So 115 hours that's how long it took me to complete and explore most stuff I could find in this game and honestly it pains me to know this game had all chances to be more than it ended up to.
I played through first game twice and I loved that game a lot, second game brings so much improvements to many areas of the game. Better and more polished combat system, bigger and actually filled with unique stuff to find and discover map, improvements to pawns system, amazing visuals with distinct zones, But at same time game manages to fail at parts that I was least expecting, such as: godawful technical side of the game and main story progression/presentation. So lets dive into depth for all pros and cons sequel brings to the table.

First big advantage sequel have over its predecessor is much bigger and handcrafted world that you can explore. Map grew 3-4 times in size, and have different types of environment be it forests of first game or desert canyons and volcanic islands. Each zone have their unique charm and points of interests to visit. Exploring world became actual thing since you can find a lot of unique loot/dungeons or even quests while doing so.

So time to talk about the best part of sequel which is combat system. First game already was one of best in genre in this aspect, so sequel tried to polish down some corners and provide player with more impactful feedback from it. And they accomplished just that. All weapons are great to use, have a good sound design to it and have their own ways to express the strength of class it used with. Finishers is being another addition that was executed well. Each time your opponent being stunned/knocked down or just unaware of your presence, you can use strong attack that will become a finisher with context sensitive animations and huge damage. Thief for example can hold strong attack button and pin down his opponent to the ground and use multiple types of attacks while restricting enemy from any moves at same time. Sadly I haven't played as caster vocation in DD1 so i cant really talk about changes of them in DD2, but what I can say is that. I never seen such broken class in game as sorcerer here, as long as you aren't being focused by enemies it takes just few seconds to deal with whole enemy group while casting one of best executed magics in games I had experience with. Obviously you cant do that on your own, and that's where pawns coming into play.
Pawns - had a lot of improvements be it to their ability to learn new stuff (yes pawns actually can learn some tactics, enemy behavior or even remember locations of interests like treasure chests, caves, camps or even quests destinations while traveling with you or any other player they been hired by). Your combination of pawns can end up as one of best teams that work together to the point they can follow up with amazing combos, catch you mid-fall after being shaked off the monsters back, and can pretty much deal with most fights on their own, or be a bunch of disorganized clowns that have a competition who can kill themself faster. Outside of combat they can learn one of specializations, it can be: language knowladge, logistics (which helps you with managing inventory a bit on its own), chirurgy (to automaticaly heal wounded allies with consumables) and so on. Pawns can guide you to undiscovered areas, mark the treasures or help with location of quests destination too. Which makes them a real part of the group instead of being barely working decoration as in many games of this genre.

There was a huge graphical jump in sequel which makes game look gorgeous in so many ways, environment, character models and their animations, particle effects, one of best and cleanest looking armor designs in games. All that visualy stunning, but at same time here comes a problem. People not gonna care about all these amazing details you created when all their attention taken away by constantly stuttery and unstable framerate. My system isnt some kind of high-end type RTX 3060 + ryzen 5 5600x, but it more than enough to run most games in 1080p 60+ fps no problem. And Dragon's Dogma 2 struggles to run so badly it works around 40-60 fps in wilderness and drops to 25-40 in cities. Nowadays that kind of technical fiasko should not be acceptable by any means.

