brucio
1 review liked by brucio
Dragon's Dogma II
2024
Drama:
Before I get into the review I’d like to address the obvious elephant(s) in the room.
Firstly, the performance is absolutely terrible. The cities run very poorly and any encounter out in the wilds with a larger NPC count will be less than cinematic. You will not be powering through it with good hardware either; this game struggles even on the top-end. I suggest waiting for a performance patch before even thinking about buying this game.
Secondly I’d like to mention Microtransactions. While yes they aren’t the worst or most egregious MTX to hit the AAA market, bad is bad and bad should be called out. You could come up with any number of excuses but in the end they shouldn't exist in this single-player game end of story. “It’s just horse armor, just don’t buy it lol”... look where we are now.
Anyway, enough of that.
Review:
Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t really much of a sequel but more so a second-attempt from Capcom at creating the world that they had envisioned back in 2012: only with better technology, knowledge, and skills than they’d had prior. In a funny way Dragon’s Dogma 2 is kind of like Capcom’s ‘New Game Plus’ attempt at Dragon’s Dogma.
It then goes without saying that if you liked the first game or their expanded version back in 2013: ‘Dark Arisen’, then I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you will absolutely adore Dragon’s Dogma 2. Dragon’s Dogma 2 carries over almost all the features and ideas that you remember from the first game and either directly improves on them or brings them up to modern standards.
The exploration, combat, pawn system, and general quest design all see their return in Dragon’s Dogma 2, for better or worse. I can say that after about 50 hours of playing through Dragon’s Dogma 2 that while there are many complaints that I might have about the game, it is ultimately a great improvement over the first installment and is a pretty good game in general.
As expected the combat is very good. The enemy variety can get tired quickly, especially with the drawn out near tedious exploration experience. Boss fights though are always a treat and are definitely one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s greatest selling points.
The feeling of jumping on top of a Griffin and having it fly into the sky while you desperately grasp at it's feathers so you don't plummet to your death, only to run out of stamina and drop 30 feet to your death when suddenly your beautiful pawn catches you in her arms like you're a princess... this simply can't be replicated anywhere else.
On the subject of combat though, vocations are a mixed bag, with most vocations feeling great to play but perhaps lacking in variety in terms of skills/spells available to you. This is further exacerbated by the questionable change from having 2 sets of skill slots in Dragon’s Dogma 1 versus the sad singular set of skill slots in this sequel.
They also feel a little unbalanced, with Trickster and Wayfarer being straight up useless while at the same time Mystic Spearhand (the class I use) gets access to a team-wide invincibility shield that they can essentially spam on repeat. I will also say that while I think Magic was generally better in the first game, Dragon’s Dogma is pretty much unrivaled when it comes to Magic gameplay in open-world RPGs.
I’ve already mentioned it but exploration is unbelievably tedious in this game.. I swear I’ve spent at least 10 hours just running from place to place. This was a problem I had in the first game and it’s a bit annoying to see it persist in the second. Maybe some will point to the game’s ‘Hardcore’ nature but in my opinion boring is boring. While fast travel exists alongside Oxcarts, I would’ve loved something like horses because by the time I reached the capital walking around was starting to do my head in.
Quest design has generally been pretty great and while I haven't found myself enthralled by many of the side quests, I've always found them to be relatively well made. There were a few questlines that I found to be absolute standouts and I’m sure those who’ve done them know what I’m talking about. I also appreciate how some side-quests would weave into one another seamlessly, it made my exploration feel rewarded. The main questline was very good too though I don’t have much to say on it.
The pawn system is as great as it was in the first game and is probably the games main selling point alongside the combat system. Having your pawn learn stuff from other players and come back to you sometimes with gifts always feels cool and adds a bit of community to the otherwise single-player experience. Pawn AI still isn’t great though, with pawns regularly getting themselves killed, using the wrong skills/spells, or just standing in bad places during a fight.
As expected pawn’s themselves don’t have much personality, so while in other RPGs you might have a band of interesting companions to get to know (a la Baldur’s Gate 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc...) the experience in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot more lonely and colorless which speaks to some of the downsides to the pawn system -though ultimately I think in Dragon’s Dogma 2’s case this is a worthwhile sacrifice.
NPCs are also pretty uninteresting with the exception of a few attractive ladies. The whole ‘Inhabitants of the World’ aspect of the marketing definitely feels a little overblown. Any radiant quests I’d gotten from my ‘friend’ NPCs were very boring and felt ultimately meaningless. I suppose they serve the same purpose as radiant quests in other games though so it’s no big deal.
Ultimately Dragon’s Dogma 2 is probably a Dragon's Dogma fan's dream game and I could easily see someone like that giving it a 5/5. For me though as someone who enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 1 but didn’t love it, I feel much of the same feelings that I did for the first game. There’s some great stuff in this game and there aren’t any real big flaws. All it really comes down to is that a lot of the quests didn’t really grip me which is a big deal for me in open-world RPGs. That alongside the general tedium of a lot of the game stops me from really falling in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2.
All that said though, I still think this is a really great game, especially for the type of player that Capcom are targeting. Just because some of the aspects of this game don’t quite match what I enjoy doesn’t mean they should be changed. Having more variety in the space is a good thing and Dragon’s Dogma 2 doing its own things should be encouraged.
3.5/5
Post Review Addendum:
Just wanted to add that the post-game section is amazing and suffers far less from the issues that I had with the main game. The quests, area, and exploration were all superb. The post-game sequence was also stunning and gave the game the conclusion that it needed.
