Replaying the first game right before this paid off tremendously in the later half of this game. I don't know what got over me in the last play through that got me so invested in uncovering every inch of the lore of this world and the eternal cycle. My curiosity grew after binge-watching the Netflix anime while waiting for release day.

To keep this review blunt for anyone reading this on the fence. Dragon's Dogma 2 is not a direct sequel but more of a soft reboot. I like to use retry to better describe the experience of playing Dragon's Dogma 2. If you have never played the first one, you are okay to hop into this game. Your appreciation for the story and the world is heavily amplified if you immerse yourself in the first game.

Back to the idea of “retrying” to make something you were already passionate in. The first game is a cult classic for a reason. It's brutal, but also highly rewarding. It's open-ended, but also very linear. The open world is nothing more than a prop and setting for you to indulge in flashy combat and dungeon crawling. Though this world isn't Elden Ringish or Ubisoftian with a myriad of points of interest littered about with game changing loot. That little mining nook is just a mining nook. That goblin cave is just a goblin cave. Sometimes that weird cavern will lead to a giant beast like a Chimera or Ogre, but often not you trek through to get maybe a basic sword and some ores.

But that doesn't take away from DD2's world in any way. It's lived in, there's a reason for everything, and not in a gamey way to entice you for loot. Equipment is rather finite. Most weapons and armor can be used to your liking without much need for min maxing. Your character's level and your skill as a player are tested more than if you've upgraded or found that OP mace.

Starting out, traveling between settlements can be tiresome. Oxcarts are untrustworthy. You will be attacked, and traveling on foot waste too many resources recovering from the random encounters. Though you can fast travel, it's not until you are towards the final thirds will you have the money and port crystals needed to build your own fast travel network and effectively use it. But I never got tired of sprinting through the countryside and camping with my pawns eating the meat of that giant Minotaur we fought earlier. With the newest addition of Loss Damage permanently lowering your health until you rest, I felt more attached to the world. Especially with how dangerous nighttime gets, not just with the harder and more ghastly foes that invade, but because of how hard it is to see. I oftentimes stared at the sky to find a trace of a campfire smoke to escape to.

I fell into a hole with this game. I made myself and my pawn as my Cat. Together, with her on the arm of the couch next to me, we tackled anything that came in our way. I lived in this world. I helped that orphan girl, I helped that old dwarf to the hot springs to fix his back pains, I stopped multiple assassination attempts, I snuck into the masquerade party and found the secret entrance to the brothel. I bought a house and frequently traveled back with my sore feet to rest. I talked with the townsfolk and listened to their woes. I slew the dragon and broke the unending ring of will.

I say I a lot in this review because I need you to understand this is a very personal experience.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a very short game if you progress the main quest like you'd expect to. This is the kind of game you get out of it what you put into it. If you stick to one vocation and don't experiment with exploration and combat, you'll think it's dull or one dimensional. You will think enemy variety is lacking if you look at the enemies as mobs to kill and not as living creatures with their own ecosystems. You will think questing is dull or tedious if you're expecting new mechanics or game changing gear to be given for completion. There isn't an endgame, there is a definitive ending.

This all can be said about the first game almost word for word. This game doesn't inert the first game either. They are both very distinct experiences. Dragon's Dogma 2 is all about these emergent experiences and cultivating a playground for the player to mess around in. Your play through of this game will be just as personal as mine was. It is very easy for me to put this up there with one of the best games I've ever played; just like the first game.

Being one of the two games I bought when I first started collecting all those years ago, this game fell into the backlog abyss because of the other title (Persona 3 FES). I've always loved the style and the art direction of this game, though I think for me and a lot of people the D-Counter system scares everyone off.

Once I learned about D-Charging to one shot pretty much everything that's an obstacle, the game became pretty easy. The real fun was when I was treating the SOL system like a rougelike. Slowly building up my Party XP bank, and investing in my Ant Colony to passively make me money to buy those super weapons were fun to grind for. On my first run, I got to the boss right before the final dungeon. On my second run, I got to the third to last boss before maxing out. Understanding the systems in place and how to exploit them is built into the design of Dragon Quarter. You are meant to learn about how to abuse the Dragon Form to get past road blocks. You are supposed to master layouts and trap placements to quickly navigate dungeons. You're supposed to overlevel yourself with your Party XP to blitz through early environments.

