Dragon's Dogma II is a weird, complicated, somewhat frustrating, yet ultimately fun and rewarding experience. It does not hold your hand, it's often janky, but the overall game was mostly a fun time.

Combat is great, aided by your ability to change vocations at anytime while also finding new vocations throughout your run. They all play very differently and it's a blast to try out a new one when you get them. Unfortunately, they have mastery attached to them, which was only an issue as I found two unique vocations VERY late in the game and I just could not use them for lack of funds for weapons and armor as well as just being unable to deal significant damage. It was a bummer.

The pawns are also a fascinating choice. You're given one permanent pawn who you create and can change their inventory and vocation whenever you want, but you can also hire two additional pawns to help, which seems like a prerequisite if you want to survive some of the harder fights. They are mostly intelligent with how they combat enemies, although sometimes fall to their death in very annoying ways. I wish there was an online co-op element, but that would change the game in large ways, so I understand it's omission. Still, I feel this would had made the game a bit more fun, as near the back half, things begin to feel a bit samesy.

The enemy variety is simply not wide enough, and endgame fights are mostly annoying and pointless besides certain larger creatures and bosses. Without spoiling anything, there are parts near the end that require a lot of travel on foot, albeit with some fast travel available, and after the 12th monster interruption on your path, my sighs could not have been louder. Travel in general was extremely challenging, long, and arduous and it was very fun in the beginning! However, 20-30 hours in, it becomes more annoying than anything else.

The game is a fun time despite its often cryptic nature. I don't like checking online for what to do, and I try to avoid it as often as possible, but there were at least two points where I simply had no idea what was going on or what to do in a situation that I KNEW something needed to happen in order for me to progress. One wound up being a bug, which sucked but I was able to circumvent it, but the other had an answer I simply would have never thought of. There's cryptic, and then there's Simon's Quest red orb tornado shit cryptic. Like, don't do that, that's dumb and bad and not fun. Stop it. That being said, I still find myself enjoying being lost and a little confused, as you often don't get that from major video games anymore. It's thrilling not knowing exactly what to do, up to a point, and I'm glad it's here despite my gripes.

The story is good, but not great, with well written characters but often mediocre voice acting. They definitely need to hire more people as it was painfully obvious half of the voices were the same people just pitched up or down, which is KINDA embarrassing. The main characters, however, are generally great. There is a love interest part, but it's mostly meaningless which is a shame.

I feel like a New Game Plus run of this down the line will be fun, as you keep all your items and levels, so playing some of the other vocations will be more doable the second time through. Despite some finicky quests that just aren't clear and some lacking enemy variety, the game as a whole a very fun experience. Capcom knows what they're doing and this is proof of that yet again.

Also your pawns just talk too much. Like goddamn, shut up dude, PLEASE shut up.