My opinion on the game still stands as it is but I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed this section of the game. Really great stuff.
Before I get into the review I’d like to address the obvious elephant(s) in the room.
Firstly, the performance is absolutely terrible. The cities run very poorly and any encounter out in the wilds with a larger NPC count will be less than cinematic. You will not be powering through it with good hardware either; this game struggles even on the top-end. I suggest waiting for a performance patch before even thinking about buying this game.
Secondly I’d like to mention Microtransactions. While yes they aren’t the worst or most egregious MTX to hit the AAA market, bad is bad and bad should be called out. You could come up with any number of excuses but in the end they shouldn't exist in this single-player game end of story. “It’s just horse armor, just don’t buy it lol”... look where we are now.
Anyway, enough of that.
Review:
Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t really much of a sequel but more so a second-attempt from Capcom at creating the world that they had envisioned back in 2012: only with better technology, knowledge, and skills than they’d had prior. In a funny way Dragon’s Dogma 2 is kind of like Capcom’s ‘New Game Plus’ attempt at Dragon’s Dogma.
It then goes without saying that if you liked the first game or their expanded version back in 2013: ‘Dark Arisen’, then I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you will absolutely adore Dragon’s Dogma 2. Dragon’s Dogma 2 carries over almost all the features and ideas that you remember from the first game and either directly improves on them or brings them up to modern standards.
The exploration, combat, pawn system, and general quest design all see their return in Dragon’s Dogma 2, for better or worse. I can say that after about 50 hours of playing through Dragon’s Dogma 2 that while there are many complaints that I might have about the game, it is ultimately a great improvement over the first installment and is a pretty good game in general.
As expected the combat is very good. The enemy variety can get tired quickly, especially with the drawn out near tedious exploration experience. Boss fights though are always a treat and are definitely one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s greatest selling points.
The feeling of jumping on top of a Griffin and having it fly into the sky while you desperately grasp at it's feathers so you don't plummet to your death, only to run out of stamina and drop 30 feet to your death when suddenly your beautiful pawn catches you in her arms like you're a princess... this simply can't be replicated anywhere else.
On the subject of combat though, vocations are a mixed bag, with most vocations feeling great to play but perhaps lacking in variety in terms of skills/spells available to you. This is further exacerbated by the questionable change from having 2 sets of skill slots in Dragon’s Dogma 1 versus the sad singular set of skill slots in this sequel.
They also feel a little unbalanced, with Trickster and Wayfarer being straight up useless while at the same time Mystic Spearhand (the class I use) gets access to a team-wide invincibility shield that they can essentially spam on repeat. I will also say that while I think Magic was generally better in the first game, Dragon’s Dogma is pretty much unrivaled when it comes to Magic gameplay in open-world RPGs.
I’ve already mentioned it but exploration is unbelievably tedious in this game.. I swear I’ve spent at least 10 hours just running from place to place. This was a problem I had in the first game and it’s a bit annoying to see it persist in the second. Maybe some will point to the game’s ‘Hardcore’ nature but in my opinion boring is boring. While fast travel exists alongside Oxcarts, I would’ve loved something like horses because by the time I reached the capital walking around was starting to do my head in.
Quest design has generally been pretty great and while I haven't found myself enthralled by many of the side quests, I've always found them to be relatively well made. There were a few questlines that I found to be absolute standouts and I’m sure those who’ve done them know what I’m talking about. I also appreciate how some side-quests would weave into one another seamlessly, it made my exploration feel rewarded. The main questline was very good too though I don’t have much to say on it.
The pawn system is as great as it was in the first game and is probably the games main selling point alongside the combat system. Having your pawn learn stuff from other players and come back to you sometimes with gifts always feels cool and adds a bit of community to the otherwise single-player experience. Pawn AI still isn’t great though, with pawns regularly getting themselves killed, using the wrong skills/spells, or just standing in bad places during a fight.
As expected pawn’s themselves don’t have much personality, so while in other RPGs you might have a band of interesting companions to get to know (a la Baldur’s Gate 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc...) the experience in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot more lonely and colorless which speaks to some of the downsides to the pawn system -though ultimately I think in Dragon’s Dogma 2’s case this is a worthwhile sacrifice.
NPCs are also pretty uninteresting with the exception of a few attractive ladies. The whole ‘Inhabitants of the World’ aspect of the marketing definitely feels a little overblown. Any radiant quests I’d gotten from my ‘friend’ NPCs were very boring and felt ultimately meaningless. I suppose they serve the same purpose as radiant quests in other games though so it’s no big deal.
Ultimately Dragon’s Dogma 2 is probably a Dragon's Dogma fan's dream game and I could easily see someone like that giving it a 5/5. For me though as someone who enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 1 but didn’t love it, I feel much of the same feelings that I did for the first game. There’s some great stuff in this game and there aren’t any real big flaws. All it really comes down to is that a lot of the quests didn’t really grip me which is a big deal for me in open-world RPGs. That alongside the general tedium of a lot of the game stops me from really falling in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2.
All that said though, I still think this is a really great game, especially for the type of player that Capcom are targeting. Just because some of the aspects of this game don’t quite match what I enjoy doesn’t mean they should be changed. Having more variety in the space is a good thing and Dragon’s Dogma 2 doing its own things should be encouraged.
3.5/5
Post Review Addendum:
Just wanted to add that the post-game section is amazing and suffers far less from the issues that I had with the main game. The quests, area, and exploration were all superb. The post-game sequence was also stunning and gave the game the conclusion that it needed.
My opinion on the game still stands as it is but I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed this section of the game. Really great stuff.