Dragons Dogma 2 is such a disappointment. Underwhelming doesn't even describe it.

It's utterly baffling how after twelve years since the first game's release, a higher budget, and an abundance of feedback from the passionate fanbase, Capcom managed to put out a game that not only repeated many of the same issues of the original but somehow also went backwards in other areas.

They dumbed down the armor/clothing system (Itsuno's explanation for this one is outright retarded).
They lowered the number of skills you can have equipped.
They removed depth from the pawn rental mechanic (no more ratings or feedback from other Arisen).
There's less enemy variety than in the first game -- not even counting Bitterblack Isle! -- despite the map being larger.
Hell, even the soundtrack sounds limp in comparison. At least here they had the thoughtfulness to add [some of] Dark Arisen's OST as an in-game option.

Like TintoConCasera TintoConCasera said above, DD2 isn't a bad game (unless you primarily care about story and characters, in which case it is atrocious and you should steer way clear), it's just incredibly disappointing.
 
Top 3 game this gen for me. PC mods fix a lot of issues. From the Dragon's plague to the annoying sliding on everything. On consoles it would be a 7. On PC with Nexus support, it was a 9 for me.
 
TintoConCasera said:
DD1 had way better characters than DD2.



DD2 has:
Less equipment slots.
Less skill slots.
Less spells.
Worse music.
Worse loot.
Worse dungeons (all caves, final dungeon is just an elevator ride)
Worse quests: each main quest in DD1 sent you on some sort of adventure, they were there as excuses to go explore a dungeon or fight some monsters. Main quest in DD2 is nonsensical shit like sneaking into a castle twice in a row.
Worse true ending? Felt less kino than DD1 specially since you don't really fight the boss. My pawn grappling on the seneschal in DD1 while yelling "now, Arisen!" was absolute kino. The final sequence in DD2 is also very good and quite emotional even but it doesn't hit the same as the credits are already rolling.

I agree on the open world being a joy to explore.
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DD1 has better characters, but the overall writing is not strong. And it's fine, the characters being like that is part of the charm. I mean, most people end up with Fournival as their Beloved in DD1, I don't think the whole thing is meant to be taken too seriously. The most interesting thing about Dragon's Dogma is the background lore of the world, but it's not explored a lot in both games, only towards the end things get kind of interesting.

Less does not equal worse though. For example, I personally didn't care for the changes in the armor system. And regarding skills, a lot of skills were moved as Core (passive) Skills: the choice was made so you have more options to engage with the physics based combat in a natural way.

The loot is worse, because the game wants to push you towards selling and buying stuff from merchants more in this game. But I get it that it's more exciting to find cool stuff around the world instead of selling/buying. It happens sometimes but not often enough.

It's true that all dungeons are caves and use the same assets, but the cool thing about them is that you never know what to expect when you enter them. They can be a monster's den, a shortcut, a place where to loot stuff, and a few times it ends up being a huge ass dungeon (Waterfall Cave for example). For sure it's better than whatever passes for good open world content nowadays, you can have 100+ dungeons skinned differently, but if they are predictable it becomes a chore.

And yeah, DD2's main quest is terrible, there is nothing else to be said about it.
 
Dear fellas, DLC does not fix a train wreck of a game. They had a decade to build upon dark arisen, and came out with a game that has less than its predecessor in almost every aspect.
Pathetic and underwhelming are strong words but not nearly enough.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to double jump dark arisen.
 
FF:Enhanced_Reality said:
I liked the first Dragon's Dogma a whole lot. Enough that I bought it on PS3, the Dark Arisen DLC and then the PS4 remaster and I got the platinum trophy on both. So when I was wishing for a sequel in the early PS4 days, it was wishful thinking indeed.

When it got announced I was buzzing and I watched all of the pre-game release stuff. I was hyped by the bosses, the world and the promises. Promises, that frankly, were based on misconstrued information. This game is severely underwhelming, desperately in need of DLC (which is plainly obvious because the game is clearly unfinished.)

