As someone who loved the first game it is quite frustrating to like this grand new reimagening quite a lot less. While the first one had the foundation of something fantastic it was still a flawed experience. DD2 still has this same foundation but builds an arguably worse structure on top of it.
The story is a weird mix of a retread and a continuation of the first that I doubt would make much sense to a newcomer to the series. Every plotline that isn't directly tied to the dragon is superfluous and while the parts that deal with the cycle are interesting they are told very unintuitively. This game's script very much seems like it made more sense in japanese but the translation didn't quite work.
Combat feels a lot slower than the first game which isn't inherently bad. The actions you take in combat all feel chunky and deliberate. But sadly it also simplifies most vocations by a lot so you have less decisions to make in combat (DD1 magic archer my beloved :( ). Enemy variety is also really lacking.
The world feels big and is quite the sight to behold. Wandering around and exploring at night feel just as engaging as the first game. The amount of enemies around was quite annoying though, you could barely walk two steps without stumbling into an encounter. For me that meant that exploring was a lot of running past enemies to get anywhere. The bigger problem with the world is, that there is very little to find when wandering. Sure the first game also did this, but there you were guided to most important locations by interesting quests. Here there is a whole village hidden at the corner of the map that has no connection to the rest of the world and also barely any content.
I don't hate this game, it has many great aspects like the greatly improved pawns, the depiction of different fantasy cultures and the really cool post-game. But at the end of the day this seems like an ambitious project that was left half baked. With some luck it may get a DLC at the level of Dark Arisen that fixes some of my problems.
The story is a weird mix of a retread and a continuation of the first that I doubt would make much sense to a newcomer to the series. Every plotline that isn't directly tied to the dragon is superfluous and while the parts that deal with the cycle are interesting they are told very unintuitively. This game's script very much seems like it made more sense in japanese but the translation didn't quite work.
Combat feels a lot slower than the first game which isn't inherently bad. The actions you take in combat all feel chunky and deliberate. But sadly it also simplifies most vocations by a lot so you have less decisions to make in combat (DD1 magic archer my beloved :( ). Enemy variety is also really lacking.
The world feels big and is quite the sight to behold. Wandering around and exploring at night feel just as engaging as the first game. The amount of enemies around was quite annoying though, you could barely walk two steps without stumbling into an encounter. For me that meant that exploring was a lot of running past enemies to get anywhere. The bigger problem with the world is, that there is very little to find when wandering. Sure the first game also did this, but there you were guided to most important locations by interesting quests. Here there is a whole village hidden at the corner of the map that has no connection to the rest of the world and also barely any content.
I don't hate this game, it has many great aspects like the greatly improved pawns, the depiction of different fantasy cultures and the really cool post-game. But at the end of the day this seems like an ambitious project that was left half baked. With some luck it may get a DLC at the level of Dark Arisen that fixes some of my problems.