I was prepared for some early on port optimization issues. My rig was for the most part able to compensate never dropping below 60FPS. It shouldn't take a 4090 and top tier CPU to do that, however. The next issue, however, is unconscionable. I played the hell out of the original game on console. Later did the same on PC, and then the iterations on top of that. I have really enjoyed the series and its quirky but refreshingly different play style. The save system has always been an odd choice, poorly designed, but mostly functional. With DD2, however, not only did they bring forward with them all of the bad about the old save system, they created a instant game-play losing cliff you can fall off of at just about any point. I spent hours in the game, many hours, I had saved the game manually many times along the way. I had camped many times along the way. I did not use the 2000G inn, due to it being expensive. The game alternative is the camping gear, which is heavy and somewhat expensive but a good choice.. or so I thought. So I survived many battles, developed my vocation to almost maximum, had a great pawn and team.. and end up dying to a seemingly random Saurian spawn. It was fine, though I had saved right? At least I had that one beautiful save point that nothing could screw with right? I had camped.. that's the alternative to the Inn.. so worst case that has my back too, right? Well, NOT RIGHT. I mistakenly chose, after my first wipeout in the game, to reload at my last Inn rest. I figured that would load me at my last camp, but if not, I still had my save game in my back pocket. Well it did NOT take me back to my last camp... it took me to the first time I ever was at an Inn... LEVEL 2, AND it proceeded to save over my ONE save game in the process AUTOMATICALLY. Let me be clear about this, it saved over it AUTOMATICALLY.. And before anyone says it didn't, and that I let it save on exit... no I did not. I VERY deliberately chose the exit back to main menu WITHOUT saving option specifically for this reason. When I did that, and then loaded from what should have been a recent save game (I save every hour or few hours so things like this don't happen) and guess where it loaded me? Back to the same Inn, and back at level 2 where it took me previously.

If you are going to choose to try and be "hard core" but only allowing for one save, you had better be SURE that it works.. and that it works well, as that is the only lifeline a user has to their progress. Hours and hours of careful play and exploration, rewarded with a complete wipe back to level 2, because the game decided to save over my save. This all could have been avoided by simply separating the auto save mechanism and the manual save like so many games have done and continue to do. I did not think much about the cash shop items on release day.. but it's becoming clear that this is in part a cash grab, leveraging a lot of old mechanics, slapping some visual upgrades on them, and putting something out that obviously was not well thought through. This kind of thing should never happen. I'm still a little in disbelief that what happened actually happened, despite extremely careful effort to avoid it. Also my play time is skewed as I left the game running on my game PC while working on another.. but actual playing game time I would still say was about 6 hours or more. Reduced to level 2... As for the saving over my save game... I can't believe that is intentional.. and if the developer is reading any of these reviews at all, I highly suggest that you put this issue up at the top of your list along with the spirit crushing performance problems. Because performance problems or not, if you then let them fall into an even more spirit crushing loss of progression like this you are not just pissing someone off who didn't want to pay for a bad optimization and have them turn away. You are then pissing off the people that stayed with you despite that, and adding insult to injury.. Seemingly confirming that CAPCOM may have fallen so far from grace, they no longer know what it means to have a user experience path during development. Or worse, that they do know, and don't care. Better to focus the devs on building out those cash shop items to maximize those $$ than to work on user experience. I doubt they are reading, and doubt even more responding. If there is a heart beating still in there, and someone tells me at least that they acknowledge and are fixing the problem, I may update my review. As it stands now, however, I simply cannot give this the thumbs up I really wanted to give it.. at least for those who were fans of the previous. For now I stand flabbergasted and saddened to see another franchise have the deliberate care that made them special be ripped out of them and milked for whatever profit can still be gained from the dwindling spirit left behind. I hope to be proved wrong, however, likely I will not be.

I was prepared for some early on port optimization issues. My rig was for the most part able to compensate never dropping below 60FPS. It shouldn't take a 4090 and top tier CPU to do that, however. The next issue, however, is unconscionable. I played the hell out of the original game on console. Later did the same on PC, and then the iterations on top of that. I have really enjoyed the series and its quirky but refreshingly different play style. The save system has always been an odd choice, poorly designed, but mostly functional. With DD2, however, not only did they bring forward with them all of the bad about the old save system, they created a instant game-play losing cliff you can fall off of at just about any point. I spent hours in the game, many hours, I had saved the game manually many times along the way. I had camped many times along the way. I did not use the 2000G inn, due to it being expensive. The game alternative is the camping gear, which is heavy and somewhat expensive but a good choice.. or so I thought. So I survived many battles, developed my vocation to almost maximum, had a great pawn and team.. and end up dying to a seemingly random Saurian spawn. It was fine, though I had saved right? At least I had that one beautiful save point that nothing could screw with right? I had camped.. that's the alternative to the Inn.. so worst case that has my back too, right? Well, NOT RIGHT. I mistakenly chose, after my first wipeout in the game, to reload at my last Inn rest. I figured that would load me at my last camp, but if not, I still had my save game in my back pocket. Well it did NOT take me back to my last camp... it took me to the first time I ever was at an Inn... LEVEL 2, AND it proceeded to save over my ONE save game in the process AUTOMATICALLY. Let me be clear about this, it saved over it AUTOMATICALLY.. And before anyone says it didn't, and that I let it save on exit... no I did not. I VERY deliberately chose the exit back to main menu WITHOUT saving option specifically for this reason. When I did that, and then loaded from what should have been a recent save game (I save every hour or few hours so things like this don't happen) and guess where it loaded me? Back to the same Inn, and back at level 2 where it took me previously. If you are going to choose to try and be "hard core" but only allowing for one save, you had better be SURE that it works.. and that it works well, as that is the only lifeline a user has to their progress. Hours and hours of careful play and exploration, rewarded with a complete wipe back to level 2, because the game decided to save over my save. This all could have been avoided by simply separating the auto save mechanism and the manual save like so many games have done and continue to do. I did not think much about the cash shop items on release day.. but it's becoming clear that this is in part a cash grab, leveraging a lot of old mechanics, slapping some visual upgrades on them, and putting something out that obviously was not well thought through. This kind of thing should never happen. I'm still a little in disbelief that what happened actually happened, despite extremely careful effort to avoid it. Also my play time is skewed as I left the game running on my game PC while working on another.. but actual playing game time I would still say was about 6 hours or more. Reduced to level 2... As for the saving over my save game... I can't believe that is intentional.. and if the developer is reading any of these reviews at all, I highly suggest that you put this issue up at the top of your list along with the spirit crushing performance problems. Because performance problems or not, if you then let them fall into an even more spirit crushing loss of progression like this you are not just pissing someone off who didn't want to pay for a bad optimization and have them turn away. You are then pissing off the people that stayed with you despite that, and adding insult to injury.. Seemingly confirming that CAPCOM may have fallen so far from grace, they no longer know what it means to have a user experience path during development. Or worse, that they do know, and don't care. Better to focus the devs on building out those cash shop items to maximize those $$ than to work on user experience. I doubt they are reading, and doubt even more responding. If there is a heart beating still in there, and someone tells me at least that they acknowledge and are fixing the problem, I may update my review. As it stands now, however, I simply cannot give this the thumbs up I really wanted to give it.. at least for those who were fans of the previous. For now I stand flabbergasted and saddened to see another franchise have the deliberate care that made them special be ripped out of them and milked for whatever profit can still be gained from the dwindling spirit left behind. I hope to be proved wrong, however, likely I will not be.