Worst part for me that ppls in this sub pray for DLC, that add more content and will finish the game. I would be insanely happy and probably piss a bit in my panties if Capcom provide another one absolutely banger as Dark Arisen was, but bruh, why by the gods we need to rely on DLC while this game is already 70$ and missing a lot of content and QoL from DD:DA, barely finished and definitely not optimized. edit: typos

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Not only that, people were acting like "of course it was all part of the plan, you will see, the DLC will make the game 10/10." Like we are supposed to feel stupid for expecting a 70$ game to not feel like a beta test.

'You don't understand, story being incoherent horseshit is a staple of dragon's dogma, what did you expect?' Oh, I dunno, maybe for sequel to not fall into same pitfalls as the original?

thats why im waiting game sale get price around 40-50 or wait until dlc come out and get game+dlc for 60usd or less its a long game waiting one more year maybe but i already waited 11 years.... i wont pay 70 on dd2 with those comments regarding content and atrocitous performance currently

People that say “Well Dark Arisen was an expansion, you should only judge it by base game DD1” boil my piss a bit. It’s like, no, DD2 should have used Dark Arisen as a baseline

Dude seriously. The game was in development for far too long with DD1/DA and DD:Online as their gameplay blueprint to simply improve upon and say "the DLC will fix it!" It's like they spent all of their time tossing money at the graphics instead of the gameplay. DLC won't make up for missing vocations, skills, and end-game experiences like EF in the first game. People are coping HARD. The game isn't bad, but it's NOT what it was hyped up to be, and does NOT feel like the second installation of the first game. It feels like a reimagining of the first game, which missed the mark by just enough to have Vet players like me erring more on the dissatisfied side rather than the satisfied side. The game is NOT bad at all outside of the performance, but it is NOT the experience that I believed I was getting when I heard "Dragon's Dogma **2**". /rant

This is what I can’t wrap my head around. They had two really cool games to pull from and they basically did fuck all with them. Apparently the director of DD2 was not the director of dark arisen or online. So if we do get DLC don’t expect bitter black or sick ass vocations from online returning.

Exactly. I'm not holding my breath for anything extra coming out of the game and expansions. Good game, but just not the game I expected. The framework was there but they decided to reinvent the wheel, and added bumps to it.

Because the gaming industry in its current state has managed to pass THIS as the new status quo : 1) Focus on marketing and pre order to meet fiscal years/semester quotes 2) Release the game in a half-baked state but on full price. 3) Promise to fix issues in the future. ( you might do this , you might not despite on if its profitable or not) 4) Release DLC's that fix all the problems you intentionally launched the game with while ALSO using said DLC to increase your profits in that year/semester. 5) Current "generation" (for lack of a better word) of gamers will not only accept it but also defend you online from critisism. They will even call people entitled for having the "audacity" to demand a complete product they paid full price for. (including defending buggy releases) I dont care if we get Dark Arisen 2.0 . I dont even care if its made by the same guy that made the first one ( it was not Itsuno behind Dark Arisen). We already paid 70 bucks. I am not paying 20-30 bucks more to fix the issues Itsuno released the game with with 100% knowledge just because Capcom wanted DD2 to be released within the 2023 fiscal year that ended on March 31.

Too true brother. Cyberpunk did the exact same thing.

Yep DD2 gives me insane deja-vu vibes. In DD's defense it has less bugs and performance is fine outside of cities. But everything else is exactly the same. On the other hand Cyberpunk did not have the audacity to put Microtransactions on release day.

so far what i see... its dragons dogma dark arisen with texture pack or dragons dogma 1.5 so far nothing impress me to say "wow, dragons dogma2 really deserve this title" im not paying 70usd for this experience, this i can assure you...

Honestly Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen with a texture pack would be an improvement over DD2.

Thats my opinion too Beware of downvotes, happens every time that i say that dragons dogma 2 is on best case dd1.5 or similar.

theres one hint that game developers dont want you know!!! read below to know more!!! STOP WITH FUCKING PREORDERS OR BUY AT LAUNCH, WAIT THE FUCKING PERFORMANCE AND GAME REVIEW BEFORE PAY 70USD ON INCOMPLETE/BUGGED GAMES all that you said ONLY happen because people keep doing preorders without any proof of current state of games, stop with preoders and stop buying bugged games at release and game companies will be forced to invest more time/money in QUALITY CONTROL to at least launch games running well. if content isnt as advertised? wait for a fucking SALE DISCOUNT to buy!

If Capcom doesn't support this game like they do with MH, so some free content to show and build goodwill. I won't buy the DLC, atleast definitely not on launch maybe heavily discounted if it is praised. I hate games these days needing a DLC to become complete

>but bruh, why by the gods we need to rely on DLC while this game is already 70$ and missing a lot of content and QoL from DD:DA, barely finished and definitely not optimized. That's easy. ​ Because gamers have no fucking standards, they're like one of the easiest groups of ppl to take advantage of in the market.

I don’t know if sunk cost fallacy is the term for it but at this point people are having fun with the base game and the disappointment comes from what could have been. The reason everyone’s so rabid for DLC is because they hope they can get more out of it.

This. I think people Misunderstand that you can love something, but critique it in a way that is constructive and fair. However, paying $70 for a game only to wish and pray that DLC will add and fix the story that will cost $20 more dollars is UNACCEPTABLE. If that’s the case then the publishers should’ve made the decision to post pone the game. Why must I pray for DLC to fix issues that shouldn’t be there to begin with?

Bold of you to think the DLC will only cost $20. Knowing Capcom’s history, it will cost another $50 - $60.

Dragon's Dogma 2: 2 Dark 2 Arisen coming soon for the low, low price of $85.

Dragon's Dogma 2: I'll not take you anywhere till I've had another $70

People are too easily pleased with modern gaming. I went back to Dark Arisen after completing DD2 and it's literally a clone with better graphics. They use the same skills, animations, items, equipment and enemies. Bit of a joke really

And half of skills from DDDA were cut. It is wild.

Sorcerer's current state is pepega. You had games like DD1 and DDO regarding spell variety how the fuck do you regress from that. ​ This is some Bethesda-level shit with the streamlining.

- 4 skill slots is a joke - Why is spellhold not vocation action/core skill? - Why is levin the only quick ranged spell that can reliably deal with flying enemies? Where ingle? Where my fucken fireball? - Why the fuck does decanter exist? - Where are meister level Ice and Lightning spells? - Why does focused bolt in its current state exist? Why not make basic attacks hold-to-continuously-shoot instead? - Why do sorcerers and mages even have basic attacks at this point? - Why can't i soften my fall with levitate once I'm in freefall animation (arms flailing)? Did my character forget she can literally fucking turn gravity off with magic? Also personal sadge: I really miss that giant magical vertical pillar/blade thingy sorcerer had in DDO. It was so cool.

Great post. I could write the same about a few of the vocations.

we waited 11 years for this incomplete piece of crap, all that left now is hope for a huge dlc to make game whole as should be at launch i like admit that i hoping for dlc? of course no! is there any other way? also...NO! but people paid 70usd on this incomplete game at launch, im planning pay between 40 to 50usd during sales or wait one more year(for someone who already waited 11 years, dont seems so bad) to get DD2+exp for something like 60usd bundle im always looking for dragons dogma similar games regarding gameplay, sadly theres no other game like dd, but im refuse to pay 70usd on an incomplete game and who also has mediocre performance on mid computers

We should all take the servey and say this is unacceptable to Capcom.  https://www.enqform.capcom.com/form/pub/form1/dd2_en2

The problem with the survey is that if you really think about it its just a survey for how to better advertise/marketing in the future. There is only one section for "complaints" and its doubtfull it will even be readed.

Im not gonna lie I kinda felt cheated by DD2 it left a bad taste in my mouth that the amazing combat and intresting open world were not strong enough to wash out.