My thoughts summarised are as follows:
  • The world feels dead. It doesn't feel alive or animated. It feels scripted and lifeless. Despite coming back to the first area before the last mission that ends the world, the NPC's are acting like none of the story happened and they just talk generic shit.
  • The world isn't actually as big as you think it is. Each of the three areas have massive areas that you can't explore because they have huge mountain ranges you can't climb, making the world deceivingly large when looking at a map.
  • There's only a handful of towns and they're tiny. Like seriously, you expect me to believe that life has flourished in this world when the main city can probably house a few hundred people at best? The castle is almost as big as the rest of the town.
  • The elves and their homeland, may as well not exist. To the best of my knowledge, there are 3 missions involving elves, their homeland doesn't really play much of a part at all and it's tiny. What's the point in it being here?
  • There isn't enough content. There aren't enough side missions, there isn't enough main story and whilst it unfolds, it feels like nothings happening in the world despite someone passing themselves off as the arisen in a "huge" deception.
  • The game is clearly unfinished. I've found caves that are blocked, paths that clearly have been cut off. Area's that clearly can be explored with no way there. You discover caves with like a small path and one room at the end with an enemy and a chest. Why bother? It looks like a DLC was supposed to fix this but so far Monster Hunter it is.
  • Nothing you do feels meaningful or impactful. Some of the major events in the game, if you can use the term major, feel completely pointless when the NPC's and world remains the same, like dropping a bomb and people pretending nothing happened.
  • Difficulty is poorly balanced, it goes from too hard, to too easy, very quickly. At the beginning I struggled a lot due to low stamina, beginner equipment and low damage output. But I just ran to the final island, did the magick archer mission and within a few hours I was dropping monsters I struggled like hell with earlier, with just my main pawn.
At 35 (as of Friday) with a full time job, 2 kids and a spouse, I don't have a lot of gaming time and this is a game I've looked forward too for nearly 10 years. I like to platinum my games if possible to say I managed to get my value out of them because in todays world, as I can't really afford many games these days and I want to get the most out of the game. But Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't too hard or the trophies too unreasonable, I'm just sat here trying to make myself enjoy a game that isn't very enjoyable and having waited so long for it, it's a very bitter pill to swallow indeed.

How do you feel about Dragons Dogma 2? We're you curious about buying it? Did you play it without playing the first? Or like me, were you waiting for this for years?
Click to expand...
Took the words right out of my mind.

Played this is my exact experience, excluding the frequent AMD crashes, which lead me to just give up and play other games.
 
I love janky games and kinda love combat-focused RPGs, but DD2 to me was that weird overproduced janky game on a AAA budget.

10 hours were my limit and I still have no idea what I was even doing there. Too many poorly executed and explained stuff all around.

First DD was a fun broken game on a PS3, but DD2 felt like that two entire gens were lost on Itsuno and he made a compilation of baby mistakes.
 
nah, still fine for me.
some of us doesn't need lot of new things, at least there is new game from this IP
 
FF:Enhanced_Reality said:
I liked the first Dragon's Dogma a whole lot. Enough that I bought it on PS3, the Dark Arisen DLC and then the PS4 remaster and I got the platinum trophy on both. So when I was wishing for a sequel in the early PS4 days, it was wishful thinking indeed.

When it got announced I was buzzing and I watched all of the pre-game release stuff. I was hyped by the bosses, the world and the promises. Promises, that frankly, were based on misconstrued information. This game is severely underwhelming, desperately in need of DLC (which is plainly obvious because the game is clearly unfinished.)

My thoughts summarised are as follows:
  • The world feels dead. It doesn't feel alive or animated. It feels scripted and lifeless. Despite coming back to the first area before the last mission that ends the world, the NPC's are acting like none of the story happened and they just talk generic shit.
  • The world isn't actually as big as you think it is. Each of the three areas have massive areas that you can't explore because they have huge mountain ranges you can't climb, making the world deceivingly large when looking at a map.
  • There's only a handful of towns and they're tiny. Like seriously, you expect me to believe that life has flourished in this world when the main city can probably house a few hundred people at best? The castle is almost as big as the rest of the town.
  • The elves and their homeland, may as well not exist. To the best of my knowledge, there are 3 missions involving elves, their homeland doesn't really play much of a part at all and it's tiny. What's the point in it being here?
  • There isn't enough content. There aren't enough side missions, there isn't enough main story and whilst it unfolds, it feels like nothings happening in the world despite someone passing themselves off as the arisen in a "huge" deception.
  • The game is clearly unfinished. I've found caves that are blocked, paths that clearly have been cut off. Area's that clearly can be explored with no way there. You discover caves with like a small path and one room at the end with an enemy and a chest. Why bother? It looks like a DLC was supposed to fix this but so far Monster Hunter it is.
  • Nothing you do feels meaningful or impactful. Some of the major events in the game, if you can use the term major, feel completely pointless when the NPC's and world remains the same, like dropping a bomb and people pretending nothing happened.
  • Difficulty is poorly balanced, it goes from too hard, to too easy, very quickly. At the beginning I struggled a lot due to low stamina, beginner equipment and low damage output. But I just ran to the final island, did the magick archer mission and within a few hours I was dropping monsters I struggled like hell with earlier, with just my main pawn.
At 35 (as of Friday) with a full time job, 2 kids and a spouse, I don't have a lot of gaming time and this is a game I've looked forward too for nearly 10 years. I like to platinum my games if possible to say I managed to get my value out of them because in todays world, as I can't really afford many games these days and I want to get the most out of the game. But Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't too hard or the trophies too unreasonable, I'm just sat here trying to make myself enjoy a game that isn't very enjoyable and having waited so long for it, it's a very bitter pill to swallow indeed.

