Dragon's Dogma 2 Review 100+ Hours Played on PC, Playstation 5 & Xbox! NO SPOILERS!
Summary
TLDRDragon's Dogma 2 offers a rich RPG experience with a medieval setting and a non-linear story. The game features over 80 unique quests with multiple outcomes, rewarding exploration, and a nuanced combat system. Despite occasional frustrations with its mechanics and performance issues across platforms, the game's depth, replayability, and unique pawn system make it a compelling adventure for fans of open-world RPGs.
Takeaways
- 🎮 Extensive gameplay experience: The reviewer spent over 100 hours playing Dragon Dogma 2, showcasing the game's depth and replayability.
- 💡 Cross-platform performance: The game was played on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, providing insights into its performance across different platforms.
- 📚 Rich lore and setting: The medieval setting and cyclical approach of the game are appealing, with a wealth of lore enhancing the experience for players familiar with the Dragon's Dogma Universe.
- 🔍 Non-linear questing: The game features over 80 unique quests with multiple endings and outcomes, influenced by player decisions and actions.
- 🚀 Challenging start: The game begins with the protagonist escaping prison and finding their place in the world, setting up a complex and engaging journey.
- 🛡️ Complex combat system: Combat is methodical and rewarding, with a focus on preparation and knowledge rather than just skill.
- 🏕️ Camping mechanics: Campsites allow for character interaction, skill changes, and rest, adding depth to exploration and enhancing the sense of immersion.
- 💰 Post-game content: The game offers substantial endgame content, including new currencies, shops, and equipment, encouraging further play after the credits.
- 🌟 Unique vocations and upgrades: Dragon Dogma 2 introduces a variety of vocations and upgrade styles, allowing for extensive customization and strategic gameplay.
- 🎵 Mixed musical score: While the game's soundtrack didn't reach the emotional heights of the first game, it still provided a fitting backdrop to the gameplay.
- 📈 Performance issues: Despite being available on next-gen consoles, the game suffered from subpar FPS performance on all platforms, which may affect the player's experience.
Q & A
What is the reviewer's overall opinion on Dragon's Dogma 2's story and setting compared to its predecessor?
-The reviewer believes that Dragon's Dogma 2's story is superior to its predecessor and that the medieval setting and cyclical approach are well-conceived, making it a worthy investment of time.
Is it necessary to play the first Dragon's Dogma game to enjoy the sequel?
-No, it is not necessary to have played the first game to enjoy Dragon's Dogma 2, but knowing the lore of the Dragon's Dogma Universe can add to the experience.
How does the reviewer describe the gameplay of Dragon's Dogma 2?
-The reviewer describes the gameplay as a stoic and nuanced action RPG that requires determination and patience, with a large world that can be both rewarding and frustrating due to occasional bugs and lack of streamlining.
What are some of the issues the reviewer faced with the game's questing system?
-The reviewer found the questing system confusing initially due to the lack of a quest board or markers, and the quests mostly appearing from NPCs approaching the player or when talking to someone almost at random.
How does the reviewer feel about the game's travel and weight mechanics?
-The reviewer finds the travel and weight mechanics more tedious than the first game, as the world is much larger and quest directions are often vague, leading to confusion and wasted time.
What new feature in Dragon's Dogma 2 does the reviewer particularly enjoy?
-The reviewer particularly enjoys the addition of camping, which allows for setting up with companions, chatting around the fire, grilling food, changing skills, and resting to recover HP and clear blights.
How does combat in Dragon's Dogma 2 differ from the first game?
-Combat in Dragon's Dogma 2 is methodical and rewarding, focusing more on preparation and knowledge rather than being skill-based. It involves optimizing equipment, party buffs, curatives, and damage capabilities before entering battles.
What improvements have been made to the pawn system in Dragon's Dogma 2?
-The pawn system has been streamlined and improved in Dragon's Dogma 2, with the ability to select pawns with quest knowledge and direct them to act as guides, and the option to hire pawns who have discovered something nearby in another world.
How does the reviewer describe the game's art direction and graphical fidelity?
-The reviewer praises the game's art direction, with interesting monsters, unique and fashionable armor and weapon concepts, and a stylized interface. However, they note that while the game is pretty, it lacks a graphical wow factor and has some stiff face animations and awkward movements.
What are the reviewer's thoughts on the game's performance across different platforms?
