Dragon's Dogma 2

Got a few hours in this now. Same basic deal as the first game, but vocations have more role specialization. Thief is the only class with dodge ability so far, Archers are expected to use positioning to avoid damage. Mage has no melee attack, their heavy attack button now casts the Anodyne spell.

Hitstun is severe. Characters often reel, stagger, or drop to their knees from strong hits. It's very easy to find yourself getting combo'd. The melee vocation heavy attacks will automatically transition into a special critical stab if the victim is off-balance enough. Getting hit into a wall prolongs the hitstun animation. When you or enemies are sent flying, there's impact damage on landing.

I've only fought one large monster outside of tutorials, but here's what I've learned. You can grab them without climbing, the only apparent purpose of this is when they are off-balance you can push/pull to make them fall down. When I knocked down a cyclops, I was able to do the heavy attack critical stab to his head, it did a lot of damage. When climbing on top of a monster, your character will stand and walk which gives better mobility and recovers stamina. Your attacks will still be the climbing attacks. Mage can cast Anodyne while climbing, lol. There are a few skills that can transition into climbing on hit.

You can pause at any time to munch 50 healing items like in DD1, but items now only heal recoverable white life. The rest only heals when you sleep at an inn or campsite. Using a campsite requires a camping kit, which is heavy.

Game seems harder than DD1 so far, but using a full party of 3 pawns still makes it easy.

So much to say. Here's some quick notes.

Archer is basically the Ranger from DD1. But now they can do normal shots in addition to manual aiming. These shots are auto aim but do less damage and knockback and can't target weak points. But they're useful for flyers or stuff that runs around like wolves. You can move while shooting.

Free aim functions the same as DD1.

Deathly Arrow flash is on the character instead of the icon now. I'm not used to this and keep missing it.

It's easier to transition from shooting to sprinting. No need for a dodge really. Don't be dumb with your shots and pay attention.

Don't like how loots doesn't appear anymore meaning you don't know what you're getting. This means you waste more time in menus.

Special arrows are now tied to special moves and function like sticky grenades. This is dumb. In DD1 you just equipped them and could use them with any move. So if I have 20 explosive arrows, I can't use them without the move Explosive Arrow. It's not a bad system but I feel less freedom. And if I run out of arrows I'm left with unusable special moves.

Inns are ridiculously expensive. First city charges 2000. Second is 9999. In the first city there's a quest that let's you buy a small apartment that you can rest in for free. No idea about the second region.

Enemies are definitely more aggressive.

I've only played like three hours and don't have an opinion yet other than I'm enjoying it. Really curious to see what you guys think.

I don't think much of the open world. Needlessly huge. Caves and ruins around but nothing special about them.

A lot of quests require you to wait a few days before you can advance or complete them. Waste of time.

There are some BBI enemies roaming certain parts of the map but aren't as threatening. Only truly new enemies I've come across are Medusa and Minotaurs.

Ranged combat is still good.

I read somewhere that while each vocation has its own stat growth, when you switch it doesn't carry over to the new vocation. Instead it coverts your stats to what they would've been if you only played in the vocation you just switched to. I've heard some conflicting things too but it's early days. I'm sure someone will produce an indepth guide on stats soon.

I heard level goes to 999 now.

There is a dwelling in the second big city to buy for $30000.

>World/RPG stuff
I quite like what they've done. The addition of time requirements to quests adds to the time management aspect, along with food spoiling and the very impactful day/night cycle. The changes to consumables and item combining make it more relevant now to pay attention to the age of your food items. The in-game economy is also better balanced than DD1, mostly by making things more expensive. This stuff serves to make the world more immersive, which I'm sure was a major goal of the devteam.

>Mage/Sorcerer
Two new abilities to facilitate faster casting. Quickspell lets you hold a button to double charge speed at the cost of stamina. Spellhold lets you store a charged spell to be cast without charging later. These are great, making casting more interactive.

Aside from that, Mage and Sorcerer are more specialized. Mage has only a few basic attack spells and a ton of support spells, while Sorcerer's entire spell list is attacks, with a couple debuff spells.

>Fighter/Warrior
Fighter has changed the least of all the vocations. Some little changes I don't like, my favorite skill from DD1 is gone, but the playstyle is the same as ever. It was my favorite vocation in DD1 and it's still awesome.

Warrior's big change is that now it is super slow, tons of startup and recovery on most attacks. No more godly jumping light attack to spam. Instead it has a bigger focus on abusing super armor. Larger selection of chargeable skills, light attacks are chargeable, and you get super armor and damage resistance while charging, as well as an autoparry effect on charged attacks.

Notably the taunt skills on Fighter/Warrior are much more reliable at drawing aggro, actually worth a skill slot now.