How do you feel about Dragons Dogma 2? We're you curious about buying it? Did you play it without playing the first? Or like me, were you waiting for this for years?
Click to expand...
Feel the same as you ...the game is a massive disappointment. It's too easy and there's no enemy/encounter design. It's the same few enemy types ad nauseum. The story and story progression is confusing. World feels dead and repetitive arghh there are so many things about it that shoulsve been better.
 
Spyxos said:
One of the worst games I've played recently. I had heard so many great things about part 1, so I played a lot of part 2 in the hope that it would be good at some point, but no, far from it.

Have there actually been any updates for the game to fix the biggest issues?
Click to expand...
No, not really. One of the worst examples in recent memory of what feels like developers abandoning a big game that had a lot of issues. Could've been turned into a great game with just a little work from the devs.

I'm disgusted whenever a big publisher "moves on" from a game prematurely like this. Pisses me off. You made a ton of promises, got our $70, the least you can do is support your game and make a few balance changes.
 
Dragon's Dogma's biggest thing is it's potential!

It has the potential to do sent Bethesda home crying, yet they keep underdelivering! For every step forward, it takes a step backward.
The combat is fantastic... but you keep fighting the same enemies again and again!
The cutscenes are excelently cinematic... but outside of them the delivery is very wooden!
The world is engaging... but there are hardly more than a couple of biomes!
The story involves worlds and gods... but for the majority you'll be doing fetch quests with wooden dialogue.
The world is double the size of the last game... but it's still small and it looks big only because of the lack of mounts or fast travel.
The pawns are a brilliant party system... but with the limited healers, some slots are always no-brainers... and they are underutilized... and they are literally souless!

Having completed the first game multiple times, and having put many hours on the second one, I can safelly say... that they are both incomplete!
Both of them have roughly the same amount of vocations and the same variety of monsters (pre-expansion sadly). It needed more time in the oven to cook, or free mod support to let the players finish the job.
 
rofif said:
I can't agree with some of your points:
-World is not dead. Something happens all the time, you meet pawns, there are towns, monsters can attack etc.
-It is not unfinished. It it is WELL finished. Took me a bit over 30 hours to finish without doing enggame and I felt complete. Thank god the game is not 200 hours.
-There isn't enough content - there was plenty of content imo. There is endgame for those who want more and ng+
-Difficulty was engaging and fun. I don't think it was too easy at all. But it was not a tryhard game like plenty of people like nowadays.

The game is clearly a wink wink from the director. He made the game he wanted to make the first time around... and even I know that without finishing the first game

and the graphics! and physics!
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If all you want is run around in another copy paste open world killing monsters it is serviceable.

If you want exploration, story and character interaction pass it.
 
YeulEmeralda said:
If all you want is run around in another copy paste open world killing monsters it is serviceable.

If you want exploration, story and character interaction pass it.
Click to expand...
Who the fuck expected story from dd2.
The story is to kill the big bad drago. All the story Inwould ever need in that game
 
I was really hyped for the game because I liked Dragon's Dogma 1 and thought this time Capcom will give Itsuno what he wants. But from the outside it seems that Capcom and Itsuno couldn't agree (which is why he left) and DD2 just feels unfinished and full of ideas that are not fully there.

