Recent reviews by PapaSquat

- Amazing, rich character customization with two races. (More if you include the possibility of creating dwarves/elves)

- High Graphical Fidelity

- Intricate companion system: Companions in this game are called "pawns." Shortly after the introduction of the game, you create one "main pawn" for your "Arisen." You can change their vocation (class), demeanor, and more as the game progresses. You are also given the option for two separate additional pawns in your party. These are referred sometimes as "side pawns" and are created largely by other players. This pawn system allows you to recruit other players' pawns. The player who's pawn you choose to enlist in your team receives benefits such as items and quests completed for using their pawns. The game rewards you for swapping pawns often as other player's pawns never level up while in your party. They even remember events, loot, and quest locations from prior Arisen's journeys which they will help your Arisen with as they travel.

- Incredibly fun and rewarding physics based combat with some of the best animation design of any game I've played. The weight of your "Arisen" is incredibly tangible, many elements were successfully combined to make this a reality and it's one of DDII's greatest successes. An example: Wolves will drag you and you can almost physically feel the weight of your character as they drag you. You will watch your pawns scurry to save you from the jaws of wolves as they drag you a distance, your body ragdolling and flopping around all the while.

- Incredibly reactive quests: I've walked around the beginning city many times but every single time I do, even when going back through areas I've already been before, I'm met with unique NPCs with unique quests. These quests generally aren't just "please defeat X enemies" for me either, they're full fledged quests which are engaging. Quests can have time limits which gives a sense of urgency and the player has to prioritize quests by importance. We've seen a quest failure state in games before due to time running out or being done incorrectly. However, this game makes many other games look unpolished in comparison as the failure states for most quests isn't simply putting your quest in red text with the status: "failed" behind it. Instead, it often doesn't even tell you if you've ran out of time. Instead of a "fail state," the quest will completely diverge in it's path and something different entirely will happen. This heightens the greatest achievement this game has which is...

- Exploration: I've never been captured by a desire to explore as much since games like Elden Ring and Skyrim. There is loads to explore with unique caves, quests, and loot to gather that reward you for exploring. You can explore quest branches which completely diverge based on how long it takes you to complete them, giving a greater sense of this being a living breathing world that you actually live in. When you move around cities and towns, you will meet completely different NPCs even at the same time of day depending on what day it is.


- Story: I haven't played a ton into the story yet. I personally find the story pretty interesting and like the concept. The bigger issue for me is dialogue which sometimes feels like it's trying too hard to put on it's best middle age affectation and language. It's a bummer then that the dialogue mostly comes off artificial and forced which unfortunately lends this part of DDII to feel a bit generic or even a little rudimentary. Speaking of this...

- Dialogue: For the first couple hours, I was really impressed with my Pawns saying pretty original lines that made them feel like they had actual personalities. They would comment on things such as the makeup of my party consisting mainly of women and different vocations and would banter. However, I unfortunately found out pretty quickly that there isn't that much depth to this and the lines do unfortunately start repeating pretty quickly. Having just been spoiled by BG3's absolutely stellar story and dialogue may be giving me *slightly* unrealistic standards, but, it would be cool to see the pawns a little more fleshed out with dialogue. Thankfully, NPC dialogue isn't quite as repetitive, or at least, they don't feel as repetitive as you aren't interacting with them as much.


-Enemy Variety: There are about eight different small enemies and six different "boss" enemies I have encountered so far on my playthrough and from what I can tell, this doesn't seem like something likely to change too much as the game goes on further. The combat is excellent, so not having more enemy variety to engage with is disappointing.

- Performance: Due to the incredibly intensive NPC routines and schedulers as well as NPC abundance, the game is incredibly CPU intensive. Having a 4090 won't save you here as there is a CPU bottleneck which reduces even the best PCs to sub-60 fps in 4k. CAPCOM has stated they are looking into this, however, gamers are rightfully tired of games releasing in an unfinished state. I'm personally a little surprised that even CAPCOM which is based in Japan is sharing the same hot waters with many western publishers such as EA and Ubisoft regarding arriving in an unpolished state with performance. Usually, I don't see the same corporate greed effecting Publishers outside the U.S. as often. At any rate, each time it happens, it becomes more unacceptable and garners a larger reaction. It's time for Publishers to realize that development cycles for polished AAA titles is now 4-5 years.

- Microtransactions: Again, surprising to see corporate greed effect a non American company in this way. Single player games priced at $70 should not have microtransactions, full-stop. I am happy they at least have reasonably priced most items and they're nowhere near the egregious prices a company such as Ubisoft/EA would charge for a similar product, however, they should've never made the final cut. It's worsened by the fact that character/pawn redesign feel locked behind a paywall as the in-game item that let's you change your appearance is fairly expensive. It's worsened even further by the inability to have two save files at once so you can at least "role-play" as two separate characters. Instead, if you want to have a different appearance, you only have two options. Either you have to completely delete your character and start anew (which is a feature that was shockingly absent on the game's arrival.) Or, you have to purchase an expensive in-game item which you can also buy with real money. Microtransactions are one thing, but to add insult to injury, the way these microtransactions were delivered feels incredibly gross and unjustifiable.

Despite some of DDII's issues, it never stops the game from being fun. When the performance issues are corrected and the negative initial impressions of the game fades, I could see this game having a resurgence similar to Cyberpunk 2077 as the game's foundation is GREAT. Hopefully this game gets that chance to prove itself as you can tell underneath the lack of final polish, there are some killer fundamentals- many of which I have never seen in an RPG yet.

There’s so much content here. The replayability is endless. The story and writing are perfect. The companions are fleshed out and you grow attached to them. One of the best rpgs I’ve ever played and I’m likely less than half way through. Please buy it to support the devs and artform of gaming!