>Thief
Loving the Thief. Daggers were the weapon I liked least in the first game, felt to me like a mishmash of gimmicks with no cohesion. They've fixed that completely IMO. There's a clear identity now and it consists of darting around the field executing targets with deadly efficiency. Biting Wind (the Stinger) has faster recovery so you can combo after. You can hold heavy attack to grapple enemies, but rather than waiting for an ally, you can attack and kill the grappled enemy yourself. Biting Wind into immediate grapple and execution is extremely satisfying. You've got camouflage and a smoke bomb for avoiding enemy aggro, and Powder Charge is a remotely detonated bomb with a sizeable blast radius. Skullsplitter returns and is as godly as ever.

Ensnare is super strong now, because the downed enemy can be backstabbed for a quick kill. On large monsters, you can lodge the rope and pull continuously to make toppling them easier. You can also plant Powder Charge directly onto a monster while climbing.

>quests
Absolutely terrible for the most part. Making me waste my time to run to an inn. There's just no point doing this. I've skipped most of them.

I'm in post-game now. Changes are interesting. My archer can be hurt bad and I have to really manage my range and positioning or I'm toast. Ferrystones drop from most enemies.

Post-game being in some kind of timer is dumb.

Spent some time with the Mystic Spearhand. It does some crazy stuff so I'm not surprised people like it, but personally I'm really not a fan. Main reason is that it isn't very interactive with enemy attacks. Your 2 main defensive abilities are a stun spell and a shield spell. The stun is a ranged grapple on small enemies and a time slow effect on large enemies, very much like DD1's Grapnel, except that you can still move and act while the enemies are held. The shield spell simply gives total invulnerability for a few seconds. In both cases, it's not about managing enemy attacks but instead about managing the uptime on your magical damage prevention.

It's not overpowered (well the invincibility spell is probably overpowered) since the duospear is pretty slow and clumsy, if an attack actually gets to you there's little hope of avoiding it. But it just feels like the dynamic back-and-forth of combat is replaced by a lot of meter management. I assume this is intentional, they've really worked to make each vocation unique, and I guess they thought DD1's Mystic Knight was a little too similar to Fighter. Spearhand is certainly unique so mission accomplished.

>quests
There's enough stuff to do that when it tells me to wait I simply go do something else and check back later. On replays I can always skip those with unimportant rewards.

Some interesting reactions.

Lava slime, when hit by a Deluge Arrow, will harden and become vulnerable to physical attacks.

There's another type that explodes if fire touches them. Fatman zombies do the same.

Explosive Arrows will do high damage to slimes too. Not sure if they work on every type.

Saw a cyclops stumble into a wall and smack its face, then stopped and had a cry about it.

In NG+ now.

Slimes will attack anything that comes near them, with the same slowing effect as when they attack you. Very handy if you can maneuver a large monster toward one.

And speaking of enemies fighting each other, the Trickster vocation is shockingly fun. Despite having no attacks, it's a very active playstyle due to how the decoy works. You get the most value out of the decoy by moving it around frequently, and the only way to move it is by calling it to your location, so Trickster runs around the battlefield more than any other vocation save Thief. It is obviously reliant on your pawn for damage, so will need some experimentation to find the best suited pawns. The idea of playing a dedicated Trickster is very interesting to me.

>slime vs big enemies
Can they hurt big enemies? I imagine they'd be killed before they could do anything.
I've seen them swallow small enemies whole.

>Trickster gameplay
I found it pretty fun the short time I used it.

Made a Lizardman fall with fake floor. I jumped across a small gap on a cliffside path and placed the floor. Lizardman fell through to his death. Very funny.

Fake wall makes enemies just stop as though they've come to a dead end.

Decoy is cool. Seems enemies are always attracted to it. You can have it attach to enemies which makes other enemies attack them. Similar to a confusion spell. Trickster gets some kind of buff for the party but I think it increases their stamina usage or something. I remember it having a downside.

If you have the Sphinx reward weapon, you have a reason to get up close and attack because it gives you money.

>slime vs big enemies
They do drain their health some, and cyclops/ogre at least will miss the slime with a lot of their attacks. Don't imagine slime would bother a drake very much, though the slowing would get you some free hits before it dies to the drake.

>decoy
Aggro toward the Arisen is directed to the decoy instead. Pawns/NPCs can still draw aggro, so it pays to put Provocation on yourself and Subtlety on your pawn. And your physical attack stat increases Trickster's ability to draw aggro (while magic attack increases the decoy's health).

The party buff is a pretty big damage increase, and the downside is it drains their life while active. Seems strong, but I haven't messed with that one much.

>slime vs cyclops
Aren't slimes immune to physical?

