Dragon's Dogma II - "They’re masterworks, all – you can’t go wrong"

[DJOGamer PT]

What's the codex consensus!

It's very good
Music and the lack of a great dungeon crawling level are the only aspects were DD2 is truly inferior to the original

Needs more content (new enemies, new region, a handful of big dungeons and a couple of new vocations) and a proper Hard mode
Which is what we are all waiting for - the Tokyo Game Show is the most likely place for an announcement

 

[Stoned Ape]

What's the codex consensus!

Better stuff:
Pawn AI is less customizable but learns more intelligent behaviour.
Lots of skills have been folded into the core move sets for each vocation.
Fighting big creatures is far more fun (less reliance on climbing for some vocations, improved climbing control/camera for those that do)
More interesting variety of vocations with more clearly defined roles
There are less times when I felt like I wasn't able to hurt monsters due to weapon/level gap
No loli pawns.
Big creature move sets are more interesting
map is much bigger and has a much wider variety of biomes
Unmoored World

Stuff I miss:
Night time being more dangerous
Big dungeons
Bitterblack Isle
Some of the art design/aesthetic, especially area design
The atmosphere generally felt more oppressive/suspenseful in DDDA
Monster variety
Hard mode
Some of the weapons and armour sets can look pretty goofy

Stuff I don't miss that much but other people do:
Fewer active abilities (having more folded in base abilities makes this less impactful- except for Mages/Sorcerers who are at a disadvantage)
Layered armour.
Customisable Pawn AI.

I've probably forgotten some other points.

Overall, I like both games but at the moment I think DDDA has more replayabllity due to its higher difficulty, but if I was going to choose to play through one of them once, I'd go for DD2, which I think has the basis to be a better game if the expansion delivers.

 

[gabel]

So general opinion seems to be that this is worse than the first and the endgame and ending sucks.

This is correct.

It's a good game, but in many ways a downgrade from Dark Arisen.
Most systems that made DA so great have been dumbed down; you're limited to 4 skills instead of 6 (and no, the core skills don't make up for that, there's no double vault for example). Vocations are more "defined" now, i.e. way less versatile than before, which makes the gameplay feel one-dimensional compared to the original, especially when playing with just your main pawn or solo; the layered armor system is gone, enemy variety is equally limited but feels worse due to the bigger world and many trash mobs, the caves and tombs are mostly disappointing (nothing like Soulflayer Canyon, let alone Everfall or BBI), special arrows need specific skills now, there are no throwblasts or equivalent, torpor status effect gone...

After 12 years of waiting, the game should have been so much more, and it could have been as well. The base is there: graphics are nice, combat is still fun, they just needed to keep the layered armor system, the 6 skills per vocation, add a handful more enemy types, get rid of some of those mines in favour of a real dungeon or two, and flesh out the main story some more, which is shit unfortunately.

If you can live with a half-assed and in many ways dumbed down sequel, it's worth playing, since there's not much else in current year anyway.
But compared to Dark Arisen, it's a major disappointment.

 

[Haplo]

BBI-like location is indeed missing.
But Everfall? Meh. Arguably there are locations that could be compared with the Soulflayer Canyon.

Torpor? There's Sleep, is Torpor that necessary?

Imporantly, combat is more fun in general, even though some skills have been nerfed / removed.
There's much more emphasis on critical hits versus enemies in vulnerable state - and many more ways to put enemies in that state, including basic vanilla mooks.
So while that game is worse in some aspects then Dark Arisen, the most important aspect is a lot better IMO. Unless you play a caster, I guess.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Dedicated_Dark, you can safely disregard most of gabel's criticisms
He's been butthurt even before the game came out

you're limited to 4 skills instead of 6

Besides the fact that yes, more core skills do make up for that reduction - since not only the base character now have more moves, but more importantly the core skills have been designed in a way to seamlessly synergize with the weapon skills
There's also the fact that almost every single skill is more distinct and has more tech than DDDA - i.e. skills are more versatile and there's no useless ones

Coupled with the 4 skill limit, your choice of moveset is now more impactful and there's a greater variety of builds within a Vocation

enemy variety is equally limited

The enemy roster is smaller than DDDA by a handful of enemies
The saddest loss being the Beholder and my hope/cope is that the expansion adds him back (if the leaks are true there will be 10 new Big Monsters)
But that aside the current enemy roster has an expanded moveset and more competent AI
There's a couple of very cool new enemies

nothing like Soulflayer Canyon

Don't worry about this Dedicated_Dark
Battahl exists and is superior

BBI

this sucks though...

