𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧'𝐬 𝐃𝐨𝐠𝐦𝐚 𝟐 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠.

[cypher]

As an avid player of single-player RPGs, spending roughly 50 hours in DD2, I've earnestly attempted to enjoy it, but unfortunately, it just doesn't resonate with me. Frankly, I find myself rather disliking it.

The performance leaves much to be desired. Despite adjusting settings to their lowest, the game's performance remains consistently poor. These issues persist not only in densely populated cities but also in areas teeming with NPCs. Furthermore, the game is plagued with game-breaking bugs that hinder progression, leaving me reloading from my last Inn save countless times due to quests failing to complete or transactions yielding no reward. It's an exasperating experience, and I can't help but feel frustrated, especially given Capcom's involvement.

Traversing the world feels excessively laborious. With minimal means of fast travel, players are left to trek lengthy distances on foot, encountering enemies at every turn, which further compounds the sluggish pace of exploration. The lack of mounts is particularly baffling in a game of this scale, as it would greatly alleviate the tedium of travel.
The enemy variety is sorely lacking, with an overwhelming majority of encounters consisting of repetitive goblin skirmishes. This dearth of diversity quickly leads to monotony, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the game. It's disappointing to see so many enemy types omitted compared to its predecessor.

The world itself feels shallow and devoid of life. The lack of distinctiveness in city layouts and interiors, coupled with a narrative that fails to engage, contributes to an overall sense of emptiness. NPCs lack depth, sporting generic appearances and offering little of interest in their interactions. Features like romance feel forced and superficial, lacking the charm and personality found in other games.

The design of beastmen is particularly uninspired, lacking the distinctiveness one would expect from such creatures. Their humanoid appearance feels derivative and detracts from the immersion of the game world.
Pawns, while intended to be helpful, quickly become grating with their incessant chatter and repetitive behavior. Their constant reminders and lack of subtlety detract from the immersion and enjoyment of the game.

Combat, too, feels lackluster, with auto-attacks lacking impact and spells suffering from unwieldy casting times. The absence of precise targeting further exacerbates the frustration, leaving combat feeling disjointed and unsatisfying. The recommendation to use a controller, albeit belatedly, underscores the inadequacies of the keyboard controls.
The user experience within menus is similarly frustrating, with convoluted navigation and a lack of tooltips hindering efficient gameplay. The map interface is unresponsive and cluttered, further detracting from the overall experience.

The lack of meaningful armor customization and modern features only serves to exacerbate these issues, culminating in a game that falls short of its potential. Capcom's response to these concerns has been underwhelming, leaving players feeling disillusioned and underserved. Despite its lengthy development cycle, Dragon's Dogma 2 feels like a regression from its predecessor, lacking the polish and innovation expected of a sequel.

To that end, I feel as though the only logical way that so many critics landed on an 8/10 or 9/10 is that they must have straight-shot the main story and come to the conclusion that, despite the narrative being mediocre at best, the overall gameplay experience along the way was refined, varied, and unique enough to justify calling the game "great" and giving it a relatively high score. And to be entirely honest, this is one of the few occasions in which I don't feel that the blame lies with the critics. Their job was to play through the game in a timely manner so as to provide us with an easily digestible rundown of what to expect from the game as a whole, and that's exactly what they did.

There's just nothing of note to do besides the main story after those opening 10 to 15 hours. Side quests all feel like senseless busy-work, combat encounters in the open world almost exclusively consist of the same 4 or 5 basic enemies from start to finish, exploration quickly devolves from one of the best parts of the game to one of the worst when you realize that nearly every item you can find in a chest can also be scavenged or purchased from a vendor, and Pawns quickly turn from lovable brothers and sisters in arms to a constant source of headaches as they never quit repeating themselves and refuse to give the player so much as 5 minutes of peace and quiet.

Ultimately, at its current state, Dragon's Dogma 2 fails to justify its hefty price tag, earning a middling rating of 5 out of 10 in my estimation.

[Gamer de esquerda]

Originally posted by Omnicide:

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

There is is no way I cannot agree with absolutely every word. Will love to see gamers cry when this game loses the goty, just like Zelda fans.

Bruh, Cyberpunk won best ongoing game. DLC wasn't awful or anything, but there's no meaning to anything anymore at this rate.

Some categories I agree that are very stupid, but the goty itself has been very consistent.
Elden Ring won fair and square. So did BG3. So did It Takes Two. So did Sekiro. God of War (2018) is the only questionable choice in the last few years.

[PortalShifter]

Originally posted by cypher:

Traversing the world feels excessively laborious. With minimal means of fast travel, players are left to trek lengthy distances on foot, encountering enemies at every turn, which further compounds the sluggish pace of exploration. The lack of mounts is particularly baffling in a game of this scale, as it would greatly alleviate the tedium of travel.

This is a single player game with live service monetization.

Traversal is intentionally boring and sluggish so that you pay for fast travel.

[Legion]

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

There is is no way I cannot agree with absolutely every word. Will love to see gamers cry when this game loses the goty, just like Zelda fans.

As a Zelda fan, no one cried about losing GOTY *except* for the Starfield folks.

[Gamer de esquerda]

Originally posted by Con(troll) Artist:

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

There is is no way I cannot agree with absolutely every word. Will love to see gamers cry when this game loses the goty, just like Zelda fans.

As a Zelda fan, no one cried about losing GOTY *except* for the Starfield folks.

Oh, you don't know the Zelda fans I know

[BeelzeBob]

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

Yeah I mean you shouldn't play dragons dogma 2 for anything other than combat tbh. The only good thing about the game is just randomly encountering a big creature and killing it.

