the story you told about losing two pawns, not having the camping kit, finding a rift and dying at the end of it all was a great way to sell the rpg experience
I still fondly remember my first time in Bitterblack Isle, all my pawns getting sliced by Death when he popped in in the middle of a big fight, leaving me stranded alone with low health, no curatives, and very far from any way to rest and restock
Unfortunately that was one of the things that made me decide not to buy the game lol but clearly the game has a unique design that a lot of people gel with
In dd1 I spent ages traversing the mountains to devilfire grove. I encountered a Griffin and it carried me up a mountain. My pawns chased me up the mountain while I fought the griffin, when I killed we scaled down the mountain where we were then attacked by a cyclops. The cyclops kicked me off the mountain where I fell and landed on a small platform. My warrior pawn staggered them and then got knocked off the mountain by a goblin which I could see as I was trying to scale the cliff side. The pawn landed on a platform by me as I was walking up, then following them came falling the cyclops. I slowly watched him as he fell all the way down flat on the ground where he died 😂 anyways, short break fighting smaller enemies, made it to devilfire grove where I then had to barely survive to complete the goal of reaching the castle. Shit was really fun. Unfortunately the mission I made the journey to complete was awful and made me fight FOUR cyclops
Sounds like a perfect "I have a day off and want to hide myself at home and play a game" and terrible "I have some free time, I want to play a game" type of deal.
I love the ideas of DD the combat the, pawn system, and the monster designs but I usually don't have long periods to play. So Souls and MonHun become my go to style of game.
@@WarriorCicada MonHun was exactly what I had in mind and you just made me realize why I can't seem to properly get into new games. They take too much for me to get into and I need a lot of time to get my head into it. At least with MonHun, I can maximize an hour per day if I want to, especially MHW/MHWI
Actually when the original came out my time was split between school and other games me and buddies were playing, but I was playing it while they played Skyrim on and off and I’d like change my hair cut depending on how long it’s been since I played and my time is split now while I play dd2 with work and work. But my point is, i think playing dragons dogma is like watching a tv series like the last kingdom or game of thrones since you’ll never see a damn loading screen in dd2 especially it’s like that. So I treat it as such I can casually sit down 30 minutes to an hour and it for real feels like I’m watching some kind of filler episode lol and if I reach a interesting plot point and I have to get off it makes me want to play that much more or like when I get a new power or armor oh boy it makes me want to get off work so bad and keep watching/playin. I feel like there are 4 main characters with the pawns hot damn I love this game and I’m glad it’s only an experience you can have in dogma. No fast travel really puts you in. No spoilers but i was in like a really cool situation last night. I had fought a monster over my power level the previous night and lost my hired pawns so hired new ones and called it a night after ox carted to where I thought my next quest was going to be my cart took me somewhere completely new and unexpected the journey back is where I realized I really felt like a person in the land of dragons dogma 2. I couldn’t fast travel back (lacked funds used my last couple hundred gold to make gold through my next quest) so I slept in the Oxcart had no stones and I was surrounded by black map and had to legit find my way back to town and encountered a vicious journey and i had such a determination to get back alive because I leveled my vocation up twice and really wanted to see what I unlocked not to mention the loot I found on the way back. I was actually having to be cautious because I was way out of my element and most things would overwhelm me or 1 shot me or too much for me and my party to take on, so I had to camp a lot and take different routes and when the director says he made a world that’s interesting to explore he weren’t kiddin lmao, it took 3 days to get back but when I did I was a badass who was rich and that felt like an adventure and all that because I took the wrong oxcart and I didn’t even do a quest 😂 it was spectacular.
Dying at your archer aiming a strong shot for a whole minute and ALL the pawns scurrying to stand right in front of you in a straight line blocking the view...
Isn't that realistic though? Why would your frontline fighters know exactly where to stand to allow the archer unimpeded LoS? that's not realistic. It would be up to the Archer to find better angles
Your capacity to review a game thoroughly without spoiling any of the secrets, surprises or story aspects is immaculate and completely unparalleled by any other reviewer, in my opinion.
It feels worse to play though, imo. The controls are much more responsive on the original in terms of character movement. They added a lot of heavy momentum to your character in the sequel. It's unfortunately a common problem these days, though I feel like I'm going crazy because I never see anyone else point it out.
@MaximilianReyCartwright Yeah, that's my main concern as well. That and enemy variety. I want gameplay to feel engaging and rewarding not repetitive and easy.
@@MaximilianReyCartwrightsee, I worked for my giant dragon/cyclops/griffin melting tornado. I play sorc mainly, so its not like combat was ever "fast" for me. Focused my pawns and on being distractions, stand in the back, and live out my power fantasy with my single favorite magic system in a game.
The game is designed to be enjoyed by anyone, not just tryhards, besides the game isn't just about combat and being challenged, there's more to it, exploration for one, plus who knows how challenging the end game grins will be?
i think if you pre order the deluxe edition you get a DD1 soundtrack so perhaps that changes the poor music selection? although that shouldn't be locked behind a paywall.
@@HPLovesCraftsCat Well, the reason Into Free was removed with Dark Arisen was because of licensing issues. There’s just no way they went out of their way to relicense the song for some bonus content. But as others have said, modders will likely be the saviors we need.
What does this have to do with souls games? Can we please stop ascribing difficulty and dying in video games with this franchise? They aren't even difficult games to begin with, they are just what normies consider to be hard.
@@ghoulishgoober3122 That's what I meant, majority of video games nowadays are made mind-numbingly easy so no wonder when a moderately difficult game like Dark Souls comes around it's the hardest thing majority of people have ever played.
@@ghoulishgoober3122these games are just mindless hack and slashers. if you want actual difficult and skilled combat then go play the far superior game :monster hunter world
The more of this game I experience, the more conflicted I feel. For every improvement from the original, there's a baffling flaw to balance it out. I just don't understand why vocations are limited to four skills each. It makes archer and thief feel like half a vocation each, severely limits your defensive options as a fighter by taking away separate skills for the sword and shield, and pretty much ruins sorcerer (half as many spell slots, on top of fewer and less interesting spells). Want to play as a melee-centric magick archer and focus mostly on magic daggers? You can't, it's bow-only. Oh, and of course mystic knight is just gone. Itsuno said he wanted to see more variety in which armor people wear, but fashion is somehow more restrictive now thanks to the removal of separate clothing slots. Plus, a lot of the (subjectively) cooler helmet designs are locked to fighter, when there's really no reason for warriors to not be able to wear them.
@@yaqubebased1961fr, its crazy how it never came even close to mainstream, that game is crazy good. Most "cult classic" games are really rough games with cool Ideas, DD has great ideas and is well executed as well. Wth happened?
@@erickfw197idk, probably because it has major downsides, which can be dealbreakers to most people. I started DD1 5 times, partly bc Ratatoskr is so enthusiastic about it, my longest attempt was like 12 hours and I wouldn't play more even for money. Tried out diffrent classes, but the selling point(combat) never grabbed me and everything else is pretty bad.
its just normies hopping on the bandwagon. sad tbh all the OGs remember like you said how the game was shat on constantly but now that DD2 is out its "OMG BEST GAME EVER GUYS GOTY " Smh.
@@HPLovesCraftsCat and then its going to be shat on for not being what they thought it would be lmao. Every time I see anyone even remotely enthusiastic about DD2 I tell them to go play the first one lol.
i think less sign posting is great, the problem i have is when it goes to the opposite end of the spectrum, where it becomes equally unlogical and annoying. like getting a delivery quest, but no location, no disctrict, no region, no town, just a name of a npc you have never met. This is exatly like sign posting completely immersion breaking, because an interaction like that just wouldn't happen, it's not realistic. That to me is just as bad as yellow paint on random spots on a mountain.
yeah, 100% agreed. Signposting is good, but a lot of people don't like is being treated like an idiot. "just paint everything yellow, even if it makes no sense, because, first, we don't think the players are smart enough. Second, it is easier to implement." I read a tweet once where someone said, signposting is in a similar spot to CGI in movies. bad CGI gets noticed immediately, that's how the "practical vs CGI"-debate started. (side note: This debate was started by the consumers, not the industry professionals, because ideally the practical and CGI team want to work together to get the best of both worlds) But the good CGI? Nobody notices it, because it's meant to blend in perfectly. Signposting has to be obvious enough to be picked up by player, but not too obvious that the players realizes that it is signposting. Portal 2 is a perfect example of this. If you run through the test chambers, you have the very obvious, "hand-holdy" signposting, but it makes sense, since this is a test chamber for controlled experiments. but once you move beyond these chambers and into the ruins and destroyed parts of the facility those more obvious signposting techniques gets replaced with more "natural" ones. such as using lamps or flames to highlight an important area or the direction you should go.
