Dragon's Dogma II is a delightful experience when you are just adventuring and taking down big beasties or tossing random NPCs you don't like into the Brine. But whenever you stop doing those things to interact with other aspects of the game it just kinda sucks...

But there really is nothing else that can compare to the feeling of holding onto a Griffin's head and caving in its skull with a massive slab of metal (in the air), falling 100 feet and barely getting caught by your pawn while the beast slams into the ground to your left. Then you and the crew leap into action tearing through HP bars while the "You are winning now" music kicks in.

+ Meaty and impactful combat
+ Every Class (Vocation) feels totally different
+ Great emergent gameplay
+ Wonderful low fantasy art direction/atmosphere
+ I can freely kill literally any NPC in any hilarious way I want
+ Janky

- Carry weight
- Story sucks
- Low enemy/boss variety
- Purposefully obtuse to a point that is respectable but still not really enjoyable, especially with some of the quest design
- Whatever the hell is going on with the semi-timelimited post-game
- Performance is just bad
- The first one had electric guitars in the OST, what happened to those here?
- Janky