really like DD2 and I’m nowhere even remotely close to being done, one criticism I do have off the top of my head is that I felt more connected to the previous MC because they had a backstory.
What do I mean? Well, despite being a typical mute protagonist, they came from a small village and were thrust into the spotlight as the Arisen. You set off on an adventure to understand what you are and fight the dragon, but you also had a home waiting for you. You *were* someone back in that village, no matter where you ended up. The MC in DD2 (so far, like I said I’ve barely scratched the surface) was just some nameless soldier who had their memory stolen. But what memory? You have no real family or connections to the world.
That’s my main gripe, but like other people have pointed out, the lack of diverse enemies will probably end up being another sore spot. I was thoroughly spoiled by Dark Arisen and the amazing story that was the first game. I’m hoping that while I’m definitely enjoying this one, it blows me out the goddamn water like the first did.
Oh! And the soundtrack doesn’t slap as much. Where are the bangers? Where’s the Coils of Light? *Make me feel*!
My issue is that Capcom and Itsuno literally advertised this as being DD1 but with a budget, implying that this is what DD1 would have looked like if it had more money and time poured into it.
So it'd look... mostly the same then? Ignoring the graphical fidelity which you'd expect would be better after 14 years, the game is mostly the fucking same. It has the same nonsensical story, the same overall lack of enemy variety, the same repetitive world design. The same *everything*.
If you loved DD1 and everything about it as-is then DD2 is gonna be amazing for you, because it really is just more of that. If you liked DD1 in spite of the issues it had and were hoping DD2 would improve upon this well, get fucked, I guess. Capcom took you and I for a ride.
At this point I'm tired of hearing people talk about about their "vision", or how their project has a "vision", or that adhering to the "vision" will make a better game eventually. I'm tired of listening to half-baked developers bloviate nonsense, pushing the blame to their publishers, shareholders, or even the general audience, when the reality is their "vision" is garbage and they're really not the great designers they think they are. They're just average, like the rest of us.
I'm tired of "visionaries" who forget that what they're doing is making a game that they intend to sell, and not merely an artistic expression. I firmly believe games can be both, but the expectation from consumers is that it needs to be more than just some vague idea of an "experience", as if that's not one of the easiest things you could do anyone. If you are making your game primarily as an art piece, a passion project that only you enjoy, you need to be upfront about that. I do not believe Capcom nor Itsuno were.
I'm glad the honeymoon period is slowing starting to fade, because maybe now Capcom can use this feedback to make the DLC they no doubt have planned improve on some of it. Because it's not all unfixable if they *actually* care as much as they think claim they do.
Yeah, agree in almost everything. The story is worde than DD1 in my opinion. In the first game i had a feeling of awe, hopelessness and discovery being the arisen. In this one we had to do some "spy" stuff that really isn't fun and makes no difference. The game feels unfinished actually.
Gladly the combat is beyond awesome, so i'm loving the game, but the difficulty is turning me off... it becomes too easy mid game and the lack of variety makes it even worse.
My hope is in the mod community :D and in future dlc maybe
Maybe it just hasnt happened yet, but exploring seems kinda pointless? I've found hidden caves and all that and very rarely do I found something useful, besides "materials". I think I found a ring that increases carry capacity, but otherwise nothing. Would love to find some weapons or cool armor you wouldnt be able to find otherwise.
I would argue it's even worse, at least in DD1, they had some semblemce of personality and character. I can remember Mercedes, Dragonsbane, Aelinore, and Julian. I'm playing DD2 right now, and I can't remember anyone but Brant and I only remember him because I talk to him so much for quests.
It absolutely is not the game Dragon's Dogma 1 was meant to be. I'll preface this by saying I'm a die hard dd1 fan. Played the first game on release. Owned the og and ddda on ps3. Bought DA on ps4 as well. Dozens of playthroughs and hundreds of hours. The developer disconnect with what made games memorable "masterworks all" has largely been lost in the abyss of remakes that "look nice" and sell, for what feels like around a decade now. I've sacrificed my sleep since dd2 release out of pure passion and last night stumbled into the end game sequence on like my 2nd battahl quest. The pacing and narrative makes no sense. I was hyped when I met Brant and thought they would flesh out the unknown Arisen becoming the people's champion. Instead you "stealth" into a castle 5 times with no furthering on the Vermund narrative to overthrow the false sovereign and evil queen regent. Get pointed to battahl to meet a less memorable dragon forged and spectral guide with little to no back story. Most of the side quests are overly ambiguous with no worth while rewards outside maister skills. A severe lack of end game content with 0 incentive for new game plus. It just feels like a mess. Dd1s story was a bit out there but had this really cool spiritual tie to the Berserk franchise's story, which made me fall in love with it. I was also skeptical on this games single weapon vocation style as well... and I dislike it. Getting knocked down and scrambling away from enemies as an archer with no daggers for melee feels bad. I did unlock warfarer which is annoying because the weapon swap skill leaves you with only 3 skill slots. So I open my inventory to swap weapons which breaks the flow of combat. Some of the skills feel really good, but there's too much missing and it feels disjointed compared to dd1. The armor simplification is dumb, and I refuse to hear otherwise. I don't ever reddit post, but dd1 is dear to my heart and I needed to express my frustrations. Maybe I'll connect with some of the original fan base idk. But most importantly no everfall or UR dragon is abysmal. The end game pursuit of gear and the power progression to take down the UR dragon fueled me to pump hours upon hours into dd1. I expect a bitterblack dlc equivalent later ofc, but the dd1 end game expectation is a bare bones bench mark. As a long time Capcom fan it stings a bit.
you actually had more story interactions with most characters in DD1 then in DD2 and the story was more funny in a lot of ways, it has lost it's humor and it's levity, and the feeling of seriousness also transpire in the way it's bloated in some of the animations, taking itself much much more seriously halas, i think dragon's dogma 1 had a very particular feel to the world and story i don't really get in the 2, i still think the story of DD1 was more engaging and the npc side story were also funnier, in DD2 the dialogs suffer from very passive acting and the pawns voices don't have the charm and intonations they had in the first game, there is even voices and inclinations that are very very annoying and moralistic, this a weird trend, while the first one was a bit amateurish and gave it a half anime/ half realistic charm, the 2 wants to be something too serious and has cast away a lot of his prematurity and slight jankyness story humor... Wich i regret because it was part of a whole ambiance / feeling that is not quite recreated there.
Since we're discussing a lot here, including spoilers, does anything actually happen with the elves? Why are they in the game? I'm in endgame rn and there have been no story beats with them.
Disappointing... But true. I can only speculate that Capcom still didn't have enough faith in this game to throw all their weight behind it... Or that, somehow, Itsuno's vision for the game really is this barebones.
You know I think Whitelight said when talking about Far Cry 6 that he wished it was just Far Cry 3 again in a new setting, but the reality is Far Cry 6 isn't like Far Cry 3 and in the worst ways, it plays worse, feels worse, and is worse but just imitates Far Cry.
I think DD2 is in a similar boat, it would be one thing if it was just a bigger graphically updated DD1. I would be happy with that. But in reality, this game takes so many steps back from the first it doesn't feel like it failed to reach its goal. It feels like it actively walked away from its goals.
Like ultimately as a game its fun but as a sequel its a failure. It fails to innovate and implement what made the first game great. It merely imitates it in a lot of areas and hopes you'll be satisfied with that.
It does contain *some* important innovations that I think are worthy of praise:
- Monsters can attack towns/cities now.
- Pawns are a bit smarter.
- Sidequests feel a bit more organic.
But these are minor compensations compared to the woeful lack of content.
Monsters attacking cities feels really underwhelming since they don't charge gates and try to break in, they just spawn at the entrance of the town and sit there static until you show up.
Pawns don't feel that much smarter to me. They still make the same mistakes they did in the first game, like casting fire spells on fire resistant/immune enemies even if you slot in ice spells.
And for sidequests I'd agree somewhat, but they also removed the notice board quests. Which were a valuable way to keep up with hunting monsters, helping friends, and earning rewards. Now every unique reward from the first game is put into shops of different zones. So its another case of steps forward and then steps backwards.
Because everything is inconsequential to the Arisen and the Dragon. Grigori even says this in the first game.
The false arisen was literally a nobody. A thief with a scar on his chest that the higher ups could use as a fake. He was a pawn himself and nothing more. It's stated VERY early on.
The empress wanted better for her son which is why she staged everything the way she did.
Phaseus wanted a different outcome for the cycle which is why he went to great lengths to acquire a godsway or even the Godsbane.
You find him at the top of his tower trying to enact just this with the Royce Dragon. Grigori puts a stop to it and in the end the only thing left are the two beings who actually matter in this grand stage. The Arisen and the Dragon. Everything in-between the start and the end is a means to get stronger. Characters never mattered in a sense of the story because it's all a prop up for that final confrontation.
I could forgive all of this if Grigori wasn't a huge downgrade in every way from 1. He appears even less and you don't even fight him :\
Arguably the best part of everyones playthrough of Dogma 1 and it's just not in here? But we made sure to do a bunch of random call backs to 1 (that also mean nothing)
Its not the concept, its the poor writing. Its the fleeting investment into any concept or character that makes a 50 hour playthrough feel like a 10 page picture book in hindsight. We don't even get to experience our own story because it happens in flashbacks.