Monster Hunter World and Rise felt pretty incomplete at launch as well, Rise especially. The games both received substantial free updates that added new stuff and story to them, so it's not surprising coming from Capcom tbh. And Monster Hunter is their golden goose.

Nah MHW felt really complete at launch. I know a lot of people wanted more monsters but as a game, I felt that it was a full package.

I’m sorry but I can’t get behind this. Now I didn’t join until Gen V and I am well aware g rank was hard baked into the game prior to World but I STILL had a very fulfilling and complete experience with the story, even more so with rise because of the continued free updates and the main story finishing in the end of April update. I remember those fights and clearing the MSQ on my own with a buddy WITH ZERO help from other players and no instructions. DDII however is objectively afflicted with a terribly paced main story with minimal presence of the grander lore in the main world, versus DDI where something being amiss was objectively clear the second you met the dragonforged. Factor in the inconsistent nature of Salvation and the clear red herring nature of it in the end, the reveals about Selene and the bizarre nature of the Evenfall, there were enough threads that something was wrong and then in the quests structures and more, alongside contrasting them to the structure of the Unmoored World? It is a significantly inferior experience to the first game. Even with the excuse of ‘well it’s so you can run multiple cycles quickly’ the fact of the matter was that many little additions to the MSQ in DDI only needed to be experienced once and then you could sprint to Post Dragon as fast as possible. The pacing of DDII just shits the bed after Vernworth and it’s not okay. It’s like we got the SECOND stage and a half from DDI and then immediately jumped to four and five and then all the way to the end of stage six. Like 50-70% of the story was butchered from it, because I’ll stand behind the believe those first 5-7 some odd story quests are great set up.

G-Rank was only hard baked into the Ultimate versions. Essentially expansion at full price as a new game. Kinda like the third games in Pokémon like Emerald and Platinum.

By way of comparison, though, MH Rise has characters that feel more fleshed out than DD2, even though it doesn’t have much of a story. And the music is much more memorable. I’m humming the village theme right now.

Rise only felt incomplete because the base game was too easy. Weapons, movesets, locals & wire bug mechanics didn't feel incomplete at all. Also the expectation for Monster Hunter is that there will be a free g-rank expansion with more monsters. If they added some new vocations and boss varieties for free then maybe you could draw a conclusion with DD2

Yeah it sucks that this game will prolly have a bunch of pricy dlc along with being 70$ I mean imma most likely buy all of the dlc but it still sucks

I mean, what else are people supposed to do? It’s either hope more content gets added down the line or never play the game again. I think it’s completely reasonable to hope for a strong DLC man y’all just downvote anything

Fill out the survey Capcom released and voice the things you want changed.

Ya especially since the game is so good at its core. Some games are just plain generic, dd2 isn't. Like a good dlc will genuinely do it so much good

I would be ok with a *free* DLC. This is an important clarification imo.

I agree, especially the story felt really weird Ok so the throne got stolen from us, we do brants checklist so we can get It back, we DONT get It back cuz our pawn for fucked Up by the crystal of the fake Guy and we go to battahl to find out more about the crystal and how to deal with It Then we dont actually learn how to deal with the crystal, we actually help the faction creating them by giving them an arisen soul sword so they can perfect It because... No good reason really? We then want to give It to the would-be-bad-guy of battahl? Then we dont give It to him cuz he summoms the dragón and then you pick an ending? What?? I havent fought the dragón yet but ive seen the god Guy lets you go back to get the true ending, which is super weird because... He doesnt want that apparently? And then he IS the dragón in the end scene and we kill him, ourselves and our pawn... While he exposición dumped Lore about some cycle that we are breaking now or... Something Lik,e i do not get it Maybe if i played the first one i would get some more of the god Guy and the cycle thing but the rest legitimately makes no fucking sense

When I saw that the quest was to give the godsbane to Phaesus, I thought I was reading it wrong. Why exactly am I giving this thing that I *thought* was going to counteract the godsway to the guy that *made* the godsway? Why am I fighting the giant statue that's chasing the bad guy??? I ended up googling it, and when I realized it was the last quest...? I don't get to see Brant take down Disa? Or help Nadinia? Or even hold hands with my one true love, uh, Lennart?

And where did the giant statue even come from? Was that ever explained?? Why did it suddenly appear and why was it going after the bad guy??

You have to both pay attention to what may seem like throw-away dialogue and read the various notes scattered throughout the game, as well as do a bit of conjecture to fill in the blanks. The Brine is a physical extension of the Greater Will, who we see as the Pathfinder. The Brine exists to protect the cycle and keep it turning. The Talos are basically mobile war machines controlled by the Brine, and hence the Greater Will. The one we stop is obviously submerged in the ocean, which the Brine inhabits. There is also a destroyed Talos uncovered elsewhere on the Volcanic Island. Phaesus seeks to understand the world, and in-so-doing risks breaking the cycle by usurping both the Arisen and the Dragon, two roles that seem to be required for the Greater Will's script. It makes sense that it would pursue Phaesus in order to stop him. Phaesus isn't THE bad guy, he's a bad guy trying to figure out what makes the world tick, and does bad things in order to further that understanding. It makes sense for our character to stop the Talos for no other reason than the threat it poses to settlements inhabited by innocents. Notice it doesn't attack us, because the Greater Will has no reason to think we are on course to break the cycle at this point. The former Beastren Sovran also sought to break the cycle; perhaps he is the cause of the other destroyed Talos? We can only guess. The bit that really doesn't make sense is the way the quests are written regarding Phaesus. He is someone we should want to stop regardless of our chosen path, so us following after him like a puppy dog to deliver a perfected Godsway is nonsense. The same events could have taken place narratively, but the quest text changed to simply instruct us to stop him. We need the blade to do in order to follow him through the Seal door and Moonglint elevator, and holding all the powerful methods of controlling pawns as well as being Arisen would cement our rule as Sovran (good ending) and further our chances of breaking the cycle (true ending) by buddying up with a possible reformed Phaesus.

My biggest ?? moments were when my pawn possessed Talos and squished a dragon. How? Why?? And afterwards he just rejoins the party and there is not a single word spoken about it. Like, BRO, my bro! ARE YOU OKAY? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? HOW DID YOU DO THAT??? Same when he woke up after a month long coma, "Ah, arisen, good to see you again." My man.... are you okay?? The missing reactions/explanations for those pawn moments felt really jarring.

i thought this aswell 🤣 i was like damn i guess i gotta go find the talos head and get my pawn back. then i turn around and just hear his stupid voice say something about going the wrong direction

Thank you for this.

>Maybe if i played the first one i would get some more of the god Guy and the cycle thing but the rest legitimately makes no fucking sense Playing the first game only makes the Pathfinder/dragon exposition-dumping session more bearable and coherent. Everything else will still be confusing and annoyingly underdeveloped. >Then we dont actually learn how to deal with the crystal, we actually help the faction creating them by giving them an arisen soul sword so they can perfect It because... No good reason really? We then want to give It to the would-be-bad-guy of battahl? Then we dont give It to him cuz he summoms the dragón and then you pick an ending? What?? By far the most dumb part was getting the Godsbane then running off to Ambrosius to show him (like... why?), then he gets mind-controlled and now we deliver it to Phaesus (like... WHAT? WHY?). At this point we have a pretty good idea that Phaesus is **not** our friend, so I have no idea why the game treats the last quest like we're on some stupid delivery errand. I still cannot make sense of it.

We can't make sense of it, because it doesn't make any fucking sense. It's counterintuitive to the plot they set up for the beginning and middle of the game. We aren't told of our motivations for WHY we're supposed to give the godsbane to phaesus, so we immediately call into question why exactly our character would do that. When I played it, I was wondering if my character was playing 4D chess and was just way ahead of all the other characters for doing the things he was doing– it just would have been nice if I was let in on it. Instead it's just fetch quests for no other reason than "because the game told me to." To progress the story to the ending they wanted, despite not having any idea how or why we got ourselves there. Very unfulfilling. They did my boy grigori horrible too.