-The reviewer played the game on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, and found that FPS performance was subpar on all platforms, with Xbox being the worst and PC running the best. Despite the low FPS, the reviewer did not feel it was ruining the game.
How long does the reviewer estimate the game's playtime to be?
-The reviewer estimates that players can expect 50 hours of content and 100 hours for completionist content, plus additional time spent in endgame and doing specific hunts with pawns.
What unique aspect of Dragon's Dogma 2 does the reviewer find particularly engaging?
-The reviewer finds the asynchronous online feature of the pawn system particularly engaging, as it allows for community optimization ideas and adds a unique charm to the single-player experience.
Outlines
🌟 Introduction and Game Overview
The review begins with an introduction to Dragon Dogma 2, highlighting the reviewer's extensive gameplay experience of over 100 hours. The discussion covers the game's performance on PC, Xbox, and Playstation, and addresses whether prior knowledge of the first game is necessary to enjoy the sequel. The medieval setting and the game's non-linear approach are praised, as well as the game's ability to adapt to player decisions, offering multiple quest outcomes and affecting the world dynamically.
🛡️ Gameplay and Mechanics
This paragraph delves into the gameplay elements of Dragon Dogma 2, emphasizing the need for determination and patience due to its complex mechanics and large world. The reviewer shares initial frustrations with the game's questing system, travel, and weight mechanics, but also notes the eventual 'click' that hooks the player into the game. The paragraph discusses the game's endgame content and the rewarding exploration and discovery aspects, as well as the nuanced combat system that requires preparation and strategy.
🏕️ Exploration and Combat
The review continues with an exploration of the game's open-world elements, including camping mechanics that offer stat bonuses and recovery, as well as the joy of discovering hidden items and challenging enemy encounters. Combat is described as methodical and rewarding, with a focus on preparation rather than skill-based actions. The variety of weapons, armor, and vocations available for customization is praised, as is the game's post-game content, which includes new currencies, shops, and equipment.
🎨 Visuals, Performance, and Sound
This paragraph critiques the game's visual and performance aspects, noting the beautiful yet unimpressive graphics and the lack of a 'wow' factor in the landscape design. The reviewer discusses the game's performance issues on all platforms, with Xbox suffering the most significant FPS dips. Despite these issues, the game's immersive qualities and the charm of its NPC characters are highlighted. The music and voice acting are deemed satisfactory, but not particularly memorable, with some limitations in the pawn voice selection.
🎮 Final Thoughts and Recommendation
The review concludes with an overall positive outlook on Dragon Dogma 2, despite its flaws. The game is described as a unique experience with a roller coaster of emotions, offering rewarding exploration, nuanced combat, and a strong community aspect through the pawn system. The reviewer acknowledges the game's shortcomings in design and performance but ultimately recommends it for its engaging content and the sense of discovery it provides.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Dragon's Dogma 2
💡RPG
💡Performance
💡Gameplay
💡Quests
💡Vocations
💡Pawns
💡Endgame
💡Exploration
💡Combat
💡Graphics and Art Direction
Highlights
The reviewer spent over 100 hours playing Dragon Dogma 2, providing an in-depth analysis of the game across PC, Xbox, and Playstation platforms.
Dragon Dogma 2's story is independent of the first game, but the lore of the Dragon's Dogma Universe enhances the experience.
The game's medieval setting and cyclical approach are well-conceived, drawing comparisons to pillars of Eternity or Wheel of Time.
The reviewer found the character motivations and world exploration in Dragon Dogma 2 to be rewarding and engaging.
The game's quests have multiple endings and are affected by player decisions, leading to a dynamic and responsive world.
Dragon Dogma 2's gameplay requires determination and patience, with a large world that can lead to frustration due to bugs and lack of guidance.
The game's open-world exploration is vast but can be tedious due to vague quest directions and travel mechanics.
Camping is a new feature that allows players to rest, recover, and gain stat bonuses, enhancing the exploration experience.
Combat in Dragon Dogma 2 is methodical and rewarding, with a focus on preparation and knowledge rather than skill alone.
The game offers a variety of weapons, armor, and vocations, allowing for extensive customization and strategy in battles.
Dragon Dogma 2's endgame content is extensive, offering multiple endings and new challenges that encourage further exploration.
The game's art direction is praised for its interesting monsters and stylish equipment, though the graphics lack a 'wow' factor.
Performance issues are noted across all platforms, with Xbox suffering the most, but the reviewer found the gameplay enjoyable despite these issues.
