This game is BAD ***SPOILERS***

[skullbrandy]

I have to be honest here. As someone who really enjoyed the first, I easily fell for the hype of this game. I wanted to love it so much and I just don't.... From the story to the exploration, even elements of the gameplay are just failing for me. This is going to be long but I'll try to included a TLDR at the end.

1. The Story

This here is the chief of all sins when it comes to this game. The story is absolutely abysmal, boring, disjointed, and wholly unsatisfying. It quite honestly feels unfinished and I'll explain why. The game starts with an extremely vague cutscene that IMO does NOTHING to establish the world, characters, motivations, or events to come. You get this POV which (now that I have beaten the game and know) is supposed to be you, but none of that is made clear, suddenly we cut to a dungeon where you create your character. Like what? If that is me in the cutscene then how and why am I now in a dungeon doing slave labor? Nothing is explained. You escape and one person sees you summon a pawn and now the whole world knows you're the Arisen, everywhere you go people recognize you even though you've never met, it's really silly. I'm getting a bit off track but eventually you are introduced to Cpt Brant who establishes that the Queen Regent Disa is wrongfully sitting on the Vermund throne and that it should be you in the chair. You are told that this Disa character is evil and has wicked schemes, so much so that even her son is willing to betray her in favor of your character, the Arisen. You are told all of this but again, nothing is explained to you why. You know Disa is Evil (because the game wont stop telling you), but you never learn why she is evil, you never see her commit evil, you never learn what her motivations are or what her machinations will lead to. All you ever learn about this supposed "antagonist" is that "she bad, you good" there isn't even ONE confrontation with this character, or at least there wasn't in my playthrough. And that's another thing, so many plot lines were revealed, plot lines which seemed integral to the main story of the game but I was able to beat the game without seeing ANY of these story lines fully realized in my time. You get to a point where it's time to face the Dragon and you beat the dragon and the game ends, story over, and I learnt nothing deeper about the Queen Regent other than "she has wicked schemes" like.... OK. Everything quite literally just rushes to a conclusion. I could go on about the story but in the interest of keeping this as short as possible I'm moving on.

2. Exploration

There is quite literally ZERO reason to explore outside of mayyyyyybe finding a new enemy/boss. There is no rewarding loot for the most part. Treasure chests at the end of dungeon crawls and high and far to reach places only to get a simple consumable item, no special or rare gear to be found that cannot be obtained from the shops in the respective towns. There are cool things to experience in the world to be sure but no reward to be had at the end of it like seriously... what the ♥♥♥♥? This is a STAPLE of rpg games, you struggle through these grueling deep areas and at the end you're usually finding a unique item that cannot be found ANYWHERE else in the game but not here. Instead you beat the monsters, you crawl your way through the deep in the dark and the game in return gives you some fresh herbs and spices. Ridiculous.

3. Characters

All the characters in the game are bland, blank, boring mannequin pieces of ♥♥♥♥. There is no personality to be had, everyone talks and interacts with you in EXACTLY the same manner. Characters aren't even fleshed out in the story, again Cpt Brant is helping you because he says Disa is evil with "wicked schemes" but you never learn why, you don't know his motivation for risking treason by helping you, you don't know why he is so disillusioned with her other than "she bad, you good" even the Queen Regent son who is essentially like "♥♥♥♥ my mom I'm siding with you person I've never met before! (The arisen)" like none of this is fleshed out or explained and leaves a wake of uninteresting robotic characters that do nothing other than to serve you with a new quest marker.

4. The Pawns

By God they're annoying. They never shut the ♥♥♥♥ up. I'm tired of hearing the same repeated dialogue over and over and over and over and over again and never stopping. The first couple hours it was cool, hearing the way the pawns interacted with each other, and the high fives after a battle BUT this ♥♥♥♥ aged like milk FAST. Not to mention their AI is downright atrocious, they never avoid attacks, they're unintuitive, they're dumb. The one thing I will say that is useful is when Pawns can lead you to areas that they've found before that you haven't, that is cool. Aside from that they're annoying as all hell. And please for the love of God can we stop these pawns from stopping us in the middle of the road to give us a sales pitch?!? If I wanted you in my party I'd go to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rift stone!