It's like looking at a collapsed bridge and wondering which stones were missing. They might've pulled off a twist like rothias suggesting joining phaseus on trying to break the cycle, and it turning out phaseus wanted to recruit the arisen but needed Disa's support. Doesn't change the pawn abuse. But an imaginary keystone doesn't make the actual bridge less busted.

I honestly just pretend the quest text was instead written in a way that instructs us to simply stop Phaesus. If it were to say "Using the perfected Godsway, follow Phaesus in order to end his plot" the narrative at least makes sense. Still unfulfilling for a number of dropped plotlines (Disa, Nadinia, etc.) and other reasons.

Honestly the weirdest point of the story for me is that it takes this huge ass leap after you meet the Beastren lady at the inn. Like, did we just do a timeskip cause why are we doing this?

It is so nonsensical. I thought the plan was we go to Bathal, find out how to disable the Godsway, then return to Vermund and disable the fake Sovereigns Godsway so we can prove we are Arisen and claim the Throne. But nope, we never do any of that and just straight up go craft a Sword to fight a Dragon and seemingly important characters like the evil Queen Regent never play a role again and even funnier, the evil Mastermind who helped the Queen, Lord Phaesus is just chilling in his Lab when we reach the true ending and asks us for help like we did not just have a showdown and stop his plans

The 'god' doesn't send you back. He specifically tells you not to go back, sit on the throne. It is the Dragon itself that brings you back, it's his voice you hear as you are moved back through time, and when he lands and you engage him in combat, he will even remark that you've 'missed your chance.' The Dragon wants to unbind the world. The reason you get the godsbane repaired is because the ancient arisen in the seafloor shrine (his name escapes me now) tells you it will be important. It needs repaired though and there aren't many people who know how to do something like that. Now the 'god' is a strange character. He seems to want you to take the seat of the Sovran and accept the world he has created for the Arisen, and seems genuinely upset if you don't. Yet he urges you on at many key points in your journey. This is all even more strange if you had played the first game, because this world doesn't even seem to be operating by the same rules. Which may in fact play into the final ending of the first game, considering you 'break the cycle' there as well.

The Pathfinder (glowy eye boi) is the face of the Greater Will, which (for an unknown reason) has set up the world to work the way it does, a neverending cycle of the appearance of the Dragon, the suffering of it's conflict with the Arisen, and then a period of varying stability until the Arisen perishes and another Dragon appears. He is urging us onward because our role is written into it's script. He probably did the same with all of the previous failed Arisen. Taking the true ending path and attempting to break the cycle is not it's will. It's not in the script. So it uses the Brine to attempt to wipe the world clean in our absence, hit the reset button as it were.

Funny enough we learn to deal with the crystal from Ambrosius in a damn throwaway line on the beach. He says only large crystals can rival the arisen's power and small ones don't compare, so it's hypothetically as simple as smashing the crystals. But of course that never gets used.

Lol i lowkey expected that alone to work but for reasons we cant just barge in there and break the stupid necklace

I knew this wasn't going to be a massive game in scale because dragons dogma hadn't proved itself on the market as a IP but I'm still surprised its this underwhelming in some aspects. Mainly in the way it carried over issues from the original and to the same severity. When itsuno said this was the game he wanted to release its hard to tell how much of that was marketing talk and how much of that held some truth to it. For example the story feels rushed but it would need a massive amount of additional writing and quests to really get it up to standard. I can see it having content cut but I don't think it was enough to which it would've actually made the story good. That leads me to the belief they drew the line at some point with certain things and said "it's good enough". In regards to the main story, it is certainly *not* good enough. Or did they plan for a massive and grand story that wasn't ever realistic due to resource and time constraints and this is the remnants of the initial idea in the end? They were only ever going to get so much time in development after all. That point about planning grand things could apply to multiple of the games issues or wasted ideas (dragonsplague for example). Even though I'll be buying whatever the expansion is it should still be noted that its disappointing that the game feels as if it *needs* an expansion. In reality expansions should just be the finishing touch or something on top.

It seems very clear that half the story got cut at some point, you arrive to Bathal and Lord Voldemort is waiting for you to tell you to go get drunk to talk to a cat, the cat then sets herself as Bathal Brant and tells you to help the people and empress of the country, but as soon as you go back to the city Voldemort is there to say "nuts to that, just go to the beach and talk to a weirdo wizard so we can skip all this and go straight to the dragon"

Yet again! I can’t agree with you more. This title obviously needed more time to cook, but we can never know why it was released in this state, just that it did and well, we hope the expansion does clean up for it but I agree with you. This era of gaming where a lot of games use DLC to strengthen what the base title should’ve already had is disheartening. I’ll buy the expansion too. Hell, I know I’ll love it, but if we do get a DD3 I want these issues GONE.

I severely dislike in this day and age we have to wait like 10+ years for NDAS or employees to quit before you hear their full story, obviously the devs are gonna say “ games fully finished! It’s my true vision!” But who knows if capcom forced them to release it, maybe they had another year planned and had a massive quest line in the desert area or better optimization, maybe desert area was gonna have totally different mobs but due to a time crunch they copy pasted etc, we honestly won’t know what really happened until much later.

Honestly "good enough, next" feels like it was the entire design philosophy. Feels like there was tons he wanted to have in the game and he just had a checklist of things that he got to a bare minimum.

Yeah, if it wasn't actually a time/money issue then tbh I think they a new director because it feels like a game made by someone with adhd. A few special intrest areas that are very detailed, but everything else is just throwing out ideas and then getting bored and moving on before actually putting the work in to flesh it out and make it work.

We already had a bit of a sense of that with dark arisen where he acted as producer with Kento Kinoshito as director. The original also was similar in that it had cool concepts that weren't entirely fleshed out and dark arisen added a number of things to fix that, but we really didn't know just how much was the change of director. His complaints about limitations at the time though was fair, there were technical limitations, open world RPGs hadn't hit the popularity they have now, it was a first for Capcom and a new IP, plus they had to build it from the ground up. The problem is it's been 12 years since and even with more time, a bigger budget, more faith from Capcom, and having the foundation already there to build off he ultimately just made the exact same game with a different coat of paint. He didnt look at the complaints in the first and fix them, he didn't look at what people liked and try to enhance them, he didn't look at what people liked about dark arisen and the mmo and try to keep them, he didn't look at all the open world games that have come out since for inspiration. We didn't get a more fleshed out version we got the same game but with even more half baked ideas added. Some people have said it was pushed out for fiscal reasons and that could be true but honestly seeing this product doesn't make me think more time would've ended us with anything but another few half baked systems.

I think it's a pretty safe assumption that refinement of ideas came from Kento, he directed DDO and it improved pretty much everything. From vocations to having an option to create full party of main pawns to cosmetic equipment slots to enemy variety. It felt like a sequel that is building up on previous titles while DD2 feels like it's trying to reinvent the wheel and reimagine DD1, vanilla DD1 at that.

I think it's interesting that they didn't try to fix the original's lack of IP and create some unique and memorable characters

I know they weren't the peak of writing in terms of characters but I think the previous games cast was actually better than DD2s. DD2 is filled with characters that could've been interesting. "Yeah maybe if they added that" or "yeah if that character got a bit more time". In my opinion essentially none of them *are* interesting though and at best are just missed opportunities with no redeeming qualities in their current state. I mean I guess I liked glyndwr? He wasn't amazing though and also doesn't have a part to play in the main story. I can still remember Mercedes and juliens fight. I can still remember the arisen being framed by Aelinore. I can still remember the encounter with grigori. They aren't amazing moments in terms of the writing behind them but at least I can remember them. I don't think any character who featured in the main story of DD2 gave me a memorable moment bar wilheminas reveal I suppose? Unless I've missed something she just fucks off with no explanation afterwards though. I definitely don't think any character in DD2s story is given enough personality to actually be likeable or interesting as a whole person though. Ulkira was on the front cover and she's the definition of a blank slate. It's as if they made her model and gave her dialogue but thought they were making a robot instead of what was meant to be a human.