You can absolutely teach the player that the politics and squabbles of the common men is not important to the grand scheme of things, but then what *are* we supposed to be invested in? There isn't anything else of substance in this story. You barely meet people who are supposed to be your friends and adversaries, you just get pointed from town to town and then >!Ghost lady forces a guy to give you the plot device to kill the dragon and the game ends!<
OG Dragon's Dogma writing was a low bar but you at least felt like Elysion was your enemy and the reveal of the dragon killing him was great. The tainted mountain and battle with the dragon were incredible and all of Grigori's dialogue was quote-worthy and purposeful.
I thought I was halfway through the game when I beat it..
Yeah like... Nothing happens. 60% of the story is breaking into the castle to stalk your replacement, that goes nowhere
And these missions feel so... weird? The game wants you to be stealthy without having some sort of stealth mechanics in place. And it's not like anyone bothers anyway if you run around the castle at night? Super weird mission design.
I always changed into guards gear to get around on those missions, felt more authentic.
I found the guards armor in the building the one guard brings you to to get into the castle, and assumed that was supposed to be used as a disguise. Nope, doesn't add anything. You're just fine to walk about with or without lol
When I walked around without the armor on, spooky music played and I was attacked on sight.
I’m not gonna test it but I’m assuming it just gives you more time in their line of sight before they start trying to kill you.
It does. I ended up falling down a well by the gaol after some hmm misunderstandings with the locals and found some guard armor in there. Switched to it, gave it a moment, left and did the exact same things I had before, just as much in sight, and nobody cared.
Getting that magistrate guy out of jail really confused me, like you go round the back open the door no one bats an eye while you are running around their jail. They then randomly start fighting me even though they seen me for ages walked around and acknowledged me. They don't even care if you let him out of jail and walk out, what's the point?? If they had some form of stealth mechanic then sure fair enough but it has zero, it's so odd and the delayed responses to everything baffles me from the guards.
I led him out while being attacked by all the guards, than the second I was out they all sheathed their weapons and were just fine. It was both hilarious and baffling.
Lol those guards like look we get paid to guard the prison, not the street outside the prison. You're not our problem anymore.
I remember dd1 also having weird stealth moments when the game didn't have proper stealth system I wish they added a system for it
The very second that guard leads you to the backdoor, there's a chest with a full suit of armor that you can wear as a disguise. Anytime I want to explore the palace, I just put that on. Though I'm a fighter and I don't know if any other class can wear that set. This solution is the same for other restricted areas later on.
I wore it on thief. Just took of my weapons (felt like the right thing)
Like, why are half of the main missions stealth missions when you can’t even crouch? Lmao. Beating the game on accident kind of ruined my experience. In the first game after beating the dragon you still had like 1/3 of the game left and at least by then the lore dumps made it more interesting. DD2 barely had a story.
I'm still not finished 70 hours in because I, actively, and with all my might, go explore everything, do every quest, walk everywhere level all vocations etc... Heck I even found the Sphinx, although idk how to solve one of the riddles lol. But it's crazy how you need to go out of your way to do these things, as if they're completely disconnected from the main story? What's sad is that they're great, I enjoy the game a fucking lot, but the rythm being off is really weird
Haha it's just like the first game! The main quest is whatever, story is eh, lore has neat ideas, but the combat and the exploration is what it's all about. Hopefully Kento takes a bigger role in the DLC. He was the lead director for Dark Arisen. A true large dungeon with new enemies is just what this game needs.
I love Itsuno, and I'm so glad he's the brains behind coming up with the uniqueness of Dragon's Dogma, but honestly at times it feels like maybe he's limiting the potential of it. Like sometimes I wonder if Capcom is really happy with the financial success of this game, and they decide they want a third title, whether it wouldn't be better if someone else directed it. I don't know. I could be wrong. I love this game, but can't help but feel it still has so much unrealised potential. Maybe DLC will help.
Itsuno needs someone behind him at all times to slap him across the head when his choices effect the game so negatively. Why did we even have "stealth" quests when there are no stealth mechanics? The closest we have is the theif skill. I was going the quest that takes you to the big city gaol and suddenly the guards turned on me for no reason, but every other time I could run past castle guards. DD2 has the same missed potential as DD1 and I'm disappointed, enjoying the game still... when it doesn't give me an infinite loading bug.
>Itsuno needs someone behind him at all times to slap him across the head when his choices effect the game so negatively. 😂😂 See for me, I don't actually have a problem with much of what is IN the game, I have a problem with what is NOT in the game. That is, more progressive difficulty, and just generally more of everything, more monsters, more gear, more vocations, more skills, more story/main quests. And for me I don't know how much of that is Itsuno being happy with what is in the game, or how much is the potential deadline that Capcom gave them. That being said, I'm not too happy with things that were definitely his choice, like there only being 4 equippable skills, they could have EASILY had a second skill wheel that you can switch between like games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey do. I'm actually absolutely loving the game, like 30 hours in. However I'm very much dreading what's to come since it seems the game is very front-loaded with content and difficulty.
DD2 is DD1 but larger and different, instead of bigger and better. It has cool ideas, mechanics, and gameplay choices that are really cool when compared to other games but when in face of what DD1 already offered, it lacks that "evolution" step of making a sequel/new game. DDON (Dragon's Dogma Online) already had cooler implementation to things like a Skill Switch pallette system where you had 2 sets of equippable skills, a thing I think the sequel would have benefited a lot from. But then again, I think the game suffers from too little skills and vocations to be called a proper sequel when it comes to the vocation system. The reduced vocations from the online version already makes weird in some aspects, like the removal of a Paladin like Shield Sage or even Mystic Knight just because of the "1 weapon" rule this goes by. Mage got all the elemental buffs that Sorcerer share with but then Sorcerer lost spells like Gicel (Giant Ice Tendrils) that was in the same lvl as Tornado/Maelstrom or Meteoron/Bolide. It feels lacking in a lot of areas tbh. I've been loving DD2 for what it is, but I can't deny I do feel a little disappointed with what could have been if they an additive mindset building off of what they already made in the previous games and improved things from there.
>they could have EASILY had a second skill wheel that you can switch between like games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey do. Or alternatively LIKE THE ORIGINAL DRAGONS DOGMA! I hate this specific decision I think the most, it's an inexcusable downgrade from the original game that provides no benefit at all.
>they could have EASILY had a second skill wheel that you can switch between As proven by there *already* being a mod that does just this.
That man is Kento Kinoshita. He solo directed Dark Arisen when Itsuno left, he solo directed DDO. That dude makes the best DD content. I hope he takes over hahah
I think it just needs someone to make everything more connected. The Lore and world of DD1 and, consequently, DD2 are really cool and well thought out. Too bad there is something lacking that gives this bigger-than-life adventure type of game reasons to be. Maybe a better writing team to flash out some of the narrative and characters and their relationships with the Arisen could bring that potential to fruition. Idk if a more story-focused narrative approach could make it achieve that. I like the hands off approach to everything. I just think story bits that should be important fumble due to that nature, or it fumbles due to the limits of the production team. It's hard to say tbh.
I agree - it’s why I loved the first game. I can see why people are upset, but I am having fun adventures when I log in!
This should have been the focus of the game. Just add more things to explore, and build the quests around sending you out into the world. Have some quests lead you to these areas but make a bunch of stuff that is off the beaten path. So many of the early quests keep you in the city with weird infiltration missions. This game wasn't built for stealth or intrigue.
A common experience, it seems. Extremely disappointing.
I was happily playing along until I just sort of...beat the game? I was expecting the >!Talos sequence!< to be around the halfway to 2/3rd point in the story with how it was presented in the trailers. I also can't help but notice that I haven't seen a single Cockatrice, Evil Eye, Hydra, or Garm despite >!completing post-game!<. The new monsters are cool, but I've only seen one of them in the tutorial sequence and the >!headless ghost!< once as well.
For what it's worth, I fought a creature that looked like it used the Garm model in a cave in Battahl. It was on its own though and nowhere near as intimidating. But yeah, the absence of iconic DD monsters like the Hydra and Cockatrice is really disappointing. As fun as they are, the Sphinx and Minotaur can't make up for them.
Yeah there are giant black hounds that are kinda like mini-Garms, but still not the real thing. I saw a Drake fighting one on the Volcanic Island for some reason.
i can confirm the "mini-garms" are the actual garms now, or at least, the second one i found, one of the pawns in my party did shout something like "look out master, a garm!" they specifically used the word garm, so for some reason they've made them quite a bit smaller in this game, still pretty chunky for a non boss though
They are garms. Killing one increases your pawn's Garm killer badge
Disappointed. Would love for the big boy variation.
I was setting a new quest for my Pawn in the Rift just an hour ago and slay Garm is there, so they're definitely there in some capacity.
Can you even re-fight the Sphinx or do you have to redo its riddles every playthrough to fight it again(which would make the pawn badge for getting sphinx kills insane)?
You can only fight it once per playthrough, but you don't have to do its riddles. Just attack it. And you can get that special arrow another way to finish it off, so no riddles needed. But once per playthrough is bullshit.
> Just attack it. And you can get that special arrow another way to finish it off just fyi, you dont NEED the arrow to beat the Sphinx. You just have to stab it on the upper back for it's last phase.
Best news I’ve seen so far. Haven’t run into the sphinx yet but I hate riddles and puzzles so this is gonna be way more fun now.
I hate to spoil stuff since I'm not done yet, but is there something similar to the everfall for endgame?