And here we getting to a problem №2. Thing is, after playing through DD1 I wasn't expecting this game's main story to be something outstanding from the start. At best I expected some sweet surprise, at worst just retelling of the old story with new technologies and better presentation. And with such low expectations I still was dissapointed with how badly main story was executed. Narrative just doesn't knows what it wants to focus on, constantly leaving gaps and switching from one point to another without even trying to explain most things it tries to tell. Which leaves the player with constant feeling like they miss something, but they don't, it just the way this story was told. And this story actually had a potential since the idea wasnt the worst, but idea alone isnt enough to write a good story. It lacks any connection with a player who would care about events happening around them and thats exactly why it fails to deliver.
Characters - Another painful part that is directly related to the story failure. First game had one of best written dragons in gaming industry. He had charisma, his own philosophy and was main reason at pushing player to his goal. Dragon in sequel just isn't there, like literally if we remove fight itself he might have less than 3 minutes of screentime total. It just another monster you dont care about and it supposed to be one of biggest figures in the story. Other characters aren't much better, they just there to give a direction to the player and thats pretty much their whole role in main story. The only thing that saves some of these characters are their own optional side-stories and some of them actually good. And I love the idea of game not forcing you into going from one quest giver to another since most quests require you to actually learn the world and revisiting some NPC-s time to time you meet through your journey. But since the main story sucks so much this approach works against it's own nature by limiting already poor choice of things player can do.

Good: Great world and its exploration | Combat system with diverse classes | Improved pawns | Attention to details and ingame interactions | Nice visuals
Neutral: Lack of difficulty after 10-15 hours of the game | Moving between places takes time
Bad: One of worst performances in triple A game | Somehow worse story telling than in original | Dragon barely exists in this game

So with said above can I really recommend the game?
Personally even with all these problems I still had a lot of fun with good parts of the game and mostly positive emotions, because finishing it felt like an end to a great journey. With that said I gonna split decision in 3 categories.
1) If you never touched this series before, buy the first game instead. It cheaper, doesn't have same technical problems and have the story you actually can follow while being shorter too. Which would be a better starting experience for a new player than its sequel.
2) You played original and really liked it, and main story part doesn't bothers you that much. Check if your system able to keep up with technical flaws first. (especially performance in cities) If it looks comfortable enough for you then buy it.
3) You played first game but have mixed feelings about problematic parts. Wait for patches and maybe some sale like 30-50% to justify its current state.