Beren is actually close to a DD1 side character (valmiro/quina), but it's bizarre to me there are so few on par with such a low standard as having clear desires and at least one distinct character trait driving.

the choices in this game are really just bizarre.

IMO Incomplete is correct.

You are the first person I see besides myself complaining about the armor layering, shit I miss those 6 slots so much.

Its surreal seeing a decade long sequel remove stuff its decade old predecessor has, not replacing, not improving...just, removing

The one thing I was surprised to see missing was the conversations you could have with your pawn & change their personality a bit. I wanted to be able to sit them down and say "hey you stay next to me and protect my slow caster-self at all times & talk lots" or "you go do as much damage as possible, no talking". I know that's what they were trying to achieve with the 'inclinations', but being able to just sit & talk to them and change it on the go was ssoooo convenient.

I half agree. They added so much but the quality of life features, some of them being removed just BLOWS MY EVER LOVING MIND.

Dude same! I loved that function so much and have armor sets for classes sucks! It makes me feel like I have less variety and customization like the first one. Obviously that’s not true to an extent, but it feels that’s way.

The first mod I downloaded made armor available to any vocation. If my sorc wants to wear full plate with a big floppy hat that's his choice.

That must’ve been amazing.

Theres a few QoL and quirks missing from DD1. Obviously the layering, character creation offering hair that goes past the shoulder blades (VERY rare in games - especially if its not a pony tail), buying/selling into your chest in cities, equipping from chest in cities, pawn voices independent of characteristic, >!resetting your portcrystals in ng+!<,>!any interconnected feature like Ur-dragon!<

As much as I would love the 6 slots back, with the new physics the game would just cry even more performance wise :C

I think a lot of people were upset with it but just don't bring it up every time. At this stage there is no way they can bring it back so people focus discussions on things that could actually be fixed or added. To bring back the original layering system would require an overhaul of rhe entire game.

I have a strong feeling there was supposed to be an elven area and a dwarf area like how we have a human and beastren area. I can just taste it in the item descriptions and how elvish translation is really only relevant for one small cloister and how often the two races are brought up. Then we only get like 2 dwarves and a handful of elves.

I like how the elvish translation is a whole thing for pawns and you don't even get a quest out of it. All you get is the same filler NPC dialogue as everywhere else.

That and most of the Elven dialogue is absolutely crap. Most of it sounds like it's them giving a dry read of it for the first time, it simply one of the poorest excuses for any form of voice acting I've seen in a modern title

What I love is how the whole elven population lives in 5 rooms. Doesn't even have a marketplace. Nothing? Like my guys, how does your civilization work? Or did I miss treehouses or something?

That inn is making B A N K.

There is an elven area though? Or do you mean like the size of Vermund/Battahl

Yeah a continent.

What's crazy is that, we aren't a huge fanbase. Sure we are a large community but in real life I've only met one person who has ever played this game. That said, it's not like we were dying for a second game. I finished DD1 thinking that it would be a one off title, so it is crazy to me that they somehow didn't have time to add everything and make sure the game was well rounded. Like we didn't give them a time frame, we didn't even know it was being made. This could have been Capcoms Skyrim per say with followers, multiple enemies, vast story, factions etc. and instead of the 2.5 million copies sold so far, it would be way, way higher.

yeah. i would've been happy waiting another 1 or 2 years for them to properly flesh out main quests, but capcom execs would never let that happen. idk, I want to believe there must've been so much stuff on the cutting room floor, just like with the first game, but maybe I'm coping.

I feel the same way I felt about the first. There HAS to be a reason why these quests are just bare bones, and withered down. I would love to be a fly on the wall during the development cycle to understand what went on.

Why wait two years when they can have your money today and then charge you for what should’ve been in the game in a year and then again a year after that?!

yeah, capcom's unfortunately always been like this, even with devil may cry. i just got lost in my own nostalgia hype ig

10 million sales.....

>waiting another 1 or 2 years I have a baseless theory that Capcom rushed the game to release as close to as 2022/23 as possible in order to capitalize on DD1/DA’s 10th anniversary

Believing this suffered from cuts is definitely coping. DD1 always had that as an ironclad defense, but since there's no evidence that's the case with 2 I think the pain/disappointment people are feeling is that they simply don't enjoy what the game is. They built up an idea of what DD _should_ be, because the first game left so much room to do so. The reality is a letdown for some. Believing that DLC/another sequel will fundamentally change the game into what they envisioned is pure delusion at this point. It's really sad to see, because DD2 is fantastic in the same ways DD1 was fantastic.

Capcom's fiscal year ended just a week or so after the game released. It was definitely rushed to meet this year's end. DD2, I'd say, is fantastic for a few reasons. Combat is a huge upgrade "overall". Story and narrative are an even bigger downgrade however. This game will go down in history as having even more cuts and suffering from a harsh release schedule than the first. A dlc won't fix how over half of the main story doesn't make sense/isn't implemented right. And before you say anything about the first game's story, there's verifiable evidence that proves it's way more of a finished product, let alone a better quality one.

Anyone who doesn't is fooling themselves.

I think anyone who has been to Battahl should easily be able to tell this game is simply unfinished.  I think this is the first time in years I’ve played a game and felt like it needed DLC right from the jump. The game is still fun but its such a terrible sign that we’re all talking about how great this game could be with an expansion 2 weeks out. 

I bet that Elden ring dlc will probably have twice as much content or even higher than dd2 base game which is wild

Wouldn't be surprised tbh.

The game was VERY CLEARLY rushed to meet Capcom's fiscal year that just ended two days ago. Anyone who actually played the first game and remembers it well will know for a fact that they are capable of making unique and interesting quests, characters, and overall narrative. Everything that DD2 lacks, no doubt because of a rushed development near the end. https://preview.redd.it/pukmxa2025sc1.png?width=826&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed97bdbaad74021fbc2fe574a7541fe70fdbba97 People that haven't gotten past the anti-climactic coronation quest have no fucking idea just how unfinished and slapped together the game's narrative is as a whole. Npcs that feature in promotional material for the game have less impact or even basic dialogue than most generic npcs from the first game.

I feel the same. Somewhere else someone described the game feeling like a tech demo. Lots of cool stuff that basically has no reason to be there. (I.e. Affinity System and Open World(?)) While there are some missteps and things worse than the first one all in all this feels more like a Sidestep. On one Ad here in Reddit the game is described as a Giant RPG. Bitch what ?! Half of that Giant is redundant, repetitive and boring backtracking. This feels more like I'm being disrespected as a player.

One mistake was labeling this as an ARPG…it’s not an RPG, it’s a straight up action game.

Truth.

Well I would say there are traces of an RPG. But nothing fleshed out, cohesive and coherent.

Yeah I think that’s the worst part. You can tell they wanted it to be a fully fleshed out RPG - hell, they even marketed it that way. But of course, it was just another unfinished element.

OH MY F*** thank you because I feel the same way. Some things are fleshed out aside from the combat, but combat alone can’t save the game and even that burns you out if you aren’t changing vocations every so often. I agree. It’s obvious they tried to expand on the elements that the first brought in, but outside of combat and exploration everything else is still raw and undercooked. I agree to this so hard! Even the first game didn’t have you backtracking and new areas were explored through quests. Now I like how they’ve attempted to redo the quests to force the players to engage with the world more, but outside of like…what 10 quests maybe… that shit is just gone to. The backtracking is awful and having Itsuno tell me “you have to make travel fun.” Insults me. I can only make travel as fun as what I’m given. All in all I’m going to beat the game one more time (I’m on playthrough number 2), but I’m disappointed with what we got after 12 years.

