updated review after getting all achievements and completing the game on NG+, about 116 hours of play. the honeymoon phase from my first review at about 80 hours is well past, and looking back my praise was premature.

i have a lot of feelings about this game. it's good, extremely gorgeous and full of visual polish, and yet so underwhelming in many ways. if you have never played the first game, you won't know what you're missing and i think you'll have a great time overall. if you're a veteran of dark arisen, there is so much lacking.

here's a couple of big lists because i don't like writing big paragraphs:

what's new and improved in dd2:
-new player onboarding
-emergent gameplay is more engaging this time around
-expanded map, lots of cool caverns and spots to discover
-camping
-oxcarts
-sphinx
-weapon enhancement variety allows for cool optimization
-pawn interactions with player, world, and other pawns improved
-three new all-new vocations in mystic spearhand, trickster, and warfarer (thief doesn't count as new imo)
-expanded services from dragonforged (usefulness debatable, only available in NG+ where you're already strong)
-healing item and other shortcuts enabled by default is really nice

what's missing from ddda:
-layering armor has been removed, fashion's dogma suffers
-impactful augments missing
-impactful equipment missing (nothing like gloves of might, etc.)
-changing equipment from the storage menu
-missing vocation mystic knight
-strider and assassin vocations merged to create thief
-assassin vocation removal invalidates a method of play (travelling without pawns)
-no bloody knuckle ring
-neatly designed dungeons (watergod's altar, catacombs, everfall, bluemoon tower)
-noticeboard quests
-hydras, gazers, cockatrices
-throwing inventory items removed (bottles, throwblast, skulls, rocks, from inventory) likely to force engagement with ranger skills using status effecting arrows
-no hard mode
-dragonforging items by defeating dragons was more fun and rewarding, wouldn't be an issue in dd2 as the spawns are very consistent and drakes are easy to kill

missed opportunities and issues still present from dda:
-dye now exists but it's for your hair not your armor lol?
-romance system still shallow and borderline annoying
-NG+ does not adjust difficulty
-can't hide helmets
-camping could have used more depth, why can't fish be cooked for different buffs for example? for as much as i dislike breath of the wild and its sequel, dd2 could stand to take some ideas from the cooking mechanics in those games

gameplay issues unique to dd2:
-difficulty leaves a lot to be desired, one of the very major issues impacting my enjoyment of the game personally
-questionable decision to take vocation skills from ddda and turn them into max affinity quest rewards
-unsatisfying dragon fight, no buildup because the game is extremely hand-holdy in trying to get you to the true ending, making the fight and choice of sacrificing your beloved feel like it's there out of obligation as there's no allusion to a previous sovran having to make such a choice
-boring achievements, nothing for completing the game a second time as you are always railroaded into breaking the cycle

dd2 story issues:
-bafflingly seems to operate on the misguided assumption that the player has lore knowledge from dd1, leading to inadequate lore exposition on the nature of the dragon, pawns, arisen, etc
-the fact that your heart is stolen is almost never touched upon again after reliving the moment you become arisen in melve, you're not even shown the fact that your heart is returned to you after killing the dragon, again seemingly a byproduct of the writers assuming the player already knows what's happening
-important lore exposure is given to the player almost exclusively through massive dumps during the dragon boss fight and the unmoored world ending
-pawns reviled in battahl but it's functionally inconsequential, nothing bad happens if you run around town with your pawns
-things could have been more interesting if the player was actually working together with phaesus instead of pitted against him by being uninformed about the true nature of the cycle while almost everyone else (even the dragon and lesser dragons) seem to understand it
-because the dragon is self aware of it's place in the cycle and very mouthy about it, it undermines the weight of the "final" fight
-much left unexplained about the nature of the pathfinder
-if the pathfinder wants to keep the cycle unbroken why is his stupid ass at the coronation at all? did he secretly want to die?
-what causes pawns to become formless dragons at the end of the world? why can pawns control the talos?

man this game sucks and also doesn't, whatever congrats if you made it to the end of this rambling list, gonna play dark arisen again while i wait for dlc to maybe fix some of these issues