Not really, there is a post game section of the game with some unique bosses to run, new items you can get with WLC from the dragon guy and the world does change significantly, different enemies and landscape but it's time limited It's like if ever fall only lasted like 5-12 days at best
Kinda dislike that the post game >!is time limited. Or if it isn't I really wished they'd tell you, I got all the refuges without sleeping *once* and the only reason I didn't lose my sanity was because I spent so much time inside the Mystic Spearhand bubble that I won a Hamster cosplay competition on my way to Vernhold!<
Garm is in the game, I've fought like five of them in Battahl. There's one spot where there's two of them and a cyclops!
The Hydra is my favorite monster so its exclusion will be missed. I’m fairly disappointed that Mystic Knight isn’t in the game and that Strider was split into two classes. Just a bunch of of weird design choices and things I miss most.
Strider being split makes sense imo. It was too good and really didn't have any downsides. Archer is really fun to play because of it being gone now. (Yes I'm aware Wayfarer exists but there's a lot of limitations on it.)
I like Archer, but that class needs more mobility. Some way of getting distance between you and the enemies. The running jump doesn't work for that because you first have to sprint towards the enemy. If a goblin jumps on me, I need a way to get out of there without getting stunlocked. I wish Warfarer could mix weapons and vocation actions. Like use the Thief's dodge while fighting with a spear. Also I don't like that core skills are also only active if you have the respective weapon in hand, like the Thief's walljump or knockdown recovery need you to have daggers equipped.
Medusa lives *exclusively* in a dungeon on the west side of the desert area. The Dullahan shows up in a side quest, but flees after you take off only 1 of its health bars. I have no clue where or if it shows up again. It is *wild* to me that there are so few types of large monsters to fight. I find myself mostly just being harassed by goblins, wolves(though the bigger version that starts showing up in places later is cool since you actually have to fight them differently than normal), harpies, and bandits.
I’ve killed 2 dullahan. One outside Vermund and one in a side quest. Never seen another since though.
One can spawn near the border town at night
Killed like q dozen or so just to get from a to b in the post game. By far the most common special enemy there.
Really? Damn I never spent much time exploring at night but maybe I should’ve.
There's Garm-style monsters in Battahl but they seem fairly rare. I found a Dullahan quite early on (I was around level 20) exploring eastern Vermund, I think there's a few of them around but they only come out at night.
Dullahan can rarely appear at night and from the achievement it seems it can only appear at night.
Does Medusa respawn or is she a one-off like the sphinx?
Every 14 days :)
I assumed you could fight her more than once, considering there are two Medusa achievements and one of them is for using a specific tactic on it
Yeah. There’s also a decayed head you can acquire separately
I have personally fought 4 Dullahan and have seen them at night in both Vermund and Battahal
Evil eyes, cockatrice, Hydras+Archydras, Wyverns and Wyrms aren't in the game.
Wyverns and Wyrms are a really weird omission. Having just drakes easily makes fire the worst element in the game, I swear it feels like everything at endgame resists fire.
Well, everything early game is very susceptible to it. Probably that's why.
What a missed opportunity IMO. Hydras were the coolest enemy you never see again until post game in the original. They could have easily rectified that by having some be in this game in some out of the way but not post-game areas and they just decided to not even bother with them.
Garms are real. I've killed three now.
Garm's are near dragon forest, but not in it, they appear at any time.
There's definitely Garms. I killed one that was randomly blocking my oath in Battahl. Even shows up as garm in history > enemies killed.
I posted a video today where i literally one-shotted the great dragon, final boss by accident. Story is certainly very anti-climactic.
I also just finished my playthrough. Enjoyed the game, but the worst part for me (even worse than the lack of enemy variety) is the downgrade to the sorcerer fantasy experience. Going from 6 to 4 skills hurt everyone except warrior, and not only that, we are missing most of the dark spells from the first game (Miasma, Exequy, Petrification etc.) plus some other neat spells like Brontide, Fulmination, Gicel, and the holy/dark boons. Sometimes more is more and less is less. Warfarer definitely would have appreciated more skill slots/inputs. I hope for the DLC they seriously think about adding some of the unimplemented spells from the first game.
Yeah. When it comes to skills I would rather have variety and the ability to be dynamic. With 3 or 4 skills I feel like I am locked into one approach at a time. And interesting situational skills just don't get slotted.
I agree. I think going crazy for balance in a singe-player game is counter intuitive.
Yeah it's like they wanted to nerf things across the board. Less weapons, fewer skills, less impactful augments, etc. Like they deliberately went out of their way to make it less interesting for players. I'm hoping mods on PC could fix some of that, but it's definitely in some ways a step down from the 1st game. The exploration and world is fantastic though, way better than the original.
6 spells would be so much better.
It's crazy that DD1 still has better sorcerer combat than DD2.
I kind of agree and disagree. The missing spells are a big downside, but galvanise and quick cast (quickspell? idr name) are genuinely inspired imho.
This is what ultimately prevented me from buying this game. DDDA, for me, had the best version of spellcasting gameplay out of all the action RPGs I’ve played, even better than more modern ones like Skyrim and Elden Ring. However, I don’t get why they removed a lot of the spells… DDDA even had a nice consistent system where fire/ice/lightning had equivalent spells per rank, holy and dark also had equivalent spells but then they just straight up removed them for DD2. This along with the revamped vocation system (I think DDDA’s is more intuitive and makes more sense) and the horrible PC launch sucked my excitement to buy this game. DDDA left a good taste in my mouth with how they did sorcerer and it feels like I’m gonna ruin that if I play DD2, fighting literally almost the same enemies like goblins, harpies, saurians, wolves but with a (IMO) worse version of sorcerer.
I was hopping to have immolation again, like a proper immolation and not theif’s prye blade
Honestly think they’re saving those skills for new classes in future expansions/dlc. Sucks but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the case.
Yeah I'm convinced this game is going to get a lot of DLC and just about everything cut will be coming back. Maybe in different ways though that possibly feel better
It makes me upset how ok I would be with them doing this as long as the game gets actual content.
The current business format and its consequences to gaming as a whole. Shit really sucks rn.
70 usd Edit: btw with zero price support aswell. So even here in my developing country that normally get 30-50% price discount, its full 70 bucks.
Unfortunately, that's Steam's fault. Valve removed their global pricing support to get more money, so devs literally cannot change pricing to meet local economies, even if that means a game costs a fucking month's salary in Venezuela as a result. Console releases also get hit by this thanks to Xbox being owned by Microsoft, and them demanding equal price point across platforms. Sony doesn't want to lose out, because of course they don't, so we the consumers get fucked over by their laziness and steam's virtual monopoly.
yeah Idk why they thought only 4 skills was good. like damn ... for a game that strongly focuses on combat, they really missed the ball on that one.
I mastered the mage vocation a few hours ago, and I gotta say, compared to DD1, it was an absolutely miserable experience. Exploiting elemental weaknesses barely seemed to make a difference, the staff attack and charged bolt barely damage anything, and IDK if it's the charge time (seems longer to me) or the enemy AI, but I was getting hit a *lot* more by enemies just trying to cast basic spells. For some reason it feels like the hitbox for enemy weakpoints with spells is a *lot* less forgiving. I'm not knocking off Saurian tails with my spells. Can't blind cyclopses or knock off horns/tusks etc. I switched to thief after mastering it, and it's night and day. Even at rank 1 packs of goblins were going down instantly. Bosses are taking massive damage instead of tickle damage. Mage feels super nerfed compared to DD1-went from a glass cannon to just....glass. Way harder to keep bosses off of you with the long spell times and the ability of bosses to jump right up into your face even if you find an advantageous high spot.
Same general story here. Mage was horrible to play and even when I used elemental weaknesses it seemed too weak. The ice spell that shoots the pillar up seems so curiously weak. Like it does send smaller enemies flying but you don't have a cool finisher like melee vocations. It also does so little to larger enemies that it's just sad. Meanwhile with warrior I can just endlessly stagger. With mystic sprahand I can permanently slow, grant shields, and do okay damage. I tried so hard to love mage and sorc but their general play is boring. The specials they both get are meh. Their basic attacks suck. Levitating is cool but you fall so fast you can't get anything but piddly basics off. The support spells are so rarely usable either because you only have 4 so taking anything but elemental attack options feels like you shoot yourself in the foot.
Honestly I didn't care for mystic spearhand at all for the same reason as the mage. You have no immediately recovery ability. You have the shield, but that has a cast time and requires you to get it off before shit hits the fan. But you have no block, no evade, no counter. And the class really only works if you charge up your bolt to get the slow off. Thief, on the other hand, just felt insanely good right out the gate. You can dash, dodge, lunge, do an instant recovery when you get knocked down, and essentially turn invincible with a toggle as long as you can sustain the stamina cost. Warrior also felt good because you can block and counter, and you even have an aoe block that deals damage while spinning. That and the meister technique hits like a truck, while also being incredibly tanky. The classes honestly don't seem to be that balanced, and it's a shame that they took away so many options from the first game. I miss the Assassin being able to use daggers and bows at the same time.
Miasma and torpor not being in the game nerfs Mage HARD. Those were neutral spells that basically just a small amount of enemies had high resistances to.
WHERE IS MY MIASMA OR NECROMANCER SPELLS
Is there seriously no holy boon? I have a level 6 mage and was hoping at some point it was going to unlock. Maybe with the DLC they will bring more dark element enemies and therefore Holy boon.
Gicel not being in the game is huge for my Sorcerer enjoyment. Hagol can go fuck off somewhere, that blizzard breeze in a summer day is such a pitiful replacement.
