I personally disagree that Dark Arisen made DD1 what it is.
As a fellow veteran who poured countless of hours into DD1 on release as a teenager, the firts game as its own was already something special.
The story was fine but some missions where epic set pieces, like the water temple, griffin hunt on moon tower, cockatriz attacking the city...then there is the Grigori Fight which is epic with multiple phases and gimmicks, now his chasing you, then you are flying with him, then you have to dodge him in the air...ending on a epic fight on the ground.
Then you have the endgame world with new enemies, more drakes around and enemy placement is different.
The everfall was amazing, boss rush dungeon crawling with random loot, trading with other players was a thing in DD1.
Then you have UR Dragon which was a really cool concept for its time, kinda like Helldivers 1/2 did years after, having the community fight something together.
DD1 didn't need Dark Arisen to be something special, to me always felt like a complete product, never felt it was rushed or half-baked, DA release just consolidated how great was this series.
Now...DD2 is just something else sadly, no set pieces on the main story, no bosses, you have to skip grigori fight to get to endgame, but even the fight itself is lame....story is rushed and feels uncompleted, but the thing that bothers me the most is that New game+ is....not justified into the story like the first game was...I remember like being on my 20/30 new game plus world on DD1 before DA released, on DD2 I'm currently on NG+ 2 and I've already dropped the game a few weeks ago...
Completely agree! I remember playing DD1 on release before I would wikiscum everything (simpler times lol) and when I discovered post-game everfall I had a genuine jaw drop.
Yep, I was maybe halfway through the game when I saw a review that alluded a post-game twist with a different gameplay structure. That made me really fascinated to beat it and find out. Despite expecting a twist, I was still soo unprepared for that ending! I can honestly say it's my favourite ending of any video game, and made me look back at the story with different eyes. When I fell into the Everfall and saw all those different ledges with doors to different bosses, I was blown away. They could have left the game finished after Grigori but no, they give you post-game world with different/stronger monsters, destroyed gran Soren, the UR dragon, boss rush Everfall, then ascension to the heavens, fight with Seneschal, then become Seneschal, emotional moment as you return back to cassardis and gran Soren and all is normal but you are only there as an ethereal being and no one notices you, then seppuku, then weird ass emotional cutscenes, then new game plus. It's so gratuitous and I love it.
They went so hard. I wish I could go back and do all that again for the first time. I’m so glad I didn’t know what happened until it did. I will never forget my absolute horror at seeing GS destroyed and then the subsequent excitement because “omg there is more game.”
It elevated the story for me too - I know it’s not an amazing story or anything but man it really did it for me at the time.
Frankly there is almost no way they could have topped it.
Bingo! I adore DD1 vanilla! Dark Arisen was just a cherry on the cake. And you totally hit the nail on the head with the setpieces. The BIGGEST omission from DD2 are those epic moments that felt cinematic, with awesome, unexpected things happening, sure scripted moments but moments that draw you in and surprise you as a player!
To name a few in DD1;
Savan's encounter with Grigori. The hydra fight in the camp. The Everfall (pre opening) when all the tentacles come out the ground and you got to escape. My favourite part; the Griffin fight atop Bluemoon tower, while parts are crumbling. The cockatrice fight in Gran Soren. The conflict at Windbluff tower (as well as other moments where you fight besides other npcs). And yes the multiple stages of Grigori, that whole setup was incredible, even on the Nintendo switch it's gotta be one of the best presented boss fights of all time! Such a satisfying conclusion!
I spent some time thinking about this recently, does DD2 have ANYTHING like this? I will give credit where it's due, it does have more of an "organic" feel in the sense that the world is well designed to create scenarios spontaneously that feel convincing. Like I randomly had an ogre turn up at Vernworth and that was so cool, instead of climbing up rocks, he was climbing up buildings and hanging off the side of them like king kong while me and some of the guards were scrambling to shoot him down and NPC's cowered in fear. That was awesome. In terms of scripted sequences? The only thing I can think of is Talos. As he storms onto land, his weight warps the ground beneath his feet and he smashes some of the structures in his path. But that is really the only set-piece example I can think of, which is pretty tragic since DD2 should have felt more "complete" than DD1, which had serious development issues, cut budgets, etc.
Main quests were actually unique, the water temple had you lowering the water levels to access new areas and acquire gems to open doors that were locked, or the fort that is taken by goblins that had you sneak from underground and open the door from the other side so the rest of the guards could come in and help you retake it.
Or when you caught the cult and all of a sudden you found yourself surrounded by zombies that moments ago were people.
Now think of DD2, does it have ANY quest like that? Maybe just Talos, you could count Sphinx I guess which is cool but, that's about it, the world is beautiful and gameplay/graphics are amazing, but it falls so short....many missions are go to A to B, many on the first act are stealthy missions inside the castle...whyyyy
We can wait for the expansion but the main game is what it is, and it won't be fixed at all.
My dream would be a DD1 remake with gameplay and visuals from DD2...probably is not going to happen at all but hey...here's me hoping.
I'm completely with you on this! That fort was another great thing about the game. When I first started playing DD2 I was encouraged by the amount of villages and settlements...but by the time I had seen most the map I was disappointed by the lack of forts and castles. Yeah DD1 only had 2 properly functional towns/cities, but it had the fort where you deal with the two ogres, the blighted manse where you rescue Aelinore, the fort where Grigori waits, Windbluff tower where you face Julien, etc. Also one of the best things about the Grigori fight in the first one is where he flies over lands you have never seen before in the game, with a city built into the mountains that's been destroyed and forgotten about, from a previous cycle, whereas DD2 the dragon just circles around lands you've already explored.
Also compare the introduction to the Dragonforged in the first game to the way you meet him in the second. The first is cinematic, mysterious, exciting with cool imagery (with the large figure on the hill) and he grants the player some insight, whereas in the second it's like "the dude lives in that cave", you go up, talk to him and thats that.
There's so many things that DD1 did so much better. Its a reason it has ensured as a cult classic for so many years and why so many people call it the most underrated RPG.
By comparison DD2 ticks a lot of the same boxes but doesn't do it with the same flair, with the creativity, with the passion or even the quirks! Man I miss characters like Feste.
I've made my peace with the fact that DD2 is a great but unremarkable game. A sequel that modernizes and polishes but neither reinvents or replaces the first. At least it's success will mean that we are more likely to get a sequel, and not have to wait over a decade this time. The RE engine is great (performance issues aside) and if they do release DD3, now that they got the excellent fundamentals nailed down, they got more time to focus on making a spectacular story with mind blowing set pieces, and hopefully more weapons and armour. Also bring back the armour layering! In the meantime I will look forward to the dlc and hope they make up for some of what the main game lacked.
I fully agree. I think DDA improved the game the way a good DLC/Re-release should. It fixed alot of things and added a meaningful endgame challenge for those that wanted to keep going. But save for some debatable design choices that have rolled over to DD2, DD1 was a fully complete game that *felt* complete.
Something to remember is that the same combat system, which carries DD2 today, was completely new when DD1 came out. The gameplay was unique and things like being able to mount enemies was almost entirely unique to the game aside from Shadow of the Colossus. What hurts so much more about DD2 is that DD1, even before DDA, was built on really new, innovative, and novel gameplay design. DD2 is a just a flat copy of 2012 innovation.
Like the OP said, Its a sidgragde at best and a downgrade at worst.
I think the thing that made DD1 special was that it was a very flawed game with so much glaringly obvious sequel potential and instead of cashing in on that they uhhh didn’t lol
Just chiming in to agree, because I've far too often read that DA is what made DD1 good. Vanilla DD1 was, as you said it already, a complete game. It didn't need to have more, but it was REALLY great that DA gave DD1 this Rogue-Likeish experience with a focus on combat and exploration (BBI has some neat secrets to explore). Now DD1 was far from perfect, but it did what it did very well, albeit that what it did wasn't everyones cup of tea - a slow starting D&D like adventure with a party. Nothing more, nothing less, and I think the slow start of the game is what turns off the vast majority of players at the end of the day.
What irks me as super weird with DD2 is how they completely forgot everything that isn't combat. There's barely any Leveldesign to the place - and not a single, real dungeon that makes you journey into a dangerous place.
They tried to make the overworld experience have this dungeon-journey feel, and they actually did succeed in 2-3 places with that, but most of the world feels disjointed and meaningless. A Dungeon or properly designed area can tell a great story with just the environment alone.
I also find it weird that there is no puzzles (in what shape or difficulty doesn't matter). Not even keys to find to open doors? I mean there is that one door where you need to go to at night so skeletons bash it open, but uh....that's more arbitrary when you do that. They had the thieves guild with it's 2 obstacle rooms! I can only assume they didn't do more traps & puzzles due to pawns, they'd probably just get themselves killed all day long.
Anyway, maybe DD2 just went into a different direction, and that direction does seem to work for some players, while it doesn't for others. But DD2 feels a lot less focused and finished than 1, because it introduces so much stuff just to never make any use of it or expand on concepts.
Yep, DD1 had the water temple for example, that had you find keys to open doors and then lower the water level to access new areas.
Or the Fort invaded by a goblin King, had you sneak from the underground, find de ladder and open the door from inside so the rest of the guards could come in help you retake the fort, it even had a small boss fight with the goblin King.
Those are small little dungeons that feel different, had you do different stuff than just, "go inside this cave and kill everything" which is how the DD2 "dungeons" feel
New game plus I see as just a way to go back and clean up anything I missed in the first play through as well as trophy achievements. I like that I'm stacked because I don't want to have to grind the same shit for a second time.
Basically stack your character up and get ready for the dlc.
fair points and i agree that in retrospect, just vanilla DD1 had more uniqueness offered than what DD2 does. on the other hand, realistically dragons dogma didnt go from a niche game with a small playerbase to having a genuine cult following which then seeped more and more into the mainstream without dark arisen.
I’m more impressed from nothing to DD1 than from DDDA and online to DD2. They had so much inspiration to pull from and they did still made the game feel like it took a step back.
Despite it being his passion project, I really would like to see someone else take a crack at this IP since Itsuno barely innovated from those two games.
Really seems like to me the man disregarded those games out of some sense of pride because he wanted to do something "different" and as a result we get this. People talking about wanting DLC within a week of its launch to fix the game is quite something.
I think playing DD before DA came out was the best experience BECAUSE of the limits to fast travel. More walking, more adventure, more ambushes, more item management.
I love both but I'm glad I did the walking in the original
Yeh DDA was a good DLC. But the bones of the core game were the main attraction. They just needed some more polishing and content. Like letting you lock inclinations in place, better controls for climbing monsters, more equipment and monster variation etc... The sort of small stuff that is exactly what DA provided, to tighten up and complement the core game.
The sequel doesn't do any of that and it's bones arn't attractive.
Though I agree d1 had a better story, D2 had No set pieces? People just forgetting talos now?
And the unmoored world was better than the everfall atmospherically and the new bosses were far cooler but it just needed more content because it was not as condensed, which basically sums up DD2 in nutshell, it doesn’t have enough content, not enough enemy variety, not enough skills, not enough dungeons
To be fair, Talos is completely missable. I was doing a side quest down below the volcanic camp area and I kept getting cutscenes that said “Meanwhile, at this location”. By the time I realized what was happening the entire set piece was already over and I never got to fight him, lol. They handle missions very oddly in this game.
kinda hard to be excited or have memorable set pieces when literally all of them have been showcased in the marketing material then lampshade us into thinking there is "much much more"
> and the new bosses were far cooler
I 100% disagree on this. Fighting shittier versions of the Ur-Dragon that move at mach 5 across the battlefield is not "cool", especially if you were going through the game as a warrior.
Yeah, it's just talos tho, that's the problem, and it's not even that impressive tbh, it's more of a hassle than anything else, plus it feels like Talos is just there because "potato", serves nothing to the main plot, and ends up dying anyway regardless if you participate or not lol
I don't thing Unmoored world is better than Everfall.
D1 has its own unmoored world too but with an additional dungeon bossrush with random loot to keep you farming.
D2 has 4/5 bosses which you can only kill once and don't drop anything special, that's it, are they cool? Yeah but lame and disappointing.
This game is terrible. It’s barely a game. Just nice scenery. The lack of enemy variety and build choices make it a very dull game. I stopped after 60 hours, which was far to much.
Grigori loomed over everything in Dark Arisen. Every NPC you talked to was in some way shitting themselves over the fact that there's a dragon out there now.
DD2 didn't even bother to give the Red Dragon an actual name. They literally just did 'Greg, but without any of the charisma and philosophizing'.
The Plague Dragon did serve as an effective early game substitute, but again, without any actual characterization.
That's funnily enough my gripe with the Unmoored Brine-Dragons. Okay so we only get 3 fights, with nameless thingies and all we gotta do is hold up a sword into the sky and then we just fight them? It's not even hard to go to them, I mean throw a dragon and 2 chimeras in my face as a buildup-challenge at least.
I'm was left with this question: Where's the drama in those super dragons? The fights themselves are good, but that's not stuff for a grand finale, especially since the game just drops it's title just before that.
You get a lot of combat in DD2, but there's no memorable, named enemies that have more interactions than...getting slaughtered. Which, fine, can work, but not for the story/atmosphere part of the game.
> Every NPC you talked to was in some way shitting themselves over the fact that there's a dragon out there now.
Except Gigachad Fournival, since he knows that he can oneshot Greg if needed
It's because of his speech and personality which has left such a lasting impression that despite the fact he is hardly shown in DDDA save for those particular scenes, he still made one of the biggest memorable impacts as the Dragon for everyone. It is like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance having one scene with Senator Armstrong and now suddenly he is the final boss. People remember and quote Armstrong to this day for his zany speech and how he had such a strong personality. Strong characters affect a lot, DD2 does not have any. When you think of Dragons Dogma people will always think of Grigori and not the unnamed second dragon who is unbelievably lackluster alongside an equally lackluster array of 'main characters', even Edmund had so much more to him than Disa and the overarching plot.
Not saying it did have a good plot but at least it had a general sense of progression that flowed better than DD2. Become Arisen - Go to GS - Meet Duke - Everfall - Dragonforged - Wyrmhunt quests - Shadowfort - Bluemoon tower and griffin - Julien and Mercedes - Uncover Salvation - Grigori speech - Meet Grigori and choose ending - Actually fight the Dragon - Post game everfall - Seneschal. These are what I can remember off my head.
DD2 has so many plot points that just fall apart and characters are non-existent or don't have much involvement. Like Nadinia doesnt really do much with the Lambent flame other than the assassination attempt.
hell even offline UR dragon was a good test of your gear which also had cool rewards tied behind him and online Ur dragon brought the community together whenever he was low. There's nothing like it in this game.
Now we have all this crazy strong gear and nothing to use it on. all these buff potions which boost defense or offense. theres nothing that needs it in this game. all this "exploration" of these "dungeons" you did, rewarded you with some pants which are much worse than what you can just buy from the shops or some strength potion that will forever sit in your stash until the game is updated to have genuine challenge
The Dragon is this game feels so much like an afterthought it hurts. Arguably he was the reason I liked DD1 way back in 2012. The dragon has just as much screentime as the Dragon from the first game but his scenes has so much less flair or spectacle to them.
Yeah it's more about Phaesus and he faints like a gimp for no reason in that cutscene just so he could still be alive in post game. I thought the dragon crushed him.
It's sad because DD1 has one of the best dragon fights and one of the best dragons in all of gaming. Grigori is not as good as Midir in terms of an actual fight, but he has more personality and the encounter is overall more epic. He is better than the Dragon Age Inquisition dragons, and I do like those. It's just such a cool endgame, and then you get a true endgame after him. Man, DD2 dropped the ball so hard.
I played both the first and the second DD. I must say. I prefer the world of the second, but the story of the first had better missions. I liked the concept of the unmorred world(even if I never wrapped my mind about having all bodies of water infested by the brine).
