Recent reviews by risbolla

i need to ♥♥♥♥

it is fun, you can recruit the nameless rank and file soldier and he is the best unit

no idea what is going on but my ♥♥♥♥ is HARD

i enjoy the game a lot. gameplay wise it is basically what it says on the tin: dragon's dogma. and for everyone who wanted more dragon's dogma after finishing dragon's dogma: dark arisen you will certainly be getting it with dragon's dogma 2. so i can easily recommend the game for people who enjoyed the first game. that is the short of it

if you come into the game expecting it to be dark souls, monster hunter, the witcher, baldur's gate, or anything else then you are going to be disappointed. it is not any of those games, it is dragon's dogma, just like it says in the title. maybe there are other games like dragon's dogma, but in that case i have never played them, so i do not have any good point of reference to compare it to

and if you have not played dragon's dogma, why in the world are you shelling out $70 for the sequel? go and play the first game. the story may be standalone in dd2, but the setting and context for it builds on first game. more importantly, ddda is a fantastic game in its own right

positives
solid gameplay foundation and loop. lots of different vocations to try and a lot of different approaches can be taken in combat. similar to the previous game, the mechanics and feel of the battles is an arpg at its height. the grappling and climbing on bigger enemies is a high point for me especially

the pawn system is what really sets the game apart from others in the genre, and one of my favorite novel systems in the franchise. you create an npc sidekick which follows you around on your journey and helps you to the best of its ability. this npc can also be "rented" to other players on the network. similarly you might want to hire pawns from other players to give yourself an edge in combat, to help with quests, or just to translate idiotic elven babble for you

like in the original the setting is also deceptively different from its first appearances and presentation as high fantasy slop. it uses themes and subject matter from mythology, religion, and philosophy that it is rare to see in a game like this, and you might not expect. unfortunately the forays into these themes are typically pretty surface level compared to the original, which was not very in depth in the first place

the setting and worldbuilding also integrates a lot of the more game mechanical aspects of dragon's dogma pretty stylishly and seamlessly. sewing crunch mechanics into the fluff of the worldbuilding makes it deceptively easy to get immersed into what is actually a completely goofy and insane setting if you spend more than a few seconds thinking about it. i also love the use of archaic english to sell the medieval setting, and i get to learn that domain and jail were at some point written "demesne" and "gaol" as a bonus

negatives
it does have a lot of shortfalls. i think a lot of people who played the first game were hoping that dd2 might have released in a more finished state than the first game. unfortunately it does not seem to be the case. a lot of the content is half baked, a lot of ideas were started but left "unfinished" is a sense i get with a lot of the content in the game

at the same time the game feels notably less ambitious than the first game. the story and ideas around the narrative are also a lot more standard fare than previously. this is probably my biggest complaint about the game. i would have preferred an overly ambitious game like the previous installment, even if it meant it would fail to deliver on a lot more ideas. at least then you can lament the missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential. by cutting its own ambition short in the sequel the game has in my mind limited its potential in the first place

this is also felt in a lot of the narrative/worldbuilding ideas which i found cool about the first game - such as the everfall, infinite parallel worlds, cyclical time, will/volition as the driving force of the world - are either left out, glossed over, or unceremoniously mentioned in passing before being written off as if from a checklist. if i played dd2 before ddda i would be thoroughly unimpressed by the setting, which is a shame

i would say the narrative of the game is still a cut above your regular high fantasy slop, but just barely. there is a reveal at the end of the game, but it is something of a hidden ending that you might have trouble figuring out by yourself without being familiar with the first game

*note on microtransactions
about the same story as with ddda. you can pay extra to get readily available in game items. there is no reason to do this and it does not give you any real advantage over just playing the game normally

my suspicion is that the mtx are reluctantly included in the release of the game as a way to mollify capcom shareholders, with the predictable outcome of souring the game for a lot of potential buyers instead

**note on performance
i can only speak for my own setup, but i did initially have some performance issues. these were relatively easy to rectify however

if you are having issues with performance, try disabling dynamic resolution and fidelityfx super resolution. after i disabled these options the game not only ran a lot better, but also looked a lot better

the game as it is runs butter smooth on the "high" preset for my midrange desktop @1080p. rx 6700 xt, ryzen 5 1600x, and 32gb of ram. i understood your mileage may vary a lot depending on your setup, and for a lot of people playing the game without ray tracing and 4k is out of the question. if you can settle for 1080p then likely you will be just fine with a midrange build

finally: hire my pawn (id: YLXO7EA22YLB), wolves hunt in packs

stoked

gorgeous game! i think it is worth checking out for the aesthetic alone. it is like a deck building game, except with dice instead of cards. you add faces to your dice which have various effects, which is a mechanic i have not seen implemented similarly anywhere else

other than that it plays like other deck building games you may be familiar with, such as slay the spire or vault of the void. you go from battle to battle and gain more cards (or in this case, dice faces) in between to increase your power. you have to consider how you set up your dice to fudge the rolls as much as possible in your own favor. there is also a mechanic with dice bounces, where certain abilities will power up the more times you bounce your dice together on rolling them

a couple of drawbacks i see is that like a lot of "roguelike/roguelite" games it relies heavily on metaprogression to increase replayability. i would have preferred if there was more variation in enemy encounters and areas. from what i can see you will be visiting the same four areas each run through the game, with a handful of enemies. the different classes are also locked behind metaprogression, and you need to put in quite a lot of time just to unlock the next class

the forest guardian is like a big toddler that likes putting stuff in its mouth

this game needs a hero

it is fun

great choice if you to run around faerun with your default genitals and terrorize witless npcs with your fickle chaotic stupid decision making. for bonus points pick a drow to enjoy experiencing fantasy racism in full. dripzzt i call him