I really think they needed to allow you to equip more skills. It really neutered the versatility of the magic classes. Being a sorcerer who only knows 4 spells kinda misses the point.
Thats disheartening to hear about the combat getting easy quickly and low amount of big monsters. because thats exactly the thing ( outside of the extremely empty open world with no PoIs, just the same enemies spammed every 20 seconds ) that turned me away from finishing Dragon Dogma 1. Water Temple being a primary example. Just spamming lightning at the ogre ( while having no pawns ) made me feel like i was cheesing the game and these footages definitely show the same thing. If i end up picking up this game sure as hell not going to hire any pawns
Looks like a cash-in retread. Which is bizarre, considering how LONG this has taken. People hate on Zelda games for changing their formula over the years, but I think I'd prefer that vs NO change at all.
That's really sad to hear, was hoping there would be a lot of different encounters to test the combat on. Was concerned seeing the same enemies over and over in the previews but chalked it up to them not spoiling stuff
@@mike990 You say "how long this has taken", but remember that it hasn't been in development for the entire 12-year gap between the first game and now. It's had a normal dev cycle from what I understand.
@@mike990capcom should have def made a modern, open world (empty), generic RPG game instead of sticking to what made their cult hit worth playing. retread? sure. cash grab? cmon now
Great review, but something that I wanted to touch on: Rat says DD1 had Hard Mode to help alleviate steamrolling, and this is 100%, concentrated, unadulterated misinformation. Hard Mode in DD1 INARGUABLY makes steamrolling even *worse*, because nothing in the game gains increased HP or defenses, just increased Stagger/Knockdown resist. So if it took you 3 hits to kill a goblin outside of Hard Mode, it will still take 3 in Hard Mode. However, everything in Hard Mode grants *dramatically* more EXP, AND enemies drop absolutely preposterous amounts of gold. The only 2 things Hard Mode does to limit you is: Increase YOUR damage taken (HARD MODE DOES NOT INCREASE ENEMY ATTACK RATINGS, all it does is multiply incoming damage TO THE ARISEN, it has NO EFFECT on pawns) and adds a multiplier to the stamina use of skills. Sure, this means you need to take fewer hits and you can't spam skills as much (without curatives), but otherwise you will kill ALL enemies at EXACTLY the same rate, but receive dramatically more Gold and EXP. This means you literally always have more money than you could possibly know what to do with, and you level up significantly faster than someone playing on Normal. So Hard Mode has a *somewhat* harder first few hours, maybe 3 or 4, but by the same point in playtime you could easily be double the level of other people playing on Normal. You will overlevel WAY faster in Hard Mode, and you will become a steamroller in half the time. It's a long reply because Hard Mode is just kinda strange in DD1, I like this review a lot, but it's worth knowing that Hard Mode does not solve any of the issues Rat brings up here, it makes them all much worse. Once you struggle through the first couple hours, you'll overlevel so quickly that you can be melting big monsters in under 20 seconds before you even reach the mid-game. That being said, I don't care much about this problem: I have over 2000 hours in DD1, and all I wanted from DD2 is more Dragon's Dogma. It looks like that's exactly what I'm getting!
Yeah, one of the big cheese strats that most veteran players start DD1 with is to use Hard Mode and throwblasts on BBI mobs to skip the first 50-ish levels of the game, removing most of the early-game pain of playing Hard Mode. If a future Hard Mode in DD2 also includes the massive buff to coin drops, that would also invalidate the money struggles that he mentioned having until the endgame
The stagger and knockdown values being increased really fucks with the balance of certain skills and attacks as well. Sucks the fun out of the game when you really enjoy playing warrior.
Regarding hard mode, that was actually added as a free DLC for Dragon's Dogma 1, it was not in the launch version of the game. We might end up getting the same thing for DD2 at some point in the future (hopefully).
And as the dude before me said, hard mode in the original actually would become easier than normal, wolves would literally drop 10k gold and you could buy easily all the op gear early.
Dude i totally agree with the performance of Grigori in the first game, it was the best dragon concept and execution I've seen in a game. The scene where he says "Now.... choose..." gave me chills, the voice and delivery is absolutely perfect👌 not to mention the final battle with him, that was incredible
This has got to he one of the most polarizing games of all time. Even in specific categories; this guy loves the quests but many reviewers are calling the quests among the worst they've ever seen.
Perfectly elaborated the positive and negative points. Making it clear that no matter how good the game may be, it is impossible to make something perfect. Best Review online. Cheers 🤘🏻
[Spoilers ahead] OK, I don't think you'll ever read this, but I wanted to say that after beating Dragon's Dogma 2 and doing my absolute best to do all the content, I really think it was overblown by the Souls RUclipsrs. In my opinion, many of the quests are downright bad or at least excessively tedious. I have a million examples of this. For one: The quest where you have to get the sculptor to make a statue of the Griffin. He mentions the Medusa head, so of course I go hunting for one. Only to be disappointed that there's literally one respawning Medusa in the game when there's so little boss variety. But cool, I get the head first try. I immediately book it back to where the guy wants me to show up with the Griffin and by the time I walk there, the head is already completely unusable. And even though that took HOURS, I decided to try again and drop portcrystals so that it was easier. But it turns out the Medusa only spawns every 14 days in-game days. WHY!? But whatever, I wait 14 in game days and it takes multiple tries to get the head again. But OK, I get the head and IMMEDIATELY warp over to the sculptor with the head. When I show up and I'm ready to use the Medusa head he just immediately finishes the sculpture in a split second and the multiple hours I spent on this quest was completely wasted. That's not clever quest design, it's just dumb. It never made me feel smart or that I made any significant mistake. I just (understandably) didn't think a Medusa head would spoil by the time I had to walk in a game that MAKES YOU walk literally everywhere. OK, what about the Sphinx which people hyped up? I found it immediately, it wasn't nearly as hidden as they made it out to be. At first I thought it was super cool. Go find the item of most value, OK that's neat. I'm sure there's a neat riddle aspect. Nope, there's two items: a rotten apple and the sealing phial. But then I read the item description and saw it could carry people. And I thought it was super clever, the Sphinx doesn't want me to bring her an item, but a person which would have more value than an item. So I found someone I had max affinity with and brought them to the Sphinx. But not only can you not give the Sphinx the phial with someone in it, it's also a one-time use so it was wasted. OK, fine, let's do another quest. The whole "parent" quest. I thought it must be referencing the orphan who was abandoned by her noble family. That would be neat and would involve getting an NPC over a significant distance as well as checking if you're paying attention to the quests in town. NOPE. It literally wanted me to bring a pawn called "SphinxParent." What???? Why would that even be a thing? It seems like so often the game makes the dumb, obtuse decision as opposed to the interesting decision. The combat system was a ton of fun, but there's not enough challenge or enemy variety to keep it fresh. There's only two main areas, a shallow story, and quests that are more often dumb than interesting. That could be the end, but here's ANOTHER quest that was dumb: The guy in Battahl who wanted me to get poisoned and come back. This quest was tedious, but I was really interested in seeing where it went. So I did it up to the point where he wanted to get poisoned by a Chimera. So I head into the fight with the Chimera and hold everyone off and the Chimera just never poisons him. OK, I'll pick him up and carry him into the poison cloud multiple times. Nothing happens. After minutes of my party just getting beaten up while he has somehow infinite poison resist on him, I just decide to kill the Chimera and this dude gets mad at me for ending the fight "early." None of these quests were interesting. They were dumb fetch quests that just didn't work as intended or had really dumb solutions. I have no idea why people made the quests out to be interesting or clever. They're just super opaque fetch quests that have very little flexibility in how you solve them or any interesting mechanics. I really can't understand why people say it's their game of the year. It's a 6/10 and barely improves on the previous game in a significant amount of time.