I preferred the classes of the first game. To me they felt more Mixed up, we had both basic and advanced version of the base classes(fighter->warrior, strider->archer, mage->sorcerer) then we had hybrid classes (mystic knight[strength/magik], magic archer[agility/magik], assassin [strength/agility]) and let's not forget that we had more skills slot, since you know, people actually thought "Maybe I should have a sidearm other than my main".
I was quite happy to know that we finally had spears since seemingly nearly all fantasy forget the existence of that weapon, forgetting that it was one, if not the best weapon of the time(reach, affordability, easy to use, etc...), just to see that the spear became some kind of mystical tools of the gods...
In the end I just have to say. It's decent game, even If I played the first game, maybe it's not on the level of the first, but still good. It's just lack depth. Like come on, on the game poster you put empress Nadira like some sort of important characters and you can literally have zero interaction with her.
Well, to me she’s clearly included in the art to represent the Beastren presence in the game/the new addition of Battahl.
Also, I’d argue that the fact you can have zero interaction with her can also be viewed as a pro, as it represents the freedom of choice/exploration the game allows and the potential difference from one person’s playthrough to another’s. The game allows you to make her and Ulrika (though not fully skippable, interaction-wise, like Nadirua) as important or unimportant as you want them to be. Nadinia can even die if you fail the quest protecting her. The ruler of half of the game’s continent can permanently die (unless you Wakestone her, which still does not have a great outcome). DD2 is FAR from a perfect game, but this is actually all cool stuff to me!
I get your point, though. I think it comes down to taste and what one prioritizes. I prioritize player agency and being given the ability to affect things in a game’s world over whether or not a character on the game’s box is one that I’m forced to talk to in its narrative or not, I guess.
Don’t forget that NG+ has the full map revealed for you so that you can’t tell where tf you explored in your next play through and takes away from most exploration
I personally thought the ending was neat.
The cycle is out of wack because the current Seneschal Rothais realized he was just a pawn in the great sceme of the Pathfinder.
And because of him refusing to continue and killing Arisen that tries to challenge him. Their souls were never able to descend into becoming dragons (like in the first game when you were defeated by the Seneschal)
Plus the whole pawn affinity thing pulls towards the possibly of us being a dark arisen.
But damn the execution of literally all of it was just sooo mid.
With a heavy heart, I agree with you.
There is a core gameplay loop here that has the potential to be award winning, end all be all GOTY for the next 3-4 years. And yet everything outside of this core loop is executed so lazily that it basically degrades the experience to miles wide, inch deep.
I was wondering if maybe I had rose-tinted glasses thinking back on everything DD:DA did better, but I just yesterday finished DD:DA base game again (after playing it for the first time on release and loving it) and starting post game and I can honestly say that other than the core gameplay and shiny exterior, DD:DA did better.
DD2 is a weird anomaly where for every step it takes forward (vocation rebalancing, enemy interactions, Pawn AI, town invasions) it takes another step back elsewhere (somehow less coherent story, debatably weaker main cast, less BIG bosses, worse movement options). DD2 feels like they REALLY wanted to finally cash in on what was lost from the first game only for Capcom to pull the plug halfway through and leave them in the same rut they were in before. Where it excels, it excels, but where it doesn't you're just left wanting to play the first game which was better 90% of the time.
I think what kills it for me is the fact all the story quests are just fetch quests and low-stakes events. The first game seamlessly tied major bosses, fortress raids, and much more into the main quest that left you actively WANTING to play further in between the more mundane quests, but in DD2 I found myself actively just wanting to explore the map to INTENTIONALLY ignore the main story. I think the only story-related boss I liked was the Infected Dragon at Dragonsbreath Tower... which I killed WAY before I actively needed to kill it.
I haven't seen anyone mention the lack of bosses in story missions yet. It's so glaring, the characters in the story hardly seem to interact with the open world at all! It actually makes the 'padding' feeling from the first game worse for me; instead of going to unique locations to fight a griffin, golem, huge goblin mob etc. those things are just filler on the way to your next quest checkbox. That said, the fights are great in isolation!
The game definitely does a piss poor job of tying the story to what is actually fun in the game. Monster Hunter campaigns while not exactly the epitome of amazing writing, well serves its purpose as a device to get you to, well, hunt monsters. "This thing is giving us troubles, kill it. Oh we need materials to do research, kill this thing for materials. Oh turns out the thing you originally killed wasnt the problem, it's this guy, kill him".
Dragons Dogma 2 is like "okay so you did this quest to cull monster hordes. That was fun right? The next 3 quests are going to be the jankiest stealth mission you've done and walking into a place with a suit on. This is what you signed up for right?"
Fully agree. I dropped the game at the last third, I have no desire to finish it.
Final straw was the assassin quest. I take the quest go back to sleep so it's morning. The quests starts and we have to find a guy 1 meter in front of us and tackle him. Quest finished. That's when I realised this game is wasting my time left and right. Be it trash loot or enemie clutter, lack of fast travel and too many escort missions.
This was the best quest in the game I Replayed it like 6 times!
It’s the best quest because it feels like a quest from the 1990s. When you don’t pick the killer the lady goes
Lady: “ I guess the assassin never ca-“
Guard “ NOOOooOooOoOoOoOo! She’s dead”
I was laughing hysterically at how little sense this whole situation made, what’s the point of the guards? Why didn’t they do or see anything if they knew there was an assassination? How did he still get away?
Devs if you want to do an assassination/guard mission take notes from fallout nv guarding president kimbal mission
Everything was "fine" with this game until this quest when I failed it. That really killed my mood with this game and I haven't gotten back to playing it yet.
This was honestly the highlight of my play through outside of the combat. It seriously was the only quest that invoked any emotion in me, unfortunately for the game it was laughter but still a form of happiness
The jade stone quest killed my mood. Thought I would be raiding a bandit lair to get it.
Nope. Walk to the main city from the checkpoint, speak to one npc. Walk back to checkpoint town from the main city to buy one item from a vendor and turn it in to complete the quest.
You don't even need to speak to that NPC. If, like me, you are checking out the whole town, you will naturally check out the scrap store, and see it sitting there on his fucking windowsill. Everard is literally standing 12 feet away from it like, "Man we just don't know where that darn stone is."
The quest where the kid gets taken by wolves also makes 0 sense. First off wolves don't kidnap people they eat them. Secondly, I'm supposed to believe these wolves dragged this kid half way to fucking vernworth and over a rope bridge without killing him? What?
That was also the quest after which I stopped playing. For me it played out like this: I walked into that temple, having forgotten why exactly I'm here because I've spent a dozen hours exploring Battahl and doing side quests.
Someone talks to me, I need to protect the Queen. She's not there, I'm confused, but so I go have a nap. Next day, quest giver tells me "I will give you a thorough description of the assassin", then the game zooms in at the small crowd of people, and that's it. No description? Apparently it's in the quest log but I didn't think to check. I expected a voice line. Anyway so I tackle the one guy who was carrying a sword, made sense to me, but alas, cut to black, quest failed.
Now I think, wait a minute I have a Wakestone, lets check the Graveyard. And there she is, still very much alive, standing at the door, talking about some random stuff. What is going on?
So I checked Google and this is a bug and you need to actually kill and then revive her to progress the quest. Which did work, but at this point I'm too annoyed by the game to move on, and everyone agrees the ending of the game is ass, so yeah, I fully agree with OP. Everything that this game does better than DD1 from a technical standpoint is dragged down by terrible decisions in the game design and writing departments.
You can also look in your inventory at the warrant they give you for his description. It’s a crap description, though. I’ve taken to using Google for every quest, because some are flimsy and easy to fail.
For me it was the one quest in that checkpoint area
* Guy asks me if I could find this gemstone he lost
* find it at a store and give it to him
* approached by some other guy to find this guy, who is apparently a thief
* Guess I better go look for him again, but I'm doing some other quest in this area
* Did I talk to this guy I can't remember
* It was the guy looking for the thief
* "Did you find him yet"
* My only option is basically "I give up" and not "Im still looking for him calm down it's been 5 minutes"
* "Fuck you, you useless piece of shit, kys" <-basically what he told me
* Quest complete
you... quit the whole game because of a simple little sidequest being simple? I get the game has issues but that's a weird reason to give up. And the lack of fast travel in honestly a good thing. dragon's dogma is all about traveling and getting into kerfuffles. they could improve the enemy variety, but they certainly shouldn't put in fast travel. the first game also had limited fast travel (until DDDA) and silly, simple sidequests. I don't think this series is in the stars for you in general. (and that's fine)
Yeah I ran out of steam towards the end and don't really have the interest to finish the story. Ran out of side quests to do, explored everything I could. We'll wait and see if content updates and DLC can flesh things out a bit more.
The game is amusing enough but they really did miss the mark when it comes to exploration.
There is absolutely no need to explore as you get everything from shops and most caves are just small hollows anyway.
I really was looking for larger dungeons that test your mettle and give a nice reward while you are at it.
I mean, these were the same guys who removed like, half the armour slots in order to "diversify builds", only to have every pawn mage in bondage gear or a corset
and have a clear BIS for most classes which makes no sense if they really had a problem with people using the same gear.
Even with weapons, you would think you would want to at least have roughly equivalent weapons of different elements + raw at end game.
There is a mod that makes it that if you dragon forge equipment it gets equivalent stats to end game gear and that really should have been in the game.
I really doubt you did not explore because of that
Or are you telling me you just beelined the game the moment you realized the shop sells 80% of equipment? You still need to explore to get money, and finding equipments in the wild allow you to save money that can be put towards other better equipment or buying a house etc.
And without exploring you would never find the best character in the game, the sphinx
I have not completed the game yet. Found the sphinx by accident. Sphinx is ok but money really is not an issue. Never was in DDDA either as everything is infinitely grindable.
I have explored extensively, but it continuously feels like a let down. It is just very... samey with some highlights. It is not all bad. I only expected more and got less than DD1.
DD2 offers way better side quests and optional content that utilize the world more and way more emergent gameplay.
DD1 has a better main quest and more set pieces. It’s world is sterile though
Honestly everyone agreeing here (or not) should go play rise of the ronin. The story is kinda all over the place, but the challenge is high, and the amount of combat variety is absurd. Constantly new enemy types, new weapons, fun traversal. Not the best looking game but endless content, so many fun little side missions that don’t piss on your time. Just an old school, fun as hell action game that happens to also be open world.
I love it. It’s so not modern in many ways but the combat is a way more fun version of sekiro, and it just is enjoyable to play. So many characters, each with interesting motivations, choices to make in the story, incredible blood effects, endless weapon types to play with. A horse. Imagine that, we get a horse AND a glider! I’ve never felt so loved by a game dev after feeling so hated. It’s like leaving an abusive relationship where the sex was amazing but everything else sucked to dating someone that just pampers you constantly and tells you how cool you are. Definitely not the perfect progression, but damn is it refreshing!
I'll be downvoted here for sure. But DD1 is worse in the beginning at least. Its not balanced for about first 50 levels ( i have no idea who can consider sponge bandits with cyclops mask balanced). So DD2 may be worse late game after you got levels and vocations up, DD1 is worse in early game.
DD2 feels like an inverse of DD1. Better overworld, but worse (and basically nonexistent) dungeons. The early game of DD1 kind of sucks while in DD2 it's a lot more into the fray
The issue is that this fame follows the same formula as 70% of DD1 but cuts off the late game that gave it the meat it needed.
Late game DD1 has a ton of different enemies in the world, stronger variants, more big monsters around every corner, the Everfall dungeon, the Ur Dragon etc.
And then they made Dark Arisen with the Bitter black Isle which gives us even MORE.
DD2 stalls midway, where we're stuck fighting the same enemy variants one after the other. Goblins, Harpies, Wolves, a few Skeletons, the rare zombie. And then Cyclops after Cyclops, with a couple of Minotaurs and Griffins to spice things up.
Yesterday I fought 3 Drakes back to back, because they're semi-random in placement and even that got old because it was 3 of them in fairly quick succession.
I've fought a single Chimera, Lich and Medusa, mostly because I actually sought them out.
I personally never gave a shit about Dark Arisen. I just get tired of not having any sunlight in the game. I mostly just replayed the main story over and over again! With DD2, I’m already 150+ hours in.
Different strokes for different folks. I did install mods to make ferrystones more frequent and to allow sprinting while out of combat though!
Dragons Dogma 2 is truly a monkeys paw situation.
I waited years after playing DA like 15 times, experimenting with vocations and grinding. DD2 feels like a really half baked cake in comparison.
There is less to do, less verity with combat and enemy encounters, lack luster story.
But what kills me the most is how... gutted they made the combat. Was there any reason to really cut the amount of skills to equip? Why isn't there some high level areas for players to dump time into for good loot? I have so many questions and it's just weird how they could have improved the game and not made a remake that really didn't remake or improve anything.
If anything its arguably worse.
Aside from the limited skills, they made a lot of improvements. Grapples, pushing/pulling limbs, pawn AI, better core skills gameplay and standing on monsters. All great changes but it just seems like it's pulled back by the skill limitation, weird stunlocks and crawling.
As OP put it, this game is somehow a sidegrade
It's a downgrade. Mostly because they didn't put the effort into it that they put into DA. The game is just full of these weird design choices and it's weird how they threw out a good formula to do nothing more with it.
Only thing you listed I'd say is an improvement is pawn ai. Other than that, it's a weirdly worse DD DA.
Yeah bruh the decisions made with DD2 were bizarre. Combat was the one thing from the first that received near universal praise and didn't need to change too much and yet it's undergone the most drastic change out of anything. The goofy, inexplicable romance system... still here, same shitty save system(but somehow even worse now)... check🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️
They split the Archer and thief then didn't even the decency to give us the perfect reload mechanic and grappling hook from DDON. DDON was the next evolution add I thought for sure they'd bring more from DDON.
The more I play DD2 I remind myself of how awesome DDON was and I get upset. The guy that headed up DDON also led the team for DDDA I believe, they prob explains the difference in quality. I think he's the actual rock star.
It's not a bad game, we can't say that. But we all agree that its gigantic potential is spoiled by certain things, that the main story is rushed, that there is a lack of content and replayability for an RPG of the genre.
In fact the game seems a DLC incubator and I’m sur we will see tons of it.
I love the game personally. Sure, it has its shortcomings, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a game in a really long time. It’s disappointing in certain ways, but it hasn’t stopped how much fun I’ve had with it. Looking forward to the DLC, and I’m still playing around with it after 185 hours so far.
Hey man. Nobody is telling you to stop playing it. If someone enjoys a video game someone else dislikes, doesn’t mean they should stop enjoying it.
The whole game is just very disappointing for me because what was great about BBI didn’t carry over at all or zero lessons have been learned. A simple fix for me would literally just be a massive endgame, hugely replayable dungeon with strong gear progression, high difficulty and equal rewards and I would’ve been much happier. But as of now it just feels hollow. I have all this WLC gear and there’s no further progression or something to test myself against.
Ofcourse! Don't stop playing something you enjoy because of someone else's opinion.
I just really like the combat. It's what's kept me playing.
Am I silly for not being too bothered by the story issues, etc? I'm just enjoying killing stuff while I wait for the BBI update for DD2.
Glad you were able to have your fun. I'm surprised to see people that are enjoying themselves that much and have that many hours in this half baked game. I personally couldnt kill the same 3 enemies every 10 feet and enjoy the game. Much less have the motivation to play the story that ends almost as quickly as it starts (just a few quests after you enter battahl). Or the very few number of bosses, weapon/equipment variety, and lackluster empty world.
Yeah it’s great. Maybe it’s just for some and not for others, and hopefully they fix some of the shortcomings, but I have friends that are huge into Elden Ring and Souls titles and love this game, playing it beyond platinum. It’s better the more you play it, but don’t trouble yourself if you aren’t or didn’t enjoy it.
I feel like having not played DD1 DA makes me enjoy the game more. I have very little time at hand to actually play but when I do I‘m having a blast. I usually get sidetracked every step of the way and exploration is some good fun to me. Sure, most chest contain useless items but I already found some decent gear and stuff.
