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dumbfinntales · 2 months

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Dragons Dogma 2, a game of triumphs and disappointments. It took me about 80 hours to finish the game to satisfaction and I am wholeheartedly looking forward to any DLC expansions. There'll be some spoilers relating to end game and the story, so be warned.

Despite being called Dragons Dogma 2 it's not a direct sequel, but more like a soft reboot where we're going through the story of the Arisen in a different world. There's a lot of familiar things, and some new things to surprise you. Once again the games selling point is the combat and awe inspiring monster encounters, the gameplay experience this game offers feels so unique to it. How you deal with the monsters and various tasks with your trusty companions the pawns, who love oh so much to chatter on.

Honestly I still love the pawns. I never tire of their prattle and I genuinely do love being reminded of a ladder or a chest over yonder several times in a row. I'm serious, it's charming, just like being reminded that wolves hunt in packs. The pawns feel even more lively in this game with witty dialogue, and they always seem to have something to say relating to whatever you're currently doing. They're given so much personality that it's hard to believe that they're just mere "pawns", meant to be commanded by the Arisen.

The feeling of exploration and adventure is impeccable. The world is big, but not too big like in some open world games. Every time you set out it feels like grand journey and I would plan what route I'd take and what sidequests I'd take on. Camping was also a wonderful addition, because tackling monsters has never felt better after a good night of sleep. I do wish there were more unique locations like the Dragonbreathe Tower, or the Forgotten Battleground. Less caves with saurians and more interesting locations I say.

I found the side quests to be very fun as well as they seemed to be more than just go gather stuff. There was always a fun story or a mystery to solve. Not every quest is equal of course, but I do appreciate the effort they put into them. And some quests feel more "natural" as you can overhear a conversation and the quest starts once you talk with the relevant NPC. Although many quests in this game start by strangers walking up to you asking for help.

I love Dragons Dogma 2 because it's Dragons Dogma. But I am also disappointed, because essentially it is just Dragons Dogma again. It wasn't exactly the sequel I was hoping for that'd perfect everything from the first game. It is strange that most things that were off in the first game are exactly the same here. DD2 just feels like DD1 with a bigger world and some new monsters and changes to vocations. There are many of the same monsters, NPC's still aren't that interesting, the main story is rushed, the dragon barely shows up etc. From here on I'll talk about story related spoilers and end game stuff.

The story is just weird. It starts off interesting with the false Arisen and the Queens plots, but then it just stops. The false Arisen shows up at the end and you fight him and boom, he's gone. You don't confront him, you don't talk to him, nothing. The story feels like it comes to a sudden end once you reach Battahl. You do a few quests and suddenly a colossus shows up, you beat it, then you follow the weird mage dude and the dragon shows up and it's already the end of the game? Doesn't help that most of the main story missions are just awful. They have you sneaking around the castle for most of it, and the most interesting quest is the one where you sneak into a village of thieves looking for the identity of the false Arisen. I was just expecting there to be more to the false Arisen and the Queen? Same with the empress in Battahl. You interact with her like once, and then she has a few sidequests unrelated to the story.

The end game was also a little weird. I liked it for the new monsters you got to fight and the new loot you'd find, but I was so hoping for a big end game dungeon like Everfall. Going through the world again and looking through all the areas where there was water before just isn't interesting. I tired of the end game rather quickly, and didn't feel like farming or looking for all the gear that there was to be found. The games true end is one big interactive cut-scene where a super dragon shows up and you don't even get to fight it. I still had chills throughout it, but c'mon. Why design a cool colossal dragon like that and not make it the pinnacle boss of the game?

I was also expecting more new monsters in this game. They bring back almost all the old big monsters, and the few new ones are really fun, but damn I was hoping for more. Minotaurs were a fun addition, they felt natural like the cyclops'. The Medusa was also a fun fight and it's so cool that you can cut hear head off and use it to petrify enemies. Sadly you can only encounter her in one location in the game. She does respawn though. The Sphinx is also unique, but only an one time encounter. I failed one of her riddles so she fucked off and never got to fight her. Yay. My favorite new addition was the Dullahan, such a cool monster. A ghostly knight that carries their own head in their hand. Although even this one was super rare, I did not fight a single Dullahan in the main game. They became more frequent in the end game.