The music score did not leave a memorable impact, and voice acting was good but with limited options for pawn voices.
Dragon Dogma 2 offers a massive playtime, with 50 hours for the main content and over 100 hours for completionists.
Replayability is high due to the variety of vocations and the New Game Plus mode, which allows for new solutions and outcomes.
The pawn system is a unique asynchronous feature that adds charm and community engagement to the single-player experience.
Despite some design choices and performance issues, Dragon Dogma 2 is recommended for its rewarding exploration and combat system.
The game is described as a roller coaster of emotions, with high points that outweigh the frustrations, making it a game of the year contender despite its flaws.
Transcripts
in this Dragon Dogma 2 review I'll be
sharing my experience following my
extensive time with a game after
completing it with over 100 hours of
gameplay time there's a lot of talk
online about the game's performance and
I have played the game on all three
platforms PC Xbox and Playstation so
we'll get into how it plays on all three
a bit later in this review if you want
to know what the game has to offer how
it measures up to its predecessor and
how it holds up against modern RPGs this
is the review that you need as always
I'll begin the review by covering story
and setting because your motivation can
really affect your enjoyment of an RPG a
common question that I get is whether
you must play the first title to enjoy
this one and the answer is no but
knowing some of the wealth of lore of
the Dragon's Dogma Universe certainly
adds to the experience the medieval
setting of the game is always very
appealing and its concept of cyclical
approach is well conceived and will feel
familiar to those of you who enjoy
pillars of Eternity or Wheel of Time the
books of course the show is horrible the
story of Dragon stma 2 seems to be the
typical RPG hero you start in a prison
make your Escape thanks to the help of
of a mysterious figure and set off to
find your place in the world eventually
involving yourself in all the possible
Troubles of the land in this regard I
feel the game is very well done with
over 80 unique quests that are by no
means go fetch 10 healing items and the
game shines in its capacity to adapt
your decisions and actions most quests
seem to have multiple endings or ways to
go about them and their progression
affects other quests NPCs and even store
inventories I found myself enjoying
discovering the characters and their
motivations and exploring the hidden
lore and Nuance of the World At Large
all in all without giving any spoilers
the story is superior to that of its
predecessor and a worthy investment of
your time now your time is something
very valuable and one thing that the
game doesn't always respect which brings
us to
gameplay as a stoic and nuanced action
RPG Dragons Dogma 2 is the kind of game
you must approach armed with
determination and patience this is by
now very familiar to me as I very much
enjoy Discovery and exploration of both
world and mechanics I'm no stranger to
obscure Quest objectives disappearing
NPCs and uncertain checkpoints
but if you are looking for a
straightforward and guided experience
Dragon's Dogma 2 is not the game for you
having completed in love the first game
I thought I was well prepared for
whatever challenge the new mechanics may
give me what I was not prepared for was
the fact that the world is so large that
a simple mistake or a small NPC bug
would mean my second hour of the game
would be spent tediously running a very
long way to a large town because the
intended Ox cart was lost to a bug you
may remember my humorous story about Jim
from the beware pre-launch video well it
was that all over again and that I was
very ill prepared for such a long
journey already feeling the stamina
exhaustion of all my stocked curatives
and of course it became night time and I
was promptly besieged by armies of
skeletons that I was in no way the
appropriate level to tackle welcome to
Dragon's Dogma 2 this set a rather
frustrating tone to the start of my
adventure but I made it to the objec of
determined to get back on track it took
me some time to get used to the new
questing system as there's no Quest
board or markers for quests and they
seem to mostly appear from NPCs
approaching you or when you talk to
someone almost at random this made me
feel like I was missing a lot of quests
but I soon realized the futility of
attempting to hit up a conversation with
over 1,000 NPCs in the game and accepted
that it would just work out if I just
let it happen from here the next step
was readjusting to the lack of
streamlining on travel and weight
mechanics I must report they are not
just like the first game but perhaps
they're even now more tedious as the
world is so much larger adding to this
Quest directions are very vague that I
often got confused or lost on what to do
or where to go and ended up doing
pointless round trips to farway
locations and wasting hours of my time I
felt that some of this was my fault for
not thinking things through but there is
also some blame to be assigned to poor
design choices that do in the end take
your time for granted regardless I
learned my lesson and pressed on until
Dragon Dogma 2 clicked at a point
somewhere around the 20 to 30 hour mark
riding this momentum I started tackling
harder fles venturing to undiscovered
