The original Dragon's Dogma is an undercooked, janky mess of a game and also one of my absolute favorites. But it works because the game is fun to play, the giant monster fights are great and the beginning and end of the story hit hard even if the rest can get pretty janky.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is not fun to play - the monster spawn rate is much too high. Walking from town to town is an utter slog through waves of goblins, harpies, bandits, etc made all the worse by a new element of verticality added to the world map which maybe would have been a positive if I had time to *breathe* and explore it, rather than just another obstacle to make avoiding the next group of whatever that much harder to get away from.

(Oh, but you can take ox-carts from town to town. They're just prone to get attacked by giant monsters. And they're destructible to giant monsters and also pawns wielding 2handed weapons against said giant monsters. Ask me how I know *that* one, lol)

♥♥♥♥, a few times I fought a large monster only to have bandits, then skeletons, then wolves spawn on me. What the heck? Either the developers had no confidence in their ability to make big fights interesting (even though they're still the best part of the game!) or they just didn't think this ♥♥♥♥ through or test it out enough.

Dragons Dogma 2 is still fun to fight giant monsters in, even if they're just the same old monsters again? Supposedly there was a sphinx out there somewhere I missed and the intro had me fight a medusa I never saw again, but for me it was almost entirely Cyclops, Ogre, Chimera, Golem, Gryphon, Dragon, Wight, Title Dragon. It's not like you *have* to add new monsters to make a sequel fun, but you gotta add *something* new or what's even the point?!

And the plot, don't even get me started on the plot. Not only is it shallow and undercooked, but they made the bafflingly bad decision to make the plot a rebuttal to that of the first game. You know, the one about endless cycles that so, so easily sets itself up for a sequel? Nah, screw that. They're going full-speed all-in on the assumption that you *definitely* remember the plot from a 12 year old cult classic. And like... idk. There's probably a way to make that work, put in an audience POV character that's *certain* things have to work a certain way (they way it did in the first game) and then have them be proven repeatedly wrong. But they didn't, you're just following the orders of a spooky force ghost that even in the context of the game's meta-story doesn't really make sense.

But all that aside, there are some good bits. Just not enough to recommend this over the previous game, as they're really buried in there and unless there's some kind of balance patch (reducing enemy spawn should be easy, even if you probably can't just patch in a better story and some much-needed dungeons).

The original Dragon's Dogma is an undercooked, janky mess of a game and also one of my absolute favorites. But it works because the game is fun to play, the giant monster fights are great and the beginning and end of the story hit hard even if the rest can get pretty janky. Dragon's Dogma 2 is not fun to play - the monster spawn rate is much too high. Walking from town to town is an utter slog through waves of goblins, harpies, bandits, etc made all the worse by a new element of verticality added to the world map which maybe would have been a positive if I had time to *breathe* and explore it, rather than just another obstacle to make avoiding the next group of whatever that much harder to get away from. (Oh, but you can take ox-carts from town to town. They're just prone to get attacked by giant monsters. And they're destructible to giant monsters and also pawns wielding 2handed weapons against said giant monsters. Ask me how I know *that* one, lol) Shit, a few times I fought a large monster only to have bandits, then skeletons, then wolves spawn on me. What the heck? Either the developers had no confidence in their ability to make big fights interesting (even though they're still the best part of the game!) or they just didn't think this shit through or test it out enough. Dragons Dogma 2 is still fun to fight giant monsters in, even if they're just the same old monsters again? Supposedly there was a sphinx out there somewhere I missed and the intro had me fight a medusa I never saw again, but for me it was almost entirely Cyclops, Ogre, Chimera, Golem, Gryphon, Dragon, Wight, Title Dragon. It's not like you *have* to add new monsters to make a sequel fun, but you gotta add *something* new or what's even the point?! And the plot, don't even get me started on the plot. Not only is it shallow and undercooked, but they made the bafflingly bad decision to make the plot a rebuttal to that of the first game. You know, the one about endless cycles that so, so easily sets itself up for a sequel? Nah, screw that. They're going full-speed all-in on the assumption that you *definitely* remember the plot from a 12 year old cult classic. And like... idk. There's probably a way to make that work, put in an audience POV character that's *certain* things have to work a certain way (they way it did in the first game) and then have them be proven repeatedly wrong. But they didn't, you're just following the orders of a spooky force ghost that even in the context of the game's meta-story doesn't really make sense. But all that aside, there are some good bits. Just not enough to recommend this over the previous game, as they're really buried in there and unless there's some kind of balance patch (reducing enemy spawn should be easy, even if you probably can't just patch in a better story and some much-needed dungeons).