Recent reviews by THE BOSS OF THIS GYM

Tried the rogue. Camera lock feels so bad on backstabs, plus animation timing afterwards is confusing. Maps are very closed in, hitboxes miss when they shouldn't, can't crouch while jumping, gear seems whatever, environments aren't that dark so torch is pointless. I guess verticality is cool, but overall I'd say dark and darker has a better core gameplay system, and this has better peripheral improvements instead, like eyecandy, gear progression, gamemodes, ui and so on. I'm interested to see if they improve upon the gameplay, but right now it's kinda mid

I can imagine completely new players to the series enjoying this game, since they can't really have any expectations carried over from the first Dragon's Dogma. However, recommending this game to the fans of the first one would be malevolent and actually cruel. Here is a list of what the sequel does worse than DD1 and never makes up for it:

1. They decided to remake a compelling setting that was quite good into something that is background noise at best. There is no political intrigue here, no hidden details, no player choice. The world does not exist outside of the protagonist's experience. What's worse is that you wouldn't know this going into the game. You could pick any major character from DD1 and they would have more personality and characterization than the whole cast of this game combined, which leads to my next point.

2. Abysmal writing and story. It is actually that bad. An AI could honestly do better. Even worse when you compare it to the first. Batahl is the worst example of this. I was expecting them to do some kind of war or rivalry with Vermund, but it turned out to be background noise as well. No meaningful plot, just a city for the player to walk through and that's it.

3. Vocations (Classes) feel very bare bones, there is no meaningful build variety. this could be fitting if they added hidden classes that you'd have to explore to get, but unfortunately there isn't anything like that. I remember devs saying there would be a quest to get the Mystic Spearhand vocation, but in actually the guy just walks up to you after a battle, which you and he were a part of, and says something like "Don't be like me, it's not worth it" and that gets you the class unlocked. I couldn't believe it.

4. Weapons and Armor are simplified for the sequel. With the reasoning being "we wanted to provide more choices for the players". Exact opposite happened, when you upgrade gear now, resistances don't get upgraded, which was really cool and allowed some meaningful choices in the first game for endgame bosses. Not to mention they removed armor layers. A legit downgrade alongside a cop out explanation. In reality they just didn't want to bother with the clipping and all that, I promise you.

5. Endgame event sucks. In the first game it actually introduced new enemy variations, mixed up the spawn locations, made the world more dangerous, which made it interesting to explore again, the landscape stayed the same, it made the world different, but familiar. This time around they put you on a timer, making the saves limited, and just spam skeletons everywhere. All that exploration goes out of the window because the world becomes one tone of brown inside a crater. It was a very nice plot twist in the first game, because the game built up to the final boss Grigori really well. In the second game it's underwhelming, not only because the build up is not there, but also because the dragon is not nearly as charismatic, can't even remember his name.

6. Sidequests are way worse. In the first game they fleshed out the world, introduced lore, conflicts between characters. You could see they've put time and care into them. Not the case here. Mostly because of the writing I guess. Every sidequest is more of a personal thing, help out this or that person with a fetch quest, whereas DD1 brought well crafted almost country-spanning drama alongside them. There were still fetch quests if you wanted them, but in DD2 it's all you get.

7. Dungeons aren't great. Mostly just caves that look exactly the same. There are more dungeons than in DD1 on release, but it doesn't hold a candle to Bitterblack Isle in DD1 and the progression it introduced. Nothing like that in DD2. I think it even removes them for the endgame.

8. Character creation isn't very thought out. I think in Elden Ring you could continuously generate new faces based on you have. which makes any face possible. In DD2 there are limits that are tied to the base face you select. Can't generate new faces either. Unfortunate, but not that it matters honestly.

9. Similar to character creation, romances are watered down. I think you could still romance pretty much every character in the game like the first, but it's very on the surface so to say. You get a cute cutscene with only 2 of the charactes, others will send you endearing notes by mail. Romance choice does show up in the Grigori Impostor battle, but not so much after that. In DD1 they would even move into your house and have a bit more dialogue. In DD2 you get 1 line thanking you.

10. Soundtrack is very generic. I think they've gotten the composer at the last second and they've phoned it in. Can't even find the person who did it. Very mixed info online. DD1 made such a good job with its ost and it provided immense value to the experience, painting the whole game with unmistakable personality, which I totally miss in the sequel.

Overall I'm under the impression that the game was in development hell for much of its development time, after which management mandated a date of release when the game wasn't nearly ready. If they completely remade Dark Arisen alongside the character creator I would be ecstatic, but I just can't understand why they decided to change the setting, it's just more work, and writing they came up with is really bad.