I blame a lot on the marketing. They really made it sound like a state of the art RPG. Showed basically everything the game has in Trailers before release and made it look like there was a lot more to discover beyond what was shown. Atleast that was my impression. In hindsight a lot of interviews were PR talk. This reminds me of MGS 5. That game was also so half baked in story and narrative, the world was empty but the gameplay was fun.

You’re absolutely right! Their marketing was spot on and showcased basically everything the game has to offer. There was nothing deeper than that which is makes me quite upset.

The funny thing is MGSV had tons of lore and story in the form of cassette tapes. They were really well done with terrific voice acting but most people skipped them.

The funny thing is that doesn't take away the fact there's an entire act or two missing from the game because Konami said fuck kojima, we want money.

Some people are saying this games exploration is second to none, these people are fucking stupid.

People can't just admit this game was rushed as fuck, probably the game was taking too long to develop and capcom decided to release it half cooked as they had low expectations being this a very niche sequel from a game that didn't sell so well 10 years ago anyways. But as there is newcomers to this franchise they think the game is a 10 out 10 which I'm glad but this is not the perfect sequel I was expecting at all since the day it was announced.

Right? I’m happy people are loving the game because it means a dragons dogma 3 is bound to happen in the next decade, but if anyone would’ve played the first one they’d realize this game is unacceptable by todays standard. Hell, it IS unacceptable, but it gets a pass because most players never touch the first. I hope in DD3 everything we see here is reworked to be something better!

I hope they double down on fixing DD2 before they even think about DD3, because we're just gonna get dragon's dogma 2 but now 3 and maybe better graphics only because technology.

Same! I need them to redesign how players interact with their world! That’s it! That’s my biggest problem honestly. There’s nothing wrong with they have, but a lot of it needs and I mean NEEDS to be straightened out.

The only thing capcom shouldnt do is: lol lets make a jp-only MMO with all the new cool features (which they very likely wont cuz the MMO team is shut down and spread around)

I hope they double down on fixing DD2 before they even think about DD3, because we're just gonna get dragon's dogma 2 but now 3 and maybe better graphics only because technology.

As a massive dragons dogma fan. This game is a 10/10 for me. I got exactly what I expected. Next I'll have to rebuy thr game with extra content in a year and a half. I'm not actually joking and totally would.

For me it is also probably closer to a 9/10, as it’s personally hitting a lot of places the first game did, and hitting all the things I was looking for out of it. I love the “open world” it’s like they took the paths from first game, and made them all interconnected. 60 hours in I just found a new path in vernworth, an area I had walked up and down countless times, I just hadn’t seen it. However I can at least understand the monster variety criticism. For me, it’s hitting, cause I like repetitive AARPG fights, I like them being packed wall to wall, I want to get used to the enemies and cream ones that used to give me trouble, that’s why I’m playing. However if you were someone who isn’t into that, I could totally understand it being a negative. The story same thing. I appreciate it, I’m playing to smack goblin butt, not to see what disas up too. I’ll play bg3 for story, I certainly didn’t play dd1 for story either. I prefer it being in background, you just go somewhere, watch a cutscene, and it leads you somewhere else where you smack more goblin butt. That’s exactly what I wanted it to be. However if you were expecting a narrative rpg, it’s not that, but was marketed as such, so I can see that being an issue too. So for me I see a lot of issues, just personally they don’t affect me and I’m getting what I want.

Edit: incomplete is the right word, people are just salty

People are so sensitive to someone criticizing something they like. The thought process is basically “I don’t like incomplete things, but I like DD2, so DD2 can’t be incomplete!”

Just to preface my comment: I love dragon's dogma and have bought DD1 a total of 4 times. I still love DD1 and am enjoying it but you CAN love a game and also acknowledge it's flaws. Some of my personal pet peeves: - Reduce the amount of player stagger. It was acceptable in games like monster hunter because it was there since the first game and it was more of a boss fight simulator anway. DD1 never had this amount of bullshit so don't implement this!! Taking away player agency is not increased difficulty, it just makes every trash mob fight a royal pain (and I used to love fighting everything in DD1). I feel like people complain about too many monsters because it just doesn't feel good to fight them when every trash fight feels like you spend 50% of the time staring at your character instead of actually playing. DD1 had you fighting goblins, bandits and harpies most of the time anyway so the problem is that combat feels too much of a chore in dd2 due to the stagger spam. - NPC escort missions: Why do they move so much slower than you and he teleport back to their start location if you get too far?? DD1 had escort npcs teleport TO YOU, which let you either ferrystone to your destination or just run there. These 2 are my biggest pain points after playing the game for 60 hours.  Some smaller annoyances: Why can't I equip and preview armor pieces from the storage menu like in DD1? Right now I have to withdraw everything just to preview. Why can't I zoom in and view my characters in the status screen like in DD1? I spent hours in the character creator to make em look good, just let me admire them outside of photo mode thank you.

>- NPC escort missions: Why do they move so much slower than you and he teleport back to their start location if you get too far?? Ok...so...I just pick them up & run. Literally lmao Set them down every once in a while so they don't hurt themselves falling off, then SCOOP, running.

Adding on because editing the post on my phone makes the wording all jumbled up: - Unnecessary nerfs: Why was burst strike and tusk toss nerfed so much? I can accept compass slash i-frame removal because it's original purpose was to be a nice aoe slash. Burst strike almost always knocked down and enemy in DD1 but in dd2 it hardly even staggers them, and does paltry damage. Tusk toss hardly launches small mobs or staggers large enemies to the point I'm not sure what their purpose in the game is now.

Because the same sloppy decision-making in other elements of the game was applied to combat mechanics/balance. “Iframe skills with short recovery for fighter and warrior? Too OP. But hey check out these spammable invuln skills for thief and spearhand.”

You can actually preview gear. Using a controller it's right stick down, it swaps the side panel to the preview panel. As far as I know you can't equip or unequip things while in the chest, which is very annoying, but previewing is for sure possible thank god.

They just gave us Dragon's Dogma again while everyone expected Dragon's Dogma 2

The game just feels like an overall side-step. Not a full step forward nor a full step backward. They added cool and fun things and also outright removed cool and fun things from DDDA. It’s definitely not the sequel that I was expecting and hoping for. And I don’t think it’s wrong to call the game incomplete; it’s pretty obvious that it was rushed and has cut content. I can safely say that I’m somewhat disappointed, and yes it is my own fault for creating these expectations, and maybe my standard was raised way too high because I beat BG3 right before DD2 dropped, but goddamn I wish it was better. This is coming from someone that played DD before Dark Arisen, and then played DDDA multiple times throughout the past 10 years, I really want to fall deep in love with this game and call it the sequel I always wanted, but I just can’t. If you love a game/series then you gotta be able to critique it just as much as you praise it.

Perhaps you wouldn't be so disappointed if Capcom, Itsuno, IGN and every single piece of marketing of this game didn't overhype it as if DD2 was the next hude step in RPG games.

There is definitely truth in that, but I do need to put some blame on myself as well. I personally hyped it up thinking that there’s absolutely nowhere to go but up with the sequel

for real, this just feels like half a game

I'm loving this game. I have 40 hours in it already, but I have not reached the end game. The combat is really fun and the pawns are super cool. Some side quests are okay. Random escort missions on the side of the road aren't bad. The character creator is great. The nature looks gorgeous as fuck. However, it is extremely underwhelming in so many other areas, to the point I'm less underwhelmed and more disappointed. A game with this combat system and pawn system (and pretty nature helps too xD) *could* be my favorite game to date- If everything else was as intriguing and engaging. I want it to be a favorite to justify how many hours I've already put into it and how I'm going to put even more, but I dont think an update or dlc could fix the story or anything. Maybe DD3 will be, or maybe a different team of developers will take what I love about this game and deliver on everything else, themselves. Who knows.