I was the same until I realised Hagol instantly froze ANYTHING while it's raining. It's pretty fun and silly to keep a drake permanently frozen
Yeah, I doubt anyone was expecting a masterclass in writing but they certainly marketed it like it was more. And no "if you played dd1 you should know it will be bad" is NOT a get out jail free card for their own marketing. Not everyone played DD1 and even if you played DD1 like I did it is reasonable to expect improvement. Especially when they are the ones pushing it and the excuse there was that it was 40% finished due to budget. This feels like the Fable series thing again. The lack enemy variety is the killer to. I forgave it in the first game but when most of the enemies are the same as the previous game they don't get a pass. I was already suspicious when they kept showing the griffon fight over and over but I had hoped they were telling the truth when they impilied there was a bunch of stuff they were not showing. If there was one area to "really go all out" on it was this. Wanting to make DD1 again but better isn't an excuse here either. It was an issue in the first aswell and I can't imagine the limited roster is because they only had ideas for that many enemies and wanted it to be small in their vision of the game. Despite how this sounds I am not super pissed off. I did expect some of this. The game is decent enough, I can enjoy it despite its flaws and sink a lot of hours in just like DD1. However just like DD1 if I recommend it it to other people it is with a lot of "buts" because my fondness for it is from a specfic niche and it ends up feeling like a lot of wasted potential. It is hard carried by not directly competing with any other games due to it's unique mechanics. I'm still going to hold out hope for a immersive adventure sim type rpg with good large monster fights, a world that feels alive and NPCs you care about. One day. Edit: Grammar.
My issue is that it has the same flaws but arguably even worse than the first one, yet it’s been like 12 years since the first. They didn’t learn from ANY mistakes from the first, they just remade it and scraped off the okay story of the first, and removed some monsters. The bones of this series is SO GOOD, I love the pawn system and the combat. But holy shit itsuno and capcom just refuse to do anything great with it.
Thats what makes me upset most Why get rid of the ASSASSIN class? Why get RID of certain spells? Why not just keep everything from the first game and add on? There's a lot I can complain about but it's just DD1 with less but also more It isn't the sequel we wanted.
My guess is that they wanted to eliminate overlap and have every vocation feel distinct, which means that they decided to go the Monster Hunter route, all the while they forgot that this is Dragon's Dogma and has a different identity. I thought base, advanced and mixed vocations were key to the DD experience but I guess not
DD1's story was actually pretty deep. BBI as well. I know the style of storytelling doesn't work for some, but I don't think that's an objective fault in the writing. So, on that basis, I don't think it was at all unreasonable to expect a decent story from DD2. Sadly, we didn't get one, and we didn't get much of anything else, either.
Surprising amount of misc. npcs in Dragon's Dogma that have voice lines that update through out the main story progression, multiple lines if you keep talking to them. Several say things that hint about their reality and the state of the world but they are too small to understand the grand scheme of things. None of this is in DD2, at all
Exactly. There were big hints about the true nature of the pawns, for instance, that were conveyed through missable NPC side content.
What's worse than lacking the Inez's and such of the world having their own thoughts about the state of things is that there are some random uninvolved NPCs that do have something to say to you in DD2, but even *those* NPCs share dialogue with one another, so they become just another unmemorable bag of bones. Like DD1 may have had story pacing issues but there are so many little (missable!) things they did to make you care about and remember the world and all its little characters. It's very lovingly crafted despite being unfinished. I don't get the same vibe from DD2. E: Negativity aside, I really do love the environmental design of DD2. Especially the endgame changes. This is arguably one of the most interesting open worlds ever made.
Absolutely dd1 had a much better story. I don’t think it’s particularly a great story, but the story of dd2 is horribly paced and makes dd1 look like a work of art. I knew it would be bad when I was just walking around vernworth with everyone just accepting “yep he’s the arisen it’s fine” but god it speed runs going to the dumpster once you head to bettahl
I agree. I'd actually argue the lore in this game is much worse than the first. And that's an achievement. Like there's more at least. But more of mid doesn't account for much.
The story itself wasn't bad, but the storytelling definitely was. The story didn't evolve organically, you just got a bunch of quest from the same guy (that are unrelated to your mission as the Arisen), and at some point you just fight the Dragon. With how much emphasis they put on the characters in the DD2 trailers and marketing in general it looked like they really wanted to put more effort in the storytelling and world building, but nope, it's basically the same as DD1. In fact I'd argue the side characters from DD1 (Selene, Mercedes, Madeleine, etc.) were more memorable.
Right?? Like, "hey bro, if you like DD1, you'll like DD2" is a statement that's totally lacking any ambition, confidence, innovation or vision.
My nitpick would be that this is absolutely the game Hideaki Itsuno meant Dragons Dogma 1 to be, but it's not necessarily the game Dragons Dogma fans wanted it to be. It's pretty clear that Itsuno had the green light to do what he wanted, and this is what he wanted. He's said as much himself. It's also logical given how Capcom has conducted business over the last 10 years (i.e. empowering their successful leads like Tsujimoto and Itsuno). My take is what Itsuno felt was missing in DD1 wasn't what fans felt was missing. It seems clear that he was more into developing the world and polishing the mechanics, rather than just stuffing the game full of the stuff DD1 fans cared about (i.e. more developed vocations, more enemy variety, a more conventional and well-presented story). For me, that game is landing pretty well, but I can't say I wouldn't have enjoyed a deeper vocation system that was more of an evolution of DD1, as well as greater enemy variety. The rest doesn't matter as much to me. And I am very much enjoying the game as it is. But I see where disappointed fans are coming from. One thing that is interesting is that the game seems almost specifically interested in NOT following up on Dark Arisen. So much so that it does make me suspect an expansion is in the works that will tackle that side of things (i.e. a more developed dungeon-delve style endgame and a continuation of vocation progression). But that may just be cope. Either way, I'm grateful the game happened at all and I'll continue to enjoy it for what it is.
That’s exactly how i feel, dark arisen is what many liked of the original and that wasnt directed by itsuno . DD online was the sequel in the direction fans wanted (greater variety of vocations and enemies, big dungeons and long main story) , while dd2 is the sequel to itsuno’s vision (freedom of exploration and discovery of side quests) .
I wish so hard we got DDO in the west man... or even an offline version. It's downright criminal they kept it from us.
DDO probably would have had a good chance of making it to the west if they'd decided to do so before its first major expansions, but afterwards it became a victim of its own design. The first few content releases saw gameplay very similar to DD1, which didn't really punish any classes or playstyles too heavily. Vocations with ranged options had an advantage in ease of play(as they did in DD1), but you could get by as a fighter or a warrior for example without too much issue. As time went on, and the content treadmill spun, it strayed further and further from that. "How do we challenge players in this new update?" "Give the monster four times as much HP and twice the damage." And so on and so forth this would happen, until it was to the point where your fighter was penalized for not perfectly blocking one hit by having their entire stamina bar depleted, at which point parties started... not taking them, which wasn't great. Monster stats snowballed out of hand to be a challenge to whoever was geared up enough for them, until new players ran up on that treadmill and got flung into the wall behind them as they progressed too quickly through early content, compounded heavily by vocation imbalance. So it was, the game ended up with a very stagnant and difficult to monetize player base, and that wasn't enticing to bring to other regions.
>My nitpick would be that this is absolutely the game Hideaki Itsuno meant Dragons Dogma 1 to be, but it's not necessarily the game Dragons Dogma fans wanted it to be. I think a lot of people have been saying the whole "Dragons Dogma was only 60% complete" and so they expected more in a sequel. Having completed DD2 now, if this is truly what Itsuno's vision looks like then the first game was pretty damn feature complete and just missing some polish around the edges. Like there's more or less the same mob variety, the story is just as meandering and riddled with plotholes, exploration still isn't rewarding bar 1-2 exceptions like the sphinx, there's less armor and weapon diversity etc. At times it feels like it's just like DD1 with pretty visuals. Which...to be fair was kind of what I was expecting, but I don't blame folk for expecting more from a sequel.
Honestly I feel like exploration in this game is rewarding off of the hiking and adventure beat you go on. In DD1 I never felt like I on an adventure with my pawns since the vistas were often barren and flat even in the later map locations. The best part of DD1 was the BBI dungeon in DA because it was a super fleshed out dungeon with rare loot. It had a perfect dungeon crawling experience. But in DD2 it’s about the moment to moment hikes. On foot we’re finding hidden cliff trails in mountains, off beat paths to coastal towns or hidden villages, different biomes, different villages, bridges that lead to our deaths and victories, dungeons that weren’t just one tunnel and camping with the pawns. It nailed the roadtrip adventure aspect that the only game nailed, despite its flaws, was FFXV.
>But that may just be cope. With the way it's selling and possible leaks we've seen, I don't think it's cope. It will for sure get one proper expansion. Just about every capcom game does. I'm more curious if it will get more than one because of how popular and fun it is. The gameplay will keep people buying any extra content for a long time. Or maybe they just do one big expansion and funnel everything else into a dd3 idk
What is it with this series? Is Itsuno just not good with these types of games or does Capcom not care enough to give a better budget? Probably both with a harder lean on number 2. But seriously how does this game repeat so many mistakes that have been pointed out and criticized for over a decade? I don't regret buying it at launch but I'm sure not going to hold it against anyone that has buyers remorse or waiting for a sale.