5. The gameplay

I actually enjoyed the gameplay for the most part, this is the only reason I stuck around long enough to finish the story, the gameplay is really the saving grace but it's not good enough for me to say that the game is good. But even so, I played a lot of vocations and a good amount of them felt clunky until I settled on the Mystic Spearhand. Warrior is the biggest sinner of the ones I tried and it's disappointing because I LOVED the warrior in the first game but here is just feels UNREASONABLY slow, clunky and unsatisfying. Enemies move too fast for the warrior to make a decent contribution in combat, it shines more against big monsters but it relies HEAVILY on support from your party where as other vocations don't. But even where it shines, once you come up against Drakes it feels like a useless vocation at least in my experience. Fighter is decent but straightforward and not as interesting gameplay wise, the sorcerer is pretty cool but a bit passive/slow for my taste, I did think all the magic in the game looks really cool and has a noticeable impact in fights. But like I said, I finally settled on Myatic spearhand for ONE reason. The magic shield ability. I was fighting my first drake and I tried a slew of different vocations/approaches and could barely take the drake to half its health before it party wiped us, I couldn't win with anything until I used the mystic spearhand and just spammed that ability over and over, not only does it make you invulnerable from all damage but also all stagger. Once you get to the later part of the game, there are so many enemies that spawn more often on the road and in larger groups with hyper armor and the mystic spearhand makes this a cakewalk, that ability alone is some S tier ♥♥♥♥ and made the combat more fun than being Staggered to death or constantly ragdolled everywhere. Had it not been for the mystic spearhand I very well may have given up on the game. But I see this as a huge problem, the fact I leveled up my character but got to a point in the game where I had to rely soooooo heavily on one ability to win? It paints an ugly picture for the vocations that don't have an equivalent ability. And the fact there isn't a basic dodge mechanic in this game makes the stagger mechanics a true villain gameplay wise. All that to say, some tweaks can be made here at the very least.

Imma leave it there for now cuz thats a lot. Shout out to you if you read the whole thing. For those who didn't here is the promised tldr....

TLDR:

1. Story is bad, feels unfinished and rushes to a conclusion.

2. There is no point in exploration

3. Characters are bland and boring.

4. Pawns are annoying

5. Gameplay is mediocre and could use tweaks.

[PandaSav]

send this to Cambridge as Thesis mate

[Ghost | Severage]

I haven't read most of that , except "Treasure chests at the end of dungeon crawls and high and far to reach places only to get a simple consumable item, no special or rare gear to be found that cannot be obtained from the shops in the respective towns." - and your opinion became worthless after that because this is already a lie.

There are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of unique weapons and armors in the dungeons and outside of them to be found within chests. Weapons that are far stronger than anything you could buy in any shop.

[Big Sloppie]

Why do people make a college essay and end with a "tldr" because of it. No one will read what you have to say if you got Sparknotes at the end. Just make a bulleted list and save some poor sod the trouble.

[Tyberos]

true

[Caveman]

They don't own the game though.

[skullbrandy]

Originally posted by Caveman:

They don't own the game though.

Gaming doesn't only exist on steam my friend

[Sgt. Flaw]

I agree OP....great write up and same complaints I have

Battlesystems O.K. but I find skills are more about making your character look cool rather than having functions that are needed to overcome difficulty spikes....I can use the same 2 skills over and over and add a 3rd for bigger enemies(climbing). If I do vary it up I feel like there's no benefit other than to just vary it up.

[skullbrandy]

Originally posted by Ghost | Severage:

I haven't read most of that , except "Treasure chests at the end of dungeon crawls and high and far to reach places only to get a simple consumable item, no special or rare gear to be found that cannot be obtained from the shops in the respective towns." - and your opinion became worthless after that because this is already a lie.