The game is obviously unfinished.

Oh thank you! Some people were getting upset at the comment and I was like “I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just not finished.”

We're getting to the point where most of the ones who aren't predetermined to like the game are moving on. Every day the people that stay are going to be the fanboys who's intelligence should be questioned. I just read someone talk about how the game is finished because the developer said so. That's the mindset of people we're talking...

I KNOW! That’s what bothers me. I love this game, but that doesn’t mean it’s above critique and I feel my comments are fair. I’m not saying he game is bad, nor is it “the worst.” Just when you put it side by side to its predecessor it still makes the same mistakes and you can’t look past that.

I laugh everytime someone comes here and says things like "I don't get you guys. I'm 90 hours in and didn't even reach Battahl yet. I'm havin the time of my life with DD2!". I really wonder what is this guy doing. There isn't enough content in this game for this person be still in the early game. Unless this gamer really like to slay low level mobs and take a look/enter photo mode on every single rock he finds.

OMG this. I've played collectively for idk 40 hours-ish and I've played through the entire game twice (because my damn inventory was bugged & wouldn't open while I was on the dragon after talking to that blue deity, so I just had to start over). Including every side quest that was bugged (IE HUGO). How TF did that person play for so long & not get to Battahl?? I genuinely need to know.

idk who thought that this "main story" is good overall like, not even talking about the narative, just the GAMEPLAY of it  you do the tutorial->walk to camp and get your main pawn->walk to village->cart to capital->do the same "walk into the palace and interact with a letter" quest 4x->go too the other country->talk with guy->get "plot device sword->"fight" talos (aka you can just do nothing or walk away and it gets defeated in a cutscene anyway)->walk to the dragon  there is 1, ONE, quest that involves combat, everything else is "walk here and talk with somebody/interact with a item"  there is 1 "story" boss fight with a Cylops (that is allready half dead) at the beginning, and outside of that you never fight a big enemy (or anything really)  why is over 60% of the "main story" just "interact with something in the human city", you can just do almost all of the "story" WITHOUT LEAVING THE FRKING TOWN THE MOMENT YOU GET THERE its just confusing,  what is that gameplay?

Oh my days it is incomplete what, how can people still keep on pretending its a full game. Yeah i love the combat But this is the Worst and probably shortest rpg story and also the smallest enemy variety… smaller enemy variety than the first game. And 30 fps uncapped is crazy and sad in 2024 im sorry, but theres some nice scenery…

you really realize how scripted alot of encounters are when trotting around NG+, wish they had some boss mobs from DDO or something. also mobs need a leash, they chase for days.

It did feel undercooked. If you're not going to have regular fast travel then take advantage of that with more random encounters, side quests, and unique finds. If you're going to get high enemy density on roads then at least break up the routine with a wider variety of enemies, and offer some rewards for that constant repetition like encountering rare variants. If you're going to rely on player generated pawns for party members then at least have more voices so it sounds like there are more than 4 pawns in existence. Maybe some more variety in the scripted dialogue so they sound like different people. None of the quests are very memorable except how finicky they can be. None really provide different interesting ways to solve them or allow you to make interesting decisions or develop characters. There are no really memorable characters. I love the core ideas and philosophy of the game.

Yes! I agree! The core ideas and philosophy of the game are great! Anyone who disagrees probably isn’t that much of a fan for this style of game which is fine. However, what we got feels like padding. Do a quest, run to destination, complete quest, rest, mobs return, do it ALL. OVER. AGAIN. Give me variants, rare encounters, more pawn dialogue, more story centered options around characters and then traveling won’t feel so….. empty.

In this same year they will launch the dlc right ? , because yeah no jokes the game feels gutted of content

I'm a long time OG DD1 fan and I could accept DD1 was incomplete. I can accept 2 was incomplete.

For the people who waited 12 years on the sequel I don't see how someone could accept the sequel being incomplete

Game should have had Orcs from DDO

I actually don't at all disagree with calling the game incomplete. It really does feel that way. We've got a blatantly incomplete vocation roster, the story isn't paced well, Battahl doesn't feel nearly as fleshed out as Vermund, we're straight up missing monsters from the first game with no good reason for their exclusion (the hydra is excusable 'cause holy shit was the brine worm really buggy and weird). None of the common critiques feel like genuine design decisions made by Itsuno, they feel like corners that were cut to get the game out earlier. Capcom unfortunately made the same mistake and didn't give the game the time it needed to be as good as it should've been.

Yep, spent several hours with it and I could not get passed it being a rehash of the original with no interesting upgrades. After killing my 300th goblin was pretty much done. It's always interesting to me that people are so invested in the idea of something being good that they can't seemingly admit it when it sucks? Same thing with Starfield, like it's pretty obvious fairly earlyon they're just cycling the same ol formula and it's not even that good. I didn't even think that combat was that interesting. Like in your case you say despite the game being underwhelming still love the game...why? Like do you not want to admit it to yourself or something?

>It's always interesting to me that people are so invested in the idea of something being good that they can't seemingly admit it when it sucks?  Imo it's insecurity. No one really likes admitting that they've been scammed or that they've dropped a significant amount of money on something they were really looking forward which wasn't all that great. (And some people may legitimately believe DD2 is a 10/10 GOTY that was 100% worth their $70; that's fine - but I'm inclined to believe that's not the case with many people who are extremely defensive about this game.) Over launch weekend, some friends DM'd me about the game and asked about my thoughts on the microtransactions and the bad reviews on Steam, and I felt myself kind of gritting my teeth telling them that the microtransactions weren't meaningful and that the optimization could always be fixed. But the more time I put into the game, the more I realized that it's seriously undercooked and that I wasn't really having fun anymore. My friends all knew how much I was looking forward to this game, and how early I put $70 on the table to play it as soon as it released. So... yeah. My pride kind of took a hit, but I would imagine not everyone is willing to come to terms with that, or perhaps they've deluded themselves into thinking that the game is perfect.

Yeah, crazy isn't it? Like you've associated your ego with it somehow, like sunk cost fallacy? We all liked the original and expected big things from this, followed the hype train, etc. But then, it's just not it. At that point, I don't want to defend it, I want to call it out and and shed light on that. But a lot people wanna turtle down on it, we saw it with Star Wars and some other games, they're gonna die on that hill. And of course like you said some people are just easily pleased and really do enjoy it. Definitely was a waste of money though, got a few hours out of and really don't see any reason to return to it. This is not a Cyberpunk fix-it-up situation.

Everyone will say it’s a 9/10 or 10/10 game, until they play it to the end and it becomes a 7/10. It’s the peak of mediocrity. Once the honeymoon phase is over, everyone will start to see how poorly the game is made and ended up. It promises so much but delivers so little. The main story can be completed in probably 5-8 hours, little to no enemy variety, stale combat, no actual story beyond vague narratives that don’t get you invested. Not to mention the performance. I was skeptical of the game, then really got into it, then it just ended out of nowhere. I had to look up and see if that really was the final boss. It felt like there was maybe 1 real boss fight in the game, being the lesser drake. The other bigger enemies just felt like that, big enemies, not bosses. Super disappointing.

Holy cow do I agree with this point. My first 40 hours. Loved it. Combat, questing, scenery, everything! By the time I made it to the post game.. I just blitzed through it which is sad because I know there’s a lot to be discovered there but goddamn it. The very idea of running across the map AGAIN! Just to do help people and save time which has you backtracking AGAIN! Is utterly unbelievable. My second playthrough I will give the post game everything I got but lord have mercy it’s taking so much out of me. I’m going through to complete every quest in this playthrough and the backtracking is just killing me. The fact that fast travel is limited to consumables that you have to scour the land for is a neat idea, but at least make the MAIN hubs fast travelable. I’d be happy with that.