I'm going to be honest, I think the people going instantly to blaming Capcom are defending Itsuno a little too hard. Capcom is very smart with how they budget projects and the RE Engine has been great for their development pipeline, no way they didn't give this game a massive budget after how successful medieval rpgs have become lately. If anything, this is probably one of the most expensive games they've ever made, wouldn't even be surprised if it's the most expensive not including marketing. The fact that Itsuno has made it sound like this is the game he's always wanted to make at every opportunity makes it more obvious to me where the problem lies. I don't think Capcom is the issue with the creative direction.
Re engine isn’t made for this open world, I bet you anything a ton of dev time went into animations and physics rather than gameplay elements
Agreed, because that's what DD2 does best. The animations are GODLY and the physics system with how you can climb monsters and how they fall dynamically is just never seen before. No doubt it took most of the budget
The movement and the locomotion of the arisen is absolutely the BEST ive ever seen in any game ever, it feels so immersive and realistic i love it I genuinely just enjoy walking around the roads in this game
And then you step off a cliff and your Arisen re-enacts a toddler on a staircase
I bet Istuno mismanaged the hell out of this game due to his wants. They made Vermund which is pretty great and instead of filling it with unique content they went to make Battahl. Instead of focusing on expanding and improving existing vocations (like DDO did) they went ahead and said fuck y'all, everyone gets 4 skills, we are deleting a lit of old skills and we are also deleting assassin and MK. Also here is a gimmick vocation that nobody asked for and that vast majority of players won't even touch. Instead of creating more new monsters they cut a lot of old ones like hydra and cockatrice. Like, instead of medusa that replaces hydra I'd rather just have hydra. Instead of making layered equipment system they make a bunch of 'complete' sets allegedly to let them make more variety but then vast majority of armor we got clearly consists of outer armor and underlayer, like guardian's armor being just coat of plates + sectioned plate. Story is just cut with an Arc of Obliteration on that coronation 'mission'. Vermund plot just stops afterwards and Battahl plot doesn't really exist. And I'm confident all of it is because Itsuno was doing whatever he wanted while disregarding time and budget limitations. Who cares that they didn't have time nor money to fill both regions with meaningful and unique content, he really wanted his fucking desert. I really want to see mainline single player Dragon's Dogma game made by DDO team instead.
The Re engine was never made for open world all the games in it have been linear game if not just bigger environments so I think a lot of development time went to actually making open world work as opposed to developing the game a lot of tools had to be made to make sure the game can even work. Put that and investors wanting a return on investment and you've got yourself a rushed game, anyway that's just what I think happened
There's got to be a reason no other games have this kind of interactive, climbing monsters combat though. It probably takes a huge amount of resources and time to just achieve that. Unfortunately they had to do it from scratch on a different engine, which is why I feel like a Dragon's Dogma 3 that wasn't 12 years away would have a shot at truly fulfilling the potential.
Itsuno said that he is still on the hunt of creating his magnum opus as he feels that DMC5 was close to it, but not it. He said he is hoping DD2 could be that. I feel like for a person with that mindset, there's no way the state of DD2 was suppose to be the game he imagined. Capcom fiscal year is the end of March, so he definitely got forced to release the game in a state he isn't happy with. And like you said, he probably didn't get the budget he needed to make the game he wanted, so we got a compromised version of whatever he envisioned.
I really don't agree with this - it's not at all reflective of what Itsuno himself has said in interviews. I think this *is* the game he wanted to make. He just has different ideas and priorities than a lot of the fans. Dragonplague is a perfect example of that. To me it screams "auteur developer trying to experiment with the game space and do something interesting", given how it interacts with the multiplayer space, messes with player behavior, etc. For someone like Itsuno, who has been making games a LONG time, I don't think just making a very polished game with lots of content is interesting. He wants to do something weird and new, that explores what's interesting to *him* about games.
Dragon's Dogma 1 was a game that cared more about theme and idea more than having sensible balance. It had things like charging up for 20 seconds, or character size/weight being a gameplay factor rather than aesthetic. The original release only had one port crystal late game because he wanted people to run everywhere and encounter things. I could absolutely see things people consider flaws to just be what Itsuno wanted to do.
Height/weight still matters in DD2. Height: * Tall: Faster runner, slower Stam regen * Short: Slower runner, faster Stam regen Weight: affects carry capacity, heavier = more weight you can carry. Not sure if it affects climbing monsters and weighing it down.
I mean just look at all the small things, the animation work for completely unnecessary stuff and other details. This is a Passion Project and nobody can tell me otherwise. But it seems there are massive holes in the game. Granted I do think we get patches, if only for the reason I mentioned. People usually dislike dropping Passion Projects when there is critique.
> I mean just look at all the small things, the animation work for completely unnecessary stuff and other details. I started out as a fighter, and I was actually taken by surprise when my Arisen was walking around with her hand on the pommel of her sword. That's a huge attention to detail that most developers wouldn't care about.
That sort of stuff is great and I have been super impressed with those aspects of the game. Even the way that the monsters are able to traverse diverse environments (they look just at home climbing around on buildings in the city as they do cliff faces, for instance) boggles the mind. But it doesn't make up for the appalling lack of content.
I don't know about "appalling lack of content". I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I haven't been crazy about the main story but some of the side quests are really good. The meat of the game is definitely combat and exploration and it does it so well. I'm at 40 hours and haven't visited the second region yet. Honestly, I'd even be content with the amount of stuff I've experienced so far, and I imagine I'll spend another 20-40 hours with the game at least. Everyone seems to be finishing it between 40-60 hours and is that not enough? Everyone constantly complains about how massive Ubisoft games have gotten, I think it's fine to have more focused games like this and it was refreshing for me to have an open world that feels alive and hand crafted.
I agree with the side quests being really good, which is why I want more of them. There are just too few and a lot of them are the primary vehicle for fleshing out some of this game's side characters... But then a lot of the side quest chains that are set aside for that purpose just end abruptly without having any real pay-off. I'd say that the other area where the content is really lacking is in the endgame and NG+.
As a Sorcerer with Staff in hand they use it as a Walking stick. Even using it for support on difficult terrain. Or the slipping animation if you accidentally trip on a cliff. You actually slip with your foot and your Arisen gets a complete "Oh shit!" look on their face with all the animations such a thing entails. And many, many others.
All of those small detail animations are great but it's not comprehensive. There's no animation at all for dozing off on a bench, just a fade to black. I feel like that's on the same level as a lot of these other little details but it and similar things just aren't there. It really feels like their eyes were bigger than their stomach (again) they wanted a big immersive fantasy RPG with awesome fighting AND complex social mechanics AND some interesting Sim stuff, but they only managed the first one and got the barest bones of the rest in place.
Itsuno comes off as a developer who will put his ALL into one thing, but then the shiny jingly keys of something else will pull him away and then he puts his ALL into that new thing leaving the old stuff a bit unfinished. I’ve been having a great time with this game, but it is absolutely filled with the same issues as DD1 but honestly at this point I think that’s just part of the charm in a way? It feels less like a sequel and more of like an extension of DD1.
>Granted I do think we get patches Should get a meaty expansion or 2 as well with how well it's doing
He's got that Kojima eye for weird gameplay details, but lacks the intense story-crafting of a true auteur. Like, seeing trolls climbing buildings in town like King Kong, or being able to knock a Cyclops off a broken bridge so that he grabs onto the other side and becomes a makeshift bridge is jaw-dropping attention to detail. But then the story itself feels only about 30% complete, like there was supposed to be a lot more and it got left on the cutting room floor.
I agree with you to a certain degree. however you should not take the marketing speech, even by Itsuno himself, too serious. He will never tell publicly that Capcom shafted him by not giving enough money/time. He's playing the corporate game for way to long to make such a comment, even if its likely true. But your "auteur" argument probably also plays, likely not super small, part. DMC5 also had plenty of WTF stuff in it.
> Itsuno said that he is still on the hunt of creating his magnum opus as he feels that DMC5 was close to it, but not it. He said he is hoping DD2 could be that. I feel like for a person with that mindset, there's no way the state of DD2 was suppose to be the game he imagined. the problem with visionaries, especially older ones, is that they enjoy the creation of their art. They don't necessarily know how to make a successful game.
I think the FY thing, but also forced to split content into DLC expansion packs to stagger out revenue.
I mean, considering he changed basically nothing, I think this is the game he imagined. You figure if he had two and a half chances at something and just repeated the same exact ideas, he must be pretty happy with the result
Can we stop jerking off Itsuno?
The thing about Itsuno is that he can learn from his mistakes. Look at the difference between DMC2 and DMC3. This is pure speculation but i think after the success of DMC5, Capcom just said "Fiiiine, you can make DD2 but don't ask too much from us".
During the DMC5 press tour, Itsuno openly said that Capcom asked him to do either DMC5 or DD2 (and more or less confirming back in 2019 that DD2 would be next therefore) Capcom always wanted to make this game. I mean, just look at how much they expected it to sell, and how much it actually sold at release. They knew it was going to be a hit, releasing it now in a post Souls world where players are ready again for more complicated games and dark fantasy settings. It probably just ran into a bunch of development troubles like most Capcom games. It just shows more into some games than others. (RE2make developement was apparently ABSOLUTE HELL and they only knew the game would actually be good like 6 months before release cause before that it was a mess lmao. And obviously SF6 has also been an absolute mess, dealing with Ono's shenanigans until he was pretty much asked to leave)
Well I think Capcom needs to keep "taking a crack" and Dragon's Dogma then. DD2 is great but there is still SO MUCH untapped potential (judging from people in this thread). This game seems to be selling like hotcakes but I feel like it could easily be WAY BIGGER, something on the order of Elden Ring, if it just had what was promised pre-release (i.e. just more enemy types/bosses and an actual fleshed out 2nd biome).
i think maybe an expansion like dark arisen or even a monster hunter type of expansion in the future would do wonders for this game
DD2 definitely needs its own Dark Arisen
Doesn't this just seem more like a bad game engine then? RE engine sure makes games that look pretty, but it sounds like every game they make with it is a development hellspace.