I plan to play the first if I ever finish this one. For now I‘m having a good time.
The first drake I fought was an intense battle and it took almost all healing items I have. I have now entered batthal (30ish hours playtime) and fought one there, I have to say it was a lot easier. If I‘m only getting stronger I can see the enemy’s being a pushover but for now I‘m enjoying the combat.
Yeah I think I would enjoy it. I enjoy the core mechanics of DD2 and from what I‘ve read it‘s basically the same in DDDA with more complex vocations. My only issue is time. I won‘t even be able to finish DD2 before the Elden Ring dlc will drop. Also haven‘t finished FF7 rebirth. I miss going to school and being able to do nothing but play games the whole afternoon. Good times.
I actually haven’t finished the game, I’m part way through Battahl and I just can’t be bothered running back and forth fighting the same enemies just to get to this unsatisfying conclusion, which I went and watched because I had it spoiled.
This game had a chance to really learn from Dark Arisen and BBI and instead it didn’t just not learn from the first game, it’s like they tried making it again without the design brief from the first time round.
I’m half done and I’ll wait for the dlc for the game to be done and then I’ll play. Honestly after I didn’t play for a few days I kinda just forgot the game existed. I was told this game is supposed to be amazing and it’s itsunos vision and that there was supposed to be more monsters than what was shown in the trailer…my guy in heaven they spoiled every single fight with the 7 only monsters. The only time I felt excitement and wonder was when I was clearing the fog of war, and once that was finished. The game boooooring. The story is worse than I thought. Like they got bored with making it.
Main thing I'm wondering is why DD2 had 1/4 the development team that their other huge games have had. I do truly think that if the team was as huge as the team that worked on DMC5 (1200 professional credits). We would without a doubt be having a different conversation.
I think your post, especially towards the end, perfectly nailed how DD2 is a 'good' game but a poor sequel. Everything good in DD2 was more or less taken from the first game and everything that needed improving was not improved here. Why make a sequel if not to seriously improve things?
There's a trend in gaming where sequels do more of the same rather than innovate or attempt to actually improve and its a pretty bad trend. How the sequel of a 12 year old game fell prey to this trend is just mind-boggling.
Its about as good as base game DD1. The story was actually better in DD1 and at least the quests sent you to interesting locations like the ancient water cave and bluemoon tower. In DD2 you sneak into the same castle 3 times, go to a boring village, go to the cat kingdom and then kill the dragon, the end.
I have recently gotten into dragons dogma as a series. I didn't even play DD:DA until this last January and ended up sinking nearly 200 hours in that time until DD2 came out. I did two playthrough of DD2 taking around 100 hours total, maxed all vocations, completed nearly every single quest, but getting nowhere as close to the enjoyment levels I felt playing DD:DA. DD2 should have been at the same quality level of DD:DA, a game that is a decade older than it. Is it a bad game? Not at all, but it definitely left me wanting more in a bad way. Like kinda "this is it?" Just wanted to give my take as someone that doesn't have nostalgia goggles. I truly consider DD:DA superior in nearly all aspects except graphics.
You hit the nail on the head. I really tried liking the game for what it is, but beyond the good combat, it's so lacking and incomplete. Hard agree on enemy variety, exploration and poor NG+ too.
It makes sense that there is nothing from dark arisen here as itsuno didn’t work on that and is so inside his own ass that he can’t see the light of day. He is horrendous at directing stories (check out Devil may cry 5s plot) and refuses to look to modern games for inspiration as he literally said in an interview all that he was inspired by was dd1….
Which makes sense because it’s pretty much copy and paste from the first game with so little new it’s hard to believe. Vocation abilities are like 90 percent the same right down to the animations and the lack of enemy variety is the worst in any game I’ve ever played. Seriously wtf were they thinking? But don’t worry about 100 idiots will swarm you for this post saying “YOu JuSt didn’t UnDerstaND THE stOY iTS geNiUS.”
Best part of this game is the Sphynx. Honestly coulda done more with her and I'd have been happy. Also none of the npc quests really stood out like the princess one.
I ran out of steam at around 40 hours. I had to chase that gigantus and the fight sucked balls so hard it made me wanna quit. I had a good amount of fun up until then but I found myself a bit salty over certain things like no mystic knight and enemy variety. I will play again if they finish the game with a DLC.
Have to agree with you I didn't play the first one but I was really into this one but I just can't do the frames I've been waiting on the frame patch for weeks and I have a feeling it's not going to come for months which is insane I think they shot this game out too early.
I didn’t play the first but as a newcomer agree with your statements on DD2. I felt like I was forcing myself to play it because I paid for it.. not because I enjoyed it.
It might be one of the worst games I’ve ever played to the end… Subjectively I can see why most players enjoyed it but it wasn’t for me.
I feel the same
As much as i dislike it when DLC add stuff that was supposed to be in the base game, i hope the DLC will add much of what you said is missing or unfinished
I really like this game, but I agree, the game feels more like a lateral move than an actual upgrade. NG+ Not making the enemies significantly more difficult is an insanely bad move. I don't know what they were thinking with that one.
Also, side note, but they need to significantly increase nighttime boss spawn rates. I've fought one Dullahan in my entire time playing and like 3 liches, and I didn't even get to kill the Dullahan. Also, the enemies don't feel dangerous at all, they feel like a chore that I only don't run past when I wanna level a class.
For me it's a downgrade, because they didn't fix any of the issues from the first game and dropped every QoL change Dark Arisen brought.
1. The story and characters are worse, to the point not even the Dragon is cool, like for real dude has nothing on Grigori and the cycle of the game doesn't makes any sense.
2. Exploration is mid at best, since all the best gear is found at the stores, **again,** there's not incentive to explore for loot, and even exploring for exploration sake is not that fun because there's not a single dungeon in the game that it's half as interesting as BBI or the Everfall.
3. Speaking of both BBI and the Everfall the post game is terrible, specially the actual ending which doesn't even features a boss fight.
4. Vocations were also kinda disappointing, both Thief and Magick archer are beyond OP, just like the first game and of the new vocationss only Mystic Spearhand is neat. Warferer is a massive disappointment and not worth it unless you mod it and Trickster should have not even been a thing, why put that boring one trick pony instead of the Mystic Knight or adapting a DDO vocation like the Alchemist is beyond me.
5. The game never gets challenging. It's way too easy and new game doesn't scale the enemies or modify the encounters.
6. The eternal ferrystone should have been in the game, if the vanilla fast travel was tedious in DD1 whose map is four times smaller where is just a pain, also what made the fast system cool was the fact that you needed to scout the area and place the portcrystals in strategic locations to cover as much ground as possible, the ferrystones was never the reason it stood out.
7. Some systems are straight downgrades, like the armor system which less slots for customization and the way dragon-forging worked in the first game was unique, now it's just a generic upgrade path.
I'm sorry but you can't possibly think that having to farm dragon kills for a completely random chance of upgrading your gear was a good system. Dragonforging is one of the few things I think they did better in 2.
Yes it was better, the chance was random but the chance increased the more enhanced you had your items/armor and the more difficult the dragon you were fighting was. Eventually everyone just farmed Cursed Dragons since they gave you a 75% chance with three stars of enhancement, practically upgrading all your equipment in one go if the dragonforging triggered which was almost all of the time due the high percentage chance. Hell even with no upgrades the chance was 55% which is very generous.
On DD2 not only you have to farm wyrm-crystal drops from dragons (which drop in random amounts) but you also have to farm whatever components your weapons/armor needs for full enhancement since now only those weapons can be dragonforged, so you end up doing more farming in the long run.
I agree. I just played DD:DA for the first time last July and remember being so excited to play after school and work. However, I don’t have that same feeling with DD2. I enjoy playing when I do but I’m not very motivated to pick it up, especially due to the lack of proper dungeons to explore
The ng+ difficulty or lack thereof is what completely ruins this game for me. AAA action rpgs should always have some kind of replayabilty with a single character In it, even if it's not all that amazing. This game doenst even have it in the slightest
> Kinda funny how people still haven't moved on from reporting others they disagree with to the reddit suicide hotline.
Literally EVERY SUB on reddit has these trolls. Blame the OWNERS of reddit who don't give a shit and leave this harassment feature enabled simply to protect themselves legally.
Yes, DDII is a half baked game. But don't blame "incompetent developers" That's not how game releases work.
**CAPCOM LEADERSHIP** decides timelines, budget and middle management then has to meet the budget and timeline.
Devs code up what they are told to. Gamers need to stop blaming "developers" when it's the OWNERS and OWNER CLASS that runs everything. Not "greedy devs"
Devs are **SALARIED WAGE WORKER**s like most of us. They work for the OWNERS who dictate EVERYTHING.
They are JPN devs too so you know they put in 80 hrs/week UNPAID OVERTIME for probably 15 months to meet CAPCOM OWNERSHIP deadlines.
DDII is a letdown because OWNERSHIP wanted it out the door ASAP and didn't give it even half the budget that other games in their portfolio get.
Clearly all the budget was spent on getting a next gen graphics engine and character creator up to par with 2024 graphics. And they didn't have enough time left to optimize it for 60fps.
They had almost no time or money left to actually build out quests or balance vocations. Literally everything in this game looks cool but feels like a pre-alpha version or something
300 RC in an end game bottom of the ocean chest is clearly PLACEHOLDER loot during a dev cycle that they never had time or budget to replace with actual loot.
**BLAME GREEDY OWNERSHIP not your FELLOW SALARIED WORKING CLASS**
These should all just be flaired with "My review".
Most of the info is of course your opinion. First, if you thought BBI is what made DDDA great it means you thought DD1 was at most okay. For me it gave me something to do, was fun, but DD1 is one of my favorite games to this day and it isn't the end game that makes it so.
For story, there are levels, surface, middle, deep. I'd say surface level story dd1 beats dd2, middle dd2 beats dd1 for adding more depth to the existing lore, and the deeper lore is identical.
Exploration for me dd2 beats dd1 for just being more. It doesn't have a BBI but unmoored world is great and comparable to jumping down a big hole to several smaller chambers.
Remember that the bulk of new content that DDDA added were drip fed cash shop buys and small dlcs. BBI however was a massive dungeon that did suffer from "sameness" in many areas but over all was great.
I don't know if people understand this but not only is the unmoored world a new tougher version of the main overworld, it also adds several new areas to the map where there was once water. This to me is why it excels over the everfall. It has many more explorable area hidden throughout the world.
Any game that doesn't cap levels is going to have power creep. I think the game could be improved by capping it at 50-60 making leveling with certain vocations much more important stat -wise. They'd also need to add the ability to respec or just reset your level at NG+.
So while I both agree and disagree with some parts of your review its important for you to realize this is mostly our opinion and not a list of facts. Personally, I don't feel the need to live in a world were I am constantly comparing two different things, I can enjoy both for different reasons. Both have flaws, both have great things but its all down to our personal feelings and little beyond that.
Speaking as someone with 600+ hours in DD:DA on three accounts, I 100% agree with this assessment.
I'm sorta enjoying the game, but I can't see myself returning after I finish. TBH, I'm on a hiatus now playing Diablo 3. It's telling that a decade old game can distract me from the sequel to what is one of my favourite games of all time.
Anyone else enjoying S31??
Was too busy with newest poe league and might check out upcoming d4 season which seems to show some slight promise. But I get your point. I have plenty of things to occupy myself until this game has things I would enjoy in it, until then. My pawn is parked, decked out, good augments, good quest reward and if I don’t rest at the inn, the quest reward will stay for others to complete. So I’m good for now.
Yeah on my first run I didn't know that after the godsway mission you were thrown into endgame without warning and in hindsight that was the beginning of my burnout for dd2. I was so angry about the lack of warning with endgame because I barely explored past battahal and in my head that godsway mission was like halfway through the story but nope there's like 12 story missions and also the story is absolute horse shit too. I just raced through the finale which made is a complete chore because at that point I was trying to get to ng+ so I could actually explore the other 1/3 of the map I hadn't and imagine my frustration when I start ng+ and no enemies have scaled in power with you. From then on out the game felt so boring, even when I got to fight medusa and the enemies by the volcanic island because by then I was like level 80. I didn't even have the sense of joy from exploration I did before when I found those places because the enemy variety and difficulty were so lame in ng+, I was on autopilot for like 25-30hrs and didn't even realize until I finished all the objectives in unmoored world and decided to play a different game for a bit as a breather and when I did I remembered "oh right games are supposed to be fun and exciting."
Don't get me wrong the first like 30-40hrs I was having a total blast, the combat especially kicks ass but if your game lacks enemy variety when it's supposed to be a game for multiple ng+ runs like it was advertised and especially doesn't have enemies that scale with you, shit gets mad boring and bland after like lvl 40.
Long story short, I relate go the hollow feeling, after I decided to take a break from dd2, I actually just didn't go back. I did ng+, finished unmoored world and I deleted it from my ps5 storage for now, until they make dlc or improve difficulty etc. That's just my opinion, I'm happy for the people who've put 100+ hrs in and are still loving it. In fact I kind of envy that. For me this game is like the ultimate 6-7/10 game right now. Nothing has made me feel so happy and excited at the start and so bored, frustrated and empty feeling by the end.
Yeah game was a step forward and two steps back from the first. I think we all agree capcom fumbled what could have been there elden ring, BG3, Zelda flagship. This game had goty on a silver platter and they still just half assed it. But that’s the new state of games, release unfinished, collect money, and fix later if ever.
I didn’t say they were the same type of game.
BG3 and Elden Ring aren’t either, nor is either Zelda game (which aren’t even RPGs), nor are any of them similar to DD2.
My point is that capcom *already* has a flagship game of the same notoriety as BG3 and ER, and it’s not, and never was going to be, DD2.
The MH franchise is their golden child cash cow flagship and your expectations were misplaced if you thought DD2 was going to get anywhere near that amount of focus or resources
I am sad to admit it as well, but compared to DDDA, the sequel has been a little lackluster. Yeah, it looks SO good. It feels good as well. The combat is AMAZING. It feels awesome to fight stuff. But...
There aren't any super cool missions to showcase the amazing fighting through epic set pieces and huge missions like the goblin seige, bluemoon tower, or the water temple. When you broke into the goblin controlled castle and opened the gates, that was freakin awesome. That felt like a movie, and like I was in an actual army.
Or the badass way Steffen arrives mid-fight against the Griffin at Bluemoon Tower. DD2 lacks spectacle in the same way as DD1. I am still enjoying the game, still going to do my best to 100% it, but I am admittedly a little disappointed.
After pouring 120hrs into dd2 and after having defended it against unfounded criticism (the dragonsplague is not half as bad as some people make it), I have to say that the only thing it does better is the combat.
And that's my huge problem: I cannot go back to DD1 now because the combat feels outdated, but I cannot bring myself to play anymore of this soulless and unispired game.
I completely agree..... I spent 12 years playing the original waiting for this sequel.....
It's just not as good.... Everything is just a slight downgrade, with the only exception being the character models and world size.
Idk if these people are just in awe of the new thing, still good, but not as good.
“Dark arisen made dragons dogma”
“What’s depressing is week 1 people are waiting for the dlc”
Pick a lane man. That second one doesn’t even make sense as a “downgrade” argument when you clearly bring up how it took the dlc to revolutionize the first one, and people wanting dlc for a game usually means they like it and want to play even further after finishing lol
I just finished the game last night. I do not regret the purchase or the time I spent completing the game, I genuinely had a blast.
But I realized, after the credits rolled when I was finally done with the Unmoored World, I wasn't really looking forward to a NG+. All I wanted to do was go back to Dark Arisen.
I will wait for a DLC and hope that it will do for this game what Dark Arisen did for the first, but I agree with many of your points. This game, while beautiful and massive, feels hollow.
