Recent reviews by Reitear

Game boots up til the subtitle and text to speech setting then closes itself without any error codes, tried verified gamefiles and reinstalling the game completely did not solve the issue, even DDU clean install GPU drivers did not help.

Saw reddit and some other reviews on steam saying there is something regarding to newer-higher end hardwares are experiencing the same issues, hard to track what was the cause when every patchnotes for the past few months had some sort of crashes being mentioned.

Finally back to the modern setting Battlefield era with good gameplay, destruction felt that more buildings can be destroy than BF3/4 but there's not much large scale Levolution happening and questionable balance(quite a few SMGs are accurate at full auto firing at far range targets/weapon bloom adjustments recently to further improve better accuracy while full auto firing at further range, when in BF history further ranges usually require players to tap fire instead of holding down full auto beaming across the street, which sounds very COD-like gameplay.)

The battlepass progression that ties with the weekly challenge objectives are incredibly frustrating as theres challenges for battle royales objectives and other smaller scale game modes which is not what Battlefield is known for, you have a limited amount of rerolls(4-5 depends if you bought BF Pro package) to reroll the weekly challenges but it's random that you might still get challenges that does not suit the game modes that you want to play mainly for large scale combat maps, The weekly challenges are mainly the way to level up your battlepass progression fast instead of grinding days with incredibly slow exp.

There's also annoying challenges to unlock the base game gadgets and weapons that will literally feels like the game is telling you to troll your team instead of just playing the game how you want while still getting progression to unlock stuff.(e.g. there's a challenge that requires high amount of smoke assist to progress and players are just throwing smokes at teammates and just hope for someone kill the enemies through the smoke for the challenge progress)

Most of the launch maps feels like you are playing on the same map but you're not, aside from a couple and the recently added Eastwood map are good.

TL;DR
Game good but very frustrating progression system, maps feel like a dejavu it's like you've seen them before but they're different maps except for a few exception, and questionable balance changes that feels like it's trying to cater towards more arcade-y style gameplay with allowing weapons to have more accuracy full-autoing at further ranges.

Hopefully, the challenges will be adjusted in future to be less specific and doesn't feel like you're trolling while doing them and make it more like natural thing that players will do normally while playing the game. especially challenges to unlock gadgets and weapons, if it's for specific rare cosmetic it's understandable but not for gameplay elements.

Will leave this as a not recommended for now or get it on sale, but if the devs can address all the issues quickly then it is recommended.

Very useful tool when you are playing retro games to upscale them to be less blurry but it won't work wonders like just downloading a HD texture mod, it is still good enough, the frame gen tech is also useful on games that don't have built-in frame gen supports and has FPS lock at 60fps (e.g. Elden Ring) to make the motion looks smoother on high refresh rate monitors.

Recommend getting this software if you play lots of old classics or retro games or games that has FPS cap lock but since it works more like an overlay instead of in-game support features, you will notice artifacting on U.I/HUDS and when moving around places with lots of lines textures.(grass,walls with lots of textures or bars etc)

Would recommend getting this game at a much later date, if you have the patience to keep track with performance updates unless you have a decent PC to run it well and not have monsters and NPCs becoming origami, but don't expect 100+ FPS on a decent PC without frame gen even when the graphic fidelity of the game does not look like it should be that demanding. If you are more patience, just wait for the expansion/more title updates for more contents before making the decision to purchase the game, as the current contents can be exhausted pretty quickly.

Gameplay wise, the Hunters got even more power crept since World, powerlevel seems to be somewhere in between World and Rise as the game feels like a parry city, the game pace is close to Rise where the hunters can constantly keep attacking the monsters with parries/offset, perfect guards and perfect dodges built-in most of the weapon's kit, hence less positioning is needed compare to much older titles of Mon-Hun as the most optimal efficient way is practicing parry/offset, perfect guard, perfect dodge to be able to keep attacking the monster without moving an inch unless it does a unblockable move which is rare, there's lots of adjustment on weapons that seems to patch up the holes of opening/flaws for commitment on using certain big moves that just allows you to cancel them or transition into safer moves/options which in older games players require to play around the flaws and opening when using the big attacking moves, this might be a good thing that the combat movement flows better, but also kind of bad where there's lesser skill expression in committing once used to be risky big reward attacking move that which now can be made incredibly safer with close to no penalty.