There are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of unique weapons and armors in the dungeons and outside of them to be found within chests. Weapons that are far stronger than anything you could buy in any shop.

"There is no rewarding loot for the most part" I'm guessing you skimmed past that part. But let's be real, out of all the chests hidden in caves, at the end of dungeons, guarded by a boss/monster how many of them actually had something worthwhile? In my playthrough I can wholeheartedly say I didn't find one unique item. I'd say it's safe to say that the big big majority of loot in the game is pointless and unrewarding.

[Arkady]

Too much text from someone who doesn't own the game

[Cheeto Fingers]

You're bad

[ffrotty]

Originally posted by skullbrandy:

1. The Story

This here is the chief of all sins when it comes to this game. The story is absolutely abysmal, boring, disjointed, and wholly unsatisfying. It quite honestly feels unfinished and I'll explain why. The game starts with an extremely vague cutscene that IMO does NOTHING to establish the world, characters, motivations, or events to come. You get this POV which (now that I have beaten the game and know) is supposed to be you, but none of that is made clear, suddenly we cut to a dungeon where you create your character. Like what? If that is me in the cutscene then how and why am I now in a dungeon doing slave labor? Nothing is explained. You escape and one person sees you summon a pawn and now the whole world knows you're the Arisen, everywhere you go people recognize you even though you've never met, it's really silly. I'm getting a bit off track but eventually you are introduced to Cpt Brant who establishes that the Queen Regent Disa is wrongfully sitting on the Vermund throne and that it should be you in the chair. You are told that this Disa character is evil and has wicked schemes, so much so that even her son is willing to betray her in favor of your character, the Arisen. You are told all of this but again, nothing is explained to you why. You know Disa is Evil (because the game wont stop telling you), but you never learn why she is evil, you never see her commit evil, you never learn what her motivations are or what her machinations will lead to. All you ever learn about this supposed "antagonist" is that "she bad, you good" there isn't even ONE confrontation with this character, or at least there wasn't in my playthrough.

All the characters in the game are bland, blank, boring mannequin pieces of ♥♥♥♥. There is no personality to be had, everyone talks and interacts with you in EXACTLY the same manner. Characters aren't even fleshed out in the story, again Cpt Brant is helping you because he says Disa is evil with "wicked schemes" but you never learn why, you don't know his motivation for risking treason by helping you, you don't know why he is so disillusioned with her other than "she bad, you good" even the Queen Regent son who is essentially like "♥♥♥♥ my mom I'm siding with you person I've never met before! (The arisen)" like none of this is fleshed out or explained and leaves a wake of uninteresting robotic characters that do nothing other than to serve you with a new quest marker.

I actually enjoyed the gameplay for the most part, this is the only reason I stuck around long enough to finish the story, the gameplay is really the saving grace but it's not good enough for me to say that the game is good. But even so, I played a lot of vocations and a good amount of them felt clunky until I settled on the Mystic Spearhand. Warrior is the biggest sinner of the ones I tried and it's disappointing because I LOVED the warrior in the first game but here is just feels UNREASONABLY slow, clunky and unsatisfying. =
1. Story is bad, feels unfinished and rushes to a conclusion.
.

There are many clues in your post that you've barely played this game, the only clue that you got far at all was unlocking mystic spearhand, and even that is dubious because you don't really talk about the other things that are OP... (hint, it's not really spearhand).

Further, YOU didn't have interactions with Disa and guesswhat, she's not evil.

There are so many missables that flesh out the story, it's your call if you want to watch some guide/spoiler, read a website, or see stuff versus naturally discover/uncover it and solve things yourself.

It's more of the same of DD1 and I find it rather hard to believe that you enjoyed the first one but this is any worse. it's expanded in every way.

TLDR: someone's dubious opinion yields objective statement of "it's bad." Yawn.