[h1]Dragon's Dogma 2[/h1] So 115 hours that's how long it took me to complete and explore most stuff I could find in this game and honestly it pains me to know this game had all chances to be more than it ended up to. I played through first game twice and I loved that game a lot, second game brings so much improvements to many areas of the game. Better and more polished combat system, bigger and actually filled with unique stuff to find and discover map, improvements to pawns system, amazing visuals with distinct zones, But at same time game manages to fail at parts that I was least expecting, such as: godawful technical side of the game and main story progression/presentation. So lets dive into depth for all pros and cons sequel brings to the table. [h3]World and Exploration[/h3] First big advantage sequel have over its predecessor is much bigger and handcrafted world that you can explore. Map grew 3-4 times in size, and have different types of environment be it forests of first game or desert canyons and volcanic islands. Each zone have their unique charm and points of interests to visit. Exploring world became actual thing since you can find a lot of unique loot/dungeons or even quests while doing so. [h3]Combat and Pawns[/h3] So time to talk about the best part of sequel which is combat system. First game already was one of best in genre in this aspect, so sequel tried to polish down some corners and provide player with more impactful feedback from it. And they accomplished just that. All weapons are great to use, have a good sound design to it and have their own ways to express the strength of class it used with. [u][b]Finishers[/b][/u] is being another addition that was executed well. Each time your opponent being stunned/knocked down or just unaware of your presence, you can use strong attack that will become a finisher with context sensitive animations and huge damage. Thief for example can hold strong attack button and pin down his opponent to the ground and use multiple types of attacks while restricting enemy from any moves at same time. Sadly I haven't played as caster vocation in DD1 so i cant really talk about changes of them in DD2, but what I can say is that. I never seen such broken class in game as sorcerer here, as long as you aren't being focused by enemies it takes just few seconds to deal with whole enemy group while casting one of best executed magics in games I had experience with. Obviously you cant do that on your own, and that's where pawns coming into play. [u][b]Pawns[/b][/u] - had a lot of improvements be it to their ability to learn new stuff (yes pawns actually can learn some tactics, enemy behavior or even remember locations of interests like treasure chests, caves, camps or even quests destinations while traveling with you or any other player they been hired by). Your combination of pawns can end up as one of best teams that work together to the point they can follow up with amazing combos, catch you mid-fall after being shaked off the monsters back, and can pretty much deal with most fights on their own, or be a bunch of disorganized clowns that have a competition who can kill themself faster. Outside of combat they can learn one of specializations, it can be: [u]language knowladge[/u], [u]logistics[/u] (which helps you with managing inventory a bit on its own), [u]chirurgy[/u] (to automaticaly heal wounded allies with consumables) and so on. Pawns can guide you to undiscovered areas, mark the treasures or help with location of quests destination too. Which makes them a real part of the group instead of being barely working decoration as in many games of this genre. [h3]Visuals/Technical problems[/h3] There was a huge graphical jump in sequel which makes game look gorgeous in so many ways, environment, character models and their animations, particle effects, one of best and cleanest looking armor designs in games. All that visualy stunning, but at same time here comes a problem. People not gonna care about all these amazing details you created when all their attention taken away by constantly [u][b]stuttery and unstable framerate[/b][/u]. My system isnt some kind of high-end type RTX 3060 + ryzen 5 5600x, but it more than enough to run most games in 1080p 60+ fps no problem. And Dragon's Dogma 2 struggles to run so badly it works around 40-60 fps in wilderness and drops to 25-40 in cities. Nowadays that kind of technical fiasko should not be acceptable by any means. [h3]Story, quests and characters...[/h3] And here we getting to a problem №2. Thing is, after playing through DD1 I wasn't expecting this game's main story to be something outstanding from the start. At best I expected some sweet surprise, at worst just retelling of the old story with new technologies and better presentation. And with such low expectations I still was dissapointed with how badly main story was executed. Narrative just doesn't knows what it wants to focus on, constantly leaving gaps and switching from one point to another without even trying to explain most things it tries to tell. Which leaves the player with constant feeling like they miss something, but they don't, it just the way this story was told. And this story actually had a potential since the idea wasnt the worst, but idea alone isnt enough to write a good story. It lacks any connection with a player who would care about events happening around them and thats exactly why it fails to deliver. [u][b]Characters[/b][/u] - Another painful part that is directly related to the story failure. First game had one of best written dragons in gaming industry. He had charisma, his own philosophy and was main reason at pushing player to his goal. Dragon in sequel just isn't there, like literally if we remove fight itself he might have less than 3 minutes of screentime total. It just another monster you dont care about and it supposed to be one of biggest figures in the story. Other characters aren't much better, they just there to give a direction to the player and thats pretty much their whole role in main story. The only thing that saves some of these characters are their own optional side-stories and some of them actually good. And I love the idea of game not forcing you into going from one quest giver to another since most quests require you to actually learn the world and revisiting some NPC-s time to time you meet through your journey. But since the main story sucks so much this approach works against it's own nature by limiting already poor choice of things player can do. [h2]Recap[/h2] [b]Good:[/b] Great world and its exploration | Combat system with diverse classes | Improved pawns | Attention to details and ingame interactions | Nice visuals [b]Neutral:[/b] Lack of difficulty after 10-15 hours of the game | Moving between places takes time [b]Bad:[/b] One of worst performances in triple A game | Somehow worse story telling than in original | Dragon barely exists in this game So with said above can I really recommend the game? Personally even with all these problems I still had a lot of fun with good parts of the game and mostly positive emotions, because finishing it felt like an end to a great journey. With that said I gonna split decision in 3 categories. 1) If you never touched this series before, buy the first game instead. It cheaper, doesn't have same technical problems and have the story you actually can follow while being shorter too. Which would be a better starting experience for a new player than its sequel. 2) You played original and really liked it, and main story part doesn't bothers you that much. Check if your system able to keep up with technical flaws first. (especially performance in cities) If it looks comfortable enough for you then buy it. 3) You played first game but have mixed feelings about problematic parts. Wait for patches and maybe some sale like 30-50% to justify its current state.