I really appreciated this review. The only one I’ve seen really point out how this game is a glorified remaster of the original albeit more expansive and polished.
@@mike990 DD1 had a notoriously troubled development cycle and was effectively only 40% finished AT BEST due to lack of funding for the enormous scale of the original design document. The director spent decades pushing for it since the 90s, and then years more after pushing to get the funding to properly finish the game. The fact DD2 happened AT ALL is a miracle. It's not a case of hacks not caring and pushing out slop, but one guy spending his entire career trying to get his dream game made.
It’s not a miracle it happened. It was on itsunos wishlist of games to make. When he was going to quit capcom, they pulled him in and let him make whatever they wanted
I was going to buy this based on your review but removed it from my wishlist upon finding out that the game has microtransactions. Was this apparent in the review copy you received and did it influence the score at all?
@@rikiponcho Yes, I've since learned that the mtx are mostly useless (except for the fast travel I imagine). After Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 I had come to expect that DD2 would also be mtx-free, which might have been a bit of wishful thinking on my part. Still, it did put a damper on a game release that I was looking forward to. Now I'll wait a week and see how/if reports of performance on pc improves.
I enjoyed the first game, my hope is that this sequel will improve and perfect some of the concepts from the original. Also I’m a bit upset to hear that the game quickly loses its difficulty and the lack of new monsters. Edit: As an outward player I’m happy to hear about the resting mechanic.
You touched on difficulty briefly - monsters getting too easy too quickly, lack of hard mode or ng+ scaling, as well as the long journeys without resting and poor planning really putting you in a tight spot. You paint a picture that the difficulty of individual combat encounters is fairly tame, and you could win without interacting with the systems much, just hacking away. But the nighttime story tells me difficulty comes from clearing these encounters well, losing as little health as possible, to actually reach your destination. Would you say that using the mechanics of your vocation well, using elemental exploits, party composition, etc etc is required not for individual fights, but for a longer journey?
i think the problem with DD2 (and DD1) isn't the game itself per se. It's that the game design is inherently divisive, you'll either love it or hate it. Hence the fluctuating scores across various channels.
@@Macheakoconsole at least doesn't offer an easy way to refund. I swear I heard of playstation giving away refunds for some of the particularly bad games that released in recent times, but it's not the standard
From my limited memory of dd1 it gave pawns a baxk story and an interesting law this game has zero discussion on rhe pawns.also why did they remove the j rock song from the original,so u think they were embarrassed of it?
A small detail to get fixated on, but I just LOVE this boss health bar. I love how the design looks and that it's constantly animated. I love how it shakes when you attack it. I love how when you deal a significant chunk of damage you get this effect that makes it look like you're literally beating the colour out of the health bar. This is the kind of health bar I'd expect from a good fighting game, not a 3rd person RPG. I'm not even playing the game, but even just looking at it when you beat the crap out of the monster is so satisfying! I swear, Capcom has THE BEST people when it comes to creating satisfying combat systems (Dragon's Dogma, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter). I would've never even thought you could improve the feeling of combat this much by making an awesome health bar, incredible!
@@terrycruise-zd5tw I don't think you understood what I was saying at all if that's your conclusion. Reading with comprehension is a useful skill you know?
Was introduced to the original Dragon’s Dogma from your old videos and got it on your recommendation. Very glad to hear the second has held up to the quality of the first and excited to get into it!
Wow, this Review was one of the most honest ones i've seen. Sometimes fanboing over certain aspects, but always having a critical view on things and mentioning the negative even in positive aspects. I love that. Thank you for this Review.
Really appreciate your approach to spoilers in this review. I’ve been avoiding most coverage of the game, as I want to go in as blind as possible, but I still really wanted to hear someone’s experience with it. This feels like the perfect review for me/
According to a different review, DD2 has at least 2 endings and there is a big difference between them. It was compared to Sekiro, where you can choose to betray Owl or not, which can add new areas to the game if you decide to betray him. (at least that how i understood it, i haven't played Sekiro) And one ending is apparently clearly superior. I suspect you ended up getting the worse ending. Maybe your opinion on the story changes a bit if you get the other ending, idk.
You've got it on pc right? For now you could probably find where the save files are located, place the save files in a backup folder. With the saves folder empty you can start over. Would be nice if a game dev provided a better user experience, however you do have options to solve this dilemma.
Is the enemy AI good to anyone who’s played? In a lot of the videos I see the creatures just kind of.. stand there and get hit a bunch and throw a couple attacks here and there.
They tried to blend elements from Monster Hunter in order to make up for the removal of certain mechanics. It feels good but they removed some really cool stuff. Also the fact that you dont have skills on left bumper and right bumper for the different weapons is laaaammee. Also they killed the fun of strider by making it only accessible in warfarer but with a very limited number of skills.
So like DD1 you intentionally have to use starting gear/use less paws to make the game a chalenge past midpoint I was really hoping that wasn't the case but eh, it'll do
You're right: based on that first 2 minutes, as a fan of the original, I'm basically already sold. Iterate, not innovate, is fine. Thanks, I'll let this review keep running so you get a view, and I'll leave a like, but thats all I needed to know!
A few weeks ago, in preparation for DD2's launch, I started my 3rd attempt at playing Dragon's Dogma and finally got hooked! Level 30 strider and exploring other vocations. Now wondering if I should finish my playthrough now or switch to DD2 at launch.
The price of this game is like 1/3 of minimum wage in my country so I would like to know if its worth it? I enjoyed dda1 so much so that I play it every year
I'd like a little more clarity on the extent of play. From the 80 hours you mentioned, what level of completion would you assume? And was that the combination of trying different vocations and completing the game with them?
It is true it needs to be made differently like in GTA 6 you take taxis, but you can't speed time up, possibility of encountering car crashes, shoot outs and shi idk i would add random shi that can happen for that can make the game great.
Bad take imo. Some games are designed arround fast travel and unbearable slogs without it. The game has to have major mechanics arround travelling/progression to make not having fast travel mean sth. Games as old as FF6 on the SNES had "Fast Travel" after unlocking the Airship.
Just outta curiosity, any reason you deleted the vod of your most recent stream? Got to it a bit late and was watching like an hour behind when it just vanished and said it was deleted. Was one of the reviews you were reacting to going against and embargo thing or smt? Was just curious what ya thought of the other reviews and am just a little sad i didnt get to finish watching it.
Huh. Rather disappointing to hear about the lack of enemy variety which has been echoed in multiple reviews. And the lack of difficulty. I wonder if the devs or mods could fix that. More difficulty, enemy variety, and some kind of scaling threat. As of now I don't feel like buying yet. This sounds like a $40 deal instead of $70.
hard mode for DDDA was a dlc that came out like a year after the release considering how little innovation there seems to be, I'd totally expect them to do the EXACT same thing this time, even carrying over the stupid ass gold drop bonus thing it had in the first game (which was an awful economy-destroying feature) I'd still be playing on it though, who am I kidding
I play lots of games. Dragons Dogma 2 felt like a ‘grind’. It wasn’t that much fun. Lots of repetitive fights. Not enough breadth of monsters to fight. Fast travel function or ways to fast travel is the worst I’ve seen of all games. It felt like the game wasn’t technically advance because of this. To have an ‘unreliable’ save function and not allow players to save at their discretion in this day and age with all the technological tools is plain lazy or stupid of the game makers. Finally the ending, I got the true ending. I felt so sad that after all the time devoted to the game the ending technically wasn’t a happy one for the Arisen and the main pawn. Even if the Arisen sacrificed themselves I wished the main pawn lived on. So loyal with us for the journey I honestly could not care about the world or many of the characters we interacted with in the game to be honest outside say Ulrika. I found those interactions pretty boring and the quests did not exactly strengthen my bonds with the characters. Apart from escort quests, the characters you meet don’t help you in any way so was difficult feeling close to them. I mean I would honestly sacrifice Captain Bryant at a drop of the hat but didn’t because I felt that wasn’t going to be a true game ending… I didn’t even bother saving that Coral Snakes guy and left him in jail for example…. I gritted my teeth to help the others. So for me the ending wasn’t great and a turn off for devoting such time to play the game. Don’t think I’ll be playing anymore of this game… Rating 2/10.