>Aggro toward the Arisen is directed to the decoy instead
Didn't realize this.

>Trickster
Now I'm thinking how a Trickster only run would work.

Such a shame throwable items are gone. Spellbooks exist but I doubt there are enough to sustain even one trek outside. Don't remember if you can buy them. Probably can somewhere but I doubt they're cheap.

Maybe allow for your main pawn only. Back them up with spellbooks if needed and have enemies kill each other by attaching the decoy maybe. But even a single pawn can get extremely powerful.

>Aren't slimes immune to physical?
I assumed they just had high physical resist like phantasms? I haven't yet been forced to test it.

>Trickster damage
There's a bookstore in the second city, and you have to cross the border to unlock Trickster anyway. Don't know how often shops restock though, probably a lot of spamming rests.

Throwing small enemies or dead bodies is another way to deal damage, if you're desperate.

>cross the border
Should be possible from the start. I don't think anything stops you.

>restock
Forgot about that. Doesn't sound viable.

Would probably be a low level run.

Second time in post-game. Boring.

Overall DD1 vanilla is better. DD2 post-game kind of sucks. Hope the do a huge BBI-like expansion.

I just finished first playthrough. I think it's better than DD1, though the changes are substantial enough that they fill different niches for me. The strongest point is that the vocations are universally better designed and more fun IMO.

The post-game does suffer from severe overuse of skeletons. Got pretty sick of chasing skulls down slopes. Also the late game rock saurians are annoying, would prefer to have less of them and more of the bolt saurians and asps.

The vocations have some good aspects compared to DD1.
I think some might be better. But not casters or how archer arrows work.

The post-game sucks. Nothing really to do. Enemies are the same just slightly stronger.

>Skeleton heads
I can see how they'd be a problem for certain classes. But as an archer I shot the rolling heads or headshot killed them. My pawn tended to pursue rolling heads too.

Might drop this now. No staying power. Too many negatives to be really enjoyable.

Massively disappointing. Will come back if there's a good expansion.

So what is the general consensus on this? I like what I've played but I don't have a ton of DD1 experience to compare it to. Seems like a lot of fans of the first game aren't loving it.

Was something wrong with development or is this being "Itsuno's vision" just complete bullshit?

>massively disappointed
Sad to hear that.

>expansion
Was base DD1 better? Or did Dark Arisen elevate it to worthwhile status?

>did Dark Arisen elevate it
I don't think so. Dark Arisen is a really good expansion, but DD1 was already a banger on release. Personally I think DD2 right now is at least on par with Dark Arisen. Of course I certainly won't complain if it gets a big expansion.

>comparison to DD1
There is a conscious paring down of mechanics in DD2. Armor items have been reduced from 7 (torso clothing, torso armor, leg clothing, leg armor, head, arms, cloak) to 4 (torso, legs, head, cloak). Pawn behavior in DD1 was driven by a set of 9 inclinations which each had separate values that increased or decreased depending on your actions. In DD2, there are only 4 inclinations, each corresponding to a different "playstyle", and you simply choose one for your pawn at character creation. In DD1, vocations had 6 skill slots, and there was a larger overall number of skills for each vocation.

I know people always cry rivers when anything gets removed, but I think most of these reductions have resulted in a better game. The large number of armor items in DD1 was nice for playing dress-up, but otherwise meaningless, and made equipment management/upgrading a much bigger hassle. DD1's inclinations were interesting in theory, however in practice they had a lot of issues, actually commanding your pawn would change their inclinations and so was harmful in the long run, and a pawn could become borderline useless if the wrong inclination got too high, requiring you to jump through hoops to reset their inclinations. None of this was explained anywhere in-game either.

A lot of weapon skills in DD1 were either redundant or just not very good. The shield skills in particular were mostly junk in DD1, so while Fighter theoretically had 6 skill slots, all of the good ones were locked to the 3 sword slots, and you filled the 3 shield slots with mediocre leftovers. The dagger and bow vocations in DD1 were all hybrids with 3 slots per weapon, whereas DD2 has a single dedicated dagger vocation and a single dedicated bow vocation. Both weapons have substantially improved core movesets as a result.

Sorcerer is the one vocation that I think got shafted a little bit. Unlike other vocations, it got full value out of all 6 skill slots, and the ability to precisely aim spells in DD1 was significant for the AoE spells. Improvements like quickspell and levitation casting do help, but not enough to make up for what Sorcerer lost. Mage on the other hand I think is clearly better than its DD1 counterpart. Anodyne is both much faster and no longer uses a skill slot, and Mage's spell list is better in DD2 than DD1, despite having fewer total spells. It lost Grapnel to the Spearhand, but Palladium and Celestial Paean are powerful replacements.

