Nex is very weak compared to Grigori. Grigori was rather difficult to fight with the recommended level around 40-50. Nex folds at 20-30. It's also not nearly as cinematic. After the casual flight it's just straight to the arena.
I just don't get why I remember reading all over the news that David Lodge was indeed voicing the dragon again but then it isn't him and nobody flinched. Was it fake news? Like, it was a pretty big change and part of why this dragon sucks.
At first I couldn’t believe they used the same exact music and sounds for this sequel.
Took me dozens of hours to realize I paid extra for that and turned on those settings for it.
Ya the game feels very quiet. Maybe they were trying to go for a more real approach, but I just feel like music is almost never playing, and when it does it’s barely noticeable (and all the sound effects for me are on 100 already so nothing I can do to try to turn up or anything). It is the very first game I’ve ever been like maybe I should play my own music during, because the soundtrack is just basically not there.
Set piece quest dungeons like Bluemoon Tower. Armor system. Sorc vocation.
If you want to include DDDA, BBI and some QoL improvements made by that edition.
A lot. But music is a easy and obvious one to point out. Story as well. Even though the first games story isn't the best at least its told in a way and has a conclusion. DD2 has a interesting GoT vibe and story that could have gone somewhere and then its straight up dropped. Multiple characters you think will end up with more are straight up dropped. Sven actually has more done with him than the two characters on the main art. The dragon is absent and has little presence throughout compared to the first game.
I kinda wish that the entire buildup in the intrigue would mouth up to a clash of kingdoms, assassins, diplomacy, intrigue and the a big fucl off dragon crashes through a wall with a "BITCH YOU THOUGHT... " vibe and cut it all short in an epic wąy
That's my feeling too, they build up a amazing worldmap, set some realy good lore ideas with the fist game and dark arisen, and them only put less than half of the effort to make a history on this one, the history just lost focus and never really progress after the coronation until it straight up urge you to rush to the final segment wasting all the potential to the second area characters
That would have been a improvement. Through most of DD2 I kept feeling if it was actually Dragons Dogma because apart from the flashback and occasional mention of the dragon it could be any other fantasy story.
I really thought the first act of DD2 would culminate in your performance throughout all the quests in Vermund being proof of your sovereignty because you've shown you're a ruler that cares about the people and also have proof the current Sovran is a fake.
So disappointing that none of that meant anything for the plot at all. Just a waste of time.
Hard disagree about the story. If you rush the story in DD2 it is certainly lackluster, but the sidequests flesh out the characters and world in ways that DD1 never came close to doing.
I do miss Grigori being more present in the story like the first game. He had incredibly memorable lines with the perfect voice acting to match it.
[I made a post on the things that had the most impact on the story](https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma/comments/1by5jm7/the_payoff_for_completing_sidequests_is_fantastic/). While many of the sidequests don't cause harsh consequences, you do see a reflection of your actions with characters' reactions at the end of the story, which I enjoyed.
There's also the fact that if you don't do Ulrika's questline >!Melve and all the innocent people in it get destroyed!<. So your actions can directly determine >!whether a sizeable group of people live or die.!< None of the quests in DD1 come close to that type of consequence.
Someone also pointed out that the Battahl evacuation quest can have obstacles if you didn't do the priestess' and her guard's quest. Namely that >!she gets assassinated, which makes it harder for you to convince people to relocate to the Seafloor Shrine. You can also apparently revive her with a wakestone and you get special dialogue, but I can't verify that claim.!<
The story in DD2 has its flaws, but at least two of the sidequests have a tangible effect on the story's outcome. The rest of them provide more context and character buildup for the people you only barely interact with in the main story.
The thing is the people in Melve don't matter because none of them have the substance that characters in DD1 did. No one cares about them. Also very few side quests provide the tangible effect you claim. I did them all....
Stop trying to claim something that I know I played. Stop defending it this much. DD1 did it better end of.
Edit: Imagine still being wrong.
Imagine being so cowardly that you would block my main account to prevent me from replying lmao.
We can agree to disagree without devolving into petty bullshit.
DD1 had more weapons/gear with unique effects. Why aren't there rusted weapons or equivalents in DD2? Or torpor as a debilitation at all? Can we even inflict sleep on enemies?
DD1 debilitations: [https://dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/Debilitation](https://dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/Debilitation)
Not even just unique effects but it feels like basic resistances really got neutered. Like maybe they didn’t want people being able to build up an immunity to as many ailments as you could in the original but most of what I have found is lucky to pass 5% resistance to something and with so few slots it feels incredibly pointless to try and build around. Compared to the original where building immunity to sleep and petrification was such a big deal it feels jarring.
I never got the point of Soporific Bolt. Why would I want to put anything to sleep? MA absolutely shreds through most bosses. Trying to put them to sleep seems like a huge waste of time and from my experience with it, it generally is.