Other than you brief nitpick about the music, what did you think of the rest of the music throughout the game? In DD1 the music was one of my favorite parts. I couldn't agree with your nitpick about the music in the title screen more. The original rock music as well as the title music for dark arisen have stuck with me to this day and still send shivers up my spine any time i hear them. I don't expect it to surpass the original, but does it at least compare?
I haven't seen anyone mention the abysmal performance other than a few non-Capcom sponsored people, and all the influencers included as official pawns leaped right over that too. A game that can't hold 30 fps in 2024 on a ps5, while looking worse than the best looking ps4 games is very strange.
I still miss the Into Free main menu to this day. I come back to the song on youtube all the time. Excellent review as expected. I'm very much looking forward to jumping in as soon as I can. I'm glad it seems this was exactly what I and a lot of other DD fans were hoping for, and I appreciate your very detailed and spoiler free take on it. I'm definitely of the same mind that I would love to have further expansions, DD hits such a great and particular niche, I would love for it to grow, so long as it dosent overly do so and kind of spoil the magic.
Mmmmmm. Sounds like it just has all the problems i had with dd1 and didn’t really add anything. Low monster variety is a huge blow since that was already one of my major complaints and honestly was the thing i was expecting them to nail most. In a lot of ways it sounds like i didnt get any of the improvements i was hoping for, and instead lost stuff. Ill need more convincing at this point.
Are there a lot of extra enemies than what has been shown in trailers and gameplay previews? Really like the look of the combat but will be disappointed if that's mostly all that's available to fight
I would probably be more excited about "Dragon's Dogma but better" if I hadn't replayed the original so many times since it came out. And there's no way the game comes out with only one save file and no way to ever restart, that would be preposterous.
Funny how most of the community loves the first Title Song. I'll never understand. The only reason I can barely emphasize with would be the classic "they took the original away and therefore ruining my nostalgic cope". I always thought the old Main theme sounds like a meme song on this game.
About the difficulty, did you play DD1 on hard mode? Because my experience with Dragon's Dogma 1 on Hard mode was essentially the same as your critique of this one. All of the difficulty was at the beginning to mid game and then you start steam-rolling everything after that because you are given so much extra XP and money. I don't count Bitterblack Isle towards the difficulty of the first game because that was added later in Dark Arisen.
this just seems way too unfinished, missing hard mode, missing save files, MISSING STARTING OVER AT ALL??? yeah theyre definitely using this to push out fomo updates for "you HAVE to return to dragons dogma 2 in 2024" moments 💀 Edit: im not strictly hating im just saying me personally im waiting for a sale and some very obviously incoming cut options and "content" to roll out i dont wanna ruin my first PT of this on an incomplete version for the sake of faux seasonal updates no doubt
!['Dragon's Dogma 2' - A Diamond in the Rough... [REVIEW]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nL9EvGTPbAE/mqdefault.jpg)
Congrats on being big enough to get an early copy
The dunkey effect ;)
This is the first step of his long journey of being able to personally interview Miyazaki.
You only need to be 5'' or more.
Thank god he got the ability to do this while being honest about how he feels about the game.
It's not fair to comment on someone's weight like that
my man finally got his first big review copy early.
My man finally became a Man.
Waltuh
I was the 421st like 😈
@@moosiemoose1337A gay man, but a man nonetheless, happy for him
@@kidnamedfinger2625 you know who didn’t forget? Mortismal gaming. In fact, he mentions them right away.
the story you told about losing two pawns, not having the camping kit, finding a rift and dying at the end of it all was a great way to sell the rpg experience
Literally the first game 😂 brought back memories
I still fondly remember my first time in Bitterblack Isle, all my pawns getting sliced by Death when he popped in in the middle of a big fight, leaving me stranded alone with low health, no curatives, and very far from any way to rest and restock
Unfortunately that was one of the things that made me decide not to buy the game lol but clearly the game has a unique design that a lot of people gel with
In dd1 I spent ages traversing the mountains to devilfire grove. I encountered a Griffin and it carried me up a mountain. My pawns chased me up the mountain while I fought the griffin, when I killed we scaled down the mountain where we were then attacked by a cyclops. The cyclops kicked me off the mountain where I fell and landed on a small platform. My warrior pawn staggered them and then got knocked off the mountain by a goblin which I could see as I was trying to scale the cliff side. The pawn landed on a platform by me as I was walking up, then following them came falling the cyclops. I slowly watched him as he fell all the way down flat on the ground where he died 😂 anyways, short break fighting smaller enemies, made it to devilfire grove where I then had to barely survive to complete the goal of reaching the castle. Shit was really fun. Unfortunately the mission I made the journey to complete was awful and made me fight FOUR cyclops
You just know the mod that replaces the title screen music with Into Free will be one of the most downloaded.
Does it exist yet 😂
THE WIND IS PUSHING ME
I downloaded that mod for the first one the day before the PC port dropped. That's how popular that mod was.
Yes. I wish it was part of the deluxe dlc sound pack.
@@VendettaSoundtracksTIME IS RUNNING FREE!!
Sounds like a perfect "I have a day off and want to hide myself at home and play a game" and terrible "I have some free time, I want to play a game" type of deal.
I love the ideas of DD the combat the, pawn system, and the monster designs but I usually don't have long periods to play. So Souls and MonHun become my go to style of game.
You don’t go forward in DD, you go into DD
glad i took *two* days off then 😉
@@WarriorCicada MonHun was exactly what I had in mind and you just made me realize why I can't seem to properly get into new games. They take too much for me to get into and I need a lot of time to get my head into it. At least with MonHun, I can maximize an hour per day if I want to, especially MHW/MHWI
Actually when the original came out my time was split between school and other games me and buddies were playing, but I was playing it while they played Skyrim on and off and I’d like change my hair cut depending on how long it’s been since I played and my time is split now while I play dd2 with work and work. But my point is, i think playing dragons dogma is like watching a tv series like the last kingdom or game of thrones since you’ll never see a damn loading screen in dd2 especially it’s like that. So I treat it as such I can casually sit down 30 minutes to an hour and it for real feels like I’m watching some kind of filler episode lol and if I reach a interesting plot point and I have to get off it makes me want to play that much more or like when I get a new power or armor oh boy it makes me want to get off work so bad and keep watching/playin. I feel like there are 4 main characters with the pawns hot damn I love this game and I’m glad it’s only an experience you can have in dogma. No fast travel really puts you in. No spoilers but i was in like a really cool situation last night. I had fought a monster over my power level the previous night and lost my hired pawns so hired new ones and called it a night after ox carted to where I thought my next quest was going to be my cart took me somewhere completely new and unexpected the journey back is where I realized I really felt like a person in the land of dragons dogma 2. I couldn’t fast travel back (lacked funds used my last couple hundred gold to make gold through my next quest) so I slept in the Oxcart had no stones and I was surrounded by black map and had to legit find my way back to town and encountered a vicious journey and i had such a determination to get back alive because I leveled my vocation up twice and really wanted to see what I unlocked not to mention the loot I found on the way back. I was actually having to be cautious because I was way out of my element and most things would overwhelm me or 1 shot me or too much for me and my party to take on, so I had to camp a lot and take different routes and when the director says he made a world that’s interesting to explore he weren’t kiddin lmao, it took 3 days to get back but when I did I was a badass who was rich and that felt like an adventure and all that because I took the wrong oxcart and I didn’t even do a quest 😂 it was spectacular.