My final run I did in one sitting after grinding took about 3.5 hours to do. My equipment was amazing, I had the right skills to kill anything that stood in my way. I had only 7% at the boss that ended my run the first time, allowing me to use my Dragon form to obliterate the final dungeon. It's a feeling that only a game like this can achieve after burying yourself into mastering its systems.

When I talked about this game, I used this head ass term "osmosis of confusion", which a lot of people probably went through in the early hours of this game. Trying to figure out "Do I restart each time, is this a rougelike, what carries over". If there are any tips I can give you while playing this game is: The SOL System is New Game+ as a mechanic, treat it as such. Just like with NG+ with any other game, you get reworked dungeons, loot, enemies, and minibosses that now spawn. New story segments that better explain the narrative are only shown if you interact with this system.

After finishing this game last night, I breathe a sigh of relief. This game truly challenged me to think more than I usually would with a JRPG. The world is beautiful. The art design is at its best during the cutscenes. I didn't expect these characters to be so animated, specifically with their facial expressions. I knew the exact emotions the cast were feeling without the annoying trope of outright explaining it out loud. These characters are quite introspective and that omission of telling the player what to feel, makes this narrative more compelling. Does Ryu come to terms with this being a doomed quest? What other horrors have the council orchestrated? It's all a bit weird, but it pays off at the end with a gorgeous ending.


Yada yada ~battles could be faster, there could be more varied level design~

Though I feel the battle system fits the world of this game. This world is cold. They live underground, with monsters as their main source of food and energy. Everything fits is what I'm trying to say, and the more uncomfortable you are with a certain idea, the more it makes sense once you master that aspect.

man...this game is pretty boring.

I felt like most of my time was spent scrolling the map, running back and forth between rooms and item boxes to solve puzzles. The enemies weren't ever really a threat to me. I never really felt like I had to prepare for anything that could actually hurt me. By the time I finished, I was overstocked with ammo and healing items to carry me to the end. Though as I played it I just..like...didn't care at all about anything.

I'm reading these hieroglyphic ass notes, trying to piece together what the hell even happened while staring at an obviously gorgeous game. I can see the appeal aesthetically, it does some really cool things but...eh its a nothingburger.

What happens when you combine a rhythm game with a character action game?

, in theory, this should be my GOTY, as both of my favorite genres meshed into one, but for me, the rhythm elements took away from an otherwise breathless experience. The story and the characters are amazing. There were many laugh-out-loud moments and the art direction is top-notch. Even when it switches to FMV or the comic book-esque rundowns it still looks so clean.

For me combat was visceral. I loved the combos and mix-matching with your gang to combo people, but the rhythmic timing was a little off. At first, I thought it was my frame rate being too high and capped it at 60. Then I thought it was my latency and tested and recalibrated it for almost an hour. I just couldn't hit anything on time and it threw me off for most of the game. Luckily this game is beatable without having to be super precise with your controls.

I dug this a lot. I want to go back to it on consoles or on Steam Deck eventually to see if the latency issues continue.

Listen, do not let the naysayers steer you away from this fucking raw ass game. Once you get used to analog-controlled combat, the game is a poignant Metroidvania with deeper puzzle-solving. I can best describe this as a 2006 Straight to DVD action movie in game form and it's so amazing to see until the credits roll.

While there is some annoying difficulty spikes towards the later half of the game that makes surviving the extreme backtracking the real challenge, It was all worth it for that finale. That final boss goes down as the best final boss I've ever faced in a video game. I'm not being hyperbolic.

I never had a game actively fuck with me. Bro was speaking directly to me with some of my thoughts, on the first game. I wanted more, and I got more, and somehow I feel punished for wanting more (in a good way). Why do I have to wait a real 2.5 hours to finish this little meta shit to finish the game? I know I said after playing the first one, "This is fine. I liked that it was simple". It's like he took that shit personally and went right at me.

Gameplay is vastly expanded with these perks and abilities that make the gameplay loop addicting. I played this nonstop two days straight off a full steam deck charge just to beat it. It's challenging at the right temp. I really digged this, sucks I'm never playing this again unless I hack that timer down.