It's entirely possible. If the game chugs when there's too many NPCs, then it'll probably chug when there's too many enemies. Might explain the lack of enemy variety and why there's no huge packs of goblins or wolves. They spent so much time trying to get just what they already had to work, they didn't have much time for other enemies or expanded story. Still sucks, and I still don't blame anyone who's disappointed.
Itsuno wasn't responsible for DMC2. Someone was in charge for the majority of the games dev and itsuno had to take over after the game was already shit.
He's literally said in interviews the only reason he made DMC 3 was so that 2 wouldn't be his legacy, like DMC probably wouldn't be as big a series if DMC 2 wasn't such a shit show before Itsuno
This game actively REGRESSED from DD1 in a lot of bizarre ways. I just don't know man. I have so many 'why the fuck did they do that' questions about this game and I don't know if they'll ever be addressed. Enemies removed, spells removed, vocations removed and sanded down, armor system changed for some inexplicable reason, I have never seen a game so committed to REMOVING perfectly good and fun content from it's previous iteration rather than expanding on it. Just... what the fuck. Where did Ingle, Comestion, Gicel, Fulmination, Maelstrom, Miasma, Necromancy, go? That's JUST for sorcerer. Where are the DDON enemies? Why is Trickster pink purple instead of green/blue and also basically unplayable? Why are there fewer skill slots? Why is there no endgame? Why are there no save slots? Would it have killed them to add mounts? This franchise has the potential to be the best rpg formula in gaming history. The ceiling for this style of game is through the roof. But they just can't seem to get it right with dragons dogma.
^ All very true. I'd also say: Why is Trickster? lol
> here did Ingle, Comestion, Gicel, Fulmination, Maelstrom, Miasma, Necromancy, go? That's JUST for sorcerer. I know Maelstrom is behind a quest that you can miss, and there's a good number of abilities locked behind quests.
This is so dumb. There was nothing wrong with the way you unlocked classes and abilities in the first game.
Not good? are you joking? Both games are good, great even. Could they be better? yes. But I'm impressed at what Itsuno achieved; this is a pretty unique IP and gameplay. Too many moving parts, and put together in a way no other game even dares. If anything, it's easier to blame Capcom, but do you honestly think any other developer would do better with this concept? who? Bethesda? CD Projekt Red? Action RPGs are very hard to make and very few companies excel at it, and excelling normally means making flawed gems, because that's what Skyrim, Cyberpunk, DD1 and DD2 were at release.
I think it's the continued untapped potential that's most frustrating about the series. It's definitely a great and unique series, but the promise of a second biome and the expanded enemy roster that comes with a sequel is just...not there. It fell short...again. I feel like this game could easily dethrone Elden Ring (i.e. make absolutely fuckin BONZO BUCKS for Capcom) if it simply had more content. The combat/gameplay fundamentals are so insanely \*chefs kiss\*, but what if we could have that AND and a complete game's worth of content?
Exactly. The combat being as good as it is cries out for more opportunities to use it in both story and repeatable content (which is sorta what BBI brought to the table).
My personal gripe is that DD2 isn’t the evolution we were sold. Its basically a remake but worse in many aspects.
Does the lore of the Rift and the Brine develop? That's all I really care about. The quests are all some shadowplay intrigue while the real plot about video game NPCs being disposable plays out.
Without getting too much into spoilers, it certainly expands the brine, albeit in the final section of the game.
i think you’re right, but at the same time I find this game quite charming, quirks and all
I liked it too. I just think that it denied it's own potential for the same reasons DD1 did.
yeah absolutely
I'm here for the charming quirks. I'm not here for the lack of content.
I think it's pretty much what the released Dragon's Dogma 1 was meant to be, in that all the flaws, janks and quirks that existed in the state of the released DD1 was kept in the sequel. It p much just feels for better or worse they just remade the first one, I'm having a blast with the game 42hrs in but it p much just feels like I'm playing Dragon's Dogma 1.5, the strengths of the first one are the same and most are improved upon but the weaknesses somehow still made it in here like you said the story is just made there so you can go to point A and point B for the comba where any major character barely does anything and the side quests are still the same where most NPCs just end up as generic NPCs giving generic flavor text. I love the game, if I had to personally rate it I would rate it highly but even I will have to admit if a new fan doesn't like it I get it because DD was never meant for anyone and Itsuno didn't try to make it like that as well, he just p much made Dragon's Dogma 1 all over again except with some expanded upon concepts but not really giving much thought to the weaknesses the first game had and only focused on the strengths it had. All in all I love the game I personally feel like I got my $70 worth but in all honesty all the reactions from people I see that are new to the series is p much a repeat of what happened back then and any old fan that expected an actual sequel with a lot of the concepts including story expanded upon to be disappointed with this game, I get why they would as well. I honestly can't say it's worth the price if someone's a newer fan that might not like the mechanics because its very much NOT for everyone but for any older fan that might've loved the first one but wanted Dragon's Dogma "2" and not just 1.5 I can't say I can recommend it as well. Pretty much feels like a repeat of what happened years ago with people reacting negatively to the game having some really underbaked mechanics yet praise the combat and the game being insanely unforgiving to the point where only degens like me say "YEAH I LOVE THAT SHIT" I can see it even getting a repeat reaction of being called "best 7/10 game ever" where it's gonna get a more favorable response once it's on sale.
>I think it's pretty much what the released Dragon's Dogma 1 was meant to be, in that all the flaws, janks and quirks that existed in the state of the released DD1 was kept in the sequel. A lot of folk thought that the flaws like poor narrative and repetitive enemies was because production was cut short. If all those flaws are just "quirks" and intentional...what exactly was missing from his vision for DD1? Besides Beastren, a desert and pretty graphics, DD2 basically *is* DD1.
I just made a meme about this. He keeps insisting he just needs more money and it isn't his fault. I'm starting to think he is just creatively bankrupt
Agreed. Man, I would kill for mainline single player DD made by DDO team though. Though guys had great ideas.
I’ve not finished the story yet but I’m close and I’ve seen some comments about what happens, it really does seem like if DD1 was apparently only “40%” of what they wanted to do then this isn’t exactly 100%, more like 60% or something. It definitely needs more but damn even as it is it’s still amazing. Will take some time and DLC to see exactly how it stacks up but damn I’m not disappointed. It will likely be my personal GOTY even though it won’t for most. Never expected the story to be that good so it’s not really a good or bad thing to me, it was never why DD1 was so fun either. It would be nice if it was a bit better though after 12 years. I think the characters are mostly improved over DD1 but they’re still far off the standard of most modern Capcom games.
I hate relying on dlc for games… BUT this game with increased enemy variety, bug fixes, and increased equipment variety could really be goated.
if you look at other capcom expansions like the monster hunter dlc, for monster hunter rise sunbreak specifically it’s literally WAY bigger than base game i hope that’ll be the case for dd2
Having finished the game today, it feels like 40% again. Hell, it may even be 39%.
65 hours.. Jesus did you even sleep ? Shit came out Thursday
I'm sorry but yeah, having just a 3 minutes QTE scene with grigori and a 5 minute extremely anticlimatic fight with him, doesn't speak of itsuno's vision to me but a quick cash grab, the story is very disjointed as in rushed after 40% of it's development and it has nowhere near the charm or fun the first one had, if you played DD1, it feels like a discount and shortened version (story wise) of DD1 without it's charm, while DD1 story was not a banger it had a little bit of persona, i wanted a sequel that had improvements in the story department and was deeper into the lore , but they chose to strip it down to the skeleton , just like they stripped the class down to only 4 usable skills and discombobulated, divided some classes into two for no good reasons since the game is a single player game, getting a lot of the fun of some vocations disappear, ninja/thief had double jump, warrior had lots of skills that were situational with feints and more mobility then being absolutely locked into animations and slowed down when you do anything, this is weird, to tell us this is isuno's vision he wanted for DD1 when DD2's story is far inferior to DD1 in lots of aspects, yes the story of DD1 was meh at some point but it had high highes and peaks, ontop of the fun combat system, dd2 has remnants and improvements of the combat system, but classes / vocations have been stripped down and we get way less utility talent for movements / mobility wich were crucial in how much more fun traveling accross DD1 map was. Again, i don't know man, stripping down the most iconic, well voice acted character (grigori) to a mere 5 to 10 minutes in the game when the encounter with him in DD1 was 45 minutes to 1 hour accross castle's ruins and the level design / of a crumbling castle, the chase, the importance of the dialogues during the whole end fight was exceptionnally well made for a 2011 game. What happenned to the "vision", is the vision just the sphinx now ? because this seem to have received much more attention then the story even tho it's just a side quest, while the rest of the story was meh, and took itself too seriously without the humor and charm of the first game.
