Before I get started I want to make it very clear that I am a huge fan of Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen and now Dragons Dogma 2. However being a huge fan I believe means that I have quite a lot of opinions to share about the game so lets dive in.

To simplify this review I'm going to divide this into 3 sections, the positive remarks, the negative problems, and the overall experience.

To start the most satisfying thing about playing Dragon's Dogma 2 is the combat. building on its predecessor's system, the combat in Dragon's Dogma 2 offers a dynamic way to fight large monsters with some of its most notable features from the first game being, climbing on the monster, unique classes, and party cohesion. However Dragon's Dogma 2 adds more to the table than the first game by giving the players more vocations to choose from. These new vocations add a plethora of new abilities and combat style that really spices things up. Some of my favorite vocations were the Mystic Spearhand which allowed for mobile combat whilst maintaining magical abilities to buff yourself and your team, the Fighter class made for simpler gameplay with a shield to become a tank against some of the hardest hitting attacks, and my most favorite the Wayfarer which was a jack of all trades class that allowed you to use any weapon or armor in the game. These vocations and the combat it brings is a the true highlight of the game and made for fun and engaging gameplay.

Next up we have graphics. The graphics in this game is absolutely astonishing with a huge upgrade from its previous installment. However comparing this game to others that come out during the same time, its obvious Dragon's Dogma 2 does not keep up but standalone this game's graphics are very nice and make it quite enjoyable to watch as you play.

The character customization is amazing. Capcom has really stepped up their game with their recent installments as far as the character customization goes. Before the game even came out they released a character customizer and the second it was released to the public you would see some of the most beautiful creations the community could ever create and also some of the most horrific abominations as well. By far one of the most detailed and enjoyable character customization options that games have ever come out with.

Dragon's Dogma 2 has a few other positive things going for it like, good monster design, and an interesting party pawn system however this is hard to enjoy if you've played the first game where all of that was better.

So now we get into the nitty gritty of the review and talk about the multitude of issues I have with the game.

To start the game has terrible world design, not only is there no fast travel but the roads you do travel on are chalked full of monsters. At first that sounds fun you get lots of enemies to fight but after a while where you have to go back and forth from multiple places across the map it gets to be a chore to fight through the hoards of enemies between point A and B. If you choose to run past all the enemies, well say goodbye to your pawns as they will either likely die or somehow get separated from the group and if your lucky they will actually keep up with you somewhat but as you keep going they lose all of their health from enemies attacking them along the way.

Speaking of enemies this game truly lacks a sense of variety with the monsters in the world. I can count on one hand the various amounts of enemies that you will fight. Its either goblins or lizards or zombies and when you get to the later parts of the games it turns into stronger goblins or stronger lizards or skeletons. The large monsters aren't much different. It gets to a point where you get tired of fighting the same things over and over again. Now this may just be because of my experience with the previous game but I expected that there would be a large selection of different monsters to fight and also that they would be pretty difficult. However most monsters you fight in the game are relatively easy to defeat. Don't worry though the endgame has a good amount of difficulty to it. Although even the endgame monsters are only difficult if you don't know what the specific gimmick to the fight is. Once you figured out how to beat them its cake.

Half the difficulty in the fights actually come from your pawns being dumb as rocks. These pawns have no sense of self preservation and all of the promised cool team cohesion that you could do with the pawns rarely ever happens. More often than not these pawns dive off a cliff like they could somehow sprout wings and fly. The most infuriating part is if you see some loot somewhere high up and want to get to it, you theoretically can ask a pawn to launch you up and get it or have a mage pawn fly up and get it. In practice however all you do is just so "go" over and over again and the pawns do nothing.

The worst part is the story. I expected the story to be improved upon since the last game. Not only was the story just as bad but also its exactly the same. In a nutshell you have heart stolen by dragon. weird magic guy wants to do some bad guy stuff. You stop weird magic guy. Big dragon shows up. You fight big dragon. I was really hoping for a more fleshed out story with interesting characters and better world building but instead I just got Dragon's Dogma all over again. Except this time we don't have any really interesting characters that shine like a diamond in the rough.

This goes to show a more pressing issue with the overall game. The thing is Dragon's Dogma 2 is less of a sequel game and more of a remaster of the first game. The only thing they do new from the first game is the new vocations they added. Most of what this game does well comes from the success of the first game. This is really disappointing and if you do a deep dive on the internet about the details of Dragon's Dogma 2 you will find speculation around cut content. You see I believe this game had to cut a lot of content out before release. This game would've likely been a thousand times better if they were given the time to incorporate the cut content. Who knows though maybe we will see it in a DLC expansion or something.

The final kicker however is the lack of replay-ability. Now trust me when I say that because I took the time to 100% the game so I replayed this game a ton despite the lack of replay-ability. So far there is no hard mode and the new game+ is actually just new game with no +. Now if you want a difficult and fun and experience with you second playthrough of the game there are mods that add more difficulty however they can have a bit of jank and if you are unfamiliar with modding may not be the most accessible option.

I loved the ♥♥♥♥ out of this game. Mostly because I have always been a huge Dragon's Dogma fan and despite all of the failings this game has I was still itching for more content. If you are looking for a pretty standard fantasy game with amazing action and combat then look no further this game achieves that satisfaction well. However there are lots of problems this game has, from the story and the lack of inspiration for new content to the terrible world design and outdated mechanics this game is not for the average RPG fan. If you are looking for an amazing story this is not the game for you. If you are looking for an emphasis on action and combat this might be more your cup of tea however if you are looking for the best of the best for combat you might want to try a monster hunter game instead. For me personally this game scratched an itch in my brain I had for a long time and even though objectively this game is best a 6/10 my enjoyment was definitely 10/10. So if you are anything like me, you'll both love and hate this game.