Recent reviews by Ol' Coal

I kind of can’t believe this game exists at all. And not only does it exist, but it captures the spirit of the original game so well and completely that I dumbstruck a second time.

One of the clearer ways to describe Dragon’s Dogma 2 is that it evokes the feeling of being the adventurer in a tabletop RPG via action RPG combat and a constant deluge of little decisions brought on by constraints in your resources.

You have fairly limited carrying capacity compared to most games, which forces you to be picky in what you tote around and what you pick up from exploring the vast open world or diving deep into dungeons and caves. You’re going to be doing a lot of traveling by foot or by oxcart (between a few fixed points on the map), so can you really afford to carry all of those curatives with you? What if you find some cool armor or materials that overencumber you? Can you really afford to use your limited fast travel items to drop everything off in storage right now? Is fighting a monster even worth it if you’re at half health and nearly capped in terms of item load?

Oh right, and there are monsters. LOTS of monsters. Clearly something Very Bad is happening in Vermund and Battahl since you can hardly walk 10 feet without finding something that wants to kill you. The hostility of the beautifully realized world, when taken in conjunction with limited ability to fast travel, is what forms the core of the experience of living in the world of DD2. While it can feel tiresome having to haul yourself across the continent, the game hardly feels rote because of the dynamism of the enemy encounters. You can bet that you’ll run into some goblins, sure, probably even some saurians. But what else lies along a familiar route? What should be a routine fetch and return can turn into an epic tale because halfway back to Vernworth an ogre jumps down from a cliff wall, grabs your pawn, and runs off. And then, after a long and hard-fought victory against the ogre, maybe a griffon decides to dive down from on high and cut your celebrations short by smacking you off the cliff. Every time I’m beginning to feel comfortable and confident in my abilities, some sort of crazy sequence of encounters happen back-to-back and make me realize that even with my solid gear and maxed out vocation skills, I’m still only a few missteps away from danger and death.

The game provides you with a lot of constraints and a lot of resistance to overcome at every step. The high friction is fundamental to the experience, but it does both giveth and taketh. Sometimes traveling the overworld and finding a road I just cleared to be full of goblins again on my way back just skirts the feeling of frustration. It can be enraging to essentially become stunlocked when surrounded by enemies smacking you with heavy attacks if your vocation doesn’t have blocks or escapes and your pawns aren’t helping. You can be left feeling a bit hopeless after one too many encounters repeatedly stops your progress and it’s clear you’re not equipped for this right now, but the nearest town is half a continent away. The game’s obtuse qualities and difficulties at every step are the source of highs and lows as victories and defeats roll in. The game demands patience and determination, and in my experience you are amply rewarded for it, but it’s also clear that this is not the experience everyone will have. I have a lot of love for this game but know that it is not for nearly everyone out there.

Already a superbly interesting and addicting game, even only at 3 hours in. You'd think it might be boring without any active combat, but there's enough systems to work with that you're rarely unoccupied after a few minutes into each run. I also think the art style is neat and sets a great tone.

definitely feels early access in spots, but still a tremendously fun multiplayer crafting / survival game when it works. wholeheartedly recommend for the price.

the good
- procedural generation seems quite good! Got very different starting areas in the few saves/servers I've been in. Each generated map seems huuuuuuge too.
- feels like it launched with a lot of content - lots of stuff to craft, and the progression of crafting required to work through the "story" is satisfying.
- engaging crafting and survival mechanics

the neutral
- combat isn't spectacular but it's serviceable.

the bad
- in multiplayer, game can lag pretty bad in combat or when near an area with a lot of buildings/objects. enemies flying off into the distance or clipping through the ground is very common for us.
- more of a nitpick, but this game doesn't have anything for a story, so if that matters to you then take that into consideration

Enjoyment of this game more or less depends on an appreciation of vaporwave, visual novels, and/or eldritch lore. That said, if you like any or all of those then this is a fantastic, charming murder mystery / vaporwave immersion experience. The world building is interesting, the ambience of the world is incredible, and the characters are generally charming. The island world in particular just feels amazing to explore, interpret, and just occupy. I wish I had taken more time to simply vibe out to the world, but I also got wrapped up in the joy of connecting the dots of the conspiracies of the island.

The that almost turned me off is that some of the line reads feel stilted, or just plain weird. I'm not sure how intentional it is, but it did grate on me sometimes. The rest of the game won me over intensely though.

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