Dragon’s Dogma 2 was a massive disappointment after the first game. I waited twelve years for a proper sequel that would build on what made the original special, fix its obvious problems, and finally realize its wasted potential. Instead, it often feels like a prettier remake carrying many of the exact same issues.
Is this seriously the game I waited twelve years for? The combat is better, the world is larger, and the presentation is more modern, but rather than moving the formula forward, Dragon’s Dogma 2 mostly recreates it, including limitations that should have been left behind over a decade ago.
The combat is still genuinely incredible. Climbing onto huge monsters, attacking weak points, and taking advantage of the chaos created by the physics system is easily the best part. Monsters can fall off cliffs, destroy bridges, crash into each other, or turn a normal journey into a massive battle. The vocations are just as strong. They completely change how you play, and trying new skills and weapons carried a huge part of the game for me.
The Pawn system is still one of the most unique ideas in gaming. Hiring other players’ Pawns, having them guide you through quests they know, and listening to them during long journeys makes the world feel alive. They can be repetitive and incredibly stupid, but they are still a major part of what makes Dragon’s Dogma feel unlike anything else.
The world also looks great. Its environments, lighting, effects, and large-scale fights can be genuinely impressive. Exploring is exciting at first because the world feels dangerous and unpredictable.
The problem is that the further I got, the more unfinished the game felt.
The story sets up a political conflict involving Disa and the False Sovran, makes reclaiming the throne seem like the central plot, and then almost completely abandons it. Even the Dragon barely matters in a game called Dragon’s Dogma. Just when it finally felt like the real story was about to begin, the game rushed toward the finale. I genuinely thought I was around the middle when I realized I was already approaching the ending.
Most characters are given so little development that I never had enough reason to care about them. Important people appear for a few conversations, disappear for hours, and then expect you to be emotionally invested. The story constantly introduces ideas that seem important, only to leave them half-finished.
Enemy variety is unbelievably weak for a world this large. You spend most of the game fighting goblins, saurians, wolves, bandits, and those absolutely insufferable harpies.
I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hated the harpies. They are everywhere. Every road, cliff, bridge, and random corner seems to have another group waiting to annoy you. They never shut up, they are irritating to hit because they keep flying around, and getting grabbed or put to sleep by them is infuriating. They were easily my least favorite enemy in the game.
Large monster fights are supposed to be the highlight, so the limited boss variety is also a massive disappointment. Cyclopes, ogres, griffins, chimeras, and minotaurs are incredibly fun at first, but eventually you realize that you will fight the same handful of monsters for dozens of hours. The combat deserves far more variety.
The caves and dungeons are not much better. Most are dark, repetitive tunnels with little unique architecture, puzzle design, or memorable content. You enter another cave, kill more saurians, open a chest containing something you probably do not need, and leave. The world is beautiful on the surface, but optional areas quickly reveal how little variety there is.
Quest design is another major problem. Many quests are basic errands, while some side quests are needlessly confusing and barely explain what the game expects from you. I missed hidden conditions, failed to notice time limits, and lost access to content without realizing it. NPCs can disappear, quests can fail because you rested too many times, and entire questlines can be missed because you did not speak to the right person at the right moment.
I understand wanting players to figure things out, but forcing me to search online just to know what a quest wants or whether it can still be completed is not good design. There is a difference between respecting the player’s intelligence and refusing to communicate important information. Quest consequences, permanent choices, NPC deaths, and endgame systems are often explained so poorly that you only understand them when it is too late.
Travel also becomes a chore. At first, walking everywhere makes the world feel large and dangerous. Later, it mostly means repeating the same routes and fighting the same enemies again. Restricting fast travel might have worked in a smaller or more varied world, but here it mostly wastes time. The Ferrystone and Portcrystal system eventually made me want to interact with the world less, not more.
The save system, however, is easily the worst thing in the entire game.
It is one of the most infuriating save systems I have ever dealt with. You are stuck with a single save, and the constant autosaving can trap you in situations you cannot escape from. When that happens, your only real option is to load from your last inn rest and hope it was recent.
The game does not even tell you when that last inn save was made. Loading it feels like spinning a roulette wheel. Maybe you lose twenty minutes, or maybe the game suddenly erases three or four hours of progress. I lost that much progression multiple times because I got trapped at a bad autosave and had no other way out.
Completed quests, collected items, explored locations, unlocked skills, and entire journeys just disappeared. I then had to repeat the same dialogue, fights, quests, and long walks all over again.
I am fine with a game punishing me for my choices. I am not fine with being trapped by an autosave and then being forced to gamble several hours of progress on a save file whose time the game refuses to show me. That is not immersive, challenging, or meaningful. It is hostile design.
Since the game is already full of long journeys and repetitive encounters, losing progress means walking the same roads, killing the same goblins, and completing the same confusing quests again. This save system actively made the entire game worse.
Performance is another major issue. Even on powerful hardware, cities can destroy the frame rate, and the game regularly stutters. Its technical state is difficult to excuse after such a long development.
After twelve years, Dragon’s Dogma 2 feels less like a fully realized sequel and more like the first game’s problems repeated in a prettier world. It has an amazing combat system, fun vocations, and a unique Pawn mechanic, but not enough enemies, bosses, dungeons, quests, characters, or story content to support them.
The strange part is that, despite all of this, I still liked Dragon’s Dogma 2 far more than I probably should have. If almost any other game had this many issues, I would have torn it apart. I had far less patience for games like Atlas Fallen, even though they did not frustrate me nearly as much.
Dragon’s Dogma is different for me. I love the original, and so much of what made it special is still here. Even when the sequel disappointed me, annoyed me, or deleted hours of my progress, I still wanted to keep playing because its core experience is something I cannot get from another game.
That also makes the disappointment hurt more. I do not like Dragon’s Dogma 2 because it fixed the original or delivered the sequel I waited twelve years for. I like it because underneath all the unfinished ideas and terrible decisions, it is still Dragon’s Dogma. My love for the first game carried this experience much harder than the sequel itself ever did.
There is a great game buried inside Dragon’s Dogma 2. They just forgot to finish the rest of it.
6/10 - A little bit above average.