 

[gabel]

There are just less ways to play the game at any given time.
In Dark Arisen I played my dagger&bow-class, mostly assassin, carried throwblast, periapts, special arrows and a rusted bow. Ranged & melee, three bow skills, three dagger skills, throwables, dmg burst potential. There's nothing remotely as fun and versatile in DD2. The game just doesn't give me enough options. Every time I play I wish there were more enemy types, I wish I could equip more skills, I miss the layered armor system, and I wish there'd be something to do. Dark Arisen grabbed me for months, while DD2 I'm basically already done with.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Honestly they could've gone further with the Core Skills

Gouging Skewer would've been perfect as an Heavy Charge attack
Possibly Cloudward Slash as a Core Skill as well - it's just too good a move now

Unless you play a caster, I guess.

I think the issue would've been alleviated with a system that allowed the player to choose which spell was used as a Core Skill

For example, a system of staff enchanting
Instead of having Anodyne and Galvanize as Core Skills, have that button as the Core Skill "Staff Spell" - which performed a spell selected by player through the process of enchanting
Since it's a Core Skill it doesn't spend Stamina, but to "balance" out the fact that players could therefore have spells like Bolide on cast with no resource usage, make it so that "Staff Spells" are limited - by whatever: meter, item resource, arbitrary use and spell power limits, time of day and humidity levels, fucking cooldowns if they wanted to be lazy - anything but Stamina

That way, not only players could have a 5th spell, but since it's tied to equipment, they could "swap spells" without having to stop in a Guild (decrease Mage/Sorcerer carry weigth limit and increase Staves weigth values if the balance of this worries you)

 

[DJOGamer PT]

In Dark Arisen I played my dagger&bow-class, mostly assassin

Warfarer exists

 

[Stoned Ape]

4 of the vocations in DDDA are basically just variations on a similar theme, Strider, Ranger, Mystic Archer, Assassin. Then you have Mage/Sorcerer/Mystic Knight that can all play similarly, and Fighter/Assassin/Mystic Knight who share stuff, too.

In DD2 the majority of the vocations have a unique playstyle (Mage and Sorcerer are still similar, while Warfarer borrows from all the others) and there are numerous different skill combinations for each you can try out for each vocation that are viable.

Overall, I think the combat and vocations are just substantially better from a design perspective in DD2.

Throwblasts (and Blast Arrows) in DDDA were just ridiculously OP. You can do low level runs of BBA entirely relying on Throwblasts to kill pretty much everything up to and including Death if you know what you're up to.

 

[gabel]

In Dark Arisen I played my dagger&bow-class, mostly assassin

Warfarer exists

Yes, then you have three total weapon skills.

 

[Haplo]

In Dark Arisen I played my dagger&bow-class, mostly assassin

Warfarer exists

Warfarer is a bit weird and gimmicky to be honest.

On the one hand, it lets you use broken skill combos from different classes (something like Augural Flame from Sorc + Spiral Arrow from Archer or Skullsplitter from Thief), and eliminates some innate character/class weakneses, for example lets you use ranged weapons as melee classes, use heavier Poise armors as agile characters or use weapons with a selection of fitting elemental enchantments for each encounter - gathered from different classes.

On the other hand, with Rearmanent, its even more limited in the selection/variety of abilities it can equip at a time.
Not sure I like what it does. Of course, one way to treat it, is as a late game "reward" hidden super-class.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Warfarer is a bit weird and gimmicky to be honest.

On the one hand, it lets you use broken skill combos from different classes (something like Augural Flame from Sorc + Spiral Arrow from Archer or Skullsplitter from Thief), and eliminates some innate character/class weakneses, for example lets you use ranged weapons as melee classes, use heavier Poise armors as agile characters or use weapons with a selection of fitting elemental enchantments for each encounter - gathered from different classes.

On the other hand, with Rearmanent, its even more limited in the selection/variety of abilities it can equip at a time.
Not sure I like what it does. Of course, one way to treat it, is as a late game "reward" hidden super-class.

I quite like using Warfarer without rearmament, I just carry a bow and staff and swap to them if I feel the need. I mostly use it to get to wear any armour from any vocation while I have a weapon and skills from just one vocation. It also let me level up Trickster, Mage, and Sorcerer to max rank and unlock all of their abilities without having to play as them.

 

[deuxhero]

So general opinion seems to be that this is worse than the first and the endgame and ending sucks.

What's the codex consensus!

Runs like shit because malware. Ethic department and trannies murdered character creation: It's full of limits (160cm minimum height: taller than average girl) added at last minute that are just a memory poke away. Female animations don't exist. Only four skills was a dumb idea.

Title screen music is the worst crime though: Might as well be a call center's hold music. Absolute decline after Into Free and Coils of Light.

 

[Raghar]

So general opinion seems to be that this is worse than the first and the endgame and ending sucks.

What's the codex consensus!