Another thing to note is that you can now change your slotted skills at any of the many campsites around the map, instead of having to go back to the hub city in DD1. Because of this, I change my slotted skills around a lot more often in DD2, and get a lot more value out of the more situational skills.

>Was something wrong with development or is this being "Itsuno's vision" just complete bullshit?
It has a lot of jank. The first game also had a lot of jank. DD is Itsuno's passion project, and his reach sometimes exceeds his grasp.

Was surprised to read that a lot of people are not happy with it, so was curious what the take was here but seems similar. Shame to hear. Would you say it was streamlined and something was lost along the way?

>Itsuno's vision
If making a worse game was his vision, sure.

>Was base DD1 better? Or did Dark Arisen elevate it to worthwhile status?
Base DD1 was better. You had a large dungeon with lots of enemy combinations and new loot, and the Ur Dragon.

Dark Arisen made it a billion times better. I've explored the dungeon so many times. Tons of areas, bosses and crazy combinations. There's so much value to it I'm still playing it like 8 years later.

DD2 got a few nice shortcuts like the lantern switch but overall its worse in too many ways. I have no desire to ever touch it again vs 8 or so years of Dark Arisen fun. Hundreds of hours.

this didn't save AAA gaming? well that stinks. now what?

Bought Dark Arisen for 3 bucks on Xbox for a rainy day in the future.

Jackie Estacado wrote:this didn't save AAA gaming? well that stinks. now what?

Endless parrytrash and Soulslikes until the next shitty trend takes control of the industry. Enjoy.

>Would you say it was streamlined and something was lost along the way?
I would say they went for quality over quantity. The core combat mechanics are more fun and engaging than DD1 imo, and while nearly all the enemies are pulled straight from DD1, they've been overhauled to be more interesting and dangerous. Even a basic, bog-standard fight with a pack of goblins has more depth to it in DD2 than in DD1.

Of note is the way DD2 moves away from scripted setpieces in favor of dynamic encounters in the wilderness. The exciting stuff like retaking a fort or rescuing a damsel from an ogre, these are relegated to optional sidequests. DD2's main story mostly consists of "go here, talk to this person", and relies on the open world to produce interesting encounters, which they've done a lot of work to support. As part of this, the game is not at all afraid to let different groups of enemies interact. You can arrive at an area and find enemies already dead because they got in a scuffle with each other. It's not out of the ordinary to have an intense fight turn into chaos with the sudden arrival of a griffin from on high. This sort of thing didn't exist in DD1, except in a very limited sense in Bitterblack Isle, and in DD2 it's a common occurrence.

Maybe I'm just the odd one, but I think this approach of very solid foundation works very well. I don't need fancy distractions because the game is so good on a fundamental level that even the basic stuff is consistently engaging. That said, the one thing missing from DD2 IMO is one or two sicko mode boss fights. Dark Bishop and first form Daemon in Dark Arisen are so damn good, and I'd love to have a nasty dude like that in DD2.

>You had a large dungeon with lots of enemy combinations and new loot, and the Ur Dragon.
I think the Everfall is pretty sucky tbqh. Calling it a "large dungeon" is a stretch, it's just set of boss rooms, only a couple of the chambers have layouts that could be described as dungeon-like and even those are small. It's also pretty cowardly about what enemy combinations it gives you. Chimera+Wights is weaksauce. The loot is basically worthless, the new equipment is worse than what you already had from the Dragon, even the special Ur-Dragon weapons aren't worth using. Ur-Dragon is nice as a way to rematch the Dragon, but much like Metal Golems, the winghearts make Ur-Dragon a miserable experience for half the vocations in the game. Plus the enemies all shower you in 1-Ups so you've gotta play under challenge rules if you want to have any hope of fun in the Everfall.

DD2's postgame is a LOT better than the Everfall IMO. Of course it still doesn't hold a candle to Bitterblack Isle, which actually IS a large dungeon with lots of enemy combinations, new loot (including some actually cool effects instead of just bigger number), and sick boss fights.

>I have no desire to ever touch it again vs 8 or so years of Dark Arisen fun. Hundreds of hours.
I'm replaying Dark Arisen right now before my second go at DD2, and it's making me appreciate DD2 even more. There's so many little annoyances in DD1 that are just gone in DD2. And Saurians, man. DD2 Saurians are an actual threat, DD1 Saurians are glorified XP pinatas.

>Bought Dark Arisen for 3 bucks
Talk about a steal. Have fun, dude.

It's interesting how opposed our views are on these two games.

I was going to put together a complete list of everything I liked and hated in detail but I don't think I'll bother. I won't be going back to it unless they do a big update the improves what I don't like.