Maybe the real vision is just too big for Capcom and the RE Engine. That's at least how it felt like too me when I played it.
 
FF:Enhanced_Reality said:
I liked the first Dragon's Dogma a whole lot. Enough that I bought it on PS3, the Dark Arisen DLC and then the PS4 remaster and I got the platinum trophy on both. So when I was wishing for a sequel in the early PS4 days, it was wishful thinking indeed.

When it got announced I was buzzing and I watched all of the pre-game release stuff. I was hyped by the bosses, the world and the promises. Promises, that frankly, were based on misconstrued information. This game is severely underwhelming, desperately in need of DLC (which is plainly obvious because the game is clearly unfinished.)

My thoughts summarised are as follows:
  • The world feels dead. It doesn't feel alive or animated. It feels scripted and lifeless. Despite coming back to the first area before the last mission that ends the world, the NPC's are acting like none of the story happened and they just talk generic shit.
  • The world isn't actually as big as you think it is. Each of the three areas have massive areas that you can't explore because they have huge mountain ranges you can't climb, making the world deceivingly large when looking at a map.
  • There's only a handful of towns and they're tiny. Like seriously, you expect me to believe that life has flourished in this world when the main city can probably house a few hundred people at best? The castle is almost as big as the rest of the town.
  • The elves and their homeland, may as well not exist. To the best of my knowledge, there are 3 missions involving elves, their homeland doesn't really play much of a part at all and it's tiny. What's the point in it being here?
  • There isn't enough content. There aren't enough side missions, there isn't enough main story and whilst it unfolds, it feels like nothings happening in the world despite someone passing themselves off as the arisen in a "huge" deception.
  • The game is clearly unfinished. I've found caves that are blocked, paths that clearly have been cut off. Area's that clearly can be explored with no way there. You discover caves with like a small path and one room at the end with an enemy and a chest. Why bother? It looks like a DLC was supposed to fix this but so far Monster Hunter it is.
  • Nothing you do feels meaningful or impactful. Some of the major events in the game, if you can use the term major, feel completely pointless when the NPC's and world remains the same, like dropping a bomb and people pretending nothing happened.
  • Difficulty is poorly balanced, it goes from too hard, to too easy, very quickly. At the beginning I struggled a lot due to low stamina, beginner equipment and low damage output. But I just ran to the final island, did the magick archer mission and within a few hours I was dropping monsters I struggled like hell with earlier, with just my main pawn.
At 35 (as of Friday) with a full time job, 2 kids and a spouse, I don't have a lot of gaming time and this is a game I've looked forward too for nearly 10 years. I like to platinum my games if possible to say I managed to get my value out of them because in todays world, as I can't really afford many games these days and I want to get the most out of the game. But Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't too hard or the trophies too unreasonable, I'm just sat here trying to make myself enjoy a game that isn't very enjoyable and having waited so long for it, it's a very bitter pill to swallow indeed.

How do you feel about Dragons Dogma 2? We're you curious about buying it? Did you play it without playing the first? Or like me, were you waiting for this for years?
Click to expand...
Yes. Agreed

I loved the first game. Played lots of hours. The first thing i noticed in DD2 is that the RE engine behave like shit in towns, and i dislike how washed out the game looks, the lithing its f´ckt up. NPC's disappearing, really? ... The waggon "fast travel" allways gets interrupted and make you lose time, the layaout of the map is shitty. Absolutelly abysmal enemy variety thus, repetitive combat. I run into saving problems losing hours of progress. Thate make me quit.

Unfinished game. Terrible secuel.
 
rofif said:
Who the fuck expected story from dd2.
The story is to kill the big bad drago. All the story Inwould ever need in that game
Click to expand...
I think the story is to ignore the Dragon entirely. Which after you reach Vernsworth you can sequence break by taking the backdoor into Battahl and get to the Volcano Island by taking a different path instead of using the Godsbane door.
 
rofif said:
Who the fuck expected story from dd2.
The story is to kill the big bad drago. All the story Inwould ever need in that game
Click to expand...

Yeah, the big bad dragon, who shows up all of, like, two times in the entire story and says or does absolutely nothing remotely memorable.

Compare that to Grigori, who absolutely stole the show in DD1 and I would argue is the best dragon character in all of gaming.



Was it too much to expect a similar caliber of antagonist for DD2?
 