[skullbrandy]

Originally posted by ffrotty:

Originally posted by skullbrandy:

1. The Story

This here is the chief of all sins when it comes to this game. The story is absolutely abysmal, boring, disjointed, and wholly unsatisfying. It quite honestly feels unfinished and I'll explain why. The game starts with an extremely vague cutscene that IMO does NOTHING to establish the world, characters, motivations, or events to come. You get this POV which (now that I have beaten the game and know) is supposed to be you, but none of that is made clear, suddenly we cut to a dungeon where you create your character. Like what? If that is me in the cutscene then how and why am I now in a dungeon doing slave labor? Nothing is explained. You escape and one person sees you summon a pawn and now the whole world knows you're the Arisen, everywhere you go people recognize you even though you've never met, it's really silly. I'm getting a bit off track but eventually you are introduced to Cpt Brant who establishes that the Queen Regent Disa is wrongfully sitting on the Vermund throne and that it should be you in the chair. You are told that this Disa character is evil and has wicked schemes, so much so that even her son is willing to betray her in favor of your character, the Arisen. You are told all of this but again, nothing is explained to you why. You know Disa is Evil (because the game wont stop telling you), but you never learn why she is evil, you never see her commit evil, you never learn what her motivations are or what her machinations will lead to. All you ever learn about this supposed "antagonist" is that "she bad, you good" there isn't even ONE confrontation with this character, or at least there wasn't in my playthrough.

All the characters in the game are bland, blank, boring mannequin pieces of ♥♥♥♥. There is no personality to be had, everyone talks and interacts with you in EXACTLY the same manner. Characters aren't even fleshed out in the story, again Cpt Brant is helping you because he says Disa is evil with "wicked schemes" but you never learn why, you don't know his motivation for risking treason by helping you, you don't know why he is so disillusioned with her other than "she bad, you good" even the Queen Regent son who is essentially like "♥♥♥♥ my mom I'm siding with you person I've never met before! (The arisen)" like none of this is fleshed out or explained and leaves a wake of uninteresting robotic characters that do nothing other than to serve you with a new quest marker.

I actually enjoyed the gameplay for the most part, this is the only reason I stuck around long enough to finish the story, the gameplay is really the saving grace but it's not good enough for me to say that the game is good. But even so, I played a lot of vocations and a good amount of them felt clunky until I settled on the Mystic Spearhand. Warrior is the biggest sinner of the ones I tried and it's disappointing because I LOVED the warrior in the first game but here is just feels UNREASONABLY slow, clunky and unsatisfying. =
1. Story is bad, feels unfinished and rushes to a conclusion.
.

There are many clues in your post that you've barely played this game, the only clue that you got far at all was unlocking mystic spearhand, and even that is dubious because you don't really talk about the other things that are OP... (hint, it's not really spearhand).

Further, YOU didn't have interactions with Disa and guesswhat, she's not evil.

There are so many missables that flesh out the story, it's your call if you want to watch some guide/spoiler, read a website, or see stuff versus naturally discover/uncover it and solve things yourself.

It's more of the same of DD1 and I find it rather hard to believe that you enjoyed the first one but this is any worse. it's expanded in every way.

TLDR: someone's dubious opinion yields objective statement of "it's bad." Yawn.

I have played the game and the fact you are claiming otherwise with zero evidence is all I need to know you are discussing this in bad faith.

The fact that I've beat the game but you seem to have these interactions with a main plot antagonist that I didn't experience in the main story just further solidifies my point that the story is bad. Or at the very least the structure of the game is bad. Because I should be able to experience that interaction by doing the main story, the fact I haven't and am leaving with a poor impression of the game points to terrible game/story design.

Also maybe you missed it, but the post is quite long and I'm not going to fill it with talking points about all the things that are OP, especially when that's not relevant to the topic I'm discussing.

[Blade]

The quest design was what killed it for me.

[Apokalypt]

I guess you have never played Zelda BotW and TotK. Compared to these games, DD2 chest actually have useful loot lol.

I had so much more fun exploring in DD2 than I did with most other "open world" games like the mentioned Zelda games. And these are a lot better reviewed.

[Velber]

im happy for you...or sad that happened...