The grind got adjusted where getting materials for armors and basic decoration has sped up a ton(especially when you reach HR100 which lets you craft every 1 and 2 slots decorations possible except for 3 slots and combination decos), which can make the game feels there's less content to do especially most of the end game is trying to find high value Tempered Apex Monsters(which there are 6 of them but you'll most likely see Arkveld 99% of the time while others barely exist even though Arkveld is suppose to be a rare species lol, tho there's more variety than base Mon-Hun World end game before Iceborne and title updates, where it was mostly the same Elder Dragon skeletons + Kirin) pairing with another monsters for higher rewards to farm for the slot machine end game weapon for the best RNG roll on it and for perfect combination decorations. There's still fashion layer armors grinding, I guess. But currently there's no layered weapons yet.

As of currently on launch, game is lacking a real "siege" monster, there is 1 sort of siege monster but the fight feels like a normal hunt with just more environmental damage you can inflict on the monster but it doesn't have the same epic feeling of fighting a colossal monster with ballistas, cannons or climbing on it etc.

The menu is incredibly cluttered, but you can make your own sub-menus for the only few options that you tab into often. but do be warn when you press start and witness multiple tabs and pages of sub-menus.

Overall decent Mon-Hun, it is a different pace compared to older titles unless you come from Generation Ultimate/Rise, content do be lacking as of currently but it has a little more variety of monsters compare to base game World's end game and 1st title update is coming by April with another new monster to hunt, probably still won't be enough contents. So, if you're gonna blast through the game, it is better to wait for a few more title updates before purchasing or wait for the expansion in future, maybe the game performance will get optimized by then.

Wish there's an option for giving a "it's just okay" instead of only Yes or No recommendation for reviews since the game has decent amount of good things about it but also has flaws as well that players mentioned from previous game wanted to be improved for this game but it didn't get addressed completely. Players that didn't experienced the previous game before this wouldn't know the problems and it'll be enjoyable for them as their entry to Dragon's Dogma; that's the split review you'll see mostly among players, which I won't discuss too much difference between the 2 game, anyway.

If you're coming from Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, this game is lacking in contents as like Dragon's Dogma 1 base version without the Dark Arisen expansion and combat got a little "streamlined"; there's lesser skills buttons now from 6(for most classes in DDDA/DD1 except a couple) to 4, but you have other buttons that wasn't useful in the previous game made to compensate with basic skills that you would normally have 100% of the time from the previous game like the Mage has close range party Heal by default without needing to sacrifice a skill slot unless you want to take a range heal, Armor slots got reduced as Devs deemed that it will give better variety which doesn't make sense since there's lesser options of gears to make your character or your pawn look different or even slightly different even with end game gears, as now the end game gear is just the entire armor slot or boots slots without the inner wears option to change your shirt and pants to be chain mail chest or mail pants or leather pants or clothes etc. Hence, to fashion you will sacrifice lots of stats loss in this game but fortunately the game doesn't scale well mid-game and beyond which makes gears scales too well in destroying bosses too quickly through out the game.
This game focuses mostly on Quality of Life(well not all the problems from previous game was solved, some wasn't even a problem but was introduced and patched later on)
and more on tiny details(some might like it and some might not, like characters have turning animation now instead of instantly flip towards the direction you want to look at which can cause movement to feel little heavy than the previous game)
than most other stuffs that DD1/DDDA players were requesting for a long time, so players with previous game experience may be unsatisfied with this game direction, but we can still hope for an expansion or DLC to provide more contents and possibly fix the issues that the players wanted since the previous game, right? **huffs copium**

But if this is your entry to the Dragon's Dogma series, it's a good game to get immerse in if you're looking for a game to just chill and just go out on an adventure with up to 3 A.I companions(or solo if you want to) on a slow walk across the plains, into dense forest, desert villages, camps and deep caves finding whats lurking deep within. It also has really satisfying combat when you land those beefy hits on bosses weakspots and cool execution from finishing and counter blocking enemies, but all that aside the game has some progression issues which I'll explain it down below.

