My experience with this game has been mixed: it does some things well, but in other areas there is still a lot left to be desired. If you were a DDDA vet, then these are the things that have been missing that annoyed me the most, ranging from questionable to outright confusing for me, from the player's standpoint :
- They removed the need to have the pickaxe to use it.
- They removed crafting throwable bombs and other items.
- No advanced version of two of the 4 main vocations, no hybrid vocation between thief and archer
- Fewer skills for vocations; the Archer Master skill is just more stamina drain and more damage than Dire Arrow.
- No hard mode, no difficulty (which is weird since they have somewhat of a New Game+ mode), no hard bosses that were insanely fun like Hydra and the Gazer
- No endgame dungeon, no co-op, no moon
- No skill augments
- No mix-and-match system for armor, since it was vocation-locked, part of the reason why I LOVE warfarer in this game
In my first playthrough, I could only last about 5-6 hours until a specific point of the main quest, which, not to spoil anything, basically lets you chase a scripted boss that chases your enemy, not you, and no matter what you do, he's gonna end up dead anyway, which is very disappointing based on how he was advertized in the game trailer.
As someone who played the first Dragon Dogma, I knew how the story gonna end up, and I had my expectations. When I saw how they were developing the main plot for this game, I was so excited, which only left be dissapoint on the latter half of the story.
Before the free update that gives everyone the Eternal Ferrystone, the traversing system was pretty boring, and i was so glad everyone could get infinite fast travel now. The combat system was ok, they retain almost all that I love from the first Dragon Dogma, besides things that i've been listed above. This game is shorter than the first one, with me doing about 30- 35-ish hours for almost all content. The list could go on for me on which kind of content feels short, such as: Sacred Arbor with the lack of activities, Volcanic Island that barely has any screen time of interaction, if you focus on the main quest,…..
The affinity system for me is questionable, especially after I realized they even have an achievement that basically triggers when at least 2 of your max affinity NPC near you; they start to fight. The quest with two ladies in the game, which you could “romance,” isn’t exactly romance, but somehow your main pawn does depend on the ending (?)
One thing I do love about Dragon Dogma 2 is the items, specifically clothes and weapon design. Really start to be a thing for me when I choose Wayfarer as my prefered vocations pured of necessity but left enjoying mixing and matching different kinds of combinations for the drippest setup. Too bad main pawn doesn’t have access to that, combine with the clothings being removed + the stats spreads pretty big with only 1 or 2 outfit that have the highest stats, so at the end the options end up being pretty limited as it
And that’s pretty much i could say about this game, outside of things that already show in the first game. Dungeon was ok; exploration was ok (could be repetitive for new players). In conclusion, if you don't mind the rushed story and limited content then give it a try. The biggest selling point for this game is the graphics, and it certainly grows on you if you give it some time; it does for me, but not enough to overhshadowed it flaws. I haven’t looked the DLC interview with the director yet but it seems like we would have welcoming changes in the future, then i will update this review after that. But for now my final score for this game will be 7/10