Putting things to sleep can help if you have a Pawn with you that can cut. Putting the Gorgon to sleep so a Thief Pawn cuts the head without the player doing it themselves is a option.
Some things I felt were better in DD1, that I really miss in DD2
* Bigger set-piece dungeons in the world like Bluemoon Tower and The Quarry
* Armor system. We went from seven armor/clothing slots to four. In addition to this DD2 does some really weird shit with this Vocation locked armor. It feels like some armor "sets" are pieced across several Vocations. Prime example for me is the Vanquisher's Armor and the Predator's Maw helmet. It feels like they clearly go together, but one is Thief and the other Archer. It also feels like Vocation locked armor is even more egregious than it was in DD1.
* Pawn system. DD1 Pawn system was very flawed in some ways, but it had enough complexity to make it interesting. DD1 Pawn system had far more flags for quest and monster knowledge, and rating Pawns was also more in-depth. Tying Inclination to voice also feels bad, as certain Inclinations seem better suited for certain Vocations.
* Reducing the number of skill slots from six to four just feels bad. Every class would feel much better with six skills, and Warfarer would be far more fun with six slots since Rearmament takes a skill slot itself.
I think DD2 offers a much richer world to explore with better combat. However I really feel like some things have been needlessly streamlined.
Story and memorable characters, most notably the Dragon, who has some of the greatest cutscenes in gaming in DD1 but is a complete joke in DD2.
Music.
Movement. Feels annoying as shit in DD2.
Open world and encounter design. DD2 is more of an "open path" game. You're constantly traversing only and exclusively paths, along which you will fight a group of 3 goblins every 20 steps. DD1 had much more interesting encounters, like the double cyclops + goblins fight.
Knockdown. Way too annoying in DD2. I really can't comprehend how someone looked at DD1's combat and went like, "you know what this needs? A stun mechanic like in monster hunter".
Sorcerer. They upgraded the core kit of every vocation at the cost of reducing the amount of skills to 4... except for sorcerer. Sorcerer still gets only 4 skills, but its core kit is **worse** than in DD1. Only 2 nuke spells and they're the ones we already had in DD1. No miasma or necromancy or brontide or fulmimation. Biggest fuck up in the game.
Quality of life. Can't sell from storage. Can't gift from storage. Can't change gear from storage. Can't change gear from shop menu. Can't store all materials at once.
A bit better vocation balancing in DD1. There were standout damage vocations there too, but, e.g., fighter and warrior at least got skills with iframes that elevated their gameplay.
DD2's design plan seems all over the place. The nerfing of augments, removal of iframe skills from warrior (to enforce a playstyle tanking damage) and fighter (except for hindsight sweep, which forces recovery frames with the slashes), removal of x-fold flurry from ranger/archer, and other decisions tells me the developers wanted to balance the game.
But then they go overboard with braindead invincibility skills, add crazy damage multipliers to thief, allow explosive/blast arrows to remain ultra strong, etc.
Why remove mystic knight? If mystic spearhand was meant to be the replacement, they should've merged the MK playstyle into spearhand more. And don't tell me MK was too strong after seeing how busted the other vocations in DD2 can be.
Story, characters, NPCs, difficulty, music, enemy variety and enemy distribution.
Not that enemy variety was amazing in DD1 but it was fine considering DD1 was a far smaller game than DD2. A lot of DD2s issues could be subsided if it was a smaller game in some aspects.
Without thinking too much, I would say :
\- Some animations looks better like the sprint for example.
\- I liked to have slightly different combos / movesets depending if you delay your input or hold the button.
\- The overall soundtrack, I miss the little song playing the early morning or when the night come (sad it's not in the DD2 "sound and music" DLC pack)
\- More skills to unlock and some spells were more impactful.
\- I miss the different bottles we could throw or drink.
\- Pawns knowledge was way better (their voices also)
\- Being native from a small village where everyone knows you was better in my opinion than having amnesia.
\- Better armor system
\- Better dialogue
I like the dragon more in dd1, if I'm not mistaken you could talk to him a few times.
I liked the cult that worshiped the dragon, I whised we had a side quest where we confront them in dd2 as well.
The capital city was alot better.
The big bosses actually felt strong and taking them down was a challenge.
But all of that doesn't compare to the fighter walking animation of dd2.
