‘Dragon’s Dogma 2’ – A Diamond in the Rough… [REVIEW]
Thank you to Capcom for the review code! All my links: https://linktr.ee/lukestephens …
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March 1, 2026
Headlines
"Harmony in Every Heartbeat
Thank you to Capcom for the review code! All my links: https://linktr.ee/lukestephens …
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If you have any questions about the game, come by my stream today and ask away!
https://www.youtube.com/@LukeStephensLIVE
played this 6 times already, not even MHWilds can stop me from replaying this game ☺️
Performance issues and lack of enemy variety really let this game down. Its a shame cause it could have been a masterpiece
23:23 not true you can search previously played with pawns and use them again and again
So wait, is there, like, a story?
Cliff dropping Ogres is a staple of the franchise
Make them wait
26:16 well unfortunately the issue is that, everything that ppl complained about a fan like Odyssey or Valhalla having/not having, DD2 doesn’t have/has it. So it’s a double edged sword typa thing. Careful what you wish for.
One of my pawns once accidentally destroyed a bridge while I was walking across it and i was plunged down into oblivion…
@LukeStephensTV What would you recommend the game on, PS5 or PC? (assuming mid-tier machine, better then minimum system requirements, but not nearly at ultra high end level).
At some point I just never use Sorcerer pawn because they always destroy the ox cart
after rewatching the review with 550 hours, i can confidently say that this review is 70% imaginary bullshit, the game is good tho
5 months later, the game is now on sale on steam and seems like it got a big patch just two days ago, fixing many issues. I'm 50/50 on should I buy it or not. 😀
I recognize that AC2 music in your background, 😂. Love the music to this day
It’s like Elden ring if there was no plot, no fast travel, bland art direction, one biome, awful performance and no characters. On an also an obnoxious carrying capacity that breaks exploration enjoyment immediately. Quality of life’s is not the same thing as hand holding. Elden ring is a good example of a game like this. Made my developers who actually thought about improving from their last games.
Just a lazy design, old rehashed monsters, old costumes, old weapons, forgettable maps and realms. The original is simply better written. I would say the only thing it is better is the graphic and character detailings
Elden Ring or Dragons Dogma 2? Ive already beaten and played ER about a year ago but do want the DLC. DD2 is fun but looks lacking in alot of areas
It’s a 7out of 10 It’s more elden ring then bg3 or Skyrim take that for what you will
The closest Luke can get to a negative review without totally ✂️ off his access to Capcom review codes.
Luke, read this comment. Everyone knows this game is bad. We didn't need 40 mins of you carefully traipsing and tiptoeing around shitting on Capcom to realize that. DD fans will never learn, there's no point in trying to teach them.
I quit this game after 16 hours. It’s so repetitive and pointless
Vocations vocations wtf is a vocation
I want to play this but I don't own a good computer. Only a laptop and NSwitch.
For a game that wants you to 'get lost' there sure are a loooooooot of one way walkways. More openness even just for the sake of it would have been nice. I always feel boxes in in this game everywhere I go
Hey bro I’d sub but I hate having YouTube subscriptions ;-;
Great video so far, some constructive criticism I have for you is you never explained what these “pawns” do or what that system is and you’ve mentioned it numerous times in this video and I didn’t play this game so I have no idea what your talking about. I can assume that they are like your party maybe but i don’t want to have to click off of your video to figure it out
I really appreciate your review. I wasn't going to buy this, but your explanation of both the objective aspects of the game and your personal subjective opinions helped me to correctly decide to buy it. Like you, I played the original, but didn't finish it. Already, I am enjoying this game in a massive way. The size of the world is impressive, but even more impressive is the quality of this world. It's not just large, but very fleshed out.
You kept mentioning how this game isn’t for everyone with its open world design and its obscure quests, but you never mentioned how annoying travelling everywhere is.
The game is sooo real I love it, no fast travel very limited I like that you have to travel and actually rest and choose the safest route the world is built somewhat realistically and it’s beautiful feels like lord of the rings just running around killing beasties
23:20 you can go to major riftstones (like the ones in towns) and search for pawns you’ve recruited in the past. You can also favorite pawns and rehire them whenever you want.
I feel like an important thing to point out about the “this game doesn’t hold your hand” point is that pawns can lead you on quests.
You are able to go to the stone and search for a pawn that has knowledge specific to the quest you’re on because they did it with THEIR Arisen. They will also point you in the direction of chests, caves, riftstones, and tokens their Arisen has found with them as well.
So if you want some assistance with exploration in the world..look out for pawns that are well experienced, I believe there’s actually a specific rift stone for “well traveled” pawns.
This game was worth it for me, its just very immersive and fun
There's a lot of negative stuff out there about Dragons Dogma 2 but after watching your review I went for it and I'm seriously glad I did
Best game since Elden Ring period.
You can get those pawns back that kill themselves by mistake you can go to the stone while in the rift and you can see a list of the pawns that you've already Hired and you can rehire them
What CPU?
Just to give some context to the "repetitiveness"-statement, because from a certain point of view/background there's some truth to it.
It's more repetetive than the first one, yes, since they chopped off a lot of options to play around with, for example pause combos, the secondary moves which is now a single secondary move per vocation, the jump has been toned down, so a lot of jumping attacks won't work anymore and it's a bit slower aka more "relatistic".
So if you come from the first one or even action games, yes, there's much less to experiment with. But if you come from open world RPGs, Soulslikes and so on, then Dragon's Dogma 2 is a huge upgrade in terms of variety.
So in short if Darks Souls or Elden Ring didn't get repetitive for you, which they did for me, then Dragon Dogma 2 certainly won't either. But if you're coming straight out of Devil May Cry 5,…yeah, then you feel the repetition.
I play on ps5, and the 30fps is in my opinion stable, and enough. I have fallen in love with the world this game provides💙 the pawns are more talkative, in a good way, imo they sound more real 🙂
If you are a fan of games like elden ring, Im pretty sure you would like this one😊
I was doing the quest to prevent the assassination of a important person in the desert city and the quest was just watch for suspicious people and she died
You can rehire pawns that were recently lost if you go into the rift. Go to search, from there select recently hired pawns.
Somehow my 1660 Super and Ryzen 5 4600G run this game really well considering it doesn't really meet the minimum requirements, great game though
You can definitely re-recruit others pawns if they die with you. You just gotta go to one of the main Riftstones in/near towns and use the search function and hit previously hired pawns
Also about performance, I don't see anyone talking about that the game don't have loading screens and 99% of buildings are enterable
I played 40 hours as an archer and didn't bother to change my vocation. I had so much fun with explosive arrows; the amount of craziness you can create with them is just insane. Then, of course, towards the endgame, I played as a Magick Archer and a Warfarer, but the most fun and satisfying moments of the game for me were in those first hours. I was underleveled for some fights and just exploded everything with explosive arrows.
I wish all games held my hand like Forbidden West did. lmao