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Some of the things you say are true but man I really enjoyed this game a lot. The combat is so fun with every single class in this game also.
 
JayK47 said:
LOL. Mixed at GAF as well. Seems to be love it or hate it. Deep deep sale for me then.
Click to expand...
When and if you do play it I guarantee you'll enjoy it, the hate for it is a bit over the top from my perspective... Once people get past the initial start and get going most seem to enjoy it.
 
Two of my steam friends have high level pawns and that turned the game into a cake walk.

I'm not even any good at RPGs and I'm just smacking eagles and dragons around in seconds.
 
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I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as the first.

Overall lots of disappointment though. It still doesn't feel like what they truly wanted to make.
 
I liked it at first, but then nothing came from it. I was doing that mission before you leave the city. I went through the gate to the next region. It felt forgettable with little reward. I watched a video about the sphinx and called it good.

Felt like a low effort. Lot of risks, little reward, lots of show, but nothing seemed to matter. I finished the first game and I enjoyed that back then. The game sounds better if it's explained than when it's played.
 
I bought this on a big sale, still haven't started it yet. Some grim impressions. I was underwhelmed from the footage but hope it's still fun at least.
 
I loved DD1 despite the flaws and hoped 2 would complete the vision of what was obviously cut from the first game. In the end part 2 basically had all the same issues with being unfinished and partially unrealized. Once that sank in I was very disappointed.

They're both still really cool and fun but man, so much potential still there.
 
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Feel Like I'm On 42 said:
No, not really. One of the worst examples in recent memory of what feels like developers abandoning a big game that had a lot of issues. Could've been turned into a great game with just a little work from the devs.

I'm disgusted whenever a big publisher "moves on" from a game prematurely like this. Pisses me off. You made a ton of promises, got our $70, the least you can do is support your game and make a few balance changes.
Click to expand...

This was probably my most anticipated title of this gen. Nothing else to add other than it's just pure disrespect for the fanbase.
 
DD1+DLC is an excellent game, though a bit rough in the edges.
DD2 reproduced exactly the issues DD1 had but with less ... everything and terrible balance (everything becomes piss easy 10ish hours in on a 50h+ playthrough). Overall it feels even more unfinished than DD1 without Dark Arisen was, considering the bar was already low.
I doubt we will see a DA-like DLC with the departure of the creative director, and even then, new content won't be enough, there is just too many things to change to make it a good game overall.
Disappointment of the last year for me.
 
Loved the game and was over the moon until I got beyond the gate into the desert area and it just completely loses its pace. The story is bad and it didn't help it performed so poorly. Not sure if I'll ever get to finishing it.
 
I knew I was in for disappointment when I wasn't greeted with "THE WIND IS PUSHING MEEEEEE!" at the main menu... Like, what the fuck Capcom?

 
This is what happens when you try to catch lightning in a bottle twice, the first one has an actual cult following and there is no way you could somehow make it like they will be happy about changes made, personally never die hard loved either of them but I think they were fun and clever. We are never seeing a 3rd one though
 
L*][*N*K said:
This is what happens when you try to catch lightning in a bottle twice, the first one has an actual cult following and there is no way you could somehow make it like they will be happy about changes made, personally never die hard loved either of them but I think they were fun and clever. We are never seeing a 3rd one though
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They just had to repaint the first one with a fresh coat, which is what they mostly did in DD2, except at one point they ran out of budget and had to release the game. It's pretty striking as you play the game, the beginning is pretty good and close to DD1, but then it falls down fast, without ever reaching the heights of the first episode (BBI and post-game)
 
Team Andromeda said:
No, just becasue it seems Capcom are back to days of being bashed.
Click to expand...


Bashed?
By whom?
About what?


They held their own mini conference that was absolutely loved by the community, theyve been putting out banger after banger.
This is probably the best theyve been in a minute, theyve got an active Street Fighter going, an active Monster Hunter, a new Resident Evil coming and a new IP people are actually intrigued about.
What?
 
Black_Stride said:
Bashed?
By whom?
About what?


They held their own mini conference that was absolutely loved by the community, theyve been putting out banger after banger.
This is probably the best theyve been in a minute, theyve got an active Street Fighter going, an active Monster Hunter, a new Resident Evil coming and a new IP people are actually intrigued about.
What?
Click to expand...
You're talking to the wrong person,

I think Capcom's output has been amazing,
 
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