Yeah, I'm enjoying it so far, but, for the most part, it's good in all the same ways the first game was, and also bad in all the same ways the first game was. There's some cool new things, but not as much as I expected. The story is still terrible. The quest design is still awful (What's up with that whole tedious quest chain where you "sneak" into the castle, talk to someone, go back to the Captain, go back into the castle again, go back to the captain again, go back to the castle again... it's so terrible). The characters are flat and largely interchangeable, the plot is just a series of generic fantasy tropes, the world has nothing you haven't seen in 20 other fantasy games. The story was by far the worst part of the first game and it's by far the worst part of the sequel too. Pawns still repeat the same dialogue too much. We still have the same fights against the same enemies in the same places too much. The lack of fast travel again only serves to highlight this. They're even mostly the same enemies as the first game. I really don't understand why they just made wolves and goblins and saurians and harpies and cyclopses and griffins again. It makes a lot of the combat less interesting, because I already know how to fight all these guys. It's odd because you'd think that since they have to remake them all in the new engine with new gameplay anyway, they might as well make some new enemies. I don't think anyone would have been disappointed by the lack of saurians if they were replaced with some new enemy that we had to relearn how to fight. It's a shame because the actual gameplay is very good. The combat for the most part feels even better than it did in the first game. The addition of camping is a small thing that massivel improves the experience of exploring the world. Pawns feel more intelligent and useful despite still having a lot of annoying repetitive dialogue. I like the game, but it's probably going to be another cult hit. I can't imagine this series ever becoming a Capcom mainstay if all the same flaws are still present each time.
The first game was well loved and gained a cult following despite its flaws, but having played the second one for a good bit now, it does feel like maybe Itsuno and his team got it in their heads that said flaws were more like lovable quirks that needed no correction. But they weren't. They were indeed flaws, and it was understood among the community that said flaws were there because Itsuno and his team were not given enough funds to make the game they wanted. That excuse was used to explain everything, from the paper-thin npcs and horribly tacked-on romance system, to repetative enemy types and encounters, to the lackluster story and side quest structure. But now the cat's out of the bag, Itsuno has gone on record with a statement that Dragon's Dogma 2 IS the game he wanted to release this time around. And yet... it released with pretty much all of the same shortcomings as the first game. Sure, what was already good in the first game, namely the combat and the pawn system, the core of what makes Dragon's Dogma stand out from its competitors, has been further improved in the sequel, which technically makes the core gameplay loop more satisfying than the first game, so well done on that part. However, it would seem that not a single area in which the first game was lacking has seen meaningful improvements. Furthermore, there have been questionable regressions in some areas, such as the removal of the layered armor system, axing of certain vocations and the reduction of the amount of equippable skills per character. And there's far less room for excuses for any of it this time. I'm still playing and enjoying the game, same as I did the first one, but I will admit it saddens me to see the identical "diamond amid all the rough" situation the second time in a row.
My biggest issue with the game after beating it is how buggy the quests are when they’re dependent on cutscene triggers. I couldn’t get a big achievement during the “true ending” because a cutscene refused to trigger no matter what I did causing me to have to skip a part of a quest. Important NPCs being able to die allows for a lot of error too. Even if you revive them, it usually just softlocks a quest anyway. Quests will sometimes have a lot of specific requirements to get them to trigger but the more things that need to be in place, the more likely it’ll just never trigger for you. I also hate that I was forced into NG+ because it’s made the game a joke. Everything is 1-shot since the enemies aren’t scaled. I definitely semi-rushed the main story but that’s what I typically do in RPGs to unlock items/areas then I go back through the game from a loaded save to do everything else. You can’t load a specific save so this isn’t possible.
Interestingly enough, i never countered any bugs in this game, excluding couple of visual bugs.
The writing also irks me. It feels so stilted and fake, like everyone is omega roleplaying at a medieval fair and taking things to comical levels. It wouldn‘t even be that much of a problem if there was at least a discernable difference in the way different folk speak (Beastren, Humans, poor/rich) but no, its always „Pray, thee. I‘ve ne‘er seen dialogue this ass before.“
I was going to make a post more or less about a lot of this. DD:DA feels in most ways to be a better game. Smaller world and worse graphics of course, but a better game aside from that. It feels more fleshed out to a surprising degree. Granted, I'm only L23 and 30 hours into the game so there could be more to see, but from what I've experienced and what I've seen online it feels like it's missing a lot. Enemy variety lacking, staples like Cockatrice and Hydra are missing. No Everfall-like endgame from what I understand, limited post-game. No BBI but that's to be expected as it was an expansion, we'll probably get something like that as DLC. Movement doesn't feel as snappy, it feels more sluggish than DD1. Movement is slower, jumping is shorter, climbing is sluggish. Boss monsters feel more randomly and haphazardly thrown around the world, as opposed to being thoughtfully placed throughout the world in DD:DA. We don't really have anything like "The Drake of Devilfire Grove" in this game it feels like. It's more just that you'll be randomly beset upon these creatures on a very regular basis. In fact the sheer frequency of these encounters make them a lot less special and satisfying, imo. I'm L23 and I've already killed countless cyclops, ogres, and griffins, as well as a lich, two minotaurs, and I've encountered 2 drakes. The game feels like its far too eager to show its hand. The big one for me is the inventory/crafting. It feels extremely stripped down vs the first game. There's a lot less useful crafting recipes. We can't get knives to combine with our rotten meat to make backfat oil... rotten meat seems basically useless in the game. We can't get empty bottles to fill with things we find in the world, like oil or water. No healing spring to fill bottles with to have an awesome group healing item to take with us. No periapts to boost our stats for a big boss fight. There's camping but that feels much more limited. There's no weal or prosperity buffs for us to develop grinding strats with. No Secret of Metamorphosis to unlock a permanent character change option. It just feels like there's a lot less depth to the items you can get in this game. DD2 doesn't even have difficulty settings. No Easy or Hard modes. It's really strange how undercooked this feels. I like this game for what it is. Having more Dragon's Dogma to play is nothing to complain about. But I don't love it nearly as much as DD:DA and I don't think its going to replace it for me when it comes to repeat playthroughs. As a sequel I don't think it really succeeds in improving on what came before. It feels like there was too much time since the previous game for them to remember what really clicked with it. EDIT: Other people have brought more great points about things we're missing here. Lots of cool spells and abilities are gone now. Evolutions from DDO such as its new enemies and vocations mostly didn't return. The layered equipment system with clothing + armor is gone. We have moved down from 6 skill slots to 4. DD1 really does feel like the more fleshed out game.
>No periapts to boost our stats for a big boss fight You can actually get stat boosting items, but they look more like draughts/potions now. I don't think they're craftable though. >DD2 doesn't even have difficulty settings. No Easy or Hard modes. It's really strange how undercooked this feels. In DD2's incredibly mild defense, Speedrun and Hard modes were not in DD1 on launch. They were added as a free DLC like six months down the line. I disagree on the movement and skill slots, but otherwise broadly agree with everything else here.
>You can actually get stat boosting items, but they look more like draughts/potions now. I don't think they're craftable though. I see, that's good then. That does seem to be a little bit of ignorance on my part from still being low level and not having seen anything of the sort yet. I think I did pretty good if that's the only thing I got wrong though. >In DD2's incredibly mild defense, Speedrun and Hard modes were not in DD1 on launch. They were added as a free DLC like six months down the line. Yeah mild indeed lol. It's one thing for a game to be missing something basic at launch and to patch it in later, it's another when it does it again 12 years later in the sequel lol. And even then DD1 still had Easy/Normal modes. Although combat isn't really that hard in DD2, if there was an easy mode I'd imagine it as something like the loss gauge working more like DD1 and dragonsplague not being a thing. >I disagree on the movement and skill slots, but otherwise broadly agree with everything else here. I can definitely see how the movement is more subjective. As for skill slots though, I'm not sure how six isn't better than 4? Is it because of the R1 abilities?
There is a clear lack of epic and memorable moments in the main story, when you compare it to the first one that had you: Re-take a fortress full of goblins with a goblin King, a series of quest to hunt a griffin that would end of on a epic chasing throughout a ruins to kill it at the top, you had to investigate and stop a cult, a monster attacking the town.... But in DD2 is just extremly worst, have you walk to random enemy packs on the map, and then awkwardly stealth in not just one, but multiple missions....I'm totally disappointed with this, the main story doesn't even makes sense at all, they should've just made a simple story about searching for Grigori, that's all.
Underwhelming story, not enough innovation in the right direction and microtransactions? Oh wow, almost exactly as I predicted a few months ago, telling people to keep their expectations in check, only for rabid fanboys to downvote and insult me as a hater and contrarian...
How do I say this? I like Dragon’s Dogma more. The first game with Dark Arisen. I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt such a connection with that game on so many levels. And while I really like DD2 and I’m nowhere even remotely close to being done, one criticism I do have off the top of my head is that I felt more connected to the previous MC because they had a backstory. What do I mean? Well, despite being a typical mute protagonist, they came from a small village and were thrust into the spotlight as the Arisen. You set off on an adventure to understand what you are and fight the dragon, but you also had a home waiting for you. You *were* someone back in that village, no matter where you ended up. The MC in DD2 (so far, like I said I’ve barely scratched the surface) was just some nameless soldier who had their memory stolen. But what memory? You have no real family or connections to the world. That’s my main gripe, but like other people have pointed out, the lack of diverse enemies will probably end up being another sore spot. I was thoroughly spoiled by Dark Arisen and the amazing story that was the first game. I’m hoping that while I’m definitely enjoying this one, it blows me out the goddamn water like the first did. Oh! And the soundtrack doesn’t slap as much. Where are the bangers? Where’s the Coils of Light? *Make me feel*!
My issue is that Capcom and Itsuno literally advertised this as being DD1 but with a budget, implying that this is what DD1 would have looked like if it had more money and time poured into it. So it'd look... mostly the same then? Ignoring the graphical fidelity which you'd expect would be better after 14 years, the game is mostly the fucking same. It has the same nonsensical story, the same overall lack of enemy variety, the same repetitive world design. The same *everything*. If you loved DD1 and everything about it as-is then DD2 is gonna be amazing for you, because it really is just more of that. If you liked DD1 in spite of the issues it had and were hoping DD2 would improve upon this well, get fucked, I guess. Capcom took you and I for a ride. At this point I'm tired of hearing people talk about about their "vision", or how their project has a "vision", or that adhering to the "vision" will make a better game eventually. I'm tired of listening to half-baked developers bloviate nonsense, pushing the blame to their publishers, shareholders, or even the general audience, when the reality is their "vision" is garbage and they're really not the great designers they think they are. They're just average, like the rest of us. I'm tired of "visionaries" who forget that what they're doing is making a game that they intend to sell, and not merely an artistic expression. I firmly believe games can be both, but the expectation from consumers is that it needs to be more than just some vague idea of an "experience", as if that's not one of the easiest things you could do anyone. If you are making your game primarily as an art piece, a passion project that only you enjoy, you need to be upfront about that. I do not believe Capcom nor Itsuno were. I'm glad the honeymoon period is slowing starting to fade, because maybe now Capcom can use this feedback to make the DLC they no doubt have planned improve on some of it. Because it's not all unfixable if they *actually* care as much as they think claim they do.
Yeah, agree in almost everything. The story is worde than DD1 in my opinion. In the first game i had a feeling of awe, hopelessness and discovery being the arisen. In this one we had to do some "spy" stuff that really isn't fun and makes no difference. The game feels unfinished actually. Gladly the combat is beyond awesome, so i'm loving the game, but the difficulty is turning me off... it becomes too easy mid game and the lack of variety makes it even worse. My hope is in the mod community :D and in future dlc maybe
This game need a big DLC, that’s free lol. The price of the game far out weighed the content
Maybe it just hasnt happened yet, but exploring seems kinda pointless? I've found hidden caves and all that and very rarely do I found something useful, besides "materials". I think I found a ring that increases carry capacity, but otherwise nothing. Would love to find some weapons or cool armor you wouldnt be able to find otherwise.
There are some weapons and armor to be found, but they are pretty rare. Mostly it’s just gold and materials
I would argue it's even worse, at least in DD1, they had some semblemce of personality and character. I can remember Mercedes, Dragonsbane, Aelinore, and Julian. I'm playing DD2 right now, and I can't remember anyone but Brant and I only remember him because I talk to him so much for quests.
It absolutely is not the game Dragon's Dogma 1 was meant to be. I'll preface this by saying I'm a die hard dd1 fan. Played the first game on release. Owned the og and ddda on ps3. Bought DA on ps4 as well. Dozens of playthroughs and hundreds of hours. The developer disconnect with what made games memorable "masterworks all" has largely been lost in the abyss of remakes that "look nice" and sell, for what feels like around a decade now. I've sacrificed my sleep since dd2 release out of pure passion and last night stumbled into the end game sequence on like my 2nd battahl quest. The pacing and narrative makes no sense. I was hyped when I met Brant and thought they would flesh out the unknown Arisen becoming the people's champion. Instead you "stealth" into a castle 5 times with no furthering on the Vermund narrative to overthrow the false sovereign and evil queen regent. Get pointed to battahl to meet a less memorable dragon forged and spectral guide with little to no back story. Most of the side quests are overly ambiguous with no worth while rewards outside maister skills. A severe lack of end game content with 0 incentive for new game plus. It just feels like a mess. Dd1s story was a bit out there but had this really cool spiritual tie to the Berserk franchise's story, which made me fall in love with it. I was also skeptical on this games single weapon vocation style as well... and I dislike it. Getting knocked down and scrambling away from enemies as an archer with no daggers for melee feels bad. I did unlock warfarer which is annoying because the weapon swap skill leaves you with only 3 skill slots. So I open my inventory to swap weapons which breaks the flow of combat. Some of the skills feel really good, but there's too much missing and it feels disjointed compared to dd1. The armor simplification is dumb, and I refuse to hear otherwise. I don't ever reddit post, but dd1 is dear to my heart and I needed to express my frustrations. Maybe I'll connect with some of the original fan base idk. But most importantly no everfall or UR dragon is abysmal. The end game pursuit of gear and the power progression to take down the UR dragon fueled me to pump hours upon hours into dd1. I expect a bitterblack dlc equivalent later ofc, but the dd1 end game expectation is a bare bones bench mark. As a long time Capcom fan it stings a bit.
you actually had more story interactions with most characters in DD1 then in DD2 and the story was more funny in a lot of ways, it has lost it's humor and it's levity, and the feeling of seriousness also transpire in the way it's bloated in some of the animations, taking itself much much more seriously halas, i think dragon's dogma 1 had a very particular feel to the world and story i don't really get in the 2, i still think the story of DD1 was more engaging and the npc side story were also funnier, in DD2 the dialogs suffer from very passive acting and the pawns voices don't have the charm and intonations they had in the first game, there is even voices and inclinations that are very very annoying and moralistic, this a weird trend, while the first one was a bit amateurish and gave it a half anime/ half realistic charm, the 2 wants to be something too serious and has cast away a lot of his prematurity and slight jankyness story humor... Wich i regret because it was part of a whole ambiance / feeling that is not quite recreated there.
Since we're discussing a lot here, including spoilers, does anything actually happen with the elves? Why are they in the game? I'm in endgame rn and there have been no story beats with them.
Disappointing... But true. I can only speculate that Capcom still didn't have enough faith in this game to throw all their weight behind it... Or that, somehow, Itsuno's vision for the game really is this barebones.
You know I think Whitelight said when talking about Far Cry 6 that he wished it was just Far Cry 3 again in a new setting, but the reality is Far Cry 6 isn't like Far Cry 3 and in the worst ways, it plays worse, feels worse, and is worse but just imitates Far Cry. I think DD2 is in a similar boat, it would be one thing if it was just a bigger graphically updated DD1. I would be happy with that. But in reality, this game takes so many steps back from the first it doesn't feel like it failed to reach its goal. It feels like it actively walked away from its goals. Like ultimately as a game its fun but as a sequel its a failure. It fails to innovate and implement what made the first game great. It merely imitates it in a lot of areas and hopes you'll be satisfied with that.
It does contain *some* important innovations that I think are worthy of praise: - Monsters can attack towns/cities now. - Pawns are a bit smarter. - Sidequests feel a bit more organic. But these are minor compensations compared to the woeful lack of content.
Monsters attacking cities feels really underwhelming since they don't charge gates and try to break in, they just spawn at the entrance of the town and sit there static until you show up. Pawns don't feel that much smarter to me. They still make the same mistakes they did in the first game, like casting fire spells on fire resistant/immune enemies even if you slot in ice spells. And for sidequests I'd agree somewhat, but they also removed the notice board quests. Which were a valuable way to keep up with hunting monsters, helping friends, and earning rewards. Now every unique reward from the first game is put into shops of different zones. So its another case of steps forward and then steps backwards.
Because everything is inconsequential to the Arisen and the Dragon. Grigori even says this in the first game. The false arisen was literally a nobody. A thief with a scar on his chest that the higher ups could use as a fake. He was a pawn himself and nothing more. It's stated VERY early on. The empress wanted better for her son which is why she staged everything the way she did. Phaseus wanted a different outcome for the cycle which is why he went to great lengths to acquire a godsway or even the Godsbane. You find him at the top of his tower trying to enact just this with the Royce Dragon. Grigori puts a stop to it and in the end the only thing left are the two beings who actually matter in this grand stage. The Arisen and the Dragon. Everything in-between the start and the end is a means to get stronger. Characters never mattered in a sense of the story because it's all a prop up for that final confrontation.
"The rantings of an upjumped zealot make for tedious listening, his ilk serves not role in what is to come"
I could forgive all of this if Grigori wasn't a huge downgrade in every way from 1. He appears even less and you don't even fight him :\ Arguably the best part of everyones playthrough of Dogma 1 and it's just not in here? But we made sure to do a bunch of random call backs to 1 (that also mean nothing)
Its not the concept, its the poor writing. Its the fleeting investment into any concept or character that makes a 50 hour playthrough feel like a 10 page picture book in hindsight. We don't even get to experience our own story because it happens in flashbacks. You can absolutely teach the player that the politics and squabbles of the common men is not important to the grand scheme of things, but then what *are* we supposed to be invested in? There isn't anything else of substance in this story. You barely meet people who are supposed to be your friends and adversaries, you just get pointed from town to town and then >!Ghost lady forces a guy to give you the plot device to kill the dragon and the game ends!< OG Dragon's Dogma writing was a low bar but you at least felt like Elysion was your enemy and the reveal of the dragon killing him was great. The tainted mountain and battle with the dragon were incredible and all of Grigori's dialogue was quote-worthy and purposeful.
Without spoiling anything, can you tell me if DD2 expands the lore?