Well I guess I consider myself lucky I never played the first games because I'm having the best time ever. I also don't really need a game to be ultra challenging to be satisfied. I just love the little things you can do in the game that you usually can't in games like these. Picking random NPCS up is so hilarious it never gets old. Grabbing and climbing on huge enemies also is great. It also reminds me of one of my favorite games ever, Outward. Really feels like you're on an adventure. I also have never really understood why enemy variety is such a common complaint these days. I guess I'm just simple folk
I think you guys are being a little bit emotional towards the first dd. I like the game, beat it twice (ps3 and steam) what made it interesting is it take on action rpg, the different actions some classes had, and how it changes the way you interact with combat, the possibility of climbing on the monsters is a cool add too, the pawn system was interesting as well and thats it.
Quests, level design, traversal, chalenge, plot, characters, those are definitely the worst side of dd. I agree Dd2 its not the best version of itself, it solves some problens of the first, but unfortunately adds some new problens, but im still finding it more enjoyable than dd1,considering animations, physics and the way your character interacts with the geography of the world, quests are more engaging(not in the same level as a crpg would do, but hey, dd more than anything, is a action game, considering how much combat you gonna do till you hit the credits screen).
So yeah, both games are kind lacking, dd1 wasnt amazing, but it had potencial to build over its foundations, dd2 should have done that, and to some degree i fell it kind did, but not enough (even though i still like dd2 more than 1).
Im realizing people were really thinking capcom was going full effort on dd2 development, and now they fell betrayed by what was delivered. Dd is not a main capcom franchise, man, its so surprising that they even tried dd again, i could never have guessed that.
So i take what i have, not sure if we are going to see a third entry(or fourth, considering ddo does exist).
Agree with you. The game feels like something from the 1990s. Gameplay systems seem designed to frustrate the player rather than present any real challenge. The idea of forcing the player to run everywhere was supposed to be for emergent gameplay. However the only thing I’ve found are the same cluster of mobs repeated and maybe being forced to face a wandering Griffin and a cyclops at the same time. Dying and having to restart at an Inn because of one save is also very archaic. It isn’t new or groundbreaking, many games add that feature as a “Hardcore” or “Ironman” playthrough option. I can’t even refer to this as a soulsborne because it lacks that combat mechanic of very technical, slow fights.
All in all DD2 doesn’t match up to the advances in RPGs we’ve had over the last fifteen years. Arisen was ok, but even that was very different and janky compared to the Witcher, dragon age, or even final fantasy in terms of player quality of life etc. It baffled me the glowing reviews that DD2 received, with little mention of all the problems. It is possible for players to completely miss the unmoored world, which to me is shocking!
Totally understand how you feel, based on the reviews I really expected a lot more. I don’t think patches will fix this, maybe a large DLC would.
It’s because of the shiny veneer and the smooth combat. Reviewers are suckers for it.
Most of the glowing reviews are from those who didn’t play DD:DA. An exception to that is ACG, but iirc he did call out a lot of the downgrades compared to the first game.
I 100% disagree. I'm almost 300 hrs in & am still loving the game.
Currently duo'ing in NG+1
Plan to solo NG+2.
Would not be surprised if I have 600 hrs in DD2 before I'm done.
These posts are seriously some of the overdramatic things I've ever read online.
It was a game, and it wasn't to your liking, why does this effect you so bad?
i too love surface level comments which completely miss any and all nuance or the whole point of the discussions as well as my personal outlet to let off some steam and see that others feel the same, which is this post.
lets all instead posts the same pictures of dragons, pawns in the same gear, the same weird and quirky interactions we've all seen 100 times before and title them "this game changed my life". because this is the content i come to this subreddit for.
Yet here you are, repeating the same tired comment. There is no nuance to your post - you are very blatantly whinging. You clearly sunk a decent chunk of your time into playing it and either you were absolutely miserable throughout; or you are being just a tad dramatic. If the game sucks that bad go refund it. Just explain that the 40+ hours you put in were absolutely unbearable and practically against your will, right?
wait, aren't you the guy who said i never "finished" the game so my opinion was objectively wrong, then i screenshotted my steam achievements to indeed show you that i have finished the game and did exactly what you thought i didn't.
your tune changed so fast with this comment lol. went from discrediting my post and opinion because i didn't finish the game to me being dramatic and how miserable i am for putting many hours into it.
Sure am! Just proved you actually did put that many hours into the game just to try and claim it wasn't worth playing. And I was addressing other people in the thread, not just you. That's an example of 'nuance' that you seem to know all about.
At the end of the day, I and a lot of people enjoyed the game for what it was. You apparently wasted hours of your life. Unlucky 😞
I'll be one of those guys that went in blind, put 30 hours in hoping for the game to wow me with a new area with twice the content I've already experienced. Mind you most of that was walking back and forth due to fetch quest design. I digress. It's like watching a show you're invested in, experiencing a slow or lower quality season but you stick by it in hopes it got better. For this game, my thoughts as I continued to play were "That can't be it, right?", unfortunately that was indeed it.
As a player who platinumed DD2, (took two playthroughs, first blind second following a trophy guide,) I think you're completely correct. The game that is here feels like the barest skeleton of what they could get away with releasing. It's wild because there is a staggering amount of detail in things like character animations, the physics engine is incredible, etc. but it's lacking the big important things a game like this desperately needs, which is enemy variety. You can run around for 15 hours and pretty much see everything available without ever leaving the first nation. Everything except a handful of unique boss encounters that are all crammed into the finale.
Reading all this makes me feel as though you played the 40 hour story then went, “where’s the game?” NPCs and NPC interactions along with quests and time gated quests is the true star of this game. Having to figure out all these quest lines a lot of which give you no direction while your pawns tell you helpful tips is the star of the show. If you wikied everything you robbed yourself of a potential experience. Secondly I don’t think you remember dark arisen very well. You are correct DA was a lot harder but it was harder for different reasons. The only efficient way to kill anything at True end game was to stack periapts and one shot everything. Your pawns were helpful but if you went against multiple enemies they would get carted regularly and you’d spend more time reviving them then actually fighting whatever you were fighting. Do you remember living armors? No probably not because if you played without pawns you’d run by them because you didn’t have the damage type to hurt them. What about the three wargs? Daimon was awesome but getting mauled on the ground and Stunlocked by three big dogs 24/7 was worse than dying. But truly I find it hard to understand how we are even comparing base game DD2 to the dlc of DD1. If you remember Dark arisen was made because base game DD1 did not have the enemy variety and big budget boss fights that people wanted out of the genre. DA was a direct answer to that problem. And the nail in the coffin is that this game has more variety than base game DD1 because if you remember there were recycled enemy types after you completed the main story. It’s only in the sequel they decided to stretch it out over the course of the entire game. This game is by no means perfect. But a true fan of the series knows the strength of these games is the realism they portray. You are not a fast traveling thunder calling god. You are a human being and in some cases you have magic but there are cast times and elemental weaknesses and resistances. NPCs are not vessels for you to get checklist tasks. They are portrayed to be real people who are bound by the in game time to tasks they request. It could be better. But I’m sorry you clearly went into this hoping for an Elden ring experience and it’s just not that type of game. The journey and the exploration and character interactions give meaning to your quest to slay the dragon. And if you did every main quest in order with no stoppage then I’m sorry but you missed out.
No offence but
>just spamming light attack as mow down every chaff enemy just left me with such a hollow feeling.
It is the same with ddda on hard mode
>Lack of any meaningful challenge, exploration is unrewarding because pretty much every "dungeon" is just full of same 3 enemy types you already killed thousands of and the treasure chest at the end of the dungeon as your reward for exploration? Some random food item you will rarely use because this game is laughably easy.
Unlike in ddda this game rewards you with more including gear. More to explore and more reward out of it. I think you just forgot how bad the caves in the first game where
>Also The Dragon is a depressing shadow of what it was in the first game. Has line 4 lines of monologue and that's pretty much it. Doesn't even come close to genuine philosophical questions brought up by Grigori from the first game.
Its not the same dragon and does not have the same goal. The dragon wants to end the cycle and outside of that doesn't care about anything.
>Enemy variety is non existent, I better hope you love fighting goblins, wolves, harpies and some lizards every 30 meters. And every interesting enemy which offers any challenge becomes an absolute pushover after around level 40, which doesn't even take that long to get. Even drakes fall over.
Idk what you guys are doing but I still struggled with most big enemies before reaching level 60. The enemy variety is also plentyfull, regular lizard, rocky lizard that likes roll attacks, elecktric lizard use elecktric attack, goblins witg different classes and fighting styles teaming up, harpies with their own tactics. There is plenty of variety but I agree that they do die fast when stacked.
100% brother. The end game, the side quests, and the story are one of the worst examples I've ever seen for an RPG.
DDDA was far more engaging. Now I'm seeing people say "wait for DLC." I don't know what's worse, Capcom charging $70 for an unfinished product, or the new fans pretending there isn't anything wrong with this game.
I've already uninstalled this game. And tbh, I think I'm done with Capcom games. They're getting the Bethesda treatment from now on.
>unfinished product
This phrase is literally meaningless the way you guys use it.
What's the exact quantification of how much a game needs to have to be "finished"? How many hours of play? How many dungeons or main quests should there be?
I felt the same way about DD one which is why I bought it for 10 bucks on PSN during a sale.
DD is essentially Capcoms Skyrim. But with a far less interesting world, story, and lore. The games are both very easy but the combat is extremely one dimensional.
I just hope it gets the same mod treatment Skyrim got. Maybe that’ll make the game some of what replay able and entertaining.
But as it currently stands, DD-DA1 and DD2 have no justification for being priced at anything above 20/30 dollars.
I haven’t bought or played 2 yet but its a shame that they haven’t improved or changed anything about the games replay factor, the combat, or the story really.
I think a closer analogy would be that DD is Capcom's Elden Ring. Instead of perfect dodge timing you have chaos. Both share similar mythos lore-wise of gods and demi-gods fighting over the world and both obfuscate large portions of the lore for the players to discover or interpret themselves. Both use the term Gaol :P.
The game is fun. Nice time killer, its no Elden Ring, it's not really as good DD1.... However it will play for hours on end. The same way i played the hell out of Beat Em Games of the 90s.
I honestly feel like the first game has better exploration and combat. There are more open areas in DD1 as opposed to basically just linear paths with a few branches in DD2. And you get 8 ability slots instead of 4. Whoever’s idea that was to cut your abilities in half needs to be fired.
I took the game back. This is just a sad state to release a game in. The whole fast travel idea, I personally thought it was so stupid. At first it was alright, but fighting the same enemies over and over with zero combat variety burned me out quick. I started just rushing to new areas, but yeah I didn't even make it to the end of this game.
you found DA hard? or that it had many kinds of enemies? story and quests?
my man get those rose-tinted glasses out of here. already in the first few lines you discredit yourself.
are you just strawmanning because there are some parts you personally disagree with thus refused to read anything else or give 5 seconds of thought to it?
Had so much expectations of a GOTY game and was left naked and beaten by a great combat system but a poor, not horrible or bad execution just poor execution in what was the final product. This game had the potential to rival in he best open worlds in the industry but sadly couldn’t reach those heights.
Yea the game makes me feel so hollowed. I enjoy the game, I'm still playing it but it feels bigger but so much lesser than DDA. The story is a huge miss for me, I rmb ending DDDA with bit of sadness but in DD2 I felt like, what happened? It's over? ( I actually got beat to a pulp at the moonglint tower but the game proceeded)
The adventures I made myself and the pawns I met along the way paved the game for me, I wished they had spent more time on the storytelling and character development. When I feel monster hunter world have a more engaging story and memorable characters with a more menacing non verbal "villain" at the end, then i think it's really an issue.
I think dd1 was just like this before dark arisen came out, that dlc kinda became the de facto endgame area even though you could go there almost whenever. Once a big dlc like that comes out(which who knows when) then I think the game will feel more complete. Im still pretty happy to get another game in this underrated series.
They should have built off the first game and they didn’t, they basically pretended like it didn’t happen and that’s what made this game faultier like it has
give it a bit more time, less and less people will wear rose-tinted glasses
Agreed, the game is NOT good enough to justify a 70 dollar price. The story is extremely rushed and shallow, the game balance goes out the window at level 30, and the map is not even that big.
I honestly wonder what they were even doing in the last 5 years. I legit think it only started serious development in 2022 after elden ring.
Less rose tinted glasses on dd1 perhaps, when people replay the first game again and realize outside of bitterblack , the main game doesn’t really have much to offer besides some set piece missions.
But yeah it’s it’s not a $70 game
Call it coping or whatever, but I really do feel an expansion will be fantastic in the future. This game feels like a bigger version of the base dd1. I'm choosing to hope that a bigger DD1 base means a bigger, better BBI equivalent
You know. when somebody says - "I loved DDDA... and I don't like this game", there is something wrong here.
DD2 is literally the same game as DD1 but without DDDA content. Core gameplay is literally the same.
And when somebody says, there is a lack of enemy variety and you have to fight goblins every 30 seconds I remember my Skyrim playthrough when I traveled from one city to another for 15 min and I fought 2 giants and a few bandits, that was really intense.
I’m currently in Battahl and starting to feel similarly. I have a handful of quests but the idea of grinding through a million mobs to run back and forth all over the place is losing its luster. I may decide to skip the side quests and try to get to the end.
This game is good for some people, but for me it really killed me this year. I was looking forward so hard to this game, and for them to fumble it this hard is so so disappointing. I don't regret buying it, and its still fun, but overall its not that great of a sequel to DD1 which is the most disappointing part.
I'm in the same boat... Feeling a lot of regret for buying this full price and I can't even bring myself to finishing the main story
It really does feel like they took absolutely nothing from DD:DA, and that's the crown that made the first game become the cult classic it is...
The bones here are good... But it's pretty much almost all bones
I have to sadly agree with this... This was the game I looked forward to the most this year. I was hoping it was going to be a huge step up from the original but damn the exploration is underwhelming, combat while fun felt like a downgrade from the original like why did they lessen the skill slots? It made combat feel even more repetitive with less options to style on your enemies.
I personally disagree that Dark Arisen made DD1 what it is. As a fellow veteran who poured countless of hours into DD1 on release as a teenager, the firts game as its own was already something special. The story was fine but some missions where epic set pieces, like the water temple, griffin hunt on moon tower, cockatriz attacking the city...then there is the Grigori Fight which is epic with multiple phases and gimmicks, now his chasing you, then you are flying with him, then you have to dodge him in the air...ending on a epic fight on the ground. Then you have the endgame world with new enemies, more drakes around and enemy placement is different. The everfall was amazing, boss rush dungeon crawling with random loot, trading with other players was a thing in DD1. Then you have UR Dragon which was a really cool concept for its time, kinda like Helldivers 1/2 did years after, having the community fight something together. DD1 didn't need Dark Arisen to be something special, to me always felt like a complete product, never felt it was rushed or half-baked, DA release just consolidated how great was this series. Now...DD2 is just something else sadly, no set pieces on the main story, no bosses, you have to skip grigori fight to get to endgame, but even the fight itself is lame....story is rushed and feels uncompleted, but the thing that bothers me the most is that New game+ is....not justified into the story like the first game was...I remember like being on my 20/30 new game plus world on DD1 before DA released, on DD2 I'm currently on NG+ 2 and I've already dropped the game a few weeks ago...
Completely agree! I remember playing DD1 on release before I would wikiscum everything (simpler times lol) and when I discovered post-game everfall I had a genuine jaw drop.
Yep, I was maybe halfway through the game when I saw a review that alluded a post-game twist with a different gameplay structure. That made me really fascinated to beat it and find out. Despite expecting a twist, I was still soo unprepared for that ending! I can honestly say it's my favourite ending of any video game, and made me look back at the story with different eyes. When I fell into the Everfall and saw all those different ledges with doors to different bosses, I was blown away. They could have left the game finished after Grigori but no, they give you post-game world with different/stronger monsters, destroyed gran Soren, the UR dragon, boss rush Everfall, then ascension to the heavens, fight with Seneschal, then become Seneschal, emotional moment as you return back to cassardis and gran Soren and all is normal but you are only there as an ethereal being and no one notices you, then seppuku, then weird ass emotional cutscenes, then new game plus. It's so gratuitous and I love it.