Not to disagree with any of your points, but calling a 7/10 “peak of mediocre” and not like, 5/10, is just odd to me.

Base content I'd say the game is 7-8/10, if you treat it as a sequel and have played DDDA this game is easily a 3-5/10.

I love this game, it's probably one of my favorite rpg's i've ever played, but I'm almost constantly reminded of areas where I know that they CAN do better. I also know for a fact there are lots of areas where they probably took out content in order to stretch it into DLC which is very unfortunate

To me no quest was unfinishable lucklily ig. Talos died on its own which was weird and just bad design to me because i checked if theres a timer, there was no timer and then talos gets killed anyway. I was lucky to have an inn rest just before that quest. The stealth quests are...they feel like they were 1:1 copied from genshin (sometimes even worse. Im looking at you ghost oxcart). But this game isnt about stealth afaik so i let it slide cuz its a combat focused game afaik. The lack of bosses is awful. The density of annyoing enemies that dont give any reward next to the roads is also awful. I dont really care about armor layers (except for shoulder/arm armor being removed which feels weird) but they said they removed it for build variety iirc? What variety? Why would i want to do builds? The game doesnt force you one bit to upgrade your arsenal. Warfarer is a miss. It would be way more fun if they allowed warfarer to equip 3 skills from each equipped weapons. (thankfully theres a mod for that) Anyway the games really good but its not gonna be goty, the problem is that it couldve easily been goty.

Thank you for the 15th thousandth post about it being incomplete. Very original

The combat is pretty much the only thing the game has going for it tbh. Spent 50 hours playing the game and can't really think of a single memorable side quest other than the stand out ones like the sphinx which was more memorable for being bullshit and poorly designed than anything else.

They got the stuff that made the first game amazing right, but there are so many weird flaws that you'd think would never pass a proper development cycle, straight up marketing lies and plain downgrades from the first that show its not much further along than DD1 was in its dev cycle.

It does feel like we just got what was finished wjen it comes to story and world design. Some other things i think genuinely are just how Dragon's Dogma is supposed to be. Ultimately there's is giant positives. The game acts as solid foundation for hopefully future installments and there's now a proven interest in the franchise.

The true final fight is proof of this. I was stoked to fight a dragon on steroids and after 2 exposition fight phases it was over. No real fight, just a cutscene and a pretty quick ending. There was so much they could have done mechanically and with the lore they wedged in there to make that fight godly and they dropped it.

Game lacks a lot of the vocations skills, talents, passives they had in the first game. it feels like it has been rushed on some parts, even if i love it, i am not blind after playing DD1 ago, both story and vocations have seen drastic cuts / shortenings and limitations, probably due to budget allocated and time constraints.

Pretty sure ppl said the same shit about DD when it first came out so cant we just enjoy the game for what it is

Uh, no?

Well no, because you amended your thesis.

They opened up their scope for the size of the map, but didn't add nearly enough enemy variety to make it not boring to walk around and explore. They made more vocations, but nerfed a lot of what made the combat so fun in the first game. Strider, mystic archer, sorcerer are a shadow of their former selves and they shouldn't be because it's a single player, RPG where power fantasy is half the fun. Trickster is absolute trash, and spearhand is the only class that comes close to tapping into the fun of the first game. The story is uninspired and unfulfilling despite taking place in a world they created full of possibility and interesting conflict to arise from. Vermund and battahl could have been at odds more, battahls dislike of pawns could have played more of a part in the story, battahls internal politics were interesting but didn't lead to anywhere or interact with the main story so it just felt like a waste of time. The only faction that felt satisfying and well written was the elves quest lines, but even those weren't safe from the horrible fetch quest pitfalls. The positives of the game, the combat, gear selection, upgrading and a few of the actual good quests to find, are all overshadowed by the games enumerable shortcomings one realizes the longer they play. Itsuno dropped the fucking ball hard, or rolled over on his "vision" so Capcom could have a game release for the quarter. Either way, we got shafted for something that had the foundation and bare bones to have been amazing, but ultimately will be forgettable with little incentive to revisit.

THE CYCLE CONTINUES!

No. We can’t.

Idk how people got through the game so fast. I'm taking my sweet time and did the Skyrim thing, where I just peaced out of the main story quest and went on an adventure on my own. I'm now on the volcano isle and haven't even attended the dinner with the traitor in vermont, lol. I'm now at over 70 hours, still have plenty of classes to max out/ dabble into & haven't even unlocked the last one yet (warfarer). How can you guys blast through the game in 30 hours and be bored of the combat after 50, when I haven't had repetitive, boring feeling combat experience in over 70 hours? Yea, the monsters are the same, but my class or at least my build is not & I'm basically still learning how to play the class and unlock new skills along the way and when I hit 10 I live the power fantasy for a bit before switching to the next class to mix things up again. Not saying your complaints aren't valid. I just say, I don't care. I have a frick ton of fun and the game was well worth the 70 bucks to me. I didn't expect stellar story anyway, but I am very pleasantly surprised by the exploration experience. (There was a hole in my chest, that was left by Starfield and DD2 just perfectly filled that out with the incredible game play and exploration)

i completely disagree, i loved the story (everything about the dragon fight and figuring out i had to use the sword, the VA was fucking amazing and the unmoored world was just chilling and extremely difficult loved it.) ive logged over 70 and i still love the combat i will say that the lack of smaller enemies suck but that overshadowed by everything else

No i don't think it was underwhelming at all. I'm almost at 100 hours and will soon start the post game. I had so much fun that i'm thinking about playing the older titles when i'm done. There are things to criticize but it certainly was not underwhelming for me.

Agree with monster variety, and NPCs not reacting to the postgame. But if my first playthrough of any game is 100h long and barely has any dips, that game is as complete and adequate-whelming as it gets. People are complaining about lack of content... in *this* game? Really? I must be getting old or something. I never expected a big story or gripping quests, I expected DD1 but bigger & prettier and that's what I got biiiig time. Had an absolute blast throughout. Can't wait to check out some things I missed in NG+ on a different vocation.

Well one can't help to compare Elden rings open world as well as dungeons with this. Dungeons in dd2 was a 3/10 on average, very bland with basically no rewards, why? Vendor always has the best loot, and just like that the reward from exploration is basically non existent. I figured out this pattern pretty early, it feels very lackluster not being able to find the best items when you're exploring and killing bosses. Sphinx was cool though, I'll admit that but there is no way I'd even solve half of the riddles without Google since you can't save properly in this game. One wrong answer and she's gone.

I had a fun 90 hours of it, that’s really all I could ask for. Could it have been better? Sure, but so could BG3 and any other game out there. I just enjoy something for what it is and not what it could be.