Dying at your archer aiming a strong shot for a whole minute and ALL the pawns scurrying to stand right in front of you in a straight line blocking the view...
I got second hand mald just watching that lol
Ok maybe I won't pick an archer after all lmao
Classic DD
youre aiming master? let me help you
Isn't that realistic though? Why would your frontline fighters know exactly where to stand to allow the archer unimpeded LoS? that's not realistic. It would be up to the Archer to find better angles
Your capacity to review a game thoroughly without spoiling any of the secrets, surprises or story aspects is immaculate and completely unparalleled by any other reviewer, in my opinion.
As someone who didn't play the first game, the assessment that it's "like the first one but mostly better," is actually quite welcome.
It feels the same with better graphics
It feels worse to play though, imo. The controls are much more responsive on the original in terms of character movement. They added a lot of heavy momentum to your character in the sequel. It's unfortunately a common problem these days, though I feel like I'm going crazy because I never see anyone else point it out.
@@wiremesh2so basically you dont like combat that actually requires skill...instead you prefer the mindless hack and slash of the first
I'm actually kinda bummed about some of the stuff you mentioned.. thanks for being so honest dude. It's appreciated.
Likewise. Wish they hadn’t changed the empty bottle system, for one.
@MaximilianReyCartwright Yeah, that's my main concern as well. That and enemy variety. I want gameplay to feel engaging and rewarding not repetitive and easy.
Me too, I was really hoping the story would be better... much better. As much as I love the first game the story and characters SUCK
@@MaximilianReyCartwrightsee, I worked for my giant dragon/cyclops/griffin melting tornado.
I play sorc mainly, so its not like combat was ever "fast" for me.
Focused my pawns and on being distractions, stand in the back, and live out my power fantasy with my single favorite magic system in a game.
The game is designed to be enjoyed by anyone, not just tryhards, besides the game isn't just about combat and being challenged, there's more to it, exploration for one, plus who knows how challenging the end game grins will be?
You just crushed my heart telling me that the intro song is gone
Still the best mood setter when you load the game. I always just let it start up. Get comfortable, get my drink and seat ready.
I'm the opposite,; if that's the reviewers first issue, I'm good..I won't spend much time on that screen and I suspect most others won't either.
I fully expect the PC version to get that modded in almost immediately.
i think if you pre order the deluxe edition you get a DD1 soundtrack so perhaps that changes the poor music selection? although that shouldn't be locked behind a paywall.
@@HPLovesCraftsCat
Well, the reason Into Free was removed with Dark Arisen was because of licensing issues. There’s just no way they went out of their way to relicense the song for some bonus content.
But as others have said, modders will likely be the saviors we need.
"This game is exactly what it appears to be" - music to my ears, my friend.
"the gryphon came down and murdered me it was fantastic" a souls player through and through
What does this have to do with souls games? Can we please stop ascribing difficulty and dying in video games with this franchise? They aren't even difficult games to begin with, they are just what normies consider to be hard.
@@RiskOfBaeryou must be the dark souls of commenters
@@RiskOfBaerthey do offer genuine challenge compared to other games, they're just more forgiving than some people give it credit for.
@@ghoulishgoober3122 That's what I meant, majority of video games nowadays are made mind-numbingly easy so no wonder when a moderately difficult game like Dark Souls comes around it's the hardest thing majority of people have ever played.
@@ghoulishgoober3122these games are just mindless hack and slashers. if you want actual difficult and skilled combat then go play the far superior game :monster hunter world
This is definitely a dangan into free moment.
DOOO DO DO DO DOOOO DO DO DOOOOO
ronpa
I forgot about this song thank you for this comment
THE WIND IS PUSHING MEEEEEEEEE
@@feircy INTO THE CURRENT AGAIN
The more of this game I experience, the more conflicted I feel. For every improvement from the original, there's a baffling flaw to balance it out. I just don't understand why vocations are limited to four skills each. It makes archer and thief feel like half a vocation each, severely limits your defensive options as a fighter by taking away separate skills for the sword and shield, and pretty much ruins sorcerer (half as many spell slots, on top of fewer and less interesting spells). Want to play as a melee-centric magick archer and focus mostly on magic daggers? You can't, it's bow-only. Oh, and of course mystic knight is just gone.
Itsuno said he wanted to see more variety in which armor people wear, but fashion is somehow more restrictive now thanks to the removal of separate clothing slots. Plus, a lot of the (subjectively) cooler helmet designs are locked to fighter, when there's really no reason for warriors to not be able to wear them.
I just don't wanna have to make out with Fournival against my will....again
There is no escape
Sure, sure, against your will...
Nobody can resist fournival.
Don't lie. Your lifelong dream was to fornicate with Fournival.
Surgar daddy
No way?!? An early review from THE ratatoskr?!? Best early Christmas ever
Dark Arisen was one of my favorites in high school but everyone shat on it. Glad to see the series get the love it deserves now
It's still one of the best games ever imo
@@yaqubebased1961fr, its crazy how it never came even close to mainstream, that game is crazy good. Most "cult classic" games are really rough games with cool Ideas, DD has great ideas and is well executed as well. Wth happened?
@@erickfw197idk, probably because it has major downsides, which can be dealbreakers to most people.
I started DD1 5 times, partly bc Ratatoskr is so enthusiastic about it, my longest attempt was like 12 hours and I wouldn't play more even for money. Tried out diffrent classes, but the selling point(combat) never grabbed me and everything else is pretty bad.
its just normies hopping on the bandwagon. sad tbh all the OGs remember like you said how the game was shat on constantly but now that DD2 is out its "OMG BEST GAME EVER GUYS GOTY " Smh.
@@HPLovesCraftsCat and then its going to be shat on for not being what they thought it would be lmao. Every time I see anyone even remotely enthusiastic about DD2 I tell them to go play the first one lol.
Our boy finally did it. He's finally big enough to get review copies. Proud of you Rata
i think less sign posting is great, the problem i have is when it goes to the opposite end of the spectrum, where it becomes equally unlogical and annoying.
like getting a delivery quest, but no location, no disctrict, no region, no town, just a name of a npc you have never met. This is exatly like sign posting completely immersion breaking, because an interaction like that just wouldn't happen, it's not realistic. That to me is just as bad as yellow paint on random spots on a mountain.
yeah, 100% agreed.
Signposting is good, but a lot of people don't like is being treated like an idiot.
"just paint everything yellow, even if it makes no sense, because, first, we don't think the players are smart enough. Second, it is easier to implement."
I read a tweet once where someone said, signposting is in a similar spot to CGI in movies.
bad CGI gets noticed immediately, that's how the "practical vs CGI"-debate started. (side note: This debate was started by the consumers, not the industry professionals, because ideally the practical and CGI team want to work together to get the best of both worlds)
But the good CGI? Nobody notices it, because it's meant to blend in perfectly.
Signposting has to be obvious enough to be picked up by player, but not too obvious that the players realizes that it is signposting.
Portal 2 is a perfect example of this.
If you run through the test chambers, you have the very obvious, "hand-holdy" signposting, but it makes sense, since this is a test chamber for controlled experiments.
but once you move beyond these chambers and into the ruins and destroyed parts of the facility those more obvious signposting techniques gets replaced with more "natural" ones.
such as using lamps or flames to highlight an important area or the direction you should go.
My dude was already finishing the game when people were still just messing around with the character creator
That's how review copies work...
Good job, Captain Obvious.
That’s because he got an early copy dingus. Not everyone is that privileged
Why are people so angry in the replies what the hell lmao
A finished Dragon’s Dogma 1? Sold.
Only procrastinating while I'm on the clock is the reason I got here so early.
😂 same
I really think they needed to allow you to equip more skills. It really neutered the versatility of the magic classes. Being a sorcerer who only knows 4 spells kinda misses the point.