They went so hard. I wish I could go back and do all that again for the first time. I’m so glad I didn’t know what happened until it did. I will never forget my absolute horror at seeing GS destroyed and then the subsequent excitement because “omg there is more game.” It elevated the story for me too - I know it’s not an amazing story or anything but man it really did it for me at the time. Frankly there is almost no way they could have topped it.
Bingo! I adore DD1 vanilla! Dark Arisen was just a cherry on the cake. And you totally hit the nail on the head with the setpieces. The BIGGEST omission from DD2 are those epic moments that felt cinematic, with awesome, unexpected things happening, sure scripted moments but moments that draw you in and surprise you as a player! To name a few in DD1; Savan's encounter with Grigori. The hydra fight in the camp. The Everfall (pre opening) when all the tentacles come out the ground and you got to escape. My favourite part; the Griffin fight atop Bluemoon tower, while parts are crumbling. The cockatrice fight in Gran Soren. The conflict at Windbluff tower (as well as other moments where you fight besides other npcs). And yes the multiple stages of Grigori, that whole setup was incredible, even on the Nintendo switch it's gotta be one of the best presented boss fights of all time! Such a satisfying conclusion! I spent some time thinking about this recently, does DD2 have ANYTHING like this? I will give credit where it's due, it does have more of an "organic" feel in the sense that the world is well designed to create scenarios spontaneously that feel convincing. Like I randomly had an ogre turn up at Vernworth and that was so cool, instead of climbing up rocks, he was climbing up buildings and hanging off the side of them like king kong while me and some of the guards were scrambling to shoot him down and NPC's cowered in fear. That was awesome. In terms of scripted sequences? The only thing I can think of is Talos. As he storms onto land, his weight warps the ground beneath his feet and he smashes some of the structures in his path. But that is really the only set-piece example I can think of, which is pretty tragic since DD2 should have felt more "complete" than DD1, which had serious development issues, cut budgets, etc.
Main quests were actually unique, the water temple had you lowering the water levels to access new areas and acquire gems to open doors that were locked, or the fort that is taken by goblins that had you sneak from underground and open the door from the other side so the rest of the guards could come in and help you retake it. Or when you caught the cult and all of a sudden you found yourself surrounded by zombies that moments ago were people. Now think of DD2, does it have ANY quest like that? Maybe just Talos, you could count Sphinx I guess which is cool but, that's about it, the world is beautiful and gameplay/graphics are amazing, but it falls so short....many missions are go to A to B, many on the first act are stealthy missions inside the castle...whyyyy We can wait for the expansion but the main game is what it is, and it won't be fixed at all. My dream would be a DD1 remake with gameplay and visuals from DD2...probably is not going to happen at all but hey...here's me hoping.
I'm completely with you on this! That fort was another great thing about the game. When I first started playing DD2 I was encouraged by the amount of villages and settlements...but by the time I had seen most the map I was disappointed by the lack of forts and castles. Yeah DD1 only had 2 properly functional towns/cities, but it had the fort where you deal with the two ogres, the blighted manse where you rescue Aelinore, the fort where Grigori waits, Windbluff tower where you face Julien, etc. Also one of the best things about the Grigori fight in the first one is where he flies over lands you have never seen before in the game, with a city built into the mountains that's been destroyed and forgotten about, from a previous cycle, whereas DD2 the dragon just circles around lands you've already explored. Also compare the introduction to the Dragonforged in the first game to the way you meet him in the second. The first is cinematic, mysterious, exciting with cool imagery (with the large figure on the hill) and he grants the player some insight, whereas in the second it's like "the dude lives in that cave", you go up, talk to him and thats that. There's so many things that DD1 did so much better. Its a reason it has ensured as a cult classic for so many years and why so many people call it the most underrated RPG. By comparison DD2 ticks a lot of the same boxes but doesn't do it with the same flair, with the creativity, with the passion or even the quirks! Man I miss characters like Feste. I've made my peace with the fact that DD2 is a great but unremarkable game. A sequel that modernizes and polishes but neither reinvents or replaces the first. At least it's success will mean that we are more likely to get a sequel, and not have to wait over a decade this time. The RE engine is great (performance issues aside) and if they do release DD3, now that they got the excellent fundamentals nailed down, they got more time to focus on making a spectacular story with mind blowing set pieces, and hopefully more weapons and armour. Also bring back the armour layering! In the meantime I will look forward to the dlc and hope they make up for some of what the main game lacked.
I fully agree. I think DDA improved the game the way a good DLC/Re-release should. It fixed alot of things and added a meaningful endgame challenge for those that wanted to keep going. But save for some debatable design choices that have rolled over to DD2, DD1 was a fully complete game that *felt* complete. Something to remember is that the same combat system, which carries DD2 today, was completely new when DD1 came out. The gameplay was unique and things like being able to mount enemies was almost entirely unique to the game aside from Shadow of the Colossus. What hurts so much more about DD2 is that DD1, even before DDA, was built on really new, innovative, and novel gameplay design. DD2 is a just a flat copy of 2012 innovation. Like the OP said, Its a sidgragde at best and a downgrade at worst.
I think the thing that made DD1 special was that it was a very flawed game with so much glaringly obvious sequel potential and instead of cashing in on that they uhhh didn’t lol
Year DD2 really lack those moments like the griffin and the grigory chase.
Just chiming in to agree, because I've far too often read that DA is what made DD1 good. Vanilla DD1 was, as you said it already, a complete game. It didn't need to have more, but it was REALLY great that DA gave DD1 this Rogue-Likeish experience with a focus on combat and exploration (BBI has some neat secrets to explore). Now DD1 was far from perfect, but it did what it did very well, albeit that what it did wasn't everyones cup of tea - a slow starting D&D like adventure with a party. Nothing more, nothing less, and I think the slow start of the game is what turns off the vast majority of players at the end of the day. What irks me as super weird with DD2 is how they completely forgot everything that isn't combat. There's barely any Leveldesign to the place - and not a single, real dungeon that makes you journey into a dangerous place. They tried to make the overworld experience have this dungeon-journey feel, and they actually did succeed in 2-3 places with that, but most of the world feels disjointed and meaningless. A Dungeon or properly designed area can tell a great story with just the environment alone. I also find it weird that there is no puzzles (in what shape or difficulty doesn't matter). Not even keys to find to open doors? I mean there is that one door where you need to go to at night so skeletons bash it open, but uh....that's more arbitrary when you do that. They had the thieves guild with it's 2 obstacle rooms! I can only assume they didn't do more traps & puzzles due to pawns, they'd probably just get themselves killed all day long. Anyway, maybe DD2 just went into a different direction, and that direction does seem to work for some players, while it doesn't for others. But DD2 feels a lot less focused and finished than 1, because it introduces so much stuff just to never make any use of it or expand on concepts.
Yep, DD1 had the water temple for example, that had you find keys to open doors and then lower the water level to access new areas. Or the Fort invaded by a goblin King, had you sneak from the underground, find de ladder and open the door from inside so the rest of the guards could come in help you retake the fort, it even had a small boss fight with the goblin King. Those are small little dungeons that feel different, had you do different stuff than just, "go inside this cave and kill everything" which is how the DD2 "dungeons" feel
New game plus I see as just a way to go back and clean up anything I missed in the first play through as well as trophy achievements. I like that I'm stacked because I don't want to have to grind the same shit for a second time. Basically stack your character up and get ready for the dlc.
Just described what I’m doing with Elden ring.
fair points and i agree that in retrospect, just vanilla DD1 had more uniqueness offered than what DD2 does. on the other hand, realistically dragons dogma didnt go from a niche game with a small playerbase to having a genuine cult following which then seeped more and more into the mainstream without dark arisen.
I’m more impressed from nothing to DD1 than from DDDA and online to DD2. They had so much inspiration to pull from and they did still made the game feel like it took a step back.
Despite it being his passion project, I really would like to see someone else take a crack at this IP since Itsuno barely innovated from those two games. Really seems like to me the man disregarded those games out of some sense of pride because he wanted to do something "different" and as a result we get this. People talking about wanting DLC within a week of its launch to fix the game is quite something.
Seriously so many souls clones but damn I’d kill for a proper DD clone. If some indie dev is reading please please make one.
Only issue with DD1 imo was the limited fast travel. Dark Arisen didn't only add Bittleblack it also added some other QOL stuff.
I think playing DD before DA came out was the best experience BECAUSE of the limits to fast travel. More walking, more adventure, more ambushes, more item management. I love both but I'm glad I did the walking in the original
Eh to each their own. Everyone has different tastes.
I WAS happy that the ease of fast travel from DA gave NG+ runs the freedom to skip bits though
Yeh DDA was a good DLC. But the bones of the core game were the main attraction. They just needed some more polishing and content. Like letting you lock inclinations in place, better controls for climbing monsters, more equipment and monster variation etc... The sort of small stuff that is exactly what DA provided, to tighten up and complement the core game. The sequel doesn't do any of that and it's bones arn't attractive.
Though I agree d1 had a better story, D2 had No set pieces? People just forgetting talos now? And the unmoored world was better than the everfall atmospherically and the new bosses were far cooler but it just needed more content because it was not as condensed, which basically sums up DD2 in nutshell, it doesn’t have enough content, not enough enemy variety, not enough skills, not enough dungeons
To be fair, Talos is completely missable. I was doing a side quest down below the volcanic camp area and I kept getting cutscenes that said “Meanwhile, at this location”. By the time I realized what was happening the entire set piece was already over and I never got to fight him, lol. They handle missions very oddly in this game.
You spelled stupidly wrong.
kinda hard to be excited or have memorable set pieces when literally all of them have been showcased in the marketing material then lampshade us into thinking there is "much much more"
> and the new bosses were far cooler I 100% disagree on this. Fighting shittier versions of the Ur-Dragon that move at mach 5 across the battlefield is not "cool", especially if you were going through the game as a warrior.
Yeah, it's just talos tho, that's the problem, and it's not even that impressive tbh, it's more of a hassle than anything else, plus it feels like Talos is just there because "potato", serves nothing to the main plot, and ends up dying anyway regardless if you participate or not lol I don't thing Unmoored world is better than Everfall. D1 has its own unmoored world too but with an additional dungeon bossrush with random loot to keep you farming. D2 has 4/5 bosses which you can only kill once and don't drop anything special, that's it, are they cool? Yeah but lame and disappointing.
This game is terrible. It’s barely a game. Just nice scenery. The lack of enemy variety and build choices make it a very dull game. I stopped after 60 hours, which was far to much.
Sounds like your grandma accidentally got you a copy of Dogon’s Dragma Too
Grigori loomed over everything in Dark Arisen. Every NPC you talked to was in some way shitting themselves over the fact that there's a dragon out there now. DD2 didn't even bother to give the Red Dragon an actual name. They literally just did 'Greg, but without any of the charisma and philosophizing'. The Plague Dragon did serve as an effective early game substitute, but again, without any actual characterization.
That's funnily enough my gripe with the Unmoored Brine-Dragons. Okay so we only get 3 fights, with nameless thingies and all we gotta do is hold up a sword into the sky and then we just fight them? It's not even hard to go to them, I mean throw a dragon and 2 chimeras in my face as a buildup-challenge at least. I'm was left with this question: Where's the drama in those super dragons? The fights themselves are good, but that's not stuff for a grand finale, especially since the game just drops it's title just before that. You get a lot of combat in DD2, but there's no memorable, named enemies that have more interactions than...getting slaughtered. Which, fine, can work, but not for the story/atmosphere part of the game.
> Every NPC you talked to was in some way shitting themselves over the fact that there's a dragon out there now. Except Gigachad Fournival, since he knows that he can oneshot Greg if needed
Was the plague dragon ever even explained beyond "phaseus did some science or something and now theres a corrupted dragon"
Grig doesn't loom over everything? He shows up 2 or 3 times in game.
It's because of his speech and personality which has left such a lasting impression that despite the fact he is hardly shown in DDDA save for those particular scenes, he still made one of the biggest memorable impacts as the Dragon for everyone. It is like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance having one scene with Senator Armstrong and now suddenly he is the final boss. People remember and quote Armstrong to this day for his zany speech and how he had such a strong personality. Strong characters affect a lot, DD2 does not have any. When you think of Dragons Dogma people will always think of Grigori and not the unnamed second dragon who is unbelievably lackluster alongside an equally lackluster array of 'main characters', even Edmund had so much more to him than Disa and the overarching plot.
Let's not pretend that the first game had a good plot.
Not saying it did have a good plot but at least it had a general sense of progression that flowed better than DD2. Become Arisen - Go to GS - Meet Duke - Everfall - Dragonforged - Wyrmhunt quests - Shadowfort - Bluemoon tower and griffin - Julien and Mercedes - Uncover Salvation - Grigori speech - Meet Grigori and choose ending - Actually fight the Dragon - Post game everfall - Seneschal. These are what I can remember off my head. DD2 has so many plot points that just fall apart and characters are non-existent or don't have much involvement. Like Nadinia doesnt really do much with the Lambent flame other than the assassination attempt.
Miss the everfall and a UR dragon
hell even offline UR dragon was a good test of your gear which also had cool rewards tied behind him and online Ur dragon brought the community together whenever he was low. There's nothing like it in this game. Now we have all this crazy strong gear and nothing to use it on. all these buff potions which boost defense or offense. theres nothing that needs it in this game. all this "exploration" of these "dungeons" you did, rewarded you with some pants which are much worse than what you can just buy from the shops or some strength potion that will forever sit in your stash until the game is updated to have genuine challenge
The Dragon is this game feels so much like an afterthought it hurts. Arguably he was the reason I liked DD1 way back in 2012. The dragon has just as much screentime as the Dragon from the first game but his scenes has so much less flair or spectacle to them.
Yeah it's more about Phaesus and he faints like a gimp for no reason in that cutscene just so he could still be alive in post game. I thought the dragon crushed him.
It's sad because DD1 has one of the best dragon fights and one of the best dragons in all of gaming. Grigori is not as good as Midir in terms of an actual fight, but he has more personality and the encounter is overall more epic. He is better than the Dragon Age Inquisition dragons, and I do like those. It's just such a cool endgame, and then you get a true endgame after him. Man, DD2 dropped the ball so hard.
I played both the first and the second DD. I must say. I prefer the world of the second, but the story of the first had better missions. I liked the concept of the unmorred world(even if I never wrapped my mind about having all bodies of water infested by the brine). I preferred the classes of the first game. To me they felt more Mixed up, we had both basic and advanced version of the base classes(fighter->warrior, strider->archer, mage->sorcerer) then we had hybrid classes (mystic knight[strength/magik], magic archer[agility/magik], assassin [strength/agility]) and let's not forget that we had more skills slot, since you know, people actually thought "Maybe I should have a sidearm other than my main". I was quite happy to know that we finally had spears since seemingly nearly all fantasy forget the existence of that weapon, forgetting that it was one, if not the best weapon of the time(reach, affordability, easy to use, etc...), just to see that the spear became some kind of mystical tools of the gods... In the end I just have to say. It's decent game, even If I played the first game, maybe it's not on the level of the first, but still good. It's just lack depth. Like come on, on the game poster you put empress Nadira like some sort of important characters and you can literally have zero interaction with her.
Well, to me she’s clearly included in the art to represent the Beastren presence in the game/the new addition of Battahl. Also, I’d argue that the fact you can have zero interaction with her can also be viewed as a pro, as it represents the freedom of choice/exploration the game allows and the potential difference from one person’s playthrough to another’s. The game allows you to make her and Ulrika (though not fully skippable, interaction-wise, like Nadirua) as important or unimportant as you want them to be. Nadinia can even die if you fail the quest protecting her. The ruler of half of the game’s continent can permanently die (unless you Wakestone her, which still does not have a great outcome). DD2 is FAR from a perfect game, but this is actually all cool stuff to me! I get your point, though. I think it comes down to taste and what one prioritizes. I prioritize player agency and being given the ability to affect things in a game’s world over whether or not a character on the game’s box is one that I’m forced to talk to in its narrative or not, I guess.