zones found new vendors with exciting
and expensive gear and uncovered more
Insidious plots this is the point where
the game really hooked me and somehow
made me forget that I just spent 20
hours killing goblins harpies and Sans
while out of stamina it would take
another 20 hours or so to reach endgame
and find the true Dragon Dogma 2 the
feeling you get when the credits roll
but you know there's more to discover
and find the developers put a very fun
end game for you to stick around
needless to say much like my original
experience the game won me over with its
end game of course that's a rather High
number of hours for something to click
or reach its full potential and many
people would not want to spend the time
or effort when they are uncertain they
will enjoy that as much as I do so let's
delve into the specifics of gameplay
Dragon's Dogma 2's quests are well done
and I found them very enjoyable due to
the multiple scenarios and approaches
that can happen that said they were also
very confusing at times and you may end
up relying on pawns to tell you where to
go or what to do next fortunately there
is a system for you to select pawns who
have Quest knowledge and direct them to
act as your guide this also applies to
exploration where the pawns you have
hired will mention that they've
discovered something nearby when in
another world and offer to show you this
is a fantastic mechanic because it's
optional for those who rather not use it
but can be a huge timesaver given the
scope of the world vastness can be very
appealing in an open world game but it
does get very tedious when exploration
is interrupted every 2 minutes by yet
another band of goblins that you're
going to face roll anyway and have no
good loot to give you and the lower
levels of the game have honestly four
daytime enemy types goblins Sans harpies
and wolves it got boring very fast and I
was just so glad on the reare occasion a
cyclops would attack me instead
rejoicing while it bashed my brains up
something that really offset some
annoyance and helped make me feel
immersed though was the addition of
camping you'll find many campsites
around the world and they allow you to
set up with your companions and chitchat
around the fire while you grill some
food Provisions that you've gathered
you'll get bonuses to your stats and
regeneration based on the type of steak
that you use just be careful to stay
away from rotted meat or you'll get
blight for the entire party the camp
also allows you to change skills which
is very convenient if you're planning on
tackling a nearby monster and must swap
some Elemental Buffs and of course
camping lets you rest and recover all
your HP and clear all bights with the
assistance of camping I was able to
truly lose myself in Exploration and it
became almost a different game and
allowed me to feel the reward of
exploring I searched around bushes to
find rare items discovered cleverly
hidden Collectibles climbed steep Cliffs
to reach unuk chests and delve deep into
caves filled with monsters While most
gear seems to be bought in shops there
is still a lot to be found including
Rings armor and weapons and some enemies
even dropped me some equipment adding to
the joy of Discovery since so much of
the exploration ends being enemy
encounters combat is a huge part of
Dragon Dogma 2 right away you don't
really have big epic battles for the
first part of the game so you weren't
focused too much on optimizing your
equipment or party this can mislead
people into thinking the combat is too
simple but the reality is that it's
actually very methodical and rewarding
this is not a skill-based game for the
most part it's a preparation and
knowledge game so when you play you'll
spend a lot of time checking shops for
gear for yourself and pawns optimizing
your curatives and spells and checking
hired pawns for desired traits and
skills
this means by the time you enter a
battle you're rolling the dice in a
board game and seeing your efforts
preparing played out sometimes you may
do skillful actions and apply your
strategies as in combat tactics but most
of the time the win or lose of a battle
is decided before it starts by things
like your party Buffs curatives and
damage capabilities it's also noteworthy
that the debilitation and Elemental
damage systems are deep and fun to
Tinker with in a way few games manage to
many players enjoyed using toer to
overwhelm even the hardest enemies in
the first game and I'm very much looking
forward to to seeing what crazy
approaches the community will come up
with in this one adding to the Fantastic
feel of customization Dragon's Dogma 2
has upgrade Styles and each style is
found in a different location so you can
only use the balanced ones first until
you've traveled far and found the rest
to make your life easier I have taken
the time and effort so you'll be able to
find every weapon armor and ring in the
game on the wiki with its full upgrade
paths and material requirements on day
one fortunately there is a good variety
of weapons and very fashionable armor to
be bought and tried out and the basic
upgrades are very affordable so you can
Tinker with your gear and your party as
much as you like leveling up is quite
quick and smooth changing vocations was
simple and ranking up pretty fast I
maxed out two vocations for myself in my
Pawn before I got to endgame but you
could easily do more your level ups are
not tied specifically to one vocation