Ever since last Eid, I've been trying to complete this game. Slowly chipping away at this game, but now It's finally complete. The premise has always stuck out to me. Though, this game starts to show its flaws the further you go. It's a game designed for bus rides to school, for the long car rides to grandma house, not for the long binge sessions I'm usually accustomed to.

After fighting the grueling fight against Articuno, the cracks started to show. With the party you randomly amassed, dungeoneering starts to feel like a clusterfuck. Especially with the map covering the screen. Though, it might just not be for me

I'm glad they gave this game away for free. Its the game of all time. It plays it incredibly safe. Usually, souls-like zone in on one specific mechanic they liked, and not on what made the souls games work. Steelrising focuses on the bloodborne quickness and Sekiro posture system. Weapons are samey. Blocking, parrying, and special attacks are restricted to only one of the respective options which makes combat and experimentation have this gross film covering it. I found myself pretty overpowered by the end of the first major boss. There isn't much intrigue in the game. The setting gets antiquated when the enemy variety can be counted with two hands.

For some reason, I can't find anything impactful from Steelrising. Jumping is a nice feature, but verticality isn't respected enough to go further than simple platforming. There aren't tricks in the environment. That kinda sounds weird as I typed this, but the enemies and environment just felt....robotic no pun intended. There wasn't a chest that turned into automates, or a random boulder or stab in the back. You just sorta waltz into each battle without much surprise. Loot density is disgusting, and I started to just beeline it to avoid being pissed fighting a mini-boss just to get a Resistance potion. I don't know...it's just....a game.

This certainly feels like when Final Fantasy became "Final Fantasy". The series aesthetic is crafted throughout your journey that punctuate a rather mature story for the usual FF affair (at least so far from what I've played and know from osmosis). I became a kid again playing this game, just imagining this game remade with that FF7R flair, all the batshit crazy set pieces that could be crafted. It elevated my experience by getting past my disdain for pixels.

I enjoyed the keyword system, I enjoyed the skill based leveling system. It was more so just FF1, but with most of my gripes ironed out. While it still isn't like...the greatest thing in the world, it was definitely a lot more enjoyable than the first game.

As a child this was the coolest thing known to man even as a Non FF player at the time. Though, in reality, it's a JRPG disguised as an arena fighter. A lot of the RPG elements fight against the Fighter part of the game. I'll discuss more on BOTR, but my biggest gripe with this game is that characters feel concrete. They give you slots to add HP attacks and different bravery attacks, but...you don't get that many attacks to really customize your favorite characters. So a lot of the time you spent spamming the same two moves to actually do damage even in the postgame sections.

I've grown to be a surveyor of Jank and weird C to Single-A games. For every B-Boy and Shinobi, You have games like this. Without Warning is a game with a lot of potential.

From a technical aspect, the game runs like a bag of dog shit. Constant 19fps and frame rate drops with some of the most obnoxious repeating banter from the totally not racist stereotypical terrorists make for an unbearable listening experience. The premise of constantly changing characters that all indirectly affect one another's paths in the timeline, Is severely undercooked. Often you are playing as the three-man spec-ops group as they kill mooks in an arcadey run-and-gun auto lock-on shooter. Objectives are pretty much always the same: Free hostages, clear the area, and defuse the bombs.

This gets increasingly repetitive when these missions are bite-sized and can be beaten in less than 5 minutes. There are other characters such as the security guard, the secretary, and the news cameraman. The Security Guard's levels are just like the Spec-Ops team but with a pistol instead. The beginning of the game is a lot of back and forth between these 4 gun-wielding characters into the later third. The last two aren't introduced until the last couple of missions, and sadly only have a handful of missions between them. The pacing of these characters should've been added in between these shootouts. Since it goes in chronological order, you sit there thinking "Wait, where were they for 4 hours of this situation?"

For the quickness of the levels, there are a lot of them and I feel the game would've been better gutting half of them to give better credence to the 3 nonmilitary characters. For 50 whole levels, you spend most of the time with a majority of the characters doing the same thing, and that thing isn't even done well.

My interest waned in the latter half due to this repetitiveness. while the introduction is strong as hell and I wanted to give it a fair shake, but after rolling credits, it'll probably collect dust until an eventual trade-in.