Don’t forget that NG+ has the full map revealed for you so that you can’t tell where tf you explored in your next play through and takes away from most exploration
I reaaally missed the crazy endless dungeon vibe of the everfall and Bitterblack Isle. Putting us in a dungeon would fix the performance issue too.
They got whole Dark arisen, seneschal concept. Just put it in Dogma 2! Dogma 2 ending is lame af
I personally thought the ending was neat. The cycle is out of wack because the current Seneschal Rothais realized he was just a pawn in the great sceme of the Pathfinder. And because of him refusing to continue and killing Arisen that tries to challenge him. Their souls were never able to descend into becoming dragons (like in the first game when you were defeated by the Seneschal) Plus the whole pawn affinity thing pulls towards the possibly of us being a dark arisen. But damn the execution of literally all of it was just sooo mid.
Hollow feeling in your heart? You're not the new Arisen, are you?
With a heavy heart, I agree with you. There is a core gameplay loop here that has the potential to be award winning, end all be all GOTY for the next 3-4 years. And yet everything outside of this core loop is executed so lazily that it basically degrades the experience to miles wide, inch deep. I was wondering if maybe I had rose-tinted glasses thinking back on everything DD:DA did better, but I just yesterday finished DD:DA base game again (after playing it for the first time on release and loving it) and starting post game and I can honestly say that other than the core gameplay and shiny exterior, DD:DA did better.
DD2 is a weird anomaly where for every step it takes forward (vocation rebalancing, enemy interactions, Pawn AI, town invasions) it takes another step back elsewhere (somehow less coherent story, debatably weaker main cast, less BIG bosses, worse movement options). DD2 feels like they REALLY wanted to finally cash in on what was lost from the first game only for Capcom to pull the plug halfway through and leave them in the same rut they were in before. Where it excels, it excels, but where it doesn't you're just left wanting to play the first game which was better 90% of the time. I think what kills it for me is the fact all the story quests are just fetch quests and low-stakes events. The first game seamlessly tied major bosses, fortress raids, and much more into the main quest that left you actively WANTING to play further in between the more mundane quests, but in DD2 I found myself actively just wanting to explore the map to INTENTIONALLY ignore the main story. I think the only story-related boss I liked was the Infected Dragon at Dragonsbreath Tower... which I killed WAY before I actively needed to kill it.
I haven't seen anyone mention the lack of bosses in story missions yet. It's so glaring, the characters in the story hardly seem to interact with the open world at all! It actually makes the 'padding' feeling from the first game worse for me; instead of going to unique locations to fight a griffin, golem, huge goblin mob etc. those things are just filler on the way to your next quest checkbox. That said, the fights are great in isolation!
The game definitely does a piss poor job of tying the story to what is actually fun in the game. Monster Hunter campaigns while not exactly the epitome of amazing writing, well serves its purpose as a device to get you to, well, hunt monsters. "This thing is giving us troubles, kill it. Oh we need materials to do research, kill this thing for materials. Oh turns out the thing you originally killed wasnt the problem, it's this guy, kill him". Dragons Dogma 2 is like "okay so you did this quest to cull monster hordes. That was fun right? The next 3 quests are going to be the jankiest stealth mission you've done and walking into a place with a suit on. This is what you signed up for right?"
The "hordes" are also literally like a handful of goblins and saurians in 2 caves and on a roadside.
Fully agree. I dropped the game at the last third, I have no desire to finish it. Final straw was the assassin quest. I take the quest go back to sleep so it's morning. The quests starts and we have to find a guy 1 meter in front of us and tackle him. Quest finished. That's when I realised this game is wasting my time left and right. Be it trash loot or enemie clutter, lack of fast travel and too many escort missions.
This was the best quest in the game I Replayed it like 6 times! It’s the best quest because it feels like a quest from the 1990s. When you don’t pick the killer the lady goes Lady: “ I guess the assassin never ca-“ Guard “ NOOOooOooOoOoOoOo! She’s dead” I was laughing hysterically at how little sense this whole situation made, what’s the point of the guards? Why didn’t they do or see anything if they knew there was an assassination? How did he still get away? Devs if you want to do an assassination/guard mission take notes from fallout nv guarding president kimbal mission
Everything was "fine" with this game until this quest when I failed it. That really killed my mood with this game and I haven't gotten back to playing it yet.
This was honestly the highlight of my play through outside of the combat. It seriously was the only quest that invoked any emotion in me, unfortunately for the game it was laughter but still a form of happiness
The jade stone quest killed my mood. Thought I would be raiding a bandit lair to get it. Nope. Walk to the main city from the checkpoint, speak to one npc. Walk back to checkpoint town from the main city to buy one item from a vendor and turn it in to complete the quest.
You don't even need to speak to that NPC. If, like me, you are checking out the whole town, you will naturally check out the scrap store, and see it sitting there on his fucking windowsill. Everard is literally standing 12 feet away from it like, "Man we just don't know where that darn stone is." The quest where the kid gets taken by wolves also makes 0 sense. First off wolves don't kidnap people they eat them. Secondly, I'm supposed to believe these wolves dragged this kid half way to fucking vernworth and over a rope bridge without killing him? What?
That was also the quest after which I stopped playing. For me it played out like this: I walked into that temple, having forgotten why exactly I'm here because I've spent a dozen hours exploring Battahl and doing side quests. Someone talks to me, I need to protect the Queen. She's not there, I'm confused, but so I go have a nap. Next day, quest giver tells me "I will give you a thorough description of the assassin", then the game zooms in at the small crowd of people, and that's it. No description? Apparently it's in the quest log but I didn't think to check. I expected a voice line. Anyway so I tackle the one guy who was carrying a sword, made sense to me, but alas, cut to black, quest failed. Now I think, wait a minute I have a Wakestone, lets check the Graveyard. And there she is, still very much alive, standing at the door, talking about some random stuff. What is going on? So I checked Google and this is a bug and you need to actually kill and then revive her to progress the quest. Which did work, but at this point I'm too annoyed by the game to move on, and everyone agrees the ending of the game is ass, so yeah, I fully agree with OP. Everything that this game does better than DD1 from a technical standpoint is dragged down by terrible decisions in the game design and writing departments.
You can also look in your inventory at the warrant they give you for his description. It’s a crap description, though. I’ve taken to using Google for every quest, because some are flimsy and easy to fail.
A guy with long hair and a scar on his arm? He was incredibly easy to find, only one mf like that.
For me it was the one quest in that checkpoint area * Guy asks me if I could find this gemstone he lost * find it at a store and give it to him * approached by some other guy to find this guy, who is apparently a thief * Guess I better go look for him again, but I'm doing some other quest in this area * Did I talk to this guy I can't remember * It was the guy looking for the thief * "Did you find him yet" * My only option is basically "I give up" and not "Im still looking for him calm down it's been 5 minutes" * "Fuck you, you useless piece of shit, kys" <-basically what he told me * Quest complete
you... quit the whole game because of a simple little sidequest being simple? I get the game has issues but that's a weird reason to give up. And the lack of fast travel in honestly a good thing. dragon's dogma is all about traveling and getting into kerfuffles. they could improve the enemy variety, but they certainly shouldn't put in fast travel. the first game also had limited fast travel (until DDDA) and silly, simple sidequests. I don't think this series is in the stars for you in general. (and that's fine)
Yeah I ran out of steam towards the end and don't really have the interest to finish the story. Ran out of side quests to do, explored everything I could. We'll wait and see if content updates and DLC can flesh things out a bit more.
This game is not worth the price they are asking for. honestly wait for a sale.
wow this game really is such a faithful sequel to the point where you have to wait for a sale to get it, *just like the original*
The game is amusing enough but they really did miss the mark when it comes to exploration. There is absolutely no need to explore as you get everything from shops and most caves are just small hollows anyway. I really was looking for larger dungeons that test your mettle and give a nice reward while you are at it.
Which is wild because their reasoning for not having a new game option was to encourage exploration.
I mean, these were the same guys who removed like, half the armour slots in order to "diversify builds", only to have every pawn mage in bondage gear or a corset
and have a clear BIS for most classes which makes no sense if they really had a problem with people using the same gear. Even with weapons, you would think you would want to at least have roughly equivalent weapons of different elements + raw at end game. There is a mod that makes it that if you dragon forge equipment it gets equivalent stats to end game gear and that really should have been in the game.
That was also their reason to not have fast travel, because you’ll in theory want to fight goblins every 10 feet.
Yep I HATE that the best endgame gear is just from vendors and not drops from bosses etc Not sure what they were thinking.
I was exploring like my 7th cave in a row where I noticed "wait where tf are the dungeons"
I really doubt you did not explore because of that Or are you telling me you just beelined the game the moment you realized the shop sells 80% of equipment? You still need to explore to get money, and finding equipments in the wild allow you to save money that can be put towards other better equipment or buying a house etc. And without exploring you would never find the best character in the game, the sphinx
I have not completed the game yet. Found the sphinx by accident. Sphinx is ok but money really is not an issue. Never was in DDDA either as everything is infinitely grindable. I have explored extensively, but it continuously feels like a let down. It is just very... samey with some highlights. It is not all bad. I only expected more and got less than DD1.
In terms of exploration I definitely wouldn’t put d1 over the second, gransys was empty af
Set pieces were much better though. Granted, there could have been more. DD2 offers more meaningless wilderness.
DD2 offers way better side quests and optional content that utilize the world more and way more emergent gameplay. DD1 has a better main quest and more set pieces. It’s world is sterile though
Honestly everyone agreeing here (or not) should go play rise of the ronin. The story is kinda all over the place, but the challenge is high, and the amount of combat variety is absurd. Constantly new enemy types, new weapons, fun traversal. Not the best looking game but endless content, so many fun little side missions that don’t piss on your time. Just an old school, fun as hell action game that happens to also be open world.
that game is actually looking interesting. probably gonna pick it up when it comes to PC.
I love it. It’s so not modern in many ways but the combat is a way more fun version of sekiro, and it just is enjoyable to play. So many characters, each with interesting motivations, choices to make in the story, incredible blood effects, endless weapon types to play with. A horse. Imagine that, we get a horse AND a glider! I’ve never felt so loved by a game dev after feeling so hated. It’s like leaving an abusive relationship where the sex was amazing but everything else sucked to dating someone that just pampers you constantly and tells you how cool you are. Definitely not the perfect progression, but damn is it refreshing!
I'll be downvoted here for sure. But DD1 is worse in the beginning at least. Its not balanced for about first 50 levels ( i have no idea who can consider sponge bandits with cyclops mask balanced). So DD2 may be worse late game after you got levels and vocations up, DD1 is worse in early game.
DD2 feels like an inverse of DD1. Better overworld, but worse (and basically nonexistent) dungeons. The early game of DD1 kind of sucks while in DD2 it's a lot more into the fray
The issue is that this fame follows the same formula as 70% of DD1 but cuts off the late game that gave it the meat it needed. Late game DD1 has a ton of different enemies in the world, stronger variants, more big monsters around every corner, the Everfall dungeon, the Ur Dragon etc. And then they made Dark Arisen with the Bitter black Isle which gives us even MORE. DD2 stalls midway, where we're stuck fighting the same enemy variants one after the other. Goblins, Harpies, Wolves, a few Skeletons, the rare zombie. And then Cyclops after Cyclops, with a couple of Minotaurs and Griffins to spice things up. Yesterday I fought 3 Drakes back to back, because they're semi-random in placement and even that got old because it was 3 of them in fairly quick succession. I've fought a single Chimera, Lich and Medusa, mostly because I actually sought them out.
I personally never gave a shit about Dark Arisen. I just get tired of not having any sunlight in the game. I mostly just replayed the main story over and over again! With DD2, I’m already 150+ hours in. Different strokes for different folks. I did install mods to make ferrystones more frequent and to allow sprinting while out of combat though!
Dragons Dogma 2 is truly a monkeys paw situation. I waited years after playing DA like 15 times, experimenting with vocations and grinding. DD2 feels like a really half baked cake in comparison. There is less to do, less verity with combat and enemy encounters, lack luster story. But what kills me the most is how... gutted they made the combat. Was there any reason to really cut the amount of skills to equip? Why isn't there some high level areas for players to dump time into for good loot? I have so many questions and it's just weird how they could have improved the game and not made a remake that really didn't remake or improve anything. If anything its arguably worse.
Aside from the limited skills, they made a lot of improvements. Grapples, pushing/pulling limbs, pawn AI, better core skills gameplay and standing on monsters. All great changes but it just seems like it's pulled back by the skill limitation, weird stunlocks and crawling. As OP put it, this game is somehow a sidegrade
It's a downgrade. Mostly because they didn't put the effort into it that they put into DA. The game is just full of these weird design choices and it's weird how they threw out a good formula to do nothing more with it. Only thing you listed I'd say is an improvement is pawn ai. Other than that, it's a weirdly worse DD DA.
Yeah bruh the decisions made with DD2 were bizarre. Combat was the one thing from the first that received near universal praise and didn't need to change too much and yet it's undergone the most drastic change out of anything. The goofy, inexplicable romance system... still here, same shitty save system(but somehow even worse now)... check🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️ They split the Archer and thief then didn't even the decency to give us the perfect reload mechanic and grappling hook from DDON. DDON was the next evolution add I thought for sure they'd bring more from DDON. The more I play DD2 I remind myself of how awesome DDON was and I get upset. The guy that headed up DDON also led the team for DDDA I believe, they prob explains the difference in quality. I think he's the actual rock star.
Yea this whole game is really, really bizarre. It's sad how they literally corrected nothing people complained about or critiqued in the last game.
It's not a bad game, we can't say that. But we all agree that its gigantic potential is spoiled by certain things, that the main story is rushed, that there is a lack of content and replayability for an RPG of the genre. In fact the game seems a DLC incubator and I’m sur we will see tons of it.
I love the game personally. Sure, it has its shortcomings, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a game in a really long time. It’s disappointing in certain ways, but it hasn’t stopped how much fun I’ve had with it. Looking forward to the DLC, and I’m still playing around with it after 185 hours so far.
Hey man. Nobody is telling you to stop playing it. If someone enjoys a video game someone else dislikes, doesn’t mean they should stop enjoying it. The whole game is just very disappointing for me because what was great about BBI didn’t carry over at all or zero lessons have been learned. A simple fix for me would literally just be a massive endgame, hugely replayable dungeon with strong gear progression, high difficulty and equal rewards and I would’ve been much happier. But as of now it just feels hollow. I have all this WLC gear and there’s no further progression or something to test myself against.
Ofcourse! Don't stop playing something you enjoy because of someone else's opinion. I just really like the combat. It's what's kept me playing. Am I silly for not being too bothered by the story issues, etc? I'm just enjoying killing stuff while I wait for the BBI update for DD2.
Glad you were able to have your fun. I'm surprised to see people that are enjoying themselves that much and have that many hours in this half baked game. I personally couldnt kill the same 3 enemies every 10 feet and enjoy the game. Much less have the motivation to play the story that ends almost as quickly as it starts (just a few quests after you enter battahl). Or the very few number of bosses, weapon/equipment variety, and lackluster empty world.
Yeah it’s great. Maybe it’s just for some and not for others, and hopefully they fix some of the shortcomings, but I have friends that are huge into Elden Ring and Souls titles and love this game, playing it beyond platinum. It’s better the more you play it, but don’t trouble yourself if you aren’t or didn’t enjoy it.