The two new brine monsters you fight in the end game were awesome as well, but man why did they have to be one time encounters! That's the problem. They have new monsters, but they're either super rare or you only get to fight them once. And don't let me get started with the small monsters. The only new small monster is the slime. Then you have like 5 different variants of the same monsters. Everywhere you go it's goblins, harpies and saurians. But in different colors! Oh look we got lightning saurians in the end game! Wowzers. Skeletons, zombies and bandits are there too. I just really wanted a lot of new cool monsters to fight in this game and not recolors.

There are also some nitpicks like most of the best gear in the game you just buy from NPC's. You do find some unique gear in the world, but they'll be quickly replaced with store bought equipment. Even in the end game. There are some armors that can only be found in chests there though, which is nice. I really hated the more "realistic" movement where your character would slow down and start sliding down even the smallest hills. Pawns talking to you as you're passing them is tedious too. I always threw them off a cliff if they did that. Enemy frequency was also quite annoying. You can't walk two meters without running to a pack of enemies.

I think I've written enough and complained a plenty. Dragons Dogma 2 was a really fun and enjoyable experience, but not the experience I was hoping for. The game stands in a weird spot for me, as I do really like it, but at the same time wish it was so much more. I do hope that Capcom makes a big expansion for this game, because if they do I'll eat it up like a freshly cooked beast steak! And oh, look over there Arisen! A ladder! Maybe an adventure awaits up above.

#dragons dogma #a review type of deal

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snowfianna · 4 years

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Fable IV rant:

I'm so pumped up for the 23rd because everything has led me to believe that Fable 4 will be announced this year and the game's existence has been confirmed for a while anyway it's just a matter of time of when will Fable 4 show itself. It's a badly kept secret tbh.

So to those who don't mind a big rant or wish to add on to my rant- here we go!

Can you imagine how good the graphics would be for this game, we've all seen modern games, surely, and they're all bloody fantastic looking. Fable Legends is technically the most recent Fable game despite it being a free to play online game

and that it's cancelled

but it also had a gorgeous look to it all! And the character models did great justice to the concept art and honestly that has my hopes real high because I love the concept art of Fable, specifically from Mike McCarthy, so exaggerated and recognisable- yet in all the games I can confidently say they did not do justice to his character design, specifically for Reaver. Sure, he looks stunning in the third game, but not quite what he looks like in his concept art sadly.

But also, since Fable was made in Unreal Engine (I'm pretty sure at least) we've seen examples of what can be done in Unreal Engine now and it's absolutely breath taking!

If you haven't seen here are some examples and they're so life-like.

Moving on from graphics!

Since Playground Games is behind the development of Fable 4, they would be spectacular at an open spaced world, judging from the Forza games.

I always loved the open world feature added to Fable, it made things more adventurous and you could do so many things that weren't at all related to the main quest to progress the story and it was just thrilling to see there were other things going on! I'd love to just have my dog companion running through fields, fighting enemies left and right and finding buried treasure or forgotten chests.

Run into strangers who request aid in something silly or rather serious and it would be up to you with how you go about the quest or if you even accept it to get renown or gold. Cause a massacre in towns and villages, running off with low morality and plentiful loot- oh one could fantasise of this all day.

Story, characters, writing and voices.

Fable has always had a fun environment of fantasy and a rather good story (despite the curse of mundane or pathetic boss fights in which I hope Fable 4 breaks this cycle) but the one thing that's always kept me on my feet in the games is the writing and the characters. It always just tried not to take itself too seriously, throwing in absurd quests that probably requires cheese or a really weird-looking outfit. It always kept my attention rather than just pure edge and seriousness of life or death.

The characters are a given, the writing done for them all is perfect in my eyes, I love hearing the variations of how characters of NPCs interacted (enough so that I even bought two of the Fable books written by Peter David). Despite Fable 3 not being the greatest at it's time, I found myself absolutely enjoy the characters for how they were- I even cried over Walter's death because it genuinely felt like I lost somebody pretty close (RIP Walter🙏). The writing and the chosen voice actors were superb and I'd love more of it.

I hope this time we can receive a full story instead of how Fable 2 and 3 were where plenty of plot points and such were cut out due to time constraints- thanks Microsoft, very cool. I'm still in anguish when listening to the Developer's Diary 3 of Fable 3 hearing lines that were just never said in the final product and it was definitely not just additional lines that weren't required as it seemed to mention entirely different things that weren't in the game; i.e. Reaver talks about his pirates in Bloodstone and how he misses them- in the final product he never mentions it and it's even shown that he's tried to completely bury his pirate past for whatever reason.