Thats disheartening to hear about the combat getting easy quickly and low amount of big monsters. because thats exactly the thing ( outside of the extremely empty open world with no PoIs, just the same enemies spammed every 20 seconds ) that turned me away from finishing Dragon Dogma 1. Water Temple being a primary example. Just spamming lightning at the ogre ( while having no pawns ) made me feel like i was cheesing the game and these footages definitely show the same thing. If i end up picking up this game sure as hell not going to hire any pawns
Looks like a cash-in retread. Which is bizarre, considering how LONG this has taken. People hate on Zelda games for changing their formula over the years, but I think I'd prefer that vs NO change at all.
That's really sad to hear, was hoping there would be a lot of different encounters to test the combat on. Was concerned seeing the same enemies over and over in the previews but chalked it up to them not spoiling stuff
@@mike990 You say "how long this has taken", but remember that it hasn't been in development for the entire 12-year gap between the first game and now. It's had a normal dev cycle from what I understand.
@@RoaringTide Pretty sure it didn't start until after DMCV came out.
@@mike990capcom should have def made a modern, open world (empty), generic RPG game instead of sticking to what made their cult hit worth playing. retread? sure. cash grab? cmon now
definitely picking it up at 20-30$ sale :)
Same
6 years
I mean keyshops are already selling the base game for 40 - 45€ so I doubt it will take more than year for it to be 30€.
@@brhertby Christmas at most
Great review, but something that I wanted to touch on: Rat says DD1 had Hard Mode to help alleviate steamrolling, and this is 100%, concentrated, unadulterated misinformation.
Hard Mode in DD1 INARGUABLY makes steamrolling even *worse*, because nothing in the game gains increased HP or defenses, just increased Stagger/Knockdown resist. So if it took you 3 hits to kill a goblin outside of Hard Mode, it will still take 3 in Hard Mode. However, everything in Hard Mode grants *dramatically* more EXP, AND enemies drop absolutely preposterous amounts of gold. The only 2 things Hard Mode does to limit you is: Increase YOUR damage taken (HARD MODE DOES NOT INCREASE ENEMY ATTACK RATINGS, all it does is multiply incoming damage TO THE ARISEN, it has NO EFFECT on pawns) and adds a multiplier to the stamina use of skills. Sure, this means you need to take fewer hits and you can't spam skills as much (without curatives), but otherwise you will kill ALL enemies at EXACTLY the same rate, but receive dramatically more Gold and EXP. This means you literally always have more money than you could possibly know what to do with, and you level up significantly faster than someone playing on Normal.
So Hard Mode has a *somewhat* harder first few hours, maybe 3 or 4, but by the same point in playtime you could easily be double the level of other people playing on Normal. You will overlevel WAY faster in Hard Mode, and you will become a steamroller in half the time.
It's a long reply because Hard Mode is just kinda strange in DD1, I like this review a lot, but it's worth knowing that Hard Mode does not solve any of the issues Rat brings up here, it makes them all much worse. Once you struggle through the first couple hours, you'll overlevel so quickly that you can be melting big monsters in under 20 seconds before you even reach the mid-game.
That being said, I don't care much about this problem: I have over 2000 hours in DD1, and all I wanted from DD2 is more Dragon's Dogma. It looks like that's exactly what I'm getting!
Yeah, one of the big cheese strats that most veteran players start DD1 with is to use Hard Mode and throwblasts on BBI mobs to skip the first 50-ish levels of the game, removing most of the early-game pain of playing Hard Mode.
If a future Hard Mode in DD2 also includes the massive buff to coin drops, that would also invalidate the money struggles that he mentioned having until the endgame
The stagger and knockdown values being increased really fucks with the balance of certain skills and attacks as well.
Sucks the fun out of the game when you really enjoy playing warrior.
Wait??? So you have 1 save slot and even can't start a new game? Wtf kind of design decision is that?
Regarding hard mode, that was actually added as a free DLC for Dragon's Dogma 1, it was not in the launch version of the game. We might end up getting the same thing for DD2 at some point in the future (hopefully).
And hope that it's a proper Hard mode. Hard mode mid - late game is easier than normal mode due to higher loot and exp lol.
And as the dude before me said, hard mode in the original actually would become easier than normal, wolves would literally drop 10k gold and you could buy easily all the op gear early.
Dude i totally agree with the performance of Grigori in the first game, it was the best dragon concept and execution I've seen in a game. The scene where he says "Now.... choose..." gave me chills, the voice and delivery is absolutely perfect👌 not to mention the final battle with him, that was incredible
This has got to he one of the most polarizing games of all time. Even in specific categories; this guy loves the quests but many reviewers are calling the quests among the worst they've ever seen.
Perfectly elaborated the positive and negative points. Making it clear that no matter how good the game may be, it is impossible to make something perfect.
Best Review online.
Cheers 🤘🏻
[Spoilers ahead] OK, I don't think you'll ever read this, but I wanted to say that after beating Dragon's Dogma 2 and doing my absolute best to do all the content, I really think it was overblown by the Souls RUclipsrs. In my opinion, many of the quests are downright bad or at least excessively tedious. I have a million examples of this. For one: The quest where you have to get the sculptor to make a statue of the Griffin. He mentions the Medusa head, so of course I go hunting for one. Only to be disappointed that there's literally one respawning Medusa in the game when there's so little boss variety. But cool, I get the head first try. I immediately book it back to where the guy wants me to show up with the Griffin and by the time I walk there, the head is already completely unusable. And even though that took HOURS, I decided to try again and drop portcrystals so that it was easier. But it turns out the Medusa only spawns every 14 days in-game days. WHY!? But whatever, I wait 14 in game days and it takes multiple tries to get the head again. But OK, I get the head and IMMEDIATELY warp over to the sculptor with the head. When I show up and I'm ready to use the Medusa head he just immediately finishes the sculpture in a split second and the multiple hours I spent on this quest was completely wasted. That's not clever quest design, it's just dumb. It never made me feel smart or that I made any significant mistake. I just (understandably) didn't think a Medusa head would spoil by the time I had to walk in a game that MAKES YOU walk literally everywhere.
OK, what about the Sphinx which people hyped up? I found it immediately, it wasn't nearly as hidden as they made it out to be. At first I thought it was super cool. Go find the item of most value, OK that's neat. I'm sure there's a neat riddle aspect. Nope, there's two items: a rotten apple and the sealing phial. But then I read the item description and saw it could carry people. And I thought it was super clever, the Sphinx doesn't want me to bring her an item, but a person which would have more value than an item. So I found someone I had max affinity with and brought them to the Sphinx. But not only can you not give the Sphinx the phial with someone in it, it's also a one-time use so it was wasted. OK, fine, let's do another quest. The whole "parent" quest. I thought it must be referencing the orphan who was abandoned by her noble family. That would be neat and would involve getting an NPC over a significant distance as well as checking if you're paying attention to the quests in town. NOPE. It literally wanted me to bring a pawn called "SphinxParent." What???? Why would that even be a thing? It seems like so often the game makes the dumb, obtuse decision as opposed to the interesting decision. The combat system was a ton of fun, but there's not enough challenge or enemy variety to keep it fresh. There's only two main areas, a shallow story, and quests that are more often dumb than interesting. That could be the end, but here's ANOTHER quest that was dumb:
The guy in Battahl who wanted me to get poisoned and come back. This quest was tedious, but I was really interested in seeing where it went. So I did it up to the point where he wanted to get poisoned by a Chimera. So I head into the fight with the Chimera and hold everyone off and the Chimera just never poisons him. OK, I'll pick him up and carry him into the poison cloud multiple times. Nothing happens. After minutes of my party just getting beaten up while he has somehow infinite poison resist on him, I just decide to kill the Chimera and this dude gets mad at me for ending the fight "early." None of these quests were interesting. They were dumb fetch quests that just didn't work as intended or had really dumb solutions. I have no idea why people made the quests out to be interesting or clever. They're just super opaque fetch quests that have very little flexibility in how you solve them or any interesting mechanics. I really can't understand why people say it's their game of the year. It's a 6/10 and barely improves on the previous game in a significant amount of time.
i mean you're kinda right
Great video. You covered everything I was wondering about. By the way I’m 90% sure the hard mode was added with bitterblack isles.