We are not playing it until they remove Denuvo or someone would crack it.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

So general opinion seems to be that this is worse than the first and the endgame and ending sucks.

What's the codex consensus!

We are not playing it until they remove Denuvo or someone would crack it.

I played it day one.

 

[the_goat]

I never played Dark Arisen (going to rectify that) and found Dragons Dogma II exploration to be a joy, especially since optimalization sucks and you never want to be in the city for too long It has that feeling that reminded me of Gothic when you explore off the beaten path, find enemies that are too powerful but still try to go forward to see what's next - that's how I found the first Sphinx and it was a great gaming moment for me. On the other hand, once you level up and with a right vocation the game becomes too easy as you are basically unkillable and melt even the more powerful enemies in seconds. Overall it has been a very pleasant experience but there are many things that could be improved.

 

[jaekl]

This game gave a fantastic first impression but over time became unplayable due to an overabundance of small annoyances so I didn’t finish it. Not gonna focus on any good points because writing positive stuff is gay and boring.

1. They copied the slippery slopes from Dragon Age Inquisition, which is the only thing I remember about that shit game besides that everyone had the moistest skin ever. Why would you copy the worst feature of one of the worst games ever created? I can’t even imagine what they were thinking.

2. Map is too big. First game had a perfect sized map.

3. The controls are very clunky and imprecise, often causing me to shout at the character when he’s climbing on things I don’t want him to while I’m trying to pick something up. Especially annoying because sprint and pick up are the same button.

4. Too many particle effects. Makes magic users almost unusable because they spam spell effects that completely blind you. Ice magic pisses me off especially.

5. No assassin class. That’s the one I liked in Dragon’s Dogma and now I’m stuck with the shitty fighter with no bow or the shitty archer with no sword.

6. The cat people are so terrible and out of place that it’s like someone installed some kinda Khajiit skin mod that randomly replaces npc textures with cat textures. Unbelievably amateur job.

7. Harpies. SHUT THE FUCK UP!! Oh my god pawns... shoot the harpy... shoot it!! SHOOT THE FUCKING HARPY! Oh for fucks sake... come on...

8. Easy but annoying. I have never once seen the game over screen and haven’t even felt like I was in danger since the very beginning of the game. They decided to make up for that by putting you in painfully long situations where you just watch your character sleep or crawl around helpless or stand around stunned. To me, that’s even worse than dying, to be pressing buttons while my character ignores me.

9. Too many enemies. This is what finally got me to quit playing. Every minor 10 minute excursion requires you to constantly be swatting away hordes of non-threatening mosquitoes. How can this land function when taking a walk on the main trading roads requires you to slay 150 goblins, 60 bandits, 40 harpies, 30 dire wolves, 20 lizard men, 2 cyclopes, a dragon, a griffon, 3 golems, 2 ogres and a minotaur? Then they all respawn the next day in the same spot. Not a problem the first time through the area but since they don’t have infinite fast travel (which I approve of btw) I have to actually use these roads.

Strangely, I think it's probably the best game released this year so far despite all this. There was an attempt at bringing a vision to life outside of the normal established principles that everyone copies.

Now, it has been a long time but I definitely remember the first Dragon’s Dogma being very good so I will have to play that again to make sure I wasn’t wrong about it. Don't want to be recommending games to people based on bad recollections.

 

[Haplo]

Re 9: Use Oxcarts where feasible. Sure, they have random encounters too, but usually 0-2 per trip...

 

[jaekl]

Re 9: Use Oxcarts where feasible. Sure, they have random encounters too, but usually 0-2 per trip...

Yeah I know, the blistering rage that was starting to bore a hole into my brain was caused with oxcarts in mind.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

How can this land function when taking a walk on the main trading roads requires you to slay 150 goblins, 60 bandits, 40 harpies, 30 dire wolves, 20 lizard men, 2 cyclopes, a dragon, a griffon, 3 golems, 2 ogres and a minotaur?

The Dragon is the cause of the monster plague

 

[DJOGamer PT]

gabel
That is even the lore reason for the increased presence of monsters in the first game
You know, the game you supposedly like and know very much about...

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I need to get my ps5 fixed I miss the fuck out of this game. It's the best of the best, haters can suck a chode.

 

[Shinji]

I've stopped playing this game two months ago but I keep thinking about it every week.

I wish they had added more unique random things that change in every playthrough like those berries, for instance.

Hope they announce the DLC this month or the next.

 

[purpleblob]

I'm still playing it occasionally - I love this game as it is but also sad for its unrealised potential due to cut contents.

 

[Ezekiel]

I need to get my ps5 fixed I miss the fuck out of this game. It's the best of the best, haters can suck a chode.

Did you break the PS5 or did the 500 dollar machine break on its own?