Feels more like a solid remake or a Dragons Dogma 1.5 than a sequel. It's more of the same which can be a good or bad thing depending on your expectations. For example, if you're expecting plenty of new enemy types, bosses or drastic changes to gameplay systems (like improved Pawn AI) compared to the first game that's really not here.
It's mostly the same game as Dragons Dogma 1 base game but bigger. The focus of the game is clearly on a general open world experience with fun to control player classes. There is very little on the side of tight combat focused dungeons like Bitterblack Isle (DD1 Dark Arisen expansion).
The combat and party management is still fun make no mistake, but it's definitely on the side of a power trip game where the player character grows powerful quickly (both statistically and mechanically) but enemies do not improve to match.
The variety of enemy encounters seems like one of the weakest points of the game. It's a sequel but 90% of the enemies you face are things you might already know from DD1. The bulk of enemies are trash mob level goblins, bandits and saurians which have 4-5 recolors based on how far you are in the game. But the way you fight them is exactly the same. It's not like they gain some threatening new attack or AI behavior, so going back to the first area to fight the same enemy class feels much the same.
I think this is a big loss since the core combat does feel good but the enemies really blur together and by the end of the game you might just be doing the same attack sequences and not care about what enemy you're fighting.
The difficulty level is low and XP gain from enemies scales very little; a mid-tier enemy like a Cyclops gives 1/3 the XP of an endgame boss. Exploring the map thoroughly will have you get overleveled for the main story quests quickly even if you don't intend to.
If you're looking for a challenging action RPG dungeon crawling experience like Bitterblack Isle or just lots of new enemies to face and new gameplay systems compared to DD1 that's not in DD2, at least on release.
It's mostly the same game as Dragons Dogma 1 base game but bigger. The focus of the game is clearly on a general open world experience with fun to control player classes. There is very little on the side of tight combat focused dungeons like Bitterblack Isle (DD1 Dark Arisen expansion).
The combat and party management is still fun make no mistake, but it's definitely on the side of a power trip game where the player character grows powerful quickly (both statistically and mechanically) but enemies do not improve to match.
The variety of enemy encounters seems like one of the weakest points of the game. It's a sequel but 90% of the enemies you face are things you might already know from DD1. The bulk of enemies are trash mob level goblins, bandits and saurians which have 4-5 recolors based on how far you are in the game. But the way you fight them is exactly the same. It's not like they gain some threatening new attack or AI behavior, so going back to the first area to fight the same enemy class feels much the same.
I think this is a big loss since the core combat does feel good but the enemies really blur together and by the end of the game you might just be doing the same attack sequences and not care about what enemy you're fighting.
The difficulty level is low and XP gain from enemies scales very little; a mid-tier enemy like a Cyclops gives 1/3 the XP of an endgame boss. Exploring the map thoroughly will have you get overleveled for the main story quests quickly even if you don't intend to.
If you're looking for a challenging action RPG dungeon crawling experience like Bitterblack Isle or just lots of new enemies to face and new gameplay systems compared to DD1 that's not in DD2, at least on release.