Main story can be a little lackluster but it's the kind of game where you take your time to adventure out into the wilderness to explore every nook and cranny, discover secret quests or caves or extra routing through an abandoned dungeon etc. Also you always want to double/triple check each NPCs if they have new quests as the game doesn't give you a chain quest all the time or they might have a different prerequisite to start up a new quest. this is 1 part of the game where players can miss a lot of side contents and can possibly even get the game done in 1-2 days. best advice is just take it slow, chill down, you're not making an IGN review video on a deadline, just go on an adventure.
(consider if you don't look at guides on 1st playthrough or try to keep it at a minimum to not ruined the immersion of discovery, but please do remember where you found your 1st seekers token.)

Loots can be a little disappointing as most of the best items can be bought from shop in towns(of course not immediately at the 1st town but at different towns and much later town usually have the best gears) or by a certain end game npc that is part of the main story anyway, theres only a couple unique loots from certain chest in the world that will quickly get replaced with better stuff unless its for fashion.

There are severe class/vocations balancing issues but it's mostly a problem that a new player will face at the start, not so for players that will mess around with options, players that starts out with the Thief can very easily mow down bosses and scenario bosses that usually other classes can't take down at the early stage quickly or not meant to take down til a much later stage of the story, or if you obtain the Mystic Spearhand early and level that up, you get access to practically God Mode if you keep the shield up. basically this is 1 of the factor that splits new players apart from game being difficult or extremely easy literally right at the beginning of the game as most of the starter classes don't do much damage at early stage of the game and will take the players a decent amount of time to kill the bosses they meet early on, while Thief will mow down the bosses as soon as they get a skill call "Helm Splitter/Skull Splitter".(they even have a God Mode of their own later on, but that's for you to go discovery it without spoiling too much.)
but the balance discrepancy is mostly at early ranks/levels of the classes, it's mostly an issues with power spike with Thief gaining an incredible skill at really early levels which shreds everything til end game. but every class will perform well at much later levels, just much slower power spike compare to Thief.

Progression/Pacing is a big problem with this game, If you didn't start out with the busted class; Thief, during the 1st 1-30/40 levels(depends if you found new upgrades for gears in different towns) everything gives some challenges and doesn't die in less than 15-20 seconds even if you climb on the bosses or trip them over or cast a big spell on them etc, but once you get to a point pass level 30/40 and got the "mid-tier" gears from the shop, everything gets shredded down quickly and it remains the same through out the game aside from a couple bosses requires elemental hits to damage them instead of physical hits. The game became really easy very quickly and loses the sense of danger in adventure aside from a couple scenarios. This remains to be a problem with New Game+ as New Game+ doesn't scale-up the enemies, so everything gets destroy right from the beginning.
Which we can hope that 1 day the devs will give us options to replay New Game+ without scaling up the enemies for players that wants to complete quests or activities that they missed out on their 1st playthrough and a different version of New Game+ that scales the enemies up, so our new end game gears don't destroy the enemies without even upgrading the gears, for players that wants more challenges and still enjoying the game for the time being while waiting for possible future contents to release.
Please do not release the similar "hard mode" as the previous game, that only increases health of the monsters and increases stamina consumption on the players, increases health is fine but at least some attack pattern adjustments for the bosses or it's frequency of attacks would change things up a bit for players looking for challenges, if introducing new move sets to only hard mode bosses is not an option, as for stamina consumption increase from previous game "hard mode", players shouldn't be punished to play harder difficulty but should be challenged instead.

"How, how did they think that was okay to put it in the game?!? that I'm so sick of this F-ing company, They're TRASH! FIX THE GAME! IT SUCKS PIECE OF SH*T! and I'm F-ing addicted, so I can't quit!" - Tyler "Big Tonka" 1