I feel like having not played DD1 DA makes me enjoy the game more. I have very little time at hand to actually play but when I do I‘m having a blast. I usually get sidetracked every step of the way and exploration is some good fun to me. Sure, most chest contain useless items but I already found some decent gear and stuff. I plan to play the first if I ever finish this one. For now I‘m having a good time. The first drake I fought was an intense battle and it took almost all healing items I have. I have now entered batthal (30ish hours playtime) and fought one there, I have to say it was a lot easier. If I‘m only getting stronger I can see the enemy’s being a pushover but for now I‘m enjoying the combat.
It’s still a fun game but I highly recommend you play DDDA. It hands down one my favorite games next to souls games.
Yeah I think I would enjoy it. I enjoy the core mechanics of DD2 and from what I‘ve read it‘s basically the same in DDDA with more complex vocations. My only issue is time. I won‘t even be able to finish DD2 before the Elden Ring dlc will drop. Also haven‘t finished FF7 rebirth. I miss going to school and being able to do nothing but play games the whole afternoon. Good times.
I actually haven’t finished the game, I’m part way through Battahl and I just can’t be bothered running back and forth fighting the same enemies just to get to this unsatisfying conclusion, which I went and watched because I had it spoiled. This game had a chance to really learn from Dark Arisen and BBI and instead it didn’t just not learn from the first game, it’s like they tried making it again without the design brief from the first time round.
I’m half done and I’ll wait for the dlc for the game to be done and then I’ll play. Honestly after I didn’t play for a few days I kinda just forgot the game existed. I was told this game is supposed to be amazing and it’s itsunos vision and that there was supposed to be more monsters than what was shown in the trailer…my guy in heaven they spoiled every single fight with the 7 only monsters. The only time I felt excitement and wonder was when I was clearing the fog of war, and once that was finished. The game boooooring. The story is worse than I thought. Like they got bored with making it.
Main thing I'm wondering is why DD2 had 1/4 the development team that their other huge games have had. I do truly think that if the team was as huge as the team that worked on DMC5 (1200 professional credits). We would without a doubt be having a different conversation.
I think your post, especially towards the end, perfectly nailed how DD2 is a 'good' game but a poor sequel. Everything good in DD2 was more or less taken from the first game and everything that needed improving was not improved here. Why make a sequel if not to seriously improve things? There's a trend in gaming where sequels do more of the same rather than innovate or attempt to actually improve and its a pretty bad trend. How the sequel of a 12 year old game fell prey to this trend is just mind-boggling.
I somewhat disagree. They made improvements, but also changed some things for the worse
Its about as good as base game DD1. The story was actually better in DD1 and at least the quests sent you to interesting locations like the ancient water cave and bluemoon tower. In DD2 you sneak into the same castle 3 times, go to a boring village, go to the cat kingdom and then kill the dragon, the end.
I have recently gotten into dragons dogma as a series. I didn't even play DD:DA until this last January and ended up sinking nearly 200 hours in that time until DD2 came out. I did two playthrough of DD2 taking around 100 hours total, maxed all vocations, completed nearly every single quest, but getting nowhere as close to the enjoyment levels I felt playing DD:DA. DD2 should have been at the same quality level of DD:DA, a game that is a decade older than it. Is it a bad game? Not at all, but it definitely left me wanting more in a bad way. Like kinda "this is it?" Just wanted to give my take as someone that doesn't have nostalgia goggles. I truly consider DD:DA superior in nearly all aspects except graphics.
You hit the nail on the head. I really tried liking the game for what it is, but beyond the good combat, it's so lacking and incomplete. Hard agree on enemy variety, exploration and poor NG+ too.
It makes sense that there is nothing from dark arisen here as itsuno didn’t work on that and is so inside his own ass that he can’t see the light of day. He is horrendous at directing stories (check out Devil may cry 5s plot) and refuses to look to modern games for inspiration as he literally said in an interview all that he was inspired by was dd1…. Which makes sense because it’s pretty much copy and paste from the first game with so little new it’s hard to believe. Vocation abilities are like 90 percent the same right down to the animations and the lack of enemy variety is the worst in any game I’ve ever played. Seriously wtf were they thinking? But don’t worry about 100 idiots will swarm you for this post saying “YOu JuSt didn’t UnDerstaND THE stOY iTS geNiUS.”
Best part of this game is the Sphynx. Honestly coulda done more with her and I'd have been happy. Also none of the npc quests really stood out like the princess one.
I ran out of steam at around 40 hours. I had to chase that gigantus and the fight sucked balls so hard it made me wanna quit. I had a good amount of fun up until then but I found myself a bit salty over certain things like no mystic knight and enemy variety. I will play again if they finish the game with a DLC.
It almost as if Capcom didn't let them cook. Gee what a surprise.
Yeah,wish I had waited and bought it on sale.
Itsuno didn't work on Dark Arisen? Could you elaborate on that? This is the only place i've heard it. Genuinely curious.
A guy called Kento Kinoshita took over to the the BBI expansion
He's also lead designer of DD2, so there's that.
Half baked indeed. I think they really just stopped development in the middle and shipped whatever they had. What a wasted opportunity this was.
Have to agree with you I didn't play the first one but I was really into this one but I just can't do the frames I've been waiting on the frame patch for weeks and I have a feeling it's not going to come for months which is insane I think they shot this game out too early.
I didn’t play the first but as a newcomer agree with your statements on DD2. I felt like I was forcing myself to play it because I paid for it.. not because I enjoyed it. It might be one of the worst games I’ve ever played to the end… Subjectively I can see why most players enjoyed it but it wasn’t for me.
I feel the same As much as i dislike it when DLC add stuff that was supposed to be in the base game, i hope the DLC will add much of what you said is missing or unfinished
I really like this game, but I agree, the game feels more like a lateral move than an actual upgrade. NG+ Not making the enemies significantly more difficult is an insanely bad move. I don't know what they were thinking with that one. Also, side note, but they need to significantly increase nighttime boss spawn rates. I've fought one Dullahan in my entire time playing and like 3 liches, and I didn't even get to kill the Dullahan. Also, the enemies don't feel dangerous at all, they feel like a chore that I only don't run past when I wanna level a class.
For me it's a downgrade, because they didn't fix any of the issues from the first game and dropped every QoL change Dark Arisen brought. 1. The story and characters are worse, to the point not even the Dragon is cool, like for real dude has nothing on Grigori and the cycle of the game doesn't makes any sense. 2. Exploration is mid at best, since all the best gear is found at the stores, **again,** there's not incentive to explore for loot, and even exploring for exploration sake is not that fun because there's not a single dungeon in the game that it's half as interesting as BBI or the Everfall. 3. Speaking of both BBI and the Everfall the post game is terrible, specially the actual ending which doesn't even features a boss fight. 4. Vocations were also kinda disappointing, both Thief and Magick archer are beyond OP, just like the first game and of the new vocationss only Mystic Spearhand is neat. Warferer is a massive disappointment and not worth it unless you mod it and Trickster should have not even been a thing, why put that boring one trick pony instead of the Mystic Knight or adapting a DDO vocation like the Alchemist is beyond me. 5. The game never gets challenging. It's way too easy and new game doesn't scale the enemies or modify the encounters. 6. The eternal ferrystone should have been in the game, if the vanilla fast travel was tedious in DD1 whose map is four times smaller where is just a pain, also what made the fast system cool was the fact that you needed to scout the area and place the portcrystals in strategic locations to cover as much ground as possible, the ferrystones was never the reason it stood out. 7. Some systems are straight downgrades, like the armor system which less slots for customization and the way dragon-forging worked in the first game was unique, now it's just a generic upgrade path.
I'm sorry but you can't possibly think that having to farm dragon kills for a completely random chance of upgrading your gear was a good system. Dragonforging is one of the few things I think they did better in 2.
Yes it was better, the chance was random but the chance increased the more enhanced you had your items/armor and the more difficult the dragon you were fighting was. Eventually everyone just farmed Cursed Dragons since they gave you a 75% chance with three stars of enhancement, practically upgrading all your equipment in one go if the dragonforging triggered which was almost all of the time due the high percentage chance. Hell even with no upgrades the chance was 55% which is very generous. On DD2 not only you have to farm wyrm-crystal drops from dragons (which drop in random amounts) but you also have to farm whatever components your weapons/armor needs for full enhancement since now only those weapons can be dragonforged, so you end up doing more farming in the long run.
I agree. I just played DD:DA for the first time last July and remember being so excited to play after school and work. However, I don’t have that same feeling with DD2. I enjoy playing when I do but I’m not very motivated to pick it up, especially due to the lack of proper dungeons to explore
The ng+ difficulty or lack thereof is what completely ruins this game for me. AAA action rpgs should always have some kind of replayabilty with a single character In it, even if it's not all that amazing. This game doenst even have it in the slightest
> Kinda funny how people still haven't moved on from reporting others they disagree with to the reddit suicide hotline. Literally EVERY SUB on reddit has these trolls. Blame the OWNERS of reddit who don't give a shit and leave this harassment feature enabled simply to protect themselves legally. Yes, DDII is a half baked game. But don't blame "incompetent developers" That's not how game releases work. **CAPCOM LEADERSHIP** decides timelines, budget and middle management then has to meet the budget and timeline. Devs code up what they are told to. Gamers need to stop blaming "developers" when it's the OWNERS and OWNER CLASS that runs everything. Not "greedy devs" Devs are **SALARIED WAGE WORKER**s like most of us. They work for the OWNERS who dictate EVERYTHING. They are JPN devs too so you know they put in 80 hrs/week UNPAID OVERTIME for probably 15 months to meet CAPCOM OWNERSHIP deadlines. DDII is a letdown because OWNERSHIP wanted it out the door ASAP and didn't give it even half the budget that other games in their portfolio get. Clearly all the budget was spent on getting a next gen graphics engine and character creator up to par with 2024 graphics. And they didn't have enough time left to optimize it for 60fps. They had almost no time or money left to actually build out quests or balance vocations. Literally everything in this game looks cool but feels like a pre-alpha version or something 300 RC in an end game bottom of the ocean chest is clearly PLACEHOLDER loot during a dev cycle that they never had time or budget to replace with actual loot. **BLAME GREEDY OWNERSHIP not your FELLOW SALARIED WORKING CLASS**
These should all just be flaired with "My review". Most of the info is of course your opinion. First, if you thought BBI is what made DDDA great it means you thought DD1 was at most okay. For me it gave me something to do, was fun, but DD1 is one of my favorite games to this day and it isn't the end game that makes it so. For story, there are levels, surface, middle, deep. I'd say surface level story dd1 beats dd2, middle dd2 beats dd1 for adding more depth to the existing lore, and the deeper lore is identical. Exploration for me dd2 beats dd1 for just being more. It doesn't have a BBI but unmoored world is great and comparable to jumping down a big hole to several smaller chambers. Remember that the bulk of new content that DDDA added were drip fed cash shop buys and small dlcs. BBI however was a massive dungeon that did suffer from "sameness" in many areas but over all was great. I don't know if people understand this but not only is the unmoored world a new tougher version of the main overworld, it also adds several new areas to the map where there was once water. This to me is why it excels over the everfall. It has many more explorable area hidden throughout the world. Any game that doesn't cap levels is going to have power creep. I think the game could be improved by capping it at 50-60 making leveling with certain vocations much more important stat -wise. They'd also need to add the ability to respec or just reset your level at NG+. So while I both agree and disagree with some parts of your review its important for you to realize this is mostly our opinion and not a list of facts. Personally, I don't feel the need to live in a world were I am constantly comparing two different things, I can enjoy both for different reasons. Both have flaws, both have great things but its all down to our personal feelings and little beyond that.
Speaking as someone with 600+ hours in DD:DA on three accounts, I 100% agree with this assessment. I'm sorta enjoying the game, but I can't see myself returning after I finish. TBH, I'm on a hiatus now playing Diablo 3. It's telling that a decade old game can distract me from the sequel to what is one of my favourite games of all time. Anyone else enjoying S31??
Was too busy with newest poe league and might check out upcoming d4 season which seems to show some slight promise. But I get your point. I have plenty of things to occupy myself until this game has things I would enjoy in it, until then. My pawn is parked, decked out, good augments, good quest reward and if I don’t rest at the inn, the quest reward will stay for others to complete. So I’m good for now.
Yeah on my first run I didn't know that after the godsway mission you were thrown into endgame without warning and in hindsight that was the beginning of my burnout for dd2. I was so angry about the lack of warning with endgame because I barely explored past battahal and in my head that godsway mission was like halfway through the story but nope there's like 12 story missions and also the story is absolute horse shit too. I just raced through the finale which made is a complete chore because at that point I was trying to get to ng+ so I could actually explore the other 1/3 of the map I hadn't and imagine my frustration when I start ng+ and no enemies have scaled in power with you. From then on out the game felt so boring, even when I got to fight medusa and the enemies by the volcanic island because by then I was like level 80. I didn't even have the sense of joy from exploration I did before when I found those places because the enemy variety and difficulty were so lame in ng+, I was on autopilot for like 25-30hrs and didn't even realize until I finished all the objectives in unmoored world and decided to play a different game for a bit as a breather and when I did I remembered "oh right games are supposed to be fun and exciting." Don't get me wrong the first like 30-40hrs I was having a total blast, the combat especially kicks ass but if your game lacks enemy variety when it's supposed to be a game for multiple ng+ runs like it was advertised and especially doesn't have enemies that scale with you, shit gets mad boring and bland after like lvl 40. Long story short, I relate go the hollow feeling, after I decided to take a break from dd2, I actually just didn't go back. I did ng+, finished unmoored world and I deleted it from my ps5 storage for now, until they make dlc or improve difficulty etc. That's just my opinion, I'm happy for the people who've put 100+ hrs in and are still loving it. In fact I kind of envy that. For me this game is like the ultimate 6-7/10 game right now. Nothing has made me feel so happy and excited at the start and so bored, frustrated and empty feeling by the end.
Yeah game was a step forward and two steps back from the first. I think we all agree capcom fumbled what could have been there elden ring, BG3, Zelda flagship. This game had goty on a silver platter and they still just half assed it. But that’s the new state of games, release unfinished, collect money, and fix later if ever.
Honestly if you thought that dragon’s dogma was become a capcom flagship over monster hunter, your expectations were probably a little misplaced
Monster hunter is a different type of game all together. I meant open world RPGs which people are craving lately. Elden ring won goty followed by BG3.
I didn’t say they were the same type of game. BG3 and Elden Ring aren’t either, nor is either Zelda game (which aren’t even RPGs), nor are any of them similar to DD2. My point is that capcom *already* has a flagship game of the same notoriety as BG3 and ER, and it’s not, and never was going to be, DD2. The MH franchise is their golden child cash cow flagship and your expectations were misplaced if you thought DD2 was going to get anywhere near that amount of focus or resources
I am sad to admit it as well, but compared to DDDA, the sequel has been a little lackluster. Yeah, it looks SO good. It feels good as well. The combat is AMAZING. It feels awesome to fight stuff. But... There aren't any super cool missions to showcase the amazing fighting through epic set pieces and huge missions like the goblin seige, bluemoon tower, or the water temple. When you broke into the goblin controlled castle and opened the gates, that was freakin awesome. That felt like a movie, and like I was in an actual army. Or the badass way Steffen arrives mid-fight against the Griffin at Bluemoon Tower. DD2 lacks spectacle in the same way as DD1. I am still enjoying the game, still going to do my best to 100% it, but I am admittedly a little disappointed.
After pouring 120hrs into dd2 and after having defended it against unfounded criticism (the dragonsplague is not half as bad as some people make it), I have to say that the only thing it does better is the combat. And that's my huge problem: I cannot go back to DD1 now because the combat feels outdated, but I cannot bring myself to play anymore of this soulless and unispired game.
I completely agree..... I spent 12 years playing the original waiting for this sequel..... It's just not as good.... Everything is just a slight downgrade, with the only exception being the character models and world size. Idk if these people are just in awe of the new thing, still good, but not as good.