The pacing in Fable 3 was rather strange too, it felt like the revolution should've lasted longer.

Another hope of mine is to have choices that aren't so painfully black-and-white because it's very obvious which is the good or bad option to a scenario- personally for me I'd like to be morally grey rather than pure good or pure evil.

They better have kept the mechanic of your actions affecting your appearance too to the point where you grow horns and get cracked magma-like skin or this slight glow and aura around you and this flawless skin. It kind of died down in Fable 3, only looking more tired or have completely black eyes and the good- eh yeah not much I can say for when you're good. Purity and corruption seemed to also vanish in Fable 3 (at least I think) since you couldn't really change prices of the homes you were renting out, unless I've been a big goof who didn't arrange the rent prices in the game because I didn't know how.

Combat

Combat in all the games was rather straight forward, especially in Fable 2 and 3 where everything was just easy to beat or you could get overpowered around the start of the game. I'd hope the combat improves greatly this time and even bring back real consequences to dying instead of immediate revival with some lost experience and a scar. We need more serious consequences to your actions (this can be applied to all decisions rather than just if you die in a battle) even if it's just having to reload the last checkpoint. Makes things more challenging this way.

Another thing is to make boss fights less repetitive and simple- sure I can forgive it if the boss is from around the start but if they had phases you had to keep ontop of and didn't rely on summoning a bajillion other enemies to strike you, I'd be ever so grateful.

And if there's other characters fighting along side you, I'd hope they'd genuinely be helpful and keep up to speed with the player. I'm sure the AI in the past was the problem for this as AI wasn't at its best during that time so characters fighting by you didn't do too much or just did whatever that wasn't helpful. Now though, AI has improved immensely (I mean look at The Last Of Us 2, the AI is👌) and due to this, I'm sure characters would make battles more fun and the characters be more involved with the fight and even story.

Mana should be brought back as well, in Fable 2 and 3 mana just ceased to exist so you could just endlessly and repeatedly use the same spells and it just gave you too much power and the enemies barely stood a chance.

We need challenges people- CHALLENGES!

Medieval times? Yes.

I love Medieval fantasy and as much as I like the Victorian era too, I didn't think it quite suited Fable, as fascinating as it was to see fantasy turn industrial, it kind of took away from the Fable feel that I so crave. If they have indeed brought the game back to medieval times it means more creatures and enemies are back rather than driven away or limited to the same handful of enemies.

We can all also agree the guns were overpowered, though I did like receiving the Red Dragon late in Fable 2 to absolutely mow down enemies, it was satisfying to say the least. However, guns were far too powerful for the game, so I demand the bows and crossbows back thank you very much- or even throwing knives- I'll take what I'm given.

I'd love to see more of the natural landscape rather than towns or buildings that took over once entirely natural areas (Millfields/Bowerlake). However, I won't object to ruins of old buildings taken over by nature.

Skeptical with Playground Games? Don't be.

Are you worried that Playground Games wouldn't do justice to Fable since it's not Lionhead Studios? Don't be, it's been noted that Playground Games has hired several ex-lionhead workers and plenty other skillful workers to ensure we get the best product. I have high hopes and expectations for Fable 4 even if it's developed under a different studio, I've seen great things from them and I will believe they'll deliver us only the best.

Side note to all this

I will crash and burn if I don't see a crumb of Reaver or Jack of Blades in Fable 4- I don't know how true any rumours are of Fable 4 with time travelling and Jack returning, but we'll just have to see. Reaver still remains as my absolute favourite character of all time and I'd love to see more of him, even see him before he was 'Reaver'.

Jack too, more of his lore is stated elsewhere rather than in the game itself and I'd love to see it all be brought into light and really expand on his lore and make it known- rather than have ever-loving Fable fans like me dig around for these rather delicious bits of canon information.

That's my big rant, feel free to share your thoughts and what you'd look forward to!

Have some accidental art leaks from a Playground Game concept artist- believed to be for Fable 4👀

#fable #fable 2 #fable 3 #fable 4 #rant #honestly if you read this you have my respect #ramble

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