First time viewer here, your review here respects the viewer’s intelligence, unlike others. Thanks for that and good work
You got my Thumbs up when you mentioned the original intro song, "Into Free" because you're absolutely right.
that travel story was great, I could feel the silent "that was awesome".
thank you for this amazing video once again man its so fun to hear and watch these from you
I really appreciated this review. The only one I’ve seen really point out how this game is a glorified remaster of the original albeit more expansive and polished.
Any issues with technical performance? I've avoided preordering specifically in case of issues with the PC version.
I think theres a reason why the titlescreen doesnt say dragons dogma 2 untill you reach a certain point
So it's DD1 but finished? Perfect, exactly what I wanted.
After a decade +? Your bar as a consumer is low.
@@mike990 DD1 had a notoriously troubled development cycle and was effectively only 40% finished AT BEST due to lack of funding for the enormous scale of the original design document. The director spent decades pushing for it since the 90s, and then years more after pushing to get the funding to properly finish the game. The fact DD2 happened AT ALL is a miracle. It's not a case of hacks not caring and pushing out slop, but one guy spending his entire career trying to get his dream game made.
@@g.waughan
Not to mention that the game has likely only been in development since some time after DMC5 was released.
It’s not a miracle it happened. It was on itsunos wishlist of games to make. When he was going to quit capcom, they pulled him in and let him make whatever they wanted
Perfect? Sub 30fps with no performance mode is perfect to you?😂 ok
Best review I have seen so far, very informative!
I was going to buy this based on your review but removed it from my wishlist upon finding out that the game has microtransactions. Was this apparent in the review copy you received and did it influence the score at all?
Apparently(at least a different reviewer said that) the review copy didnt have the microtransactions
@@heibk-2019 thank you, that makes sense
@@dominicnzlbut he knew of the mtx in paper but didn't mention it.
the mtx are useless, youre just gonna miss out
@@rikiponcho Yes, I've since learned that the mtx are mostly useless (except for the fast travel I imagine). After Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 I had come to expect that DD2 would also be mtx-free, which might have been a bit of wishful thinking on my part. Still, it did put a damper on a game release that I was looking forward to. Now I'll wait a week and see how/if reports of performance on pc improves.
How DD handles save data is the one weird design choice that I hate. Are we going to have to manually delete our save data to start over?
I enjoyed the first game, my hope is that this sequel will improve and perfect some of the concepts from the original.
Also I’m a bit upset to hear that the game quickly loses its difficulty and the lack of new monsters.
Edit: As an outward player I’m happy to hear about the resting mechanic.
You touched on difficulty briefly - monsters getting too easy too quickly, lack of hard mode or ng+ scaling, as well as the long journeys without resting and poor planning really putting you in a tight spot. You paint a picture that the difficulty of individual combat encounters is fairly tame, and you could win without interacting with the systems much, just hacking away. But the nighttime story tells me difficulty comes from clearing these encounters well, losing as little health as possible, to actually reach your destination. Would you say that using the mechanics of your vocation well, using elemental exploits, party composition, etc etc is required not for individual fights, but for a longer journey?
This game sounds right up my alley. Good to hear that the quests are your favorite part of the game.
I'm thrilled you got a review copy bro. So well deserved
i think the problem with DD2 (and DD1) isn't the game itself per se. It's that the game design is inherently divisive, you'll either love it or hate it. Hence the fluctuating scores across various channels.
Buy it. Try it. Return it if you don’t like it. Why is this “hard” for people 😂❤
@@Macheakoconsole at least doesn't offer an easy way to refund. I swear I heard of playstation giving away refunds for some of the particularly bad games that released in recent times, but it's not the standard
@@ghoulishgoober3122 wow thats honestly lame af….i didn’t know that. Thx
From my limited memory of dd1 it gave pawns a baxk story and an interesting law this game has zero discussion on rhe pawns.also why did they remove the j rock song from the original,so u think they were embarrassed of it?
The title song change is most likely a licensing issue. This sort of thing happens way too often with games.
A small detail to get fixated on, but I just LOVE this boss health bar. I love how the design looks and that it's constantly animated. I love how it shakes when you attack it. I love how when you deal a significant chunk of damage you get this effect that makes it look like you're literally beating the colour out of the health bar. This is the kind of health bar I'd expect from a good fighting game, not a 3rd person RPG. I'm not even playing the game, but even just looking at it when you beat the crap out of the monster is so satisfying! I swear, Capcom has THE BEST people when it comes to creating satisfying combat systems (Dragon's Dogma, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter). I would've never even thought you could improve the feeling of combat this much by making an awesome health bar, incredible!
pls dont compare dragon dogmas combat to monster hunter lol. one is mindless hack and slash and the other actually requires skill
@@terrycruise-zd5tw I don't think you understood what I was saying at all if that's your conclusion. Reading with comprehension is a useful skill you know?
Was introduced to the original Dragon’s Dogma from your old videos and got it on your recommendation. Very glad to hear the second has held up to the quality of the first and excited to get into it!
Wow, this Review was one of the most honest ones i've seen.
Sometimes fanboing over certain aspects, but always having a critical view on things and mentioning the negative even in positive aspects. I love that. Thank you for this Review.
People are so mad at you, here I am hearing about it and finding my new favorite channel 😂 Subbed🎉🎉🎉
Really appreciate your approach to spoilers in this review. I’ve been avoiding most coverage of the game, as I want to go in as blind as possible, but I still really wanted to hear someone’s experience with it. This feels like the perfect review for me/
According to a different review, DD2 has at least 2 endings and there is a big difference between them. It was compared to Sekiro, where you can choose to betray Owl or not, which can add new areas to the game if you decide to betray him. (at least that how i understood it, i haven't played Sekiro) And one ending is apparently clearly superior. I suspect you ended up getting the worse ending. Maybe your opinion on the story changes a bit if you get the other ending, idk.
I did all the content and got all the endings.
@@ratatoskr6324 did you talk to the devs to KNOW you got all endings?
@@ratatoskr6324roughly how long would you say that took you to achieve?
@@nickperri6571 I think he said he has about 85 hours in the game
@@PixelCrabs thanks
THE WIND IS PUSHING MEEEEEE
Watched 40 seconds of the review, all I need to hear. Want to go in relatively blind so will play it and come back to watch this video later.
The microtransactions really putting a dark cloud over this release. 😩
not really, everyone is enjoying the game
It’s Capcom, many of their games have MT. Why isin’t people upset about their previous releases?
Didn’t even know they have MTX until people starting whining about them. was 10 hours in as well like… y’all overreacting
You've got it on pc right? For now you could probably find where the save files are located, place the save files in a backup folder. With the saves folder empty you can start over. Would be nice if a game dev provided a better user experience, however you do have options to solve this dilemma.
You didn’t answer the biggest question:
Performance - does it run like shit?
Is the enemy AI good to anyone who’s played? In a lot of the videos I see the creatures just kind of.. stand there and get hit a bunch and throw a couple attacks here and there.
Did you play the game on console or PC? How was the performance? Thanks
They tried to blend elements from Monster Hunter in order to make up for the removal of certain mechanics. It feels good but they removed some really cool stuff. Also the fact that you dont have skills on left bumper and right bumper for the different weapons is laaaammee. Also they killed the fun of strider by making it only accessible in warfarer but with a very limited number of skills.
So like DD1 you intentionally have to use starting gear/use less paws to make the game a chalenge past midpoint
I was really hoping that wasn't the case but eh, it'll do
There are definitely items you can use to heal the hp burn. Allheal elixir is one
You're right: based on that first 2 minutes, as a fan of the original, I'm basically already sold. Iterate, not innovate, is fine. Thanks, I'll let this review keep running so you get a view, and I'll leave a like, but thats all I needed to know!
braindead comment, lol
I'm troubled by the lack of big monster variety and population. The scaling system needs attention too, sounds like.
@@paulmccarter908 dude got an early copy apparently
A few weeks ago, in preparation for DD2's launch, I started my 3rd attempt at playing Dragon's Dogma and finally got hooked! Level 30 strider and exploring other vocations. Now wondering if I should finish my playthrough now or switch to DD2 at launch.
