You know, I play RPGs for the best of times, and for the worst of times. Now, I've had my hand on this for the worst of times, completely forcing me to abandon most notions of what an action RPG is supposed to play like. While also giving me mixed feelings about the overall experience.
God, I wanted to continue playing, experiment with the different classes/vocations, go around the open world, meet so many people around, experiencing culture, Capcom has a high ceiling when it comes to immersion, and yet, for some weird reason, not everything works out. But I still want to come back to it. I'd say Dragon's Dogma 2 leaves me wanting a lot out of it.
I also wish my PS5 didn't struggle so much running this game, I had to switch to performance mode, what a godsend. More so, I wasn't a fan of exploring the caves due to how repetitive it felt, the same-ish grunt encounters throughout exploration, and damn it to all, the quest design.
Character creator in this game is fantastic, though am the last guy to put so much of my time into something like that. Also, dear god this beauty, no worries you'll see so much realism and some humanity in the character design. Outside the facial animation, of course.
The more I look at the game, scrutinizing everything around me, the more I wanted to go around and check the places out. Capcom somehow managed to create such an alluring world that is so far away, yet captivates me to go through the journey for the destination. Even if said destination will defy expectations in many unexpected ways. It's both its blessing and curse.
It all begins when I customize my pawn character as well, picking how they speak, and their behavior before learning that my actions will shape who they become. Result of which I got to see also from the other two pawns I spawn from the Riftstones across the land.
You know, like Death Stranding's interconnected system, a lot of good help comes from other players pawns. Which does cost currency for hiring them, later on is no issue as time and time teaches me how to make my pawn a better companion. In fact, he learns from other players hiring in their games as well, before lending me a hand in finding treasures, and other spots.
Which is important, considering every situation, you need a different class to help win out certain unwinnable battles. I will need range attackers like archers and sorcerers to attack Harpies, and boss battles that have wings doing flying attacks. Every vocation has its offsets. Yet, the best part is everyone can switch and master multiple of them. Why, mine is a mage, and has maxed as sorcerer, and fighter. If Capcom wasn't doing any of this, the game would suck terribly.
Like, gameplay can seem barebones and simple from a watchful eye, at the early vocation, there's nothing really to talk about, until rank 3 or 4, that's where I unlock real skills to use, and putting these to work, as well as the ones I picked for my own pawn is a labor appreciated.
The amazing choreography, animation, my teammate's and our attacks coming in beautiful sync, it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Even if it's stringent, and stuck to basic functions, pressing L1 is where I use my allotted skills to use from face buttons. Stamina is important to keep an eye on, as at times it can run out when least expected.
If not that, then I'm just spamming between two attacks. Two of which varies based on the respective vocations. Magic dealers cast different ranges of spells, archers spam arrows and kick enemies, fighters and warriors have alternating attacks, and so on. The real juice are the skills used in the battles, due to their unique design and practical uses in combat.
Now, there's more stuff going on when you visit a guild, like upgrading those basic attacks in Core Skills, augmenting by unlocking passives like HP, stamina, weight capacity, and damage boosts, and after ranking up, unlocking new and upgrading equipped weapon skills after usage.
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So, let's talk about the quests, the quest design at times act like enigmas. They don't necessarily tell you everything, nor provide all the necessary info to get where I need to go. I'm serious, they can be pretty vague. Then, at times, they hide multiple paths to completing them.
This one guy wants a very precious gem, and will pay top gold to get it. His slave hand wants to get away from his masters. So, to whom do I actually give? Now there's a moral quandary. What I did was, basically find a guy who makes forgeries of items, and give the fake to the other guy, while him, I gave the geniune article. I got gold both ways, profit.
Another is finding the second volume of a powerful book, so powerful, it has blinding power, his family got concerned because he lost one good eye thanks to it. Forgery guy strikes again, I make a fake, and give it to him. He decides to listen to his family and come to sense.
Not everything worked out, I had to fight a Griffin for a sculptor, and I couldn't find a petrification spell anywhere, so his art came out terrible for the client, and well, it went as bad as you'd expect. There are so many quests like these, like Skyrim, but it plays out really well. The only problem, however, is due to how vague and taciturn it gets, sometimes you get stuck on certain quests.
I took down a bandit camp in Bakbattahl. One of the guys is a moral upstanding character, but got betrayed by his boss, so he is locked up, and it was my job to convince him to switch sides. I am trying to bribe the jailer to free him, but he keeps telling me to wait, I waited several months after doing a couple of quests, and he's still telling me to be patient. Least it's not as bad as following a street beggar nearly a whole freaking day (which is over an hour IRL).
Open world, as amazing as it is, is time-consuming and super arduous to explore. Dragon's Dogma 2 fast travel is limited, as you'll need Ferrycoins to do so, rare and expensive as they are. With a few Port Crystals, stretched so far between the land. Walking, and running around, is 1/3 the game. But as I've said, there is a world to explore, especially with the pawns.
I can specialize them to find materials to forage, logistics for items, letting them learn foreign languages like Elvish, and so on. My Pawn's personality changed in the 25th hour, my boy has grown to the man he is. I couldn't be prouder. I found our companions to be funny and interesting as well.
I love it when my team mage powers my weapons for serious damage, the time we camp often, eating cooked meat like something straight out of Monster Hunter with raised stats, assisting me when I'm down. Like things can get tough, they react well according to situation.
But this game is asking a lot from the players. Patience, for the most. It has amazing things to show for, but it means exploring the unlikely of places to find things. There are even times I got pissed, because on the beaten path, I've hit dead-ends a lot, and had to turn back. That means climing over terrain after terrain. Then to stumble on a cave, and all of a sudden doing an escort mission.
Also to add, this game does not well on my PS5. I've heard complains about the PC version as well. The towns, combat, and exploration starts feeling tedious after dozens of hours somehow. Even if by sheer grand design, it is very much the odd one out compared to many RPGs out there.
With esoteric features that'll make you question if you want to play or not. As for the main storyline, yeah it's bad. But that's not why people played DD in the first place. Despite so many criticizing, many are still playing this. Players can create pawn quests, and choose the reward they'll give to anyone. You can revive other NPCs and yourself with Wakestones, again using rare items. No worries, I didn't forget about fighting powerful dragons either. Fighting one had me reviving multiple times.