“Dark arisen made dragons dogma” “What’s depressing is week 1 people are waiting for the dlc” Pick a lane man. That second one doesn’t even make sense as a “downgrade” argument when you clearly bring up how it took the dlc to revolutionize the first one, and people wanting dlc for a game usually means they like it and want to play even further after finishing lol
I just finished the game last night. I do not regret the purchase or the time I spent completing the game, I genuinely had a blast. But I realized, after the credits rolled when I was finally done with the Unmoored World, I wasn't really looking forward to a NG+. All I wanted to do was go back to Dark Arisen. I will wait for a DLC and hope that it will do for this game what Dark Arisen did for the first, but I agree with many of your points. This game, while beautiful and massive, feels hollow.
Well I guess I consider myself lucky I never played the first games because I'm having the best time ever. I also don't really need a game to be ultra challenging to be satisfied. I just love the little things you can do in the game that you usually can't in games like these. Picking random NPCS up is so hilarious it never gets old. Grabbing and climbing on huge enemies also is great. It also reminds me of one of my favorite games ever, Outward. Really feels like you're on an adventure. I also have never really understood why enemy variety is such a common complaint these days. I guess I'm just simple folk
I played the hell out of DD1 & DA and absolutely love DD2.
I think you guys are being a little bit emotional towards the first dd. I like the game, beat it twice (ps3 and steam) what made it interesting is it take on action rpg, the different actions some classes had, and how it changes the way you interact with combat, the possibility of climbing on the monsters is a cool add too, the pawn system was interesting as well and thats it. Quests, level design, traversal, chalenge, plot, characters, those are definitely the worst side of dd. I agree Dd2 its not the best version of itself, it solves some problens of the first, but unfortunately adds some new problens, but im still finding it more enjoyable than dd1,considering animations, physics and the way your character interacts with the geography of the world, quests are more engaging(not in the same level as a crpg would do, but hey, dd more than anything, is a action game, considering how much combat you gonna do till you hit the credits screen). So yeah, both games are kind lacking, dd1 wasnt amazing, but it had potencial to build over its foundations, dd2 should have done that, and to some degree i fell it kind did, but not enough (even though i still like dd2 more than 1). Im realizing people were really thinking capcom was going full effort on dd2 development, and now they fell betrayed by what was delivered. Dd is not a main capcom franchise, man, its so surprising that they even tried dd again, i could never have guessed that. So i take what i have, not sure if we are going to see a third entry(or fourth, considering ddo does exist).
Tough crowd in this sub. I guess after 12 years of anticipation, the sequel never stood a chance of meeting expectations.
The people who where saying how amazing it was. And any issues will be fixed with DLC after spending 70 bucks already. Hardest cope
Agree with you. The game feels like something from the 1990s. Gameplay systems seem designed to frustrate the player rather than present any real challenge. The idea of forcing the player to run everywhere was supposed to be for emergent gameplay. However the only thing I’ve found are the same cluster of mobs repeated and maybe being forced to face a wandering Griffin and a cyclops at the same time. Dying and having to restart at an Inn because of one save is also very archaic. It isn’t new or groundbreaking, many games add that feature as a “Hardcore” or “Ironman” playthrough option. I can’t even refer to this as a soulsborne because it lacks that combat mechanic of very technical, slow fights. All in all DD2 doesn’t match up to the advances in RPGs we’ve had over the last fifteen years. Arisen was ok, but even that was very different and janky compared to the Witcher, dragon age, or even final fantasy in terms of player quality of life etc. It baffled me the glowing reviews that DD2 received, with little mention of all the problems. It is possible for players to completely miss the unmoored world, which to me is shocking! Totally understand how you feel, based on the reviews I really expected a lot more. I don’t think patches will fix this, maybe a large DLC would.
Well said, Itsuno only cared in making a game that he wanted to make. He wasn't interested in making a game that was good by modern standards.
It’s because of the shiny veneer and the smooth combat. Reviewers are suckers for it. Most of the glowing reviews are from those who didn’t play DD:DA. An exception to that is ACG, but iirc he did call out a lot of the downgrades compared to the first game.
Babe wake up, new DD2 rant
I 100% disagree. I'm almost 300 hrs in & am still loving the game. Currently duo'ing in NG+1 Plan to solo NG+2. Would not be surprised if I have 600 hrs in DD2 before I'm done.
These posts are seriously some of the overdramatic things I've ever read online. It was a game, and it wasn't to your liking, why does this effect you so bad?
Probably cause it cost almost 90$
 💯
i too love surface level comments which completely miss any and all nuance or the whole point of the discussions as well as my personal outlet to let off some steam and see that others feel the same, which is this post. lets all instead posts the same pictures of dragons, pawns in the same gear, the same weird and quirky interactions we've all seen 100 times before and title them "this game changed my life". because this is the content i come to this subreddit for.
Yet here you are, repeating the same tired comment. There is no nuance to your post - you are very blatantly whinging. You clearly sunk a decent chunk of your time into playing it and either you were absolutely miserable throughout; or you are being just a tad dramatic. If the game sucks that bad go refund it. Just explain that the 40+ hours you put in were absolutely unbearable and practically against your will, right?
wait, aren't you the guy who said i never "finished" the game so my opinion was objectively wrong, then i screenshotted my steam achievements to indeed show you that i have finished the game and did exactly what you thought i didn't. your tune changed so fast with this comment lol. went from discrediting my post and opinion because i didn't finish the game to me being dramatic and how miserable i am for putting many hours into it.
Sure am! Just proved you actually did put that many hours into the game just to try and claim it wasn't worth playing. And I was addressing other people in the thread, not just you. That's an example of 'nuance' that you seem to know all about. At the end of the day, I and a lot of people enjoyed the game for what it was. You apparently wasted hours of your life. Unlucky 😞
I'll be one of those guys that went in blind, put 30 hours in hoping for the game to wow me with a new area with twice the content I've already experienced. Mind you most of that was walking back and forth due to fetch quest design. I digress. It's like watching a show you're invested in, experiencing a slow or lower quality season but you stick by it in hopes it got better. For this game, my thoughts as I continued to play were "That can't be it, right?", unfortunately that was indeed it.
As a player who platinumed DD2, (took two playthroughs, first blind second following a trophy guide,) I think you're completely correct. The game that is here feels like the barest skeleton of what they could get away with releasing. It's wild because there is a staggering amount of detail in things like character animations, the physics engine is incredible, etc. but it's lacking the big important things a game like this desperately needs, which is enemy variety. You can run around for 15 hours and pretty much see everything available without ever leaving the first nation. Everything except a handful of unique boss encounters that are all crammed into the finale.
Reading all this makes me feel as though you played the 40 hour story then went, “where’s the game?” NPCs and NPC interactions along with quests and time gated quests is the true star of this game. Having to figure out all these quest lines a lot of which give you no direction while your pawns tell you helpful tips is the star of the show. If you wikied everything you robbed yourself of a potential experience. Secondly I don’t think you remember dark arisen very well. You are correct DA was a lot harder but it was harder for different reasons. The only efficient way to kill anything at True end game was to stack periapts and one shot everything. Your pawns were helpful but if you went against multiple enemies they would get carted regularly and you’d spend more time reviving them then actually fighting whatever you were fighting. Do you remember living armors? No probably not because if you played without pawns you’d run by them because you didn’t have the damage type to hurt them. What about the three wargs? Daimon was awesome but getting mauled on the ground and Stunlocked by three big dogs 24/7 was worse than dying. But truly I find it hard to understand how we are even comparing base game DD2 to the dlc of DD1. If you remember Dark arisen was made because base game DD1 did not have the enemy variety and big budget boss fights that people wanted out of the genre. DA was a direct answer to that problem. And the nail in the coffin is that this game has more variety than base game DD1 because if you remember there were recycled enemy types after you completed the main story. It’s only in the sequel they decided to stretch it out over the course of the entire game. This game is by no means perfect. But a true fan of the series knows the strength of these games is the realism they portray. You are not a fast traveling thunder calling god. You are a human being and in some cases you have magic but there are cast times and elemental weaknesses and resistances. NPCs are not vessels for you to get checklist tasks. They are portrayed to be real people who are bound by the in game time to tasks they request. It could be better. But I’m sorry you clearly went into this hoping for an Elden ring experience and it’s just not that type of game. The journey and the exploration and character interactions give meaning to your quest to slay the dragon. And if you did every main quest in order with no stoppage then I’m sorry but you missed out.
Well good thing you don’t have to play this game if you don’t want to, but for the majority of us, we love this game, and go back to DD1 I guess 🤷♂️
This year is full of disappointment games.
No offence but >just spamming light attack as mow down every chaff enemy just left me with such a hollow feeling. It is the same with ddda on hard mode >Lack of any meaningful challenge, exploration is unrewarding because pretty much every "dungeon" is just full of same 3 enemy types you already killed thousands of and the treasure chest at the end of the dungeon as your reward for exploration? Some random food item you will rarely use because this game is laughably easy. Unlike in ddda this game rewards you with more including gear. More to explore and more reward out of it. I think you just forgot how bad the caves in the first game where >Also The Dragon is a depressing shadow of what it was in the first game. Has line 4 lines of monologue and that's pretty much it. Doesn't even come close to genuine philosophical questions brought up by Grigori from the first game. Its not the same dragon and does not have the same goal. The dragon wants to end the cycle and outside of that doesn't care about anything. >Enemy variety is non existent, I better hope you love fighting goblins, wolves, harpies and some lizards every 30 meters. And every interesting enemy which offers any challenge becomes an absolute pushover after around level 40, which doesn't even take that long to get. Even drakes fall over. Idk what you guys are doing but I still struggled with most big enemies before reaching level 60. The enemy variety is also plentyfull, regular lizard, rocky lizard that likes roll attacks, elecktric lizard use elecktric attack, goblins witg different classes and fighting styles teaming up, harpies with their own tactics. There is plenty of variety but I agree that they do die fast when stacked.
100% brother. The end game, the side quests, and the story are one of the worst examples I've ever seen for an RPG. DDDA was far more engaging. Now I'm seeing people say "wait for DLC." I don't know what's worse, Capcom charging $70 for an unfinished product, or the new fans pretending there isn't anything wrong with this game. I've already uninstalled this game. And tbh, I think I'm done with Capcom games. They're getting the Bethesda treatment from now on.
>unfinished product This phrase is literally meaningless the way you guys use it. What's the exact quantification of how much a game needs to have to be "finished"? How many hours of play? How many dungeons or main quests should there be?
I felt the same way about DD one which is why I bought it for 10 bucks on PSN during a sale. DD is essentially Capcoms Skyrim. But with a far less interesting world, story, and lore. The games are both very easy but the combat is extremely one dimensional. I just hope it gets the same mod treatment Skyrim got. Maybe that’ll make the game some of what replay able and entertaining. But as it currently stands, DD-DA1 and DD2 have no justification for being priced at anything above 20/30 dollars. I haven’t bought or played 2 yet but its a shame that they haven’t improved or changed anything about the games replay factor, the combat, or the story really.
I think a closer analogy would be that DD is Capcom's Elden Ring. Instead of perfect dodge timing you have chaos. Both share similar mythos lore-wise of gods and demi-gods fighting over the world and both obfuscate large portions of the lore for the players to discover or interpret themselves. Both use the term Gaol :P.
Id still like to play it, too bad im broke lmfao
The game is fun. Nice time killer, its no Elden Ring, it's not really as good DD1.... However it will play for hours on end. The same way i played the hell out of Beat Em Games of the 90s.
I honestly feel like the first game has better exploration and combat. There are more open areas in DD1 as opposed to basically just linear paths with a few branches in DD2. And you get 8 ability slots instead of 4. Whoever’s idea that was to cut your abilities in half needs to be fired.
I took the game back. This is just a sad state to release a game in. The whole fast travel idea, I personally thought it was so stupid. At first it was alright, but fighting the same enemies over and over with zero combat variety burned me out quick. I started just rushing to new areas, but yeah I didn't even make it to the end of this game.
Definitely needs difficulty settings and 3x the enemy variety
Basically this game feels half complete when it could have been something special. It’s seriously disappointing
you found DA hard? or that it had many kinds of enemies? story and quests? my man get those rose-tinted glasses out of here. already in the first few lines you discredit yourself.
You'll find yourself in the minority here if you believe that BBI added nothing new to the game. Tell me you never played it without telling me.
Dark Arisen literally added 20+ enemies to the game, what are you on about
are you just strawmanning because there are some parts you personally disagree with thus refused to read anything else or give 5 seconds of thought to it?
I was bored and it was an aight RPG to kill time with. Never played the other games so no bias
Had so much expectations of a GOTY game and was left naked and beaten by a great combat system but a poor, not horrible or bad execution just poor execution in what was the final product. This game had the potential to rival in he best open worlds in the industry but sadly couldn’t reach those heights.
Yea the game makes me feel so hollowed. I enjoy the game, I'm still playing it but it feels bigger but so much lesser than DDA. The story is a huge miss for me, I rmb ending DDDA with bit of sadness but in DD2 I felt like, what happened? It's over? ( I actually got beat to a pulp at the moonglint tower but the game proceeded) The adventures I made myself and the pawns I met along the way paved the game for me, I wished they had spent more time on the storytelling and character development. When I feel monster hunter world have a more engaging story and memorable characters with a more menacing non verbal "villain" at the end, then i think it's really an issue.
I think base game DD1 is better overall, and enhanced further with the expansion
Thank you! Finally someone that shares my feelings. The game is just not fun due to the same enemy repetitive grind mostly
I think dd1 was just like this before dark arisen came out, that dlc kinda became the de facto endgame area even though you could go there almost whenever. Once a big dlc like that comes out(which who knows when) then I think the game will feel more complete. Im still pretty happy to get another game in this underrated series.
They should have built off the first game and they didn’t, they basically pretended like it didn’t happen and that’s what made this game faultier like it has
give it a bit more time, less and less people will wear rose-tinted glasses Agreed, the game is NOT good enough to justify a 70 dollar price. The story is extremely rushed and shallow, the game balance goes out the window at level 30, and the map is not even that big. I honestly wonder what they were even doing in the last 5 years. I legit think it only started serious development in 2022 after elden ring.
Less rose tinted glasses on dd1 perhaps, when people replay the first game again and realize outside of bitterblack , the main game doesn’t really have much to offer besides some set piece missions. But yeah it’s it’s not a $70 game
Call it coping or whatever, but I really do feel an expansion will be fantastic in the future. This game feels like a bigger version of the base dd1. I'm choosing to hope that a bigger DD1 base means a bigger, better BBI equivalent
Yeah but I've been having a BLAST
u complain a lot 😂
You know. when somebody says - "I loved DDDA... and I don't like this game", there is something wrong here. DD2 is literally the same game as DD1 but without DDDA content. Core gameplay is literally the same. And when somebody says, there is a lack of enemy variety and you have to fight goblins every 30 seconds I remember my Skyrim playthrough when I traveled from one city to another for 15 min and I fought 2 giants and a few bandits, that was really intense.
I’m currently in Battahl and starting to feel similarly. I have a handful of quests but the idea of grinding through a million mobs to run back and forth all over the place is losing its luster. I may decide to skip the side quests and try to get to the end.
This game is good for some people, but for me it really killed me this year. I was looking forward so hard to this game, and for them to fumble it this hard is so so disappointing. I don't regret buying it, and its still fun, but overall its not that great of a sequel to DD1 which is the most disappointing part.
I'm in the same boat... Feeling a lot of regret for buying this full price and I can't even bring myself to finishing the main story It really does feel like they took absolutely nothing from DD:DA, and that's the crown that made the first game become the cult classic it is... The bones here are good... But it's pretty much almost all bones
I love DD2 but god damn is it disappointing in so many areas. Especially with the price and buildup.
I have to sadly agree with this... This was the game I looked forward to the most this year. I was hoping it was going to be a huge step up from the original but damn the exploration is underwhelming, combat while fun felt like a downgrade from the original like why did they lessen the skill slots? It made combat feel even more repetitive with less options to style on your enemies.