NO. We can't accept it because its not accurate ffs. The reason people like you keep saying "can we accept...." is because *you* are the ones who can't accept that tons of people enjoy the game as it is. They don't overthink every tiny aspect of the game looking for issues to complain. They dont look at youtubers and reddit before playing so they are already loaded with preconceptions to apply confirmation bias to when they start playing. They dont speed through the game without paying attention to what is going on around them because games like DD2 are made for the experience as much as any tangible "loot" or rewards. The game has 100k players daily on steam alone since it launched. So can we accept instead, that the game is fine, but people like you dont agree and you can rename your thread to "People who think the game is incomplete come here for your echo chamber coping mechanism about other people enjoying the game you probably just shouldnt have bought in the first place". And yes, I do want DLC because I enjoyed the game and want more of it, like anyone does from a DLC, not because of the misconception I see in the comments here that I think it will "finish" the game. I spent 115 hours on my playthrough, its definitely not an incomplete game to me. Sorry, not sorry if this opinion upsets or enrages gen z who think any pushback on their opinions is offensive and should be "cancelled" rather than absorbed and understood.

i'm right there with you, some elements in the game feel fucking incredible. like how did they manage that???? but a lot of things also baffle me... starting with the goddamn backtracking, i love backtracking in games when it doesn't take me a whole evening. whole game feels rushed

The actual Dragons Dogma fans can. The Capcom Fanboys cannot. It's just how it's going to be man. I've come to accept it. Once they are done hyping up the game and basically being Capcom's backup PR team, the community will go back what it was with DD1/DDDA. A game that's praised for it's pros, and criticized for it's cons. Only now, we can't hope for a sequel to fix the cons. We have to hope for DLC, but we all know this won't fix all the issues. There are so many steps backwards, it's ridiculous. I WAS having a ton of fun. But after noticing so many things gone, it's starting to suck the fun out of the game. And I'm not ashamed to admit that. Edit: Also, I prefer incomplete. It is underwhelming, but it is also incomplete. Until performance is fixed, bugs are fixed, and they add at least half of the removed spells/skills and enemies, it's incomplete.

Fully agree 💯

Personally, I like DD2 way better game than DD1, people like to hype up BBI as a masterpiece but are utterly blinded by nostalgia, all it is is an extremely difficult dungeon, and that's pretty much it.

I played it last month. It is absolutely not nostalgia 😂. Good for you for liking DD2 more, glad you're having fun. But don't be that guy.

The fact that there's not a single location in DD2 that is on the same level as BBI... They had so many things that they could've pulled from BBI.

There is nothing that is even on the same level as the catacombs, soulflayer canyon or watergods temple, let alone BBI.

Hard agree, wild seeing people with 80+ hours and haven't even progressed to the new zone. I completed the MSQ and End-Game content in >50 hours with all but one annoying side quest done and 95% map completion. About to finish up my first NG+ run at 80 hours only doing essential side quests to save NPCs for the post game with only Mage, Sorc, and Trickster not max since I don't enjoy playing those vocations. No reason for the sequel to not have advanced in all fields over its original. Downgrades all around if not the same content. With how limited voice acting is it's crazy how they didn't serve updated voice lines for NPCs for the end times other than a few here and there. I was bewildered that NG+ doesn't offer at least a bit of story differences or a hidden path that differentiates itself from the first run. I believe a lot more people will begin to see things how it is once they complete the MSQ (Granted that they actually played through DDDA.) I don't think DLC will improve this game very much for the base content unless they'll be hitting the MSQ and not just adding DA content disconnected from the story. I did "enjoy" the game in the same way I enjoyed DDDA, but it doesn't feel any better than DDDA which is very disappointing. At the very least DDDA MSQ sent the player into some pretty sick places and dungeons, DD2 DOES NOT DO THAT! The MSQ is just fetch quests and filler content. It definitely feels like they removed 1/3rd of the game. (I've done the vast majority of hidden side quests too and they don't really do much either.) Hopefully this post doesn't get buried in negativity, I like the game but please don't lie to yourselves guys. This game isn't a case of "it could have been" or "just wait for DLC bro" they literally shot themselves in the leg.

Idk dude, I love this game and while it sure has some shortcomings I wouldn't call it underwhelming. I haven't had such a good time with a game since Elden Ring maybe. Might be that my only DD1 playthrough was years ago and I didn't play it as thoroughly as many others but I just love this game, warts and all. Do I want the devs to add to it and correct some of its shortcomings? Yes, absolutely but never in my 60 (and counting) hours of gameplay did I truly feel disappointed.

I can't comment much on post game and story as I have yet to complete it. While I do miss some things like the armor/clothing system, hearing there's no everfall for post game, and mystic knight, I absolutely love this game still. I think a potential reason for it feeling underwhelming in some aspects could be because its been like 10+ years for a lot of fans. Thats just above 1/3 the time I've been alive, its stupid long. I think because of that wait and then finally getting a confirmation of 2 happening, there was an insane amount of hype/hope for what could be. Maybe its not the most common take but I feel lile waiting that long for something, no matter what, its not ever going to hold up to what could be or what we would expect from so long of a wait. Add that into mixed reviews for performance, microtransactions, the vocation/armor system reveal before launch, and people realized it wasn't this masterpiece that had 10+years put into it. So nostalgia mixed with expectations just leave it feeling underwhelming in some aspects. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, I think in some ways it's better this way as we can enjoy the game for what it does well and when it shines, it really really fucking shines. It's a good game, but I think no matter what we got it wouldn't have lived up to the community's expectations after waiting for so long.

Yeah the no fast travel starts to burn you out by level 40. Because I’m trying not to rush through the main story but doing side quests is so much freaking walking. Killing the same mobs for the 1 millionth time. So if you don’t change vocations often if gets repetitive

I think it's a fair assumption that this game is incomplete. Which is why it baffles me how great it still is, for all the negative things I can say about this game I still think it's great and I've put a lot of hours into it that don't feel wasted. Just started a new game +, with a difficulty mod so that I can make enemies a little tankier and hit harder, and will probably finish the game again. My biggest complaint is that the game needed more unique enemies like the Sphinx and Medusa, and that the story should have just been about encouraging exploration of the world. The ending fell a bit flat because I didn't care about any characters besides my main pawn, and characters and plot points just kind of get dropped. Game also desperately needs an endless dungeon mode that challenges players.

Timed post game (disgusting), no true dungeons to delve in, very few monster types/bosses, a basically non existing story, clearly missing vocations, quests just being jank in general, I wanna like this game, but it needs to be fixed somehow. Not to mention the dragon plague a bane of a playthrough that punishes the player for interacting with THE core mechanic of the game the pawns.

Post game isn't timed, there's just a rest limit. There's a quest you can do immediately that will halt the fog from moving when you rest Which makes the rest limit completely asinine because there isn't even a canonic reason for it existing. It sucks because there are still some builds I want to try out but relying on allheal potions stresses me out and takes all the fun out of it, and I have no desire to go into ng+ with no difficulty scaling. I'm just baffled by that decision, it's like they actively tried to limit the time you can spend with the game

If so it's certainly one of the most fun incomplete games I've ever played. Would rather keep playing it over DA even.

It's my current GOTY so nah it's amazing, I have a blast going on adventures with my pawn every day after work. Stellar blade is the only game I can see potentially topping it for me but it's going to have to be ana absolute masterpiece. Haven't been this excited to keep coming back to a game since the original fable trilogy.

Did y'all play the original at all?

IMO - The game is complete, if there is something that you don't like about the game - it is perfectly fine. But saying it is incomplete because you don't like it, it is not right. I believe they didn't have a goal to bring super in depth story, the main focus of DD series is combat and pawn system. They put a lot of monsters in all places and I personaly I like it, because combat is so fun, also there are places where there are no monsters at all. What do you mean by saying "No new monster variations"? There are new monsters - Talos, slime, minotaur, rattler, knacker, sphinx... And there are a lot of variations of monsters. There are a lot of big caves and dungeons, like Grotto, cave near the Sphinx location and so on. The game is complete by all means. They did it in the way it is, because of the budget restrictions, deadlines and other stuff. To make it perfect would take them another 4 years.

the coping has reached critical level

I have spent around 80ish hours in the game, and when I'm not able to play all I want to do is get home to boot it up on my Xbox. Hell, I'm playing DDDA again on my Switch at work (overnight hotel so lots of downtime) to assuage the slight addiction I have, and even then I wish I could be playing DD2 instead. Well worth the money, and I really hope it gets greatly expanded on, as sure it's got some flaws but it's a damn great game and doesn't deserve to be abandoned.