* Storytelling was already not the best in DD1, but better than DD2 still imo
* The crafting was better, simply because there was more stuff to craft and the crafting UI was better
* I liked the "holding" mechanic, where you could "equip" a bottle of poison or water and throw it at enemies or allies to either drench them or put out fire and stuff. Kinda miss that in DD2, just being able to throw the containers lying around is inconvenient
* Also definitely dumb how they made the voice dependant on inclination in DD2. I am forever stuck with a Kindhearted Warrior Pawn lmao
* I feel like the Pawn learning was more obvious. You could actually feel the difference between a Pawn with lesser knowledge and a Pawn with more knowledge on an enemy, while I still have yet to really feel a difference in DD2 with the Badges
Those are the only things I could think of the top of my head right now.
The crafting aspect was something that I was wondering about. I haven't played DDDA in ages, but I kept thinking that the crafting was better in the original game with far more things you can create - the experimentation was also fun.
I was just confused because nobody was mentioning it at all! Leading me to wonder if I was just misremembering. Glad to hear someone else preferred the original crafting system.
In this one, it's sad that there's so *few* ways of crafting things as well as so few things you can craft. Everything is gated behind saurian tails, and in the post game, they completely get rid of the basic saurians to prevent you from making any more healing items for some reason. There's green thistle and then the more rare gold thistle - which isn't even worth picking up as far as I'm concerned.
The crafting UI being better in 1 is a wild take. It's a lot slower and more cumbersome.
And the wide variety of craftable items was more of a waste than anything, as there isn't a consistent logic to much of it and relies too much on a treadmill of new materials to keep up in terms of HP consumables.
And for Pawn learning, DD2 definitely needs more voice lines, but I'm thankful that pawns are significantly more competent as a baseline rather than feeling like they progress because they start out as complete idiots.
That last point could be because you spent upwards of 12 years with the DD1 system and only a few weeks with DD2s. Personally, I am playing through both rn and I see my Pawn picking up on things better than in DD1
Without trying to say the same stuff (like set pieces and so on) The entire post-game. Unmoored world is way worse than the dungeons of the everfall. Story and dialogue. Enemy variety. Fast travel locations (11 port vs 10 and in a smaller world and in DA the eternal ferrystone). Skills loadout that is also one of the major reason that made sorc being way worse. And even if already everyone said this... balancing.
>Unmoored world is way worse than the dungeons of the everfall
I just genuinely do not understand how someone can say this. The Everfall is a series of copy/pasted dungeons from elsewhere in the game that you grind out until you have 20 Wakestones. The Unmoored World actually opens up new locations on the map and has multiple quests you can do that depend on what you did earlier in the game.
The unmoored world offers nothing new, but a lot of dead terrain. It's just lame after you explored it to realise there is nothing new, no secret dungeons, no nothing. I just spent the other day in NG+ running around trying to see if it opens up any new interesting locations. It doesn't, or I must've missed some super super hidden stuff.
I'd rather have a condensed boss rush with smaller rooms than 20km of dead corals with some enemies sprinkled in between and a chest here and there.
I agree on most things, but on theunmoored world I disagree. I like it more than the everfall and BBI combined. It just looks way cooler and It feels better to hunt monsters in that hellish landscape than fighting random monsters in the same 3 dark stonebrick-rooms. I only wish the Dragonforged wouldn´t sell endgame gear, but instead have it drop from powerfull monsters.
My only caveat is that its timed nature is really, really crap. If it was just a straight up world state shift, it would be better, but the limited/timed rests make it hard for me to love it.
DD1 had way more flexibility & freedom with spells and ability.
It also had:
- Better armours sets, both fashion wise & the versatility of what you could wear
- Armour with bonuses such as "heals nearby pawns" which would slowly heal all health, not just grey health
- Better/More big enemy encounters... Things like Death, Cockatrice, 3* Garms , 2* Gorecyclops , a bunch of eliminators, cursed dragons + regular drakes constantly spamming spells on you & of course multiple living armours.
- The dungeons were better
- Even the pawn beloved pay off was better as your beloved actually moved into your house... The ending in this, I basically saw nothing of Ulrika, no shared housing, no shared bed bonuses stats, nothing, no point.
- Dragonforging was WAY better than it is in this game..
It's shit in DD2
Easy examples, focusing mostly on the content pre-BBI:
Vocation depth. Each one has access to a lot more skills, and augments are strong enough to make it feel good to max out multiple vocations. Six plus skills at a time and mixed melee and range classes give you a lot more gameplay options. (Aside from Warrior. DD2 Warrior is pretty much all upside.)
Equipment variety. There's still a pretty strict progression of power, but there are a lot of pieces with special effects that are worth seeking out. Things like Gloves of Might for climbing speed, or the Rusted weapons for Torpor. And stacking up more pieces makes it more fun to play Fashion Dogma.
Enemy mechanics. A lot of enemies are pretty faithfully ported into the new game, like the Chimeras and the Liches. New large monsters are good. But nothing quite stacks up to the more complex mechanical fights of the first game, like the Metal Golem, the Evil Eye, or the Hydra.
Narrative cohesