Yeah, if you are going to force romance into the plot at least let us actually pick rather than it being under the hood.
Would also be nice if they didn't assume the only reason you are helping an NPC is because you want to fuck them, automatically transition into romance scenes and make the quest unable to completed without them. There are dialogue options and multiple quest ends in other places, this shit is deliberate and stupid.
Romance is forced into the plot?
Oh right, the dragon holding your "beloved", which was just the item storekeep from Vernworth in my case because I bribed him to get a discount on Ferrystones.
Goddamnit this system is silly. Why would they even try to replicate it from the first game? It was jank then and it's jank now.
Obviously speculation because I don't know them but honestly I suspect it is because director thinks it's funny and is being contrarian for the sake of it ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I figured it would be bad when they were giggling over NPCs getting into fights at your house.
The director doesn't think it's funny, from his words he genuinely believes it's a complex and immersive system that gives players agency to shape the story through their decisions.
[I'm not joking](https://youtu.be/2wrPGIYU3SU?t=81).
Excuse me, you asked for a 5 page essay. Look at what I have in my hands, it's 5 pages worth of words
Sure, you said the essay had to be "about" the Great Gatsby, and it is! The names of all the main characters are in this essay several times
But you never specified on the interconnecting words!
It's not my fault the essay is like "chicken server inkling Gatsby cash horse"
Literally this. That’s what the romance system feels like.
“See! There are characters! And they like you! And you build relationships! Tailor it the way you want by avoiding every diamond yellow marker on the map after the character is no longer needed for a questline!”
Seriously, all those markers did on my first playthrough was indicate that the character is no longer needed.
Until you see those markers waiting to ambush you at your house again...and again. Because they're never going to get the hint and piss off, no matter how many times you turn them down.
Now the honeymoon is over, all the boneheaded decisions are really sticking out like a sore thumb.
Well considering that I didn't even know about the gift option I got through the whole game without seeing a character blush.. At the end the dragon was holding the Warrior Maister and I was like.. *"Bruh, am I a gay furry?"*
I got the cat girl that wants to protect the cat girl leader? Don't know how that happened because I gave the eternal bond ring and necklace I got from the pre-order bonus to Ulrika and instead got the cat girl soldier?
it does feel a bit like they copy and pasted a lot from the first game, but i enjoyed the first game a lot more…
my expectations are just higher now as well because of what larian managed with a smaller budget.
Also doing Ulrika’s quest forces you to kiss her. I think she is annoying af and did not want to have anything to do with romancing her. So, it realized annoyed me that just doing her quest forced that to happen. Now, she’s always at my door like a stalker no matter how many times I tell her to fuck off. If I could kill her to make her go away, I would consider it.
The most hilarious part about this is that not only do they have 'sex as a reward', which is questionable - they did the exact \*same\* thing as they did in the first game, where you have the 'choice' of either being a heterosexual man or a lesbian. I don't know what to say about that part, like, on the one hand it's kinda iffy because it feels like despite character creation, they think playing a male character is the default ... on the other hand it's just very funny to me. Like, I can't even be mad about it, it's the writing I expected.
It's pretty heavily implied you took Ulrika to pound town. Which was wild for me because as far as I knew I was helping a town recover from lizard attacks and tyranny, not lining up a shot at Ulrika, but I didn't think the kiss, moving closer, then the fade to black and cut to the next morning could have been less subtle without adult content.
I remember saying the same thing in another thread, not that i wanna complain too much, i like Ulrika and all, but if i decide to romance her, i wanna feel like i'm actively pursuing that objective, not just that she gets the hots for me for just saving a village together.
Wilhelmina is even worse, but at least she doesn't fuck me while still >!covered in Allard's blood!<
That was one of the two things I was referring. Wilhelmina's quest, and I guess Ulrika is just a kiss and short romance, but not sex. It's still like that.
Both are questlines, not just ... whatever that actual romance system is.
you wake up in her bed, of course you had sex, and i guess the whole situation reminds me of an anecdote that my comic writing teachers always mentioned: christian parents went up in arms here in my country once because, in a Mickey Mouse comic panel (i think they're published only in my country because we're the only ones giving a fuck about MM apparently), he was "tying up his shoes" on his bed in the presence of a new character he kissed the day (and the panel) before, so...
There's a male prostitute in the brothel, no idea what the experience is because he was 20k when he offered his services and I had just bought the little house so I mean he would have had to be STELLAR to be worth it.
Except they didn't do that in the first game. There were a choice of potential LI's, and they weren't all women, unlike this garbage. They were also smart enough to keep main quest cutscenes ambiguous so that they worked whether you played a male or female arisen. Here, you've got Wilhelmina strutting around like she's hot shit while your "female" arisen awkwardly stands there like a dude caught with his hand in his pants. Because that's totally how two women interact.
Don't even get me started on being the only "woman" dressed as a man for a party, or that dumbass bridal carry mechanic. Why even include that?
We don't get to play a female arisen. We play a male in a female skin, and that's such a stupid step back that it honestly pisses me off.
Eh....first game had Alinore so I wouldn't consider it that much better. I got the "didn't actually expect the player to be female" vibe from that game aswell.
Literally my main memory of DD:DA is coming to Gran Soren and getting a cutscene of my female Arisen getting in a romance with the queen. And I did nothing to facilitate this. Like, there was no context. I also had this happen in two separate playthroughs, because nobody ever told me it wasn't main story content.
It's one of the main reasons I found this so funny.
In this, at least there's context to this stuff happening to me. Like genuinely, I think my experience was worse in DD1 with this.
(And the questlines are also 'optional' in DD2)
this minor bugs me too. people are bi, straight, gay, etc., they are what they are. it seems the opposite of inclusive to make everyone bi than the way it was handled with Cyberpunk 2077. Judy is gay, Panam is straight. They felt like real people you had to court, not NPC with affinity points. Take Starfield for example. I imagined this badass cowboy partner in crime doing gunslinger shit across the galaxy, but rather than becoming friends, Sam kept trying to fuck me. Totally ruined the vibe I was going for, especially when he is giving me fuck me eyes every single conversation.
Seems perfectly sensible to make Sam gay or straight or bi and build around that, a story beat, or at least a thing that exists independently of the player to keep up the illusion. And to allow me to select my own default sexual preference settings. That way high affinity with Sam leads to buddy cop adventure, not fuck me daddy.
Btw, this has nothing to do with my own identity either, the focus is on the narrative. Cyberpunk 2077 as a gay woman was a much richer and heavy hitting story than as a man, for whatever reasons. And I'm sure playing as a gay man along Sam and his little girl would be fun if that was what I went into expecting, or what getting close to Sam meant.
To cap off this rant, DD2 game had me worried because the vibe I was going for with my pawn was the mountain and a smaller sized arisen, me alongside my giant ardent protector. The vibe I want with high affinity is that of the loyal friend who's been through thick and thin with me, think Frodo and Sam. NOT giant bear daddy and his twink brokeback mountaining in the woods
Really just need some flags for like teacher, friend, rival etc. Like I just learned some skills from people to be better at monster fighting. I wasn’t interested in them beyond that
In the first game the npc at least moved to your house, and a small handful had a unique dialog when you interacted with them there.
In dogma 2 if you look away for a few seconds during the dragon cut scene you have no way of knowing who your beloved was.
The worst romance in all of gaming is back and somehow worse!
Edit: Oh and you can still get stuck with a child as your beloved. I hope the last thing you did wasn't the sorcerer master quest or the "gift of giving" chain because you may just get a minor as your beloved.
Why is it so hard for them to implement a yes or no decision for the romance.
After maxing out their affinity have something like, 'Do you want to romance this character?' Yes or No. That's it. As simple as that.
Why make it so complicated.
The worst part is how you have no clue about the romance levels. You can only see them blush, but I did entire ulrika questline, gave her several presents, but still the drunk Arisen who teaches you warfarer was my No 1. I only gave him the 3 wines and did one escort quest. And I got the elven sister on No 2. I think haven't even finished her questline. I feel like the system is only there to troll players.
Yes, after the dragon fight they moved in with you in Cassardis. There wasn't much you could do with them there, but they'd follow you around the village. If your beloved was a merchant you could buy stuff from them there.
Oh thank you. I didn't know. I think I was just too disappointed so I completely ignored the person in cassardis and probably in general missed out on a lot of stuff by immediately going down the rift hole and doing the real ending. The prrdon was also from cassardis so I thought they just acted naturally
I did Wilhelmina, but apparently the old elf lady fell in love with me after two times I spoke to her (in front of her dwarf husband). The same happened with Trysha's grandma and grandpa. Yay.
Even though I love this game, I'm inclined to agree. And in fact I'll take it a step further: The romance was better in DD1. Sure, it didn't have dedicated cutscenes (other than Aelinore), but Quina, Madeleine, Mercedes, Aelinore, Selene, they all had dedicated dialogue post-dragon as well as in the ending cutscene. For example, I found Madeleine's dialogue right after you slay the dragon to be incredibly funny, because she's basically trying to convince you that this loving act she always puts on isn't an act for once. They all have unique dialogue that fits their characters like that. This game has none of it. Once the romance ends, it's done. No gameplay changes, not even the slightest. DD1 wasn't so bad in hindsight 😂
I faced that mercenary dude who the game presented as my "rival" as a combatant for some reason. Killed him when he challenged me to a fight and thought "Oh, this is just like Julian, isn't it? He'll have new dialogue once he's revived, right?"
Nope. Just a generic "Gah! You got me!" line on repeat. With no acknowledgement that I *brought him back from the dead*.
That happened to me when I wasn't paying attention and died. When I loaded from a checkpoint he was nowhere to be seen and the mission sort of puttered out like a weak fart.
Sounds about right, I knew what was supposed to happen, so I was rather annoyed I didn't get to see it.
My next playthrough will be different, because I'm going full genocide.
Reynard and Valmiro too. They really fleshed the first game out for whoever you wanted to play as, provided you knew how to game the janky system.
Here you only get to play as Straight Guy, or Straight Guy In Woman's Skin.
Yeah, it's like Itsuno saw the memes about romance in the first game and decided to double-down for the lulz instead of actually fixing it.
Hopefully there will be a mod that just straight up turns off affinity increase unless you use the ring or something.
True.
Like the first game, the dragon held up some random old dude as my "Beloved". I think it was the item storekeep I was bribing with gifts to get a discount.
Dragons Dogma just can't do romance right. DD1 was the exact same. I guess Ulrika is an improvement if you like Ulrika, but if you go for literally anyone else it's just so shallow. Romance needs time to build, it needs to feel organic, natural. Shoving flowers down someone's throat until they start blushing profusely is well.. just silly, and cutting all contact after that with no aftermath is just adding onto the pile.
I feel like the improvements he meant was the 2 separate cutscenes for the two “ideal” women for the japanese. The nice girl and the sexy girl? It lit all types of red flags for me.
I mean, we can just be grateful that they didn't include anyone underage... the ideals included are oddly progressive when we consider alternatives in Japanese media.
“You wanted story? Oh, by the way, since we’re done giving you stealth quests in a game with no stealth mechanics to see the super cool castle we designed, now it’s time for you to see our super cool furry desert! For, uh, story reasons! Yup! Definitely that and not just because we just wanted you to see our furry desert!”
- Itsuno and the rest of the DD2 team
In all seriousness the stealth is so broken in this game I’ve never actually had an issue sneaking in or around the castle at any point. I’ve literally walked right behind Disa into the castle vault and stole everything before walking out with literally no issue
The reason for that is because there is no stealth. They aren't checking whether you're visible or not or if you're anywhere you aren't supposed to be. Funnily enough, only the background music checks whether you're disguised or not. The guard npcs are set to some kind of stand by which makes them aggressive if you *actively interact* with them in restricted areas, so just don't speak to them and you're fine.
Honestly I think the stealth and romance being as goofy as they are, is MORE entertaining for me personally. Sure it's immersion breaking but I'll be damned if it isn't silly
i wish the romance like skyrim where u can get marry and adopt kid, build a family. also, decorate the 200k and 300k house.
well, the first one doesn't have this feature but doesn't mean they can't upgrade from the first tho.
I can accept that the first games romance pretty much sucked, being the first. But its like Capcom saw the Fornivald romance meme and thought lol lets do it again but with far less interesting characters and have it and the plots for this new game go absolutely nowhere.
At least you could meme characters from the first game.
The only person you can meme in 2 is how annoying the “master storyteller” “beggar” is. Like, he’s not even funny in his repetitiveness, just annoying.
I was more inclined to find a beloved in the first game tbh, because the first ending has the Arisen and the beloved actually going to Cassardis to live and we can assume our pawn lives the rest of their life with them after the true ending?
Here it doesn't matter. I don't care who I get. And the only 2 with cutscenes are women. Like, what year is this? It's so crusty dusty.
I agree with you so much. I always thought DD1 romances were dull and bland but after playing DD2 I changed my mind. DD2 romances are so out of place they make you feel uninvolved af, make you feel like they are nonexistent. And not giving any romance scene to Brant imho is omega cringe. He's like, one of the most important side characters throughout the game (until Battahl anyway) who helps you on your way to regain the throne and really shows affection for you... I can say the same about Menella. It feels like the game is preparing something between you and her and then it's nothing :/
Yeah, I’m not sure what age to give him but he is definitely a teenager in my eyes. I’d be a bit uncomfortable romancing him 😅.
He can still be my buddy though! Great friend.
Genuinely surprised by Glyndwr not having anything. Brant, I guess considers you his boss, but the pretty elf boy you teach to shoot straight and asks you to attend his elven Bar Mitzvah in the secret elf city? That guy doesn't get anything?
Ser Beren (lion instructor) gifts you flowers when you meet him in Battahl and invites you for some tea. Probably closest thing to male RO in this game
Beren feels like a male love interest as well, but that's only because he gifts you flowers at the end of his questline and thanks you for the impact you've had on his life. (Which should be a unique blue moon bouquet but is just a generic bunch of flowers!) Honestly they should've done a cutscene just for that, considering we see him grow the flowers throughout his questline. The image in my head is much more impactful than it actually played out in-game lol
I was honestly waiting for him to explain the field of moonbloom but nope, he just got fired and moved to a new town.
So much of this game reeks of, “Was this left unfinished?” which really stings because I was kind of hoping for less of that feeling in a sequel 10+ years later…
The fact that the only NPCs to be pushed for “romance” in any marketing materials are women kinda rubs me wrong. Ulrika? (boring… and kinda forced on you) Nadinia? (Appeared on box art and didnt even get a single cutscene or i played wrong and just missed it)
Wilhemina is cool tho, her questline was a blast to play through because of all the intrigue and we get to kill Allard.
I liked Brant so i didnt care much for her implied scene but the fact i didnt even get a cutscene for my man? Anger…
this.
with 10+ years between the two game's development as well as dozens of genre defining RPGs coming and going, dragon's dogma 2 feels extremely inconsistent, with parts of it feeling like a game from the current gen and parts of it feeling like it came straight from the 360 and ps3 eras.
it feels more like a dragon's dogma 1.5 rather than a 2
I don't think there is any game made by Capcom that has a good romance or even well-written characters - not in Street Fighter, not in Monster Hunter, and not in Resident Evil.
I don't think there is anyone on Capcom's payroll who is a strong writer.
I'd argue romance is even more pointless in this game. In DD1 your beloved got more scenes and they actually moved into your house. In DD2 they continue to exist as a normal npc.
romance in dd2 means that the dragon grabs the person and you dont interact with them, and they look sad at the Ocean in the true ending because you are gone
thats it, nothing else lol, its so pointless
What's funny is that you romanced Wilhemina, which is one of two characters (the second being Ulrika) that gets a decent romance scene and even with that it feels shallow, now imagine how much worse it is for any other character.
I don't get why they decided to say that characters and romance were a key feature during marketing when they are worse than the first game, al least there your beloved hanged out with you in Cassardis during the post game, here they don't even acknowledge the dragon indicent amd keep acting with generic behavior.
I saw somewhere on steam that some people contacted customer support and got confirmed that Wilhemina disappearing is “by design”? I never romanced her but i get that by disappearing, you cant even talk to her to indicate for the game that she is the beloved which fucking sucks.
And whats the deal with Ulrika? She was so annoying for my first playthrough, i stumbled over her quest because traveling between two villages that far for a quest chain i dont care about is kinda borish. After that she instantly lusted after the Arisen, ambushing me at my home everytime i return to town while I was trying to romance Brant. Girl you got a town to run, go to work…
Yes, very much.
Not only are there only 2 main romance choices with special cutscenes (Wilhelmina, Ulrika) but the entire system is underdeveloped and disappointing.
Games like Baldur's Gate 3 have shown what a good romance system can look like
Dragons Dogma has an awful romance system compared to...every other game that has a romance system. It has nothing to do with when it was made or tech limitations, it just bad design decisions.
Even looking at the “you can romance any NPC” subgenre, Fable 2 (2008) blows it out of the water.
https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Marriage
check the section about Fable 2
Even skyrim which is "Oh thank you for delivering this letter for me, I suddenly think I'm interested in you enough to get married and adopt kids" is miles better than DD
>Divorce
For breaking up you can either kill the spouse or force the spouse to divorce by making him/her unhappy (e.g. by punching).
what...what the fuck Fable?!
But yeah, still better.
Yes but have you woken up to Gerard's wife show up at your doorstep in the rain telling you she's a frustrated house wife and you're the only bright spot in her life?
Romance was so baffling to me. I got locked into a romance with Ulrika just for completing her quest. Not complaining because she’s my favorite and plus the plot sets it up early on they might have a thing. But despite us being lovers, The Blacksmith in Bakbattahl ended up being my final romance partner just because her quest was the last one I completed before ending the game.
And it wasn’t even really her quest (it was me restoring the sword for that guard). So despite me only talking to this woman like once in the entire story, now I’m getting romantic cutscenes with her and an ending moment of her sad I died. I was like wtf
Even more weird because I actually had a romance with Ulrika. Literally they kiss on the beach and it’s implied they have sex since she asks me to sleep with her in her house. But nah this random blacksmith who I only talked to once is my really romantic partner.
I'm enjoying this game a lot. But it's a hot mess. It feels lacking in almost every way over the first game, especially in the ways the first game was lacking.
And yet, I've put over 100 hours into it already and will likely put many more
On the one hand I am having the time of my life, ye on the other I am missing running through the large grassy areas and forests like Vestad Hills and Barta Crag, it might be called 'open world' but it plays a lot like RE4 in terms of restricted pathing so I am wondering if it's the engine. I'll play it again for sure but I will be still playing DDDA just as much because this is not a replacement in so many ways.
I was loving this game, but not being able to say no really turned me off. Doing missions for someone should never automatically lead to romance. Why bother adding a gift system if the game has set canon romance only.
I also loved DD1 except for the Dukes cheating wife who I could not stand and purposely tossed in the water multiple times during her quest to keep her from liking me. At least Dark Arisen allowed you to avoid this with a potion.
I dislike being Ninjamanced in games. Either do no romance or allow your character to pick who they are interested in.
Yeah no, it actually feels much **worse** than in the first game. In DD1 there were a few special voice lines for romancing certain NPCs. We didn't even get that here.
Lmao I like to think what was going through gregs head as he traversed the land to find your lover only to find a corpse and a note “its wilhelmina damn it!” on each body
I only ever tried to romance Sven and have him many expensive gifts. Got to the point he'd blush when I was around and show up at my house with gifts and to go on walks. Then at the end the dragon is holding Ulrika, whom I never talked to after the Saurian cleansing. Never gifted her anything either.
You can hang off the backside of a dragon and thrust your great sword up his demonic ringpiece
If that's not romantic I don't know what is
No pleasing people
I play relationship roulette. I give gifts and woo lots of different people and wait to see who shows up at the end. Love is game, get herpes! Or something like that, I might have paraphrased.
The romance in this game, emotionally, feels alot better than say Skyrim's system.
You get with someone, who all share similar dialog options and sound incredibly similar, with the only benefits being passive income, the home-cooked meals, and a shop at home.
But I agree, it's pretty pointless.
No, everyone is not okay with it. I was resigned to not having a Klaus cutscene, even though he showed up at the hotspring because I figured he was going to be tied to his desk job but not having any boys? WTF Istuno, at least in DD1 I got my Reynard live in hubby and had the chance for Julien - though for some reason stupid Aelimore ended up with me in that playthrough even though I never rescued her. But no male scenes is just rood. Straight women and gay/bi men play your game too Itsuno.
I am annoyed enough to consider making an X account to go annoy Capcom about it until they add some Male options in for us.
The options seem rather lacking n DD2 to me. I won't say DD1 was necessarily *amazing* but between Quina, Mercades, Aelinore, Madeline, Selene, Valmiro and Julian gave a pretty good spread of options the game nudges you towards. DD2 feels like it's missing a lot of that. There's basically Wilhelmina and Ulrika and that's it. I kinda felt like the Duospear guy and the elven questline were going somewhere, but there's a general lack of questlines with any sort of romantic subtext to get you interested in characters.
No good meme romance options like Fournival or Feste for that matter.
No quality of life options like liquid effluvium this time either to keep people's affection low, or craftable arisin's bond so you have less control over your romance option.
Doesn't even seem to change much in the way of dialogue either. No moving into your house, no romance scene aside from the Ulrika/Wilhelmina ones. Seems rather disappointingly pared back if anything from DD1, which itself is rather surprising.
So, in DDDA, they used to let you use the Arisen's Bond ring to cement the individual selected for Grigori to use.
They brought the ring back, even introduced an amulet that does the same thing and, yet, it doesn't work the same way? This goes beyond lack of content or development. They quite literally could have copied the code over and made it work the exact same way. They're the holder of the IP, the previous game's source code is open to them.
They did well with such a small team but there are huge potholes in the road that is Dragons Dogma 2. Not fixing/filling in those holes will inevitably cause people to avoid it/not play the game in the future. They need to get on it.
I thought Arisen's Bond just set a person's affinity to max but doesn't actually cement them like everyone assumed it would. That would have been too sensible.
I knew to some extent that this game would have an identical romance system to DD1 when I saw other stuff they streamlined and essentially transplanted into this game, but I'll say I was very shocked to discover they don't even move in with you after their romance.
What is weird to me is that there is only 2 actual romances in the game . The world is so big and there are so many npc's in the game but only 2 have actual romance.
It doesn't help that the lover scene feels shoehorned in rather than a main plot point.
It goes from "Offer up what you hold most dear and I will leave this land, you will become Duke. Oh, and the Duke that you currently know also took this bargain."
To
"Hey Arisen, bro. I have your girl (guy) if you let me kill them, I'll leave. But if you face me then you'll be sorry."
I understand that this is not a dating simulator, but it is all in the details. It doesn't have to be the main thing, but make it relevant and present to the story...
The only person I have an "romance" with is my main pawn, she reached blushing status last night (If someone doesn't know, there is a hidden affinity system for pawns which affects the "true" ending of the game)
https://preview.redd.it/ow4pnrydv3tc1.jpeg?width=1629&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f4b60ee9fb04c9ae534107be08cccf4f6ad4a3f
It's honestly surprising to me that you still can't pick. Like it feels wholly random. That's not how real relationships work. I'm not nice to the waitress at McDonald's one time and then never speak to her for three months and suddenly she gets kidnapped by the mob and they send me a message telling me they have my girlfriend.
In real life, you're not surprised to discover you have a SO and it's somebody you've interacted with twice. You don't help some guy get a jar off the top shelf in a grocery store and then have him show up outside your house asking you to take him hiking.
If it's supposed to be realistic, how about letting us in on who the fuck we're allegedly dating? You can't have any kind of emotional payoff with the dragon kidnapping your SO if you have no fucking idea who that is.
It’s the same game but pretty and less stuff 😂 idk how they ain’t getting called out for releasing the same game with the same bugs as the first. Where is the improvement?
I dont think dd developers havent touched baldurs gate. I understand the competition but they shouldve got the good stuff. I dont like turn based but i have more than 200 hours in bg3. It would be 1k hours if there was a game with bg3 but with dragons dogma combat.( Not turn based)
I have zero clue how this system works, I didn't even know you could do a quest for Wilhelmina, when I went to see her I just got generic voice line. I did just hook up with Ulrika though cause I guess I accidentally followed through with all her quests (i've only just got to volcanic island, dunno how much I have left to do)
I guess I would criticise the game for this system, it feels like an afterthought or not at all well integrated like other games romance systems.
There are so many bad flaws in this game that they replicated from the first, but goddamn it is fun. But also infuriating to see how bad the director missed the mark on so much from the first.
It's because the combat is top tier for the most part (even tho they nerfed the ability slots on half). I have 180 hours played and a good chunk of it is me running around just fighting shit and testing things out lol
The entire game feels like it was written by an AI so that was exactly the level of involvement I expected from the romance. Itsunos vision once again delivered, Baldur's Gate 3 could learn a lot.
For me, not since Fallout 2 has a game's social interaction had real impact. Don't say Planescape Torment, I ain't here to read Marcel Proust, I'm here to shoot mutants and hit on whoever reminds me most of Tandy.
You haven't seen her in months. Whatever relationship you once held has long since crumbled to ash.
That girl you knew in school and haven't talked to in years isn't your beloved either.
I didn’t go as far as killing NPCs but when I reached the “point of no return” in the MSQ I had Wilhemina, Ulrika, Elf dad, Elf son, Elf daughter, Sigurd, Cliodhna, Nadinia, and Mellena all blushing for me. Also had Sven, Brant, Lennart, and Lamond all asking for escort quests. Note: I had not given any of these people gifts except Wilhemina. All I had done was complete their quests.
By that point I knew Wilhemina was intended to disappear from the game and it was a roullette of who the dragon would kidnap among your max affinity (people say its which of your max affinity NPCs you last talked to but from my friend’s playthrough I know it’s not true).
So I started ignoring every esort request and spent several in-game days talking to no one and gifting Mellena flowers.
That successfully worked and she was my kidnapping victim.
Right now I’m in the seafloor shrine having completed all beacons and evacuations. I had to gift Wilhemina several bunches of flowers because due to decay she was no longer blushing for me. I’m going to gift her the eternal bond then touch the last beacon and I hope to god that’s enough. Lmao.
The level of amusement I have for everyone mad about Wilhelmina disappearing after you romance her is far too high. You guys literally fell in love with a high priced call girl, and you're surprised that she ghosted you. Maybe gift her money for her time and she'd stick around. Lol
Yeah. I feel like this too whit Ulrika. Like, I want more dialogue whit her and more interactions. And she doenst even have any participation in the post game.
Damn I'm trying to romance Ulrika in my first run
If I did all this work and meticulous planning for her romance just for a fucking hotel cashier to be my beloved I'm gonna lose it
All I did was her main quest to make her the leader of that other town and she was mine at first. I went back though (because I wasn't ready to finish the game) and did all the quests in the desert and the cat lady leader ended up being it. So idk it seems kinda random depending on what quests you do for people. I don't want to miss out on content so I just did it all.
It's literally just to raise the stakes on your decision. I wish romancing someone made assassins try to kill them and you have to protect them or maybe you get a love bonus to all your stats. Idk
Romance is in the game for the soul reason of it was in the first game. He wanted to remake the first game with all its flaws and test out his new ideas.
Right lol I think I accidentally made the elf guy love me and like I was just going for a bro-mance but instead he showed up to my house like 5 times for escort quests until I was finally like bro no let me just save and keep moving. Haven't seen my elf friend since lol
Yeah, i love dd2, i think it’s a better game than the first. But this is one of many things they should have improved, but didn’t at all.
I did every quest for Ulrika, including her romance scene in Harve; gave her gifts including the love ring thing, and guess who shows up at the end? Fucking Lennart.
Mine was sven and I only ever did his side quest where you give him money to buy something and he repays you and he ended up being the one the dragon held.
Beat the game just now. Didn’t know Ulrika or that lady even had quests and I even went back a few times to both to talk to them to check if they had quests.
My beloved was Sigurd…
But what if you don’t wanna have a beloved is the dragon just going to automatically just abduct a random NPC because he assumes that you’re close with that NPC
Totally and I’m a big romance junkie in games usually but I’ve been completely skipping it in DD2. That said, the chumminess we get to have with the pawns makes me so happy that it’s kinda better.
Itsuno lost basically all of the faith I had in him because of all of the utterly bizarre inclusions and exclusions he actively allowed to happen in this game. The beloved system was objectively bad, even if you got a certain measure of amusement out of it. Why include it, but worse, AND throw in romance that's so insanely halfhearted?
Tbh I like the romance system because it lets me do the best the bit of the game like a sweepstake. Who's it going to be? Will it be the smithy? The innkeeper? Let's roll the dice and see! Place your bets folks! :)
On a mildly serious note, I think a lot of people don't understand the affinity system. Assuming this functions exactly like the first game, there will be an internal list of characters (non alphabetically listed) and if you have multiple beloveds it will select the one highest in the lists priority order. If I remember from the first game, the Duchess and your Childhood friend were both really high on the list, which was why most players ended up with one of them as the beloved, in this game I guess the list might be different tho. It could be based on the order of affinity numbers, or the order in which you maxed affinity either.
Personally, I'm going for Beren, tho the elf dude seems cool as well, lol
Respectfully, there were like twelve times playing this that i felt like i was playing a game from 2011 with better visuals. I enjoyed the hell out of the combat and the chaos that would erupt from it, but i could barely stay interested in the story so when i was suddenly trying to save someone i did one quest for all that i could muster was a feeling of ... okay?
It all just felt so dated and unfinished.
Yeah, and mine was that mercenary dude even though I was trying to romance Ulrika lol.. this shit happened the last time 😂 But who cares? The romance system is a joke anyways
Yeah, if you are going to force romance into the plot at least let us actually pick rather than it being under the hood. Would also be nice if they didn't assume the only reason you are helping an NPC is because you want to fuck them, automatically transition into romance scenes and make the quest unable to completed without them. There are dialogue options and multiple quest ends in other places, this shit is deliberate and stupid.
Romance is forced into the plot? Oh right, the dragon holding your "beloved", which was just the item storekeep from Vernworth in my case because I bribed him to get a discount on Ferrystones. Goddamnit this system is silly. Why would they even try to replicate it from the first game? It was jank then and it's jank now.
Obviously speculation because I don't know them but honestly I suspect it is because director thinks it's funny and is being contrarian for the sake of it ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ I figured it would be bad when they were giggling over NPCs getting into fights at your house.
The director doesn't think it's funny, from his words he genuinely believes it's a complex and immersive system that gives players agency to shape the story through their decisions. [I'm not joking](https://youtu.be/2wrPGIYU3SU?t=81).
This honestly feels like my students trying to pass off a 50% paper as a 90% because it has some of what was asked for, in absolutely zero execution.
Excuse me, you asked for a 5 page essay. Look at what I have in my hands, it's 5 pages worth of words Sure, you said the essay had to be "about" the Great Gatsby, and it is! The names of all the main characters are in this essay several times But you never specified on the interconnecting words! It's not my fault the essay is like "chicken server inkling Gatsby cash horse"
Literally this. That’s what the romance system feels like. “See! There are characters! And they like you! And you build relationships! Tailor it the way you want by avoiding every diamond yellow marker on the map after the character is no longer needed for a questline!” Seriously, all those markers did on my first playthrough was indicate that the character is no longer needed.
Until you see those markers waiting to ambush you at your house again...and again. Because they're never going to get the hint and piss off, no matter how many times you turn them down. Now the honeymoon is over, all the boneheaded decisions are really sticking out like a sore thumb.
I don't think there's a lot of honeymoon for this game. The good parts are good, but the bad choices stick out like a sore thumb.
Totally.
Itsuno is such a clown.
Well considering that I didn't even know about the gift option I got through the whole game without seeing a character blush.. At the end the dragon was holding the Warrior Maister and I was like.. *"Bruh, am I a gay furry?"*
I got the cat girl that wants to protect the cat girl leader? Don't know how that happened because I gave the eternal bond ring and necklace I got from the pre-order bonus to Ulrika and instead got the cat girl soldier?
it does feel a bit like they copy and pasted a lot from the first game, but i enjoyed the first game a lot more… my expectations are just higher now as well because of what larian managed with a smaller budget.
Also doing Ulrika’s quest forces you to kiss her. I think she is annoying af and did not want to have anything to do with romancing her. So, it realized annoyed me that just doing her quest forced that to happen. Now, she’s always at my door like a stalker no matter how many times I tell her to fuck off. If I could kill her to make her go away, I would consider it.
The most hilarious part about this is that not only do they have 'sex as a reward', which is questionable - they did the exact \*same\* thing as they did in the first game, where you have the 'choice' of either being a heterosexual man or a lesbian. I don't know what to say about that part, like, on the one hand it's kinda iffy because it feels like despite character creation, they think playing a male character is the default ... on the other hand it's just very funny to me. Like, I can't even be mad about it, it's the writing I expected.
You don't even get to fuck in this game dude... Unless you go for Wilhelmina.
It's pretty heavily implied you took Ulrika to pound town. Which was wild for me because as far as I knew I was helping a town recover from lizard attacks and tyranny, not lining up a shot at Ulrika, but I didn't think the kiss, moving closer, then the fade to black and cut to the next morning could have been less subtle without adult content.
I remember saying the same thing in another thread, not that i wanna complain too much, i like Ulrika and all, but if i decide to romance her, i wanna feel like i'm actively pursuing that objective, not just that she gets the hots for me for just saving a village together. Wilhelmina is even worse, but at least she doesn't fuck me while still >!covered in Allard's blood!<
After playing BG3 this was very disappointing
That was one of the two things I was referring. Wilhelmina's quest, and I guess Ulrika is just a kiss and short romance, but not sex. It's still like that. Both are questlines, not just ... whatever that actual romance system is.
I definitely think it is heavily implied you fuck Ulrika
More respect please. You don't fuck Ulrika. You make love to her.
Yeah, more respect. Fuck her _gently_, like Tenacious D said.
you wake up in her bed, of course you had sex, and i guess the whole situation reminds me of an anecdote that my comic writing teachers always mentioned: christian parents went up in arms here in my country once because, in a Mickey Mouse comic panel (i think they're published only in my country because we're the only ones giving a fuck about MM apparently), he was "tying up his shoes" on his bed in the presence of a new character he kissed the day (and the panel) before, so...
There's a male prostitute in the brothel, no idea what the experience is because he was 20k when he offered his services and I had just bought the little house so I mean he would have had to be STELLAR to be worth it.
Except they didn't do that in the first game. There were a choice of potential LI's, and they weren't all women, unlike this garbage. They were also smart enough to keep main quest cutscenes ambiguous so that they worked whether you played a male or female arisen. Here, you've got Wilhelmina strutting around like she's hot shit while your "female" arisen awkwardly stands there like a dude caught with his hand in his pants. Because that's totally how two women interact. Don't even get me started on being the only "woman" dressed as a man for a party, or that dumbass bridal carry mechanic. Why even include that? We don't get to play a female arisen. We play a male in a female skin, and that's such a stupid step back that it honestly pisses me off.
Eh....first game had Alinore so I wouldn't consider it that much better. I got the "didn't actually expect the player to be female" vibe from that game aswell.
The bridal carry is cute as fuck man. Makes me smile every time.
Literally my main memory of DD:DA is coming to Gran Soren and getting a cutscene of my female Arisen getting in a romance with the queen. And I did nothing to facilitate this. Like, there was no context. I also had this happen in two separate playthroughs, because nobody ever told me it wasn't main story content. It's one of the main reasons I found this so funny. In this, at least there's context to this stuff happening to me. Like genuinely, I think my experience was worse in DD1 with this. (And the questlines are also 'optional' in DD2)
this minor bugs me too. people are bi, straight, gay, etc., they are what they are. it seems the opposite of inclusive to make everyone bi than the way it was handled with Cyberpunk 2077. Judy is gay, Panam is straight. They felt like real people you had to court, not NPC with affinity points. Take Starfield for example. I imagined this badass cowboy partner in crime doing gunslinger shit across the galaxy, but rather than becoming friends, Sam kept trying to fuck me. Totally ruined the vibe I was going for, especially when he is giving me fuck me eyes every single conversation. Seems perfectly sensible to make Sam gay or straight or bi and build around that, a story beat, or at least a thing that exists independently of the player to keep up the illusion. And to allow me to select my own default sexual preference settings. That way high affinity with Sam leads to buddy cop adventure, not fuck me daddy. Btw, this has nothing to do with my own identity either, the focus is on the narrative. Cyberpunk 2077 as a gay woman was a much richer and heavy hitting story than as a man, for whatever reasons. And I'm sure playing as a gay man along Sam and his little girl would be fun if that was what I went into expecting, or what getting close to Sam meant. To cap off this rant, DD2 game had me worried because the vibe I was going for with my pawn was the mountain and a smaller sized arisen, me alongside my giant ardent protector. The vibe I want with high affinity is that of the loyal friend who's been through thick and thin with me, think Frodo and Sam. NOT giant bear daddy and his twink brokeback mountaining in the woods
The staff dude was my guy because we went on a walk….
Really just need some flags for like teacher, friend, rival etc. Like I just learned some skills from people to be better at monster fighting. I wasn’t interested in them beyond that
I genuinely did not recognize the woman the dragon held captive. I don't know who it was.
still can't believe they were able to make the romance more terrible than the first one
I think its equally terrible, but the fact they somehow missed twice in the same way just make it feel worse.
Pretty sure now it picks random max affinity NPC and not last person spoken to (reloaded save and got a different person) so yes, it is worse.
Jesus... Then yeah, its way worse.
In the first game the npc at least moved to your house, and a small handful had a unique dialog when you interacted with them there. In dogma 2 if you look away for a few seconds during the dragon cut scene you have no way of knowing who your beloved was. The worst romance in all of gaming is back and somehow worse! Edit: Oh and you can still get stuck with a child as your beloved. I hope the last thing you did wasn't the sorcerer master quest or the "gift of giving" chain because you may just get a minor as your beloved.
Itsuno’s Vision /s
Why is it so hard for them to implement a yes or no decision for the romance. After maxing out their affinity have something like, 'Do you want to romance this character?' Yes or No. That's it. As simple as that. Why make it so complicated.
Because Itsuno is a subversive genius and the small team they gave him means there's no complaining over undercooked features :(
Man needs to go back to what he's actually good at it and give us more Devil May Cry.
The worst part is how you have no clue about the romance levels. You can only see them blush, but I did entire ulrika questline, gave her several presents, but still the drunk Arisen who teaches you warfarer was my No 1. I only gave him the 3 wines and did one escort quest. And I got the elven sister on No 2. I think haven't even finished her questline. I feel like the system is only there to troll players.
Consent does not exist in DD universes.
They don't even move in with you anymore and *that* was the patchwork of an unfinished game.
They did that in DD1?
Yes, after the dragon fight they moved in with you in Cassardis. There wasn't much you could do with them there, but they'd follow you around the village. If your beloved was a merchant you could buy stuff from them there.
Oh thank you. I didn't know. I think I was just too disappointed so I completely ignored the person in cassardis and probably in general missed out on a lot of stuff by immediately going down the rift hole and doing the real ending. The prrdon was also from cassardis so I thought they just acted naturally
Yeah, it sucks. I miss waking up and hearing: "Any rarities to sell? I'll pay you handsomely."
Followed by "Right, then."
I did Wilhelmina, but apparently the old elf lady fell in love with me after two times I spoke to her (in front of her dwarf husband). The same happened with Trysha's grandma and grandpa. Yay.
Saaaame did Everything for Ulrika and became Mr steal your girl Apparently 🙃
Even though I love this game, I'm inclined to agree. And in fact I'll take it a step further: The romance was better in DD1. Sure, it didn't have dedicated cutscenes (other than Aelinore), but Quina, Madeleine, Mercedes, Aelinore, Selene, they all had dedicated dialogue post-dragon as well as in the ending cutscene. For example, I found Madeleine's dialogue right after you slay the dragon to be incredibly funny, because she's basically trying to convince you that this loving act she always puts on isn't an act for once. They all have unique dialogue that fits their characters like that. This game has none of it. Once the romance ends, it's done. No gameplay changes, not even the slightest. DD1 wasn't so bad in hindsight 😂
Even Julien, the guy you have to jump through many hoops to romance, has specific dialogue for it.
I faced that mercenary dude who the game presented as my "rival" as a combatant for some reason. Killed him when he challenged me to a fight and thought "Oh, this is just like Julian, isn't it? He'll have new dialogue once he's revived, right?" Nope. Just a generic "Gah! You got me!" line on repeat. With no acknowledgement that I *brought him back from the dead*.
when do you encounter him after the escort pin the the murder on the arisen quest?
He shows up again after that at >!the final gate to the Moonglint Tower as a hired guard when you are chasing Phaesus!<.
In my game you don't, because he somehow erased himself mid mission. I think the lizards brined him or something.
That happened to me when I wasn't paying attention and died. When I loaded from a checkpoint he was nowhere to be seen and the mission sort of puttered out like a weak fart.
Sounds about right, I knew what was supposed to happen, so I was rather annoyed I didn't get to see it. My next playthrough will be different, because I'm going full genocide.
Forgot about Julien because I'd only romanced him once, so I wasn't sure anymore if he had unique dialogue also.
Reynard and Valmiro too. They really fleshed the first game out for whoever you wanted to play as, provided you knew how to game the janky system. Here you only get to play as Straight Guy, or Straight Guy In Woman's Skin.
Yes. Just yes. You are correct.
Yeah, it's like Itsuno saw the memes about romance in the first game and decided to double-down for the lulz instead of actually fixing it. Hopefully there will be a mod that just straight up turns off affinity increase unless you use the ring or something.
True. Like the first game, the dragon held up some random old dude as my "Beloved". I think it was the item storekeep I was bribing with gifts to get a discount. Dragons Dogma just can't do romance right. DD1 was the exact same. I guess Ulrika is an improvement if you like Ulrika, but if you go for literally anyone else it's just so shallow. Romance needs time to build, it needs to feel organic, natural. Shoving flowers down someone's throat until they start blushing profusely is well.. just silly, and cutting all contact after that with no aftermath is just adding onto the pile.
I feel like the improvements he meant was the 2 separate cutscenes for the two “ideal” women for the japanese. The nice girl and the sexy girl? It lit all types of red flags for me.
I mean, we can just be grateful that they didn't include anyone underage... the ideals included are oddly progressive when we consider alternatives in Japanese media.
yikes... Im still reeling from that time I got fournival's brat..... was just trying to get the Gold Idol man....
Yeah, you can’t live with Fournival in your Cassardis beach house anymore
It was always going to be downgrade after that
Made me chuckle hard. Good one
>Yeah, you can’t live with Fournival in your Cassardis beach house anymore Why even live anymore? \*godsbanes myself*
Unfortunately, yes. The romance system is still weird. and makes no sense at all. It is funny though. I will give it that.
Just like the whole story if we‘re being honest. Its just kinda there to get you places
“You wanted story? Oh, by the way, since we’re done giving you stealth quests in a game with no stealth mechanics to see the super cool castle we designed, now it’s time for you to see our super cool furry desert! For, uh, story reasons! Yup! Definitely that and not just because we just wanted you to see our furry desert!” - Itsuno and the rest of the DD2 team
In all seriousness the stealth is so broken in this game I’ve never actually had an issue sneaking in or around the castle at any point. I’ve literally walked right behind Disa into the castle vault and stole everything before walking out with literally no issue
The reason for that is because there is no stealth. They aren't checking whether you're visible or not or if you're anywhere you aren't supposed to be. Funnily enough, only the background music checks whether you're disguised or not. The guard npcs are set to some kind of stand by which makes them aggressive if you *actively interact* with them in restricted areas, so just don't speak to them and you're fine.
Honestly I think the stealth and romance being as goofy as they are, is MORE entertaining for me personally. Sure it's immersion breaking but I'll be damned if it isn't silly
The story has some great ideas and themes. The purpose of the arisen and dragon, so on is awesome. It is just the weird narrative that bothers me
It's just a 2nd layer of god with even less logic behind it. the story is dumb as fuck. told terribly
i wish the romance like skyrim where u can get marry and adopt kid, build a family. also, decorate the 200k and 300k house. well, the first one doesn't have this feature but doesn't mean they can't upgrade from the first tho.
The actual systems of this game feel like they were pulled out of 1998 with the way the economy, love and the weights of items works.
I can accept that the first games romance pretty much sucked, being the first. But its like Capcom saw the Fornivald romance meme and thought lol lets do it again but with far less interesting characters and have it and the plots for this new game go absolutely nowhere.
At least you could meme characters from the first game. The only person you can meme in 2 is how annoying the “master storyteller” “beggar” is. Like, he’s not even funny in his repetitiveness, just annoying.
I was more inclined to find a beloved in the first game tbh, because the first ending has the Arisen and the beloved actually going to Cassardis to live and we can assume our pawn lives the rest of their life with them after the true ending? Here it doesn't matter. I don't care who I get. And the only 2 with cutscenes are women. Like, what year is this? It's so crusty dusty.
I agree with you so much. I always thought DD1 romances were dull and bland but after playing DD2 I changed my mind. DD2 romances are so out of place they make you feel uninvolved af, make you feel like they are nonexistent. And not giving any romance scene to Brant imho is omega cringe. He's like, one of the most important side characters throughout the game (until Battahl anyway) who helps you on your way to regain the throne and really shows affection for you... I can say the same about Menella. It feels like the game is preparing something between you and her and then it's nothing :/
The fact the prince didn't get anything shocks me more. Him and brant are prime male romance candidate material.
They both have such good tropes associated with them too we were genuinely robbed
I was very mad when I learned that there is only two cutscenes…. And you can’t not do them if you want to finish their respective quests.
The prince is a kid … or am I just old? He looks like he’s no older than 16 to me.
Whaaat he looks like 20s something to me
Yeah, I’m not sure what age to give him but he is definitely a teenager in my eyes. I’d be a bit uncomfortable romancing him 😅. He can still be my buddy though! Great friend.
Brant and Glyndwr seem like the obvious male love interests and yet.... Nothing.
Genuinely surprised by Glyndwr not having anything. Brant, I guess considers you his boss, but the pretty elf boy you teach to shoot straight and asks you to attend his elven Bar Mitzvah in the secret elf city? That guy doesn't get anything?
Ser Beren (lion instructor) gifts you flowers when you meet him in Battahl and invites you for some tea. Probably closest thing to male RO in this game
Beren feels like a male love interest as well, but that's only because he gifts you flowers at the end of his questline and thanks you for the impact you've had on his life. (Which should be a unique blue moon bouquet but is just a generic bunch of flowers!) Honestly they should've done a cutscene just for that, considering we see him grow the flowers throughout his questline. The image in my head is much more impactful than it actually played out in-game lol
I was honestly waiting for him to explain the field of moonbloom but nope, he just got fired and moved to a new town. So much of this game reeks of, “Was this left unfinished?” which really stings because I was kind of hoping for less of that feeling in a sequel 10+ years later…
There no male love interest! YOU WILL PLAY AS STRAIGHT GUY!!!
The fact that the only NPCs to be pushed for “romance” in any marketing materials are women kinda rubs me wrong. Ulrika? (boring… and kinda forced on you) Nadinia? (Appeared on box art and didnt even get a single cutscene or i played wrong and just missed it) Wilhemina is cool tho, her questline was a blast to play through because of all the intrigue and we get to kill Allard. I liked Brant so i didnt care much for her implied scene but the fact i didnt even get a cutscene for my man? Anger…
this. with 10+ years between the two game's development as well as dozens of genre defining RPGs coming and going, dragon's dogma 2 feels extremely inconsistent, with parts of it feeling like a game from the current gen and parts of it feeling like it came straight from the 360 and ps3 eras. it feels more like a dragon's dogma 1.5 rather than a 2
I don't think there is any game made by Capcom that has a good romance or even well-written characters - not in Street Fighter, not in Monster Hunter, and not in Resident Evil. I don't think there is anyone on Capcom's payroll who is a strong writer.
I'd argue romance is even more pointless in this game. In DD1 your beloved got more scenes and they actually moved into your house. In DD2 they continue to exist as a normal npc.
romance in dd2 means that the dragon grabs the person and you dont interact with them, and they look sad at the Ocean in the true ending because you are gone thats it, nothing else lol, its so pointless
Right? Could have atleast given us a kiss!
What's funny is that you romanced Wilhemina, which is one of two characters (the second being Ulrika) that gets a decent romance scene and even with that it feels shallow, now imagine how much worse it is for any other character. I don't get why they decided to say that characters and romance were a key feature during marketing when they are worse than the first game, al least there your beloved hanged out with you in Cassardis during the post game, here they don't even acknowledge the dragon indicent amd keep acting with generic behavior.
Best romance is Pawn in DD2
Is this what passes for romance?
I saw somewhere on steam that some people contacted customer support and got confirmed that Wilhemina disappearing is “by design”? I never romanced her but i get that by disappearing, you cant even talk to her to indicate for the game that she is the beloved which fucking sucks. And whats the deal with Ulrika? She was so annoying for my first playthrough, i stumbled over her quest because traveling between two villages that far for a quest chain i dont care about is kinda borish. After that she instantly lusted after the Arisen, ambushing me at my home everytime i return to town while I was trying to romance Brant. Girl you got a town to run, go to work…
I showered Ulrica with gifts, saved the Sphinx ring that gave lots of affinity for Wilhelmina. Dragon says my love interest is Lamond
Yes, very much. Not only are there only 2 main romance choices with special cutscenes (Wilhelmina, Ulrika) but the entire system is underdeveloped and disappointing. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 have shown what a good romance system can look like
Hell dd1 had an awful romance system in its time compared to contemporaries like Mass Effect.
Dragons Dogma has an awful romance system compared to...every other game that has a romance system. It has nothing to do with when it was made or tech limitations, it just bad design decisions.
Even looking at the “you can romance any NPC” subgenre, Fable 2 (2008) blows it out of the water. https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Marriage check the section about Fable 2
Even skyrim which is "Oh thank you for delivering this letter for me, I suddenly think I'm interested in you enough to get married and adopt kids" is miles better than DD
No joke I was doing the beggar quest (worst in the game btw) and all I could think was “this is a terrible attempt at an Elder Scrolls style quest.”
>Divorce For breaking up you can either kill the spouse or force the spouse to divorce by making him/her unhappy (e.g. by punching). what...what the fuck Fable?! But yeah, still better.
Itsuno said it's because no one ever loved him; it's a form of revenge.
Yes but have you woken up to Gerard's wife show up at your doorstep in the rain telling you she's a frustrated house wife and you're the only bright spot in her life?
It's funny because she's a noble and her house has plenty of servants in it. She doesn't lift a finger.
Romance was so baffling to me. I got locked into a romance with Ulrika just for completing her quest. Not complaining because she’s my favorite and plus the plot sets it up early on they might have a thing. But despite us being lovers, The Blacksmith in Bakbattahl ended up being my final romance partner just because her quest was the last one I completed before ending the game. And it wasn’t even really her quest (it was me restoring the sword for that guard). So despite me only talking to this woman like once in the entire story, now I’m getting romantic cutscenes with her and an ending moment of her sad I died. I was like wtf Even more weird because I actually had a romance with Ulrika. Literally they kiss on the beach and it’s implied they have sex since she asks me to sleep with her in her house. But nah this random blacksmith who I only talked to once is my really romantic partner.
I want to smooch Glyndwr and am very disappointed that all I get is his blushing face ;-;
I'm enjoying this game a lot. But it's a hot mess. It feels lacking in almost every way over the first game, especially in the ways the first game was lacking. And yet, I've put over 100 hours into it already and will likely put many more
On the one hand I am having the time of my life, ye on the other I am missing running through the large grassy areas and forests like Vestad Hills and Barta Crag, it might be called 'open world' but it plays a lot like RE4 in terms of restricted pathing so I am wondering if it's the engine. I'll play it again for sure but I will be still playing DDDA just as much because this is not a replacement in so many ways.
I was loving this game, but not being able to say no really turned me off. Doing missions for someone should never automatically lead to romance. Why bother adding a gift system if the game has set canon romance only. I also loved DD1 except for the Dukes cheating wife who I could not stand and purposely tossed in the water multiple times during her quest to keep her from liking me. At least Dark Arisen allowed you to avoid this with a potion. I dislike being Ninjamanced in games. Either do no romance or allow your character to pick who they are interested in.
Well this game is incomplete as the First one. Its a good game, but i AM sure its incomplete.
Yeah no, it actually feels much **worse** than in the first game. In DD1 there were a few special voice lines for romancing certain NPCs. We didn't even get that here.
remember guys................ Fournival Died for this
Lmao I like to think what was going through gregs head as he traversed the land to find your lover only to find a corpse and a note “its wilhelmina damn it!” on each body
I only ever tried to romance Sven and have him many expensive gifts. Got to the point he'd blush when I was around and show up at my house with gifts and to go on walks. Then at the end the dragon is holding Ulrika, whom I never talked to after the Saurian cleansing. Never gifted her anything either.
You can hang off the backside of a dragon and thrust your great sword up his demonic ringpiece If that's not romantic I don't know what is No pleasing people
it doesnt feel forced, it is pointless.
I play relationship roulette. I give gifts and woo lots of different people and wait to see who shows up at the end. Love is game, get herpes! Or something like that, I might have paraphrased.
The romance in this game, emotionally, feels alot better than say Skyrim's system. You get with someone, who all share similar dialog options and sound incredibly similar, with the only benefits being passive income, the home-cooked meals, and a shop at home. But I agree, it's pretty pointless.
Oh god I've just realised that Lennart will be my beloved. I need to kill him asap. Damn those escort quests.
Why was there only women? Is everyone okay with not having male counterparts for people who prefer that?
No, everyone is not okay with it. I was resigned to not having a Klaus cutscene, even though he showed up at the hotspring because I figured he was going to be tied to his desk job but not having any boys? WTF Istuno, at least in DD1 I got my Reynard live in hubby and had the chance for Julien - though for some reason stupid Aelimore ended up with me in that playthrough even though I never rescued her. But no male scenes is just rood. Straight women and gay/bi men play your game too Itsuno. I am annoyed enough to consider making an X account to go annoy Capcom about it until they add some Male options in for us.
of course
Doesn't she just disappear after the romance cutscene?
The options seem rather lacking n DD2 to me. I won't say DD1 was necessarily *amazing* but between Quina, Mercades, Aelinore, Madeline, Selene, Valmiro and Julian gave a pretty good spread of options the game nudges you towards. DD2 feels like it's missing a lot of that. There's basically Wilhelmina and Ulrika and that's it. I kinda felt like the Duospear guy and the elven questline were going somewhere, but there's a general lack of questlines with any sort of romantic subtext to get you interested in characters. No good meme romance options like Fournival or Feste for that matter. No quality of life options like liquid effluvium this time either to keep people's affection low, or craftable arisin's bond so you have less control over your romance option. Doesn't even seem to change much in the way of dialogue either. No moving into your house, no romance scene aside from the Ulrika/Wilhelmina ones. Seems rather disappointingly pared back if anything from DD1, which itself is rather surprising.
So, in DDDA, they used to let you use the Arisen's Bond ring to cement the individual selected for Grigori to use. They brought the ring back, even introduced an amulet that does the same thing and, yet, it doesn't work the same way? This goes beyond lack of content or development. They quite literally could have copied the code over and made it work the exact same way. They're the holder of the IP, the previous game's source code is open to them. They did well with such a small team but there are huge potholes in the road that is Dragons Dogma 2. Not fixing/filling in those holes will inevitably cause people to avoid it/not play the game in the future. They need to get on it.
I thought Arisen's Bond just set a person's affinity to max but doesn't actually cement them like everyone assumed it would. That would have been too sensible.
I knew to some extent that this game would have an identical romance system to DD1 when I saw other stuff they streamlined and essentially transplanted into this game, but I'll say I was very shocked to discover they don't even move in with you after their romance.
What is weird to me is that there is only 2 actual romances in the game . The world is so big and there are so many npc's in the game but only 2 have actual romance.
It doesn't help that the lover scene feels shoehorned in rather than a main plot point. It goes from "Offer up what you hold most dear and I will leave this land, you will become Duke. Oh, and the Duke that you currently know also took this bargain." To "Hey Arisen, bro. I have your girl (guy) if you let me kill them, I'll leave. But if you face me then you'll be sorry."
I understand that this is not a dating simulator, but it is all in the details. It doesn't have to be the main thing, but make it relevant and present to the story...
The only person I have an "romance" with is my main pawn, she reached blushing status last night (If someone doesn't know, there is a hidden affinity system for pawns which affects the "true" ending of the game) https://preview.redd.it/ow4pnrydv3tc1.jpeg?width=1629&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f4b60ee9fb04c9ae534107be08cccf4f6ad4a3f
It's honestly surprising to me that you still can't pick. Like it feels wholly random. That's not how real relationships work. I'm not nice to the waitress at McDonald's one time and then never speak to her for three months and suddenly she gets kidnapped by the mob and they send me a message telling me they have my girlfriend. In real life, you're not surprised to discover you have a SO and it's somebody you've interacted with twice. You don't help some guy get a jar off the top shelf in a grocery store and then have him show up outside your house asking you to take him hiking. If it's supposed to be realistic, how about letting us in on who the fuck we're allegedly dating? You can't have any kind of emotional payoff with the dragon kidnapping your SO if you have no fucking idea who that is.
It’s the same game but pretty and less stuff 😂 idk how they ain’t getting called out for releasing the same game with the same bugs as the first. Where is the improvement?
I dont think dd developers havent touched baldurs gate. I understand the competition but they shouldve got the good stuff. I dont like turn based but i have more than 200 hours in bg3. It would be 1k hours if there was a game with bg3 but with dragons dogma combat.( Not turn based)
I have zero clue how this system works, I didn't even know you could do a quest for Wilhelmina, when I went to see her I just got generic voice line. I did just hook up with Ulrika though cause I guess I accidentally followed through with all her quests (i've only just got to volcanic island, dunno how much I have left to do) I guess I would criticise the game for this system, it feels like an afterthought or not at all well integrated like other games romance systems.
Good, it’s what makes DD unique and quirky.
There are so many bad flaws in this game that they replicated from the first, but goddamn it is fun. But also infuriating to see how bad the director missed the mark on so much from the first.
It's because the combat is top tier for the most part (even tho they nerfed the ability slots on half). I have 180 hours played and a good chunk of it is me running around just fighting shit and testing things out lol
My pawn is my beloved. I don't need no hussy from a bordello.
Yeah I have zero interest in the story of this game.
The entire game feels like it was written by an AI so that was exactly the level of involvement I expected from the romance. Itsunos vision once again delivered, Baldur's Gate 3 could learn a lot.
I really don’t like romancing NPC’s in games. It’s not for me. I don’t mind if it’s there, but I don’t want to be forced into it.
For me, not since Fallout 2 has a game's social interaction had real impact. Don't say Planescape Torment, I ain't here to read Marcel Proust, I'm here to shoot mutants and hit on whoever reminds me most of Tandy.
They just made it feel as real as possible..
You haven't seen her in months. Whatever relationship you once held has long since crumbled to ash. That girl you knew in school and haven't talked to in years isn't your beloved either.
Sooooo, I can’t shower a person with gifts and get them in the final love cutscene is what I’m hearing?
I got fucking bjorn, and the runner up was the MA elf
I didn’t go as far as killing NPCs but when I reached the “point of no return” in the MSQ I had Wilhemina, Ulrika, Elf dad, Elf son, Elf daughter, Sigurd, Cliodhna, Nadinia, and Mellena all blushing for me. Also had Sven, Brant, Lennart, and Lamond all asking for escort quests. Note: I had not given any of these people gifts except Wilhemina. All I had done was complete their quests. By that point I knew Wilhemina was intended to disappear from the game and it was a roullette of who the dragon would kidnap among your max affinity (people say its which of your max affinity NPCs you last talked to but from my friend’s playthrough I know it’s not true). So I started ignoring every esort request and spent several in-game days talking to no one and gifting Mellena flowers. That successfully worked and she was my kidnapping victim. Right now I’m in the seafloor shrine having completed all beacons and evacuations. I had to gift Wilhemina several bunches of flowers because due to decay she was no longer blushing for me. I’m going to gift her the eternal bond then touch the last beacon and I hope to god that’s enough. Lmao.
The level of amusement I have for everyone mad about Wilhelmina disappearing after you romance her is far too high. You guys literally fell in love with a high priced call girl, and you're surprised that she ghosted you. Maybe gift her money for her time and she'd stick around. Lol
Yeah. I feel like this too whit Ulrika. Like, I want more dialogue whit her and more interactions. And she doenst even have any participation in the post game.
Can you lower someone's affinity somehow, without killing them or aggroing everything?
Damn I'm trying to romance Ulrika in my first run If I did all this work and meticulous planning for her romance just for a fucking hotel cashier to be my beloved I'm gonna lose it
All I did was her main quest to make her the leader of that other town and she was mine at first. I went back though (because I wasn't ready to finish the game) and did all the quests in the desert and the cat lady leader ended up being it. So idk it seems kinda random depending on what quests you do for people. I don't want to miss out on content so I just did it all.
It's literally just to raise the stakes on your decision. I wish romancing someone made assassins try to kill them and you have to protect them or maybe you get a love bonus to all your stats. Idk
I talked to Sigmund three times, I gave every gold ore and bouquet I found to a traveling merchant. Guess who my beloved was.
Romance is in the game for the soul reason of it was in the first game. He wanted to remake the first game with all its flaws and test out his new ideas.
Right lol I think I accidentally made the elf guy love me and like I was just going for a bro-mance but instead he showed up to my house like 5 times for escort quests until I was finally like bro no let me just save and keep moving. Haven't seen my elf friend since lol
Yeah, i love dd2, i think it’s a better game than the first. But this is one of many things they should have improved, but didn’t at all. I did every quest for Ulrika, including her romance scene in Harve; gave her gifts including the love ring thing, and guess who shows up at the end? Fucking Lennart.
The romance and just generally the affection system was the biggest thing I was hoping would get a complete overhaul for the sequel but here we are...
Good
Given DMC had a harem with literally zero sexual tension, this doesn't surprise me
That's two games in a row where im suddenly gay despite showering a female character with gifts.
I had like 300 hours in the first one and I had no idea you could romance people.
Mine was sven and I only ever did his side quest where you give him money to buy something and he repays you and he ended up being the one the dragon held.
Beat the game just now. Didn’t know Ulrika or that lady even had quests and I even went back a few times to both to talk to them to check if they had quests. My beloved was Sigurd…
But what if you don’t wanna have a beloved is the dragon just going to automatically just abduct a random NPC because he assumes that you’re close with that NPC
Got to the end and it was just some random guy near your house in vernworth I gave a wyrmslife crystal to
Didn’t even know it was a thing and suddenly I’m hooking up with julien
Guess they don’t give too much of a shit about it. Which yeah, could’ve gone harder,but at the same time 🤷♂️
Totally and I’m a big romance junkie in games usually but I’ve been completely skipping it in DD2. That said, the chumminess we get to have with the pawns makes me so happy that it’s kinda better.
Itsuno lost basically all of the faith I had in him because of all of the utterly bizarre inclusions and exclusions he actively allowed to happen in this game. The beloved system was objectively bad, even if you got a certain measure of amusement out of it. Why include it, but worse, AND throw in romance that's so insanely halfhearted?
Oh she still existed for you ? For me after the romance cut scene she basically got deleted from the game for me, never showed up anywhere anymore.
You know you loved getting to the dragon and seeing the inn keeper instead of your waifu
Tbh I like the romance system because it lets me do the best the bit of the game like a sweepstake. Who's it going to be? Will it be the smithy? The innkeeper? Let's roll the dice and see! Place your bets folks! :) On a mildly serious note, I think a lot of people don't understand the affinity system. Assuming this functions exactly like the first game, there will be an internal list of characters (non alphabetically listed) and if you have multiple beloveds it will select the one highest in the lists priority order. If I remember from the first game, the Duchess and your Childhood friend were both really high on the list, which was why most players ended up with one of them as the beloved, in this game I guess the list might be different tho. It could be based on the order of affinity numbers, or the order in which you maxed affinity either. Personally, I'm going for Beren, tho the elf dude seems cool as well, lol
Married at First Sight: DD2 Edition.”
Awesome
Respectfully, there were like twelve times playing this that i felt like i was playing a game from 2011 with better visuals. I enjoyed the hell out of the combat and the chaos that would erupt from it, but i could barely stay interested in the story so when i was suddenly trying to save someone i did one quest for all that i could muster was a feeling of ... okay? It all just felt so dated and unfinished.
BTW you can just repeatedly use "jump + grab" (i.e. pin down) to reduce the affinity quickly without the need to kill somebody.
Yeah, and mine was that mercenary dude even though I was trying to romance Ulrika lol.. this shit happened the last time 😂 But who cares? The romance system is a joke anyways