Exploration and combat are both quite good, but as an actual RPG it's a total failure. I've been enjoying it, but damn do I wish it had more actual RPG elements along with good writing. I also kind of wish vocations were deeper and you could play just one for an entire playthrough without it getting stale.

[Gamer de esquerda]

Originally posted by BeelzeBob:

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

Yeah I mean you shouldn't play dragons dogma 2 for anything other than combat tbh. The only good thing about the game is just randomly encountering a big creature and killing it.

Exploration and combat are both quite good, but as an actual RPG it's a total failure. I've been enjoying it, but damn do I wish it had more actual RPG elements along with good writing. I also kind of wish vocations were deeper and you could play just one for an entire playthrough without it getting stale.

I find exploration quite tedious because of the density (and repetitivity) of enemies. Not being able to walk 10 steps without finding a group of goblins make exploration and walking absolutely insufferable.

And you don't find anything beyond that during your journeys. At best you find a pawn offering his services, an oxcard or someone that gives a fetch quest like "defeat all monsters" or "escort me to this town". Even Skyrim had more open world events than DD2.

[Ebon Wolf]

Originally posted by PortalShifter:

Originally posted by cypher:

Traversing the world feels excessively laborious. With minimal means of fast travel, players are left to trek lengthy distances on foot, encountering enemies at every turn, which further compounds the sluggish pace of exploration. The lack of mounts is particularly baffling in a game of this scale, as it would greatly alleviate the tedium of travel.

This is a single player game with live service monetization.

Traversal is intentionally boring and sluggish so that you pay for fast travel.

They're targeting one of worst groups in gaming communities, whales.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by cypher:

The design of beastmen is particularly uninspired, lacking the distinctiveness one would expect from such creatures. Their humanoid appearance feels derivative and detracts from the immersion of the game world.
Pawns, while intended to be helpful, quickly become grating with their incessant chatter and repetitive behavior. Their constant reminders and lack of subtlety detract from the immersion and enjoyment of the game.

Ignoring the rest of the thread to talk about this because it doesn't get talked about at all.

The beastren in this game are basically just humans. It's not just because of their appearance, either. They talk the same, they walk the same, they can be found everywhere, and seem to lack any distinct qualities or culture of their own. If they were instead just a different race of humans, all we would be out is a couple of voice lines about fur. They could literally be humans in magical fursuits, we don't know.

This is in harsh contrast to the elves, which are much closer to humans visually, but are so separated from human society in every way that they might as well be aliens from space.

Before someone says "but Battahl", I'll be honest, even though it's supposed to be "the kingdom of beastren", since I still saw a ton of humans there, it felt more like a regular middle-eastern country. The ratio of humans should have been significantly higher in Vernworth and significantly lower in Bakbattahl to nail in the separation. As it stands, this race doesn't stand out and has no identity.

[Edelgris]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

There is is no way I cannot agree with absolutely every word. Will love to see gamers cry when this game loses the goty, just like Zelda fans.

Lol, DD fans are not exactly "Robust" in numbers. We aren't expecting it to get GOTY, but it is game of the year to some of us individually.

Exactly. DD fans know DD is jank and love it anyway. GOTY was never in the cards, but it has something other games don't

[Windfire]

Originally posted by Netsa:

The ratio of humans should have been significantly higher in Vernworth and significantly lower in Bakbattahl to nail in the separation. As it stands, this race doesn't stand out and has no identity.

It is the case. Do we have the same game ? lmao
All the "nobles" in Vernworth are humans and Beastrens in Bakbattahl.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by Windfire:

Originally posted by Netsa:

The ratio of humans should have been significantly higher in Vernworth and significantly lower in Bakbattahl to nail in the separation. As it stands, this race doesn't stand out and has no identity.

It is the case. Do we have the same game ? lmao
All the "nobles" in Vernworth are humans and Beastrens in Bakbattahl.

You don't only interact with nobles. By the time you get to the border wall, you are already really well acquainted with beastren and you shouldn't be. Then you get to Bakbattahl and most of the people you speak to are still humans.

[VicVoss]

I feel like some of your points, I cannot agree on.
But. as someone who finds Dragons Dogma 1 as one of the best games ever(for me), and 2 being a game that Ive waited for almost 10 years, I have to say that this game has a lot of things to answer for, and a lot of valid criticism needs to be taken into account if this game, or a third installment if it ever happens, are ever to fully blossom into what Dragons Dogma was meant to be.

[SaneVirus]

Owns game on console, complains on PC, wat?

[Bob Gnarly]

Originally posted by Gamer de esquerda:

Originally posted by BeelzeBob:

Exploration and combat are both quite good, but as an actual RPG it's a total failure. I've been enjoying it, but damn do I wish it had more actual RPG elements along with good writing. I also kind of wish vocations were deeper and you could play just one for an entire playthrough without it getting stale.

I find exploration quite tedious because of the density (and repetitivity) of enemies. Not being able to walk 10 steps without finding a group of goblins make exploration and walking absolutely insufferable.

And you don't find anything beyond that during your journeys. At best you find a pawn offering his services, an oxcard or someone that gives a fetch quest like "defeat all monsters" or "escort me to this town". Even Skyrim had more open world events than DD2.

Exploration is one of the best parts of the game.

It's a beautiful hand crafted environment, you're meant to explore every nook and cranny. I enjoy coming across hidden chests, hidden paths, hidden caves, golden beetles, seeker tokens, etc. I also love the constant fights and randomly running into big beasts otherwise it would get boring.

My only complaint would be they could've added more dynamic quests to the open world to make it more immersive.

[Netsa]

Originally posted by Bob Gnarly:

I enjoy coming across hidden chests, hidden paths, hidden caves, golden beetles, seeker tokens, etc.

I read this as
"I enjoy coming across hidden chests, dirt, dirt, bugs, pennies, etc."