DD2 has ok gameplay, but it's not enough to balance out the other crap. It doesn't excel at anything, which makes it very very bland with no two legs to stand on its own. It's very similar to something Ubisoft would make. I regret buying this and I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone. I'd rather replay Dark Arisen for the fourth time, it's more fun than a blind playthrough of this, not joking.

TLDR: Just buy the first game, it is so much better in terms of price and artistic merit.

The game is mediocre
The dev's priority is to make a dress up simulator cash cow
The reviews are obliously bought (Just look at them, lmao)
Pay2Win will be implemented soon enough
More DLC will be added soon enough
Joycity tries it's hardest to be Konami

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the goalkeepers are AIs...

They released a buggy game and are to be jugded for it.
However, most of the technical issues were since fixed and are no longer a problem. What does enrage people is dlc's poor writing. I must say that it is indeed badly written compared to original games and it is a big letdown, but not to an extent that it is absolutely trash, it is just mediocre. Some people also pointed out forced LGBT characters, but I just can't see why people can't ignore them. Yes, Mizhena is transgender and I absolutely do not care. The story doesn't revolve around these characters being gay, so what's the big deal?

I'm glad beamdog didn't just sit there and watch the negative feedback. In fact, they removed one of the added to Minsc voicelines, since it didn't belong.

I was also suprised the game let me complete one of the quests in an unintended way,in dragonspear castle after ogres lift you up, you are confronted by a group of guards and a conversation is triggeres once they see you. However, you could cast invisibility on your party and just walk right past them, poison the food and just get out. But hey, it's Baldur's Gate we are talking about here, so I guess I shouldn't be surpised. All I'm saying is, in some other game the conversation would probably be triggered even if you are invisible.

Aside from all letdowns, the game is well made, it just didn't live up to the original in terms of story. It is still Baldur's Gate, the game doesn't hold your hand. The backgrounds are beautifully crafted and the overall attention to detail is astonishing compared to the previous games. I repeat, the attention to detail is ASTONISHING. The soundtrack is amazing and the cutscenes are good, though some people seem to hate that kind of style. Last time I was this immersed in a game was when I played Mask of the Betrayer, which is also a dlc, but for Neverwinter Nights 2. For reasons I wrote above, the gameworld looks and feels convincing, just like a real place that could exist. It is really tough to describe it, you should really see for yourself

At first I didn't want to buy this game because it looked like a game focused on multi-player (Counter Strike, Neotokyo), but then I found out that it actually has single-player story and some rpg elements, so I bought it on sale and decided to give it a try.

The game has a lot of potential, but the mix of genres they were trying to go for just doesn't feel right. It kind of feels like deus ex occasionaly, but the feeling is so subtle you can hardly notice. Everything in this game is a mess, you can't talk about something in it without also mentioning some poor design decisions.

It has good level design, and yet it hasn't
It has good rpg elements, and yet it hasn't
It has a good story, and yet it hasn't
It has a good idea behind it, and yet it feels empty

Do you see where I'm going?

I feel like if the devs had more experience and a clear goal of what they want to make it'd be a great game comparable to Deus Ex and System Shock. Yet you can draw inspiration from this game, you really can. This mess of ideas makes this game unique in it's own way. I'd recommend buying this game just because of that, just because it tried to do something new and different

Once you get used to controls you will think it's the best rpg ever (until you try out the second game).

Don't forget to install the community patches and dx11 support with high res textures.

P.S you can fix the newgame crash by disabling in-game steam overlay. If this doesn't work just delete GameOverlayRenderer.dll completely, it will redownload itself when you exit and re-enter steam

A review based on 1 playthrough

After Shadowrun: Returns this game is like a breath of fresh air. I was really dissapointed in the plot of the fist game, but this is something way different. There is no relegious cult nonsense, that was in the Returns, instead you get a real story about a group of shadowrunners. The game develops characters really well and all of them have their own opinion, that doesn't always match yours. Your teammates can even start arguing with you about what the group should do. I should also point out that game has several endings. Writing is great overall.

In case you never played any shadowrun games, combat is pretty simular to xcom series. Dragonfall has improved from Retuns, but it still missed some things. For example, you can't place each member of your group where you want while not in combat, so when you open a door you stand in the open waiting for your enemies to shoot you. It's better than being in combat all the time after your first encounter, but frustrating nontheless. Gameplay is pretty solid in my opinion.

Soundtrack is worth listening out of the game. Composers did their job well.

Totally worth it's price