either so you can freely come and go as
you wish and retake a vocation Midway
later without losing any progress in
this regard combat can remain fresh as
you can swap to completely different
classes and have medium level gear or
even high-end skills ready for that new
vocation however the most unique classes
are unlocked rather late in the game so
you'll probably cycle through the basic
ones first this is well worth doing as
the passive skills called augments are
unlocked on one vocation that can then
be used on any other so you can use a
fighter passive on your sorcerer after
unlocking it for example anyone who
loves Dragon Dogma knows the payoff was
very late in the game Dragon's Dogma 2
has the same approach with more classes
and Equipment opening up as you reach
the late stages enemy variety difficulty
and drops increase Creeks populate the
landscape and your experience becomes
all in all all a lot more rewarding this
carries on after the credits roll with
multiple endings and postgame content to
explore and complete including new
currencies and shops that feature really
awesome equipment here is where the game
truly grabbed me as I started wanting to
really optimize my party and had set off
to hunt specific and challenging foes to
gather the materials for the gear and
upgrades I wanted there's something very
satisfying about those hunts and about
sending off your pawn and seeing it come
back with gifts and thanks from other
players I became addicted to exploring I
developed a hatred of the dams and I
became a true pro at slang Drakes I
certainly feel like I can stay in the
endgame for a long time and it has
recolored my entire experience much like
high rank of Monster Hunter a big part
of open world RPGs is the experience you
get from the world that experience is
heavily affected by the world design and
graphical Fidelity and musical score
Dragon's Dogma 2 has very good art
Direction with interesting monsters
unique and fashionable armor and weapon
Concepts and a stylized interface that
gives it more of a tabletop RPG feel
there were some you misses in the design
of menus and the lack of front-end
visualization of important mechanics but
overall it's quite well done graphically
the game is pretty but not very
impressive there are some really nice
touches such as light sources like your
lamp and distant torches or enemies with
ghostly effects are very distinguishable
at night and it really adds to the
overall immersion I also found some
ancient ruines and structures that took
me to breathtaking Vistas and found the
density of forest paths to be very well
done I was also very glad to see that
there weren't obvious copy pastes in the
landscape which is which is a very real
problem for most large open world games
that said and while monster models in
some environments are gorgeous there was
no graphical wow factor for me in the
landscape at large if you're looking for
eye candy you are more likely to be
enticed by the flashy effects and
animations for certain vocations and
spellcasting as well as the detailed
move sets and effects from some of the
larger monsters NPC models are okay but
you'll encounter stiff face animations
and awkward movements more often than
not which can be forgivable if you
consider they actually customized a huge
number of those characters you weren't
always looking at the same person in
different clothes but graphical Fidelity
is only a portion of the equation and
there has been a lot of talk about
performance in this point we have had a
lot of discussions amongst ourselves
about how to explain how this works we
played the game on all three platforms
on an Xbox series X PlayStation 5 and a
relatively high-end PC with a 3090
graphics card FPS performance was subpar
on all of them Xbox seems to be the
worst of the lot with some dips under 30
FPS PlayStation looks somewhat smoother
hovering around look to be 40 to 50 FPS
most of the time and PC ran the best
with about 80 FPS at 1440p on Max
settings in most areas with some
slowdown when entering the large towns
that dropped into the 40 FPS range the
game also has some faint Popp in which
means things appear and disappear
translucently rather than just
completely pop into existence so it's
not as noticeable as in other games now
many people will hear about the FPS and
immediately cancel their pre-order and
go leave a review of zero on meta critic
never having played the game I feel like
there are some disclaimers that need to
be brought alongside those low numbers
yes it's unacceptable for a modern game
on nextg consoles to have that low of
FPS and it's really hard to understand
why when the game has been in
development for so long but if the proof
is in the pudding the reality is even
with that low FPS I just kept playing
and I didn't notice it all that much we
shared the game amongst ourselves to
test our reactions and overall we
arrived at the same conclusion well it
sucks but it's not ruining the game so
while this is going to heavily impact
the score of the game it will eventually
be your decision whether this is
something that stops you from playing I
don't know if this is something they can
fix as I don't quite understand why the
performance is so lame but for me
personally if I heard they will never
fix this I would still buy and play the
game because it didn't bother me as much
as I thought it would on the music score
side I was a bit disappointed as I have