The price of this game is like 1/3 of minimum wage in my country so I would like to know if its worth it? I enjoyed dda1 so much so that I play it every year
I'd like a little more clarity on the extent of play. From the 80 hours you mentioned, what level of completion would you assume? And was that the combination of trying different vocations and completing the game with them?
Hot take: Fast travel has done irreparable damage to the gaming community.
It is true it needs to be made differently like in GTA 6 you take taxis, but you can't speed time up, possibility of encountering car crashes, shoot outs and shi idk i would add random shi that can happen for that can make the game great.
Bad take imo. Some games are designed arround fast travel and unbearable slogs without it.
The game has to have major mechanics arround travelling/progression to make not having fast travel mean sth.
Games as old as FF6 on the SNES had "Fast Travel" after unlocking the Airship.
@Realag666 Counterargument: You're Gay 💀
I agree with you
True
Just outta curiosity, any reason you deleted the vod of your most recent stream? Got to it a bit late and was watching like an hour behind when it just vanished and said it was deleted. Was one of the reviews you were reacting to going against and embargo thing or smt? Was just curious what ya thought of the other reviews and am just a little sad i didnt get to finish watching it.
Huh. Rather disappointing to hear about the lack of enemy variety which has been echoed in multiple reviews. And the lack of difficulty.
I wonder if the devs or mods could fix that. More difficulty, enemy variety, and some kind of scaling threat. As of now I don't feel like buying yet. This sounds like a $40 deal instead of $70.
Are there any hidden vocations or do we know of all of them already? Kinda bummed that there's no Mystic Knight if that's the case.
hard mode for DDDA was a dlc that came out like a year after the release
considering how little innovation there seems to be, I'd totally expect them to do the EXACT same thing this time, even carrying over the stupid ass gold drop bonus thing it had in the first game (which was an awful economy-destroying feature)
I'd still be playing on it though, who am I kidding
You shut your mouth, bring back my wolves shitting out 10k sack of gold 😂
:) I have huge backlog so for me this is a dealbreaker
@@Mikx100 it's your fate arisen
Holy Moly what song did u use at 11:00 ???
Ayo plz I'd love to know if you have a name for it... 🙏🙏
The only thing I have ever wanted for a DD sequel is just more DD. One minute in the video and im sold
Did they fix voice volume in Cutscenes? Because character voices were way too quiet during Cutscenes in the first game.
I play lots of games. Dragons Dogma 2 felt like a ‘grind’. It wasn’t that much fun. Lots of repetitive fights. Not enough breadth of monsters to fight. Fast travel function or ways to fast travel is the worst I’ve seen of all games. It felt like the game wasn’t technically advance because of this.
To have an ‘unreliable’ save function and not allow players to save at their discretion in this day and age with all the technological tools is plain lazy or stupid of the game makers.
Finally the ending, I got the true ending. I felt so sad that after all the time devoted to the game the ending technically wasn’t a happy one for the Arisen and the main pawn. Even if the Arisen sacrificed themselves I wished the main pawn lived on. So loyal with us for the journey
I honestly could not care about the world or many of the characters we interacted with in the game to be honest outside say Ulrika. I found those interactions pretty boring and the quests did not exactly strengthen my bonds with the characters. Apart from escort quests, the characters you meet don’t help you in any way so was difficult feeling close to them.
I mean I would honestly sacrifice Captain Bryant at a drop of the hat but didn’t because I felt that wasn’t going to be a true game ending… I didn’t even bother saving that Coral Snakes guy and left him in jail for example…. I gritted my teeth to help the others.
So for me the ending wasn’t great and a turn off for devoting such time to play the game. Don’t think I’ll be playing anymore of this game… Rating 2/10.
Other than you brief nitpick about the music, what did you think of the rest of the music throughout the game? In DD1 the music was one of my favorite parts. I couldn't agree with your nitpick about the music in the title screen more. The original rock music as well as the title music for dark arisen have stuck with me to this day and still send shivers up my spine any time i hear them. I don't expect it to surpass the original, but does it at least compare?
I'm worried about this, too. Everything I've heard seems more generic than the first game, but I've not heard enough to tell.
Nothing on performance?
I haven't seen anyone mention the abysmal performance other than a few non-Capcom sponsored people, and all the influencers included as official pawns leaped right over that too. A game that can't hold 30 fps in 2024 on a ps5, while looking worse than the best looking ps4 games is very strange.
I really hope the ng+ offline event is still in the game, it's what really made dragons dogma my favorite game
Im so glad you ended that story with it was fantastic because every part of it i was like this sounds absolutely awesome i dont see the issue here
It's one of em things where it sounds bad, but is good you gotta play it yourself
I still miss the Into Free main menu to this day. I come back to the song on youtube all the time.
Excellent review as expected. I'm very much looking forward to jumping in as soon as I can. I'm glad it seems this was exactly what I and a lot of other DD fans were hoping for, and I appreciate your very detailed and spoiler free take on it. I'm definitely of the same mind that I would love to have further expansions, DD hits such a great and particular niche, I would love for it to grow, so long as it dosent overly do so and kind of spoil the magic.
What do you mean you can’t start over?
I thought the quests and dungeons in DD1 were its most underrated aspect so this is a pleasure to hear
Mmmmmm. Sounds like it just has all the problems i had with dd1 and didn’t really add anything.
Low monster variety is a huge blow since that was already one of my major complaints and honestly was the thing i was expecting them to nail most.
In a lot of ways it sounds like i didnt get any of the improvements i was hoping for, and instead lost stuff. Ill need more convincing at this point.
when you were listing off the flaws with the combat it literally just sounded like dragons dogma 1 thats so crazy
Did everyone that review the game early get a better version of it than me? 😢
Are there a lot of extra enemies than what has been shown in trailers and gameplay previews? Really like the look of the combat but will be disappointed if that's mostly all that's available to fight
Dammit I knew I should’ve taken off work on Friday. Can’t wait to dig in
Should've. I did lol
I would probably be more excited about "Dragon's Dogma but better" if I hadn't replayed the original so many times since it came out. And there's no way the game comes out with only one save file and no way to ever restart, that would be preposterous.
If pawns weren't the stupidest thing lorewise i would like these games more, also co-op would be nice
Cry
as a massive outward fan you talking about the restrictive fast travel and the resting system just made me so hyped for this game even more
Funny how most of the community loves the first Title Song. I'll never understand. The only reason I can barely emphasize with would be the classic "they took the original away and therefore ruining my nostalgic cope". I always thought the old Main theme sounds like a meme song on this game.
Same for me.
The Dark Arisen one gets old quickly after listening to it twice or thrice in a row.
yeah it's a meme
It's a meme, but the song itself is energetic and fun. I honestly prefer it over DA theme, but you also have to like Jpop too.
About the difficulty, did you play DD1 on hard mode? Because my experience with Dragon's Dogma 1 on Hard mode was essentially the same as your critique of this one. All of the difficulty was at the beginning to mid game and then you start steam-rolling everything after that because you are given so much extra XP and money. I don't count Bitterblack Isle towards the difficulty of the first game because that was added later in Dark Arisen.
this just seems way too unfinished, missing hard mode, missing save files,
MISSING STARTING OVER AT ALL???
yeah theyre definitely using this to push out fomo updates for "you HAVE to return to dragons dogma 2 in 2024" moments 💀
Edit: im not strictly hating im just saying me personally im waiting for a sale and some very obviously incoming cut options and "content" to roll out
i dont wanna ruin my first PT of this on an incomplete version for the sake of faux seasonal updates no doubt
So if I got super bored playing the first game, is there's a good chance I'll be bored with this one?
yes honestly the first game is a lot better in some aspects so dont buy it
Don’t listen to the people bro, if you wanna play it play it. IMO it’s way more fun than the first one, lots more mechanics and stuff to do
I’m just sad we wont get the first day stream of the game
What do you mean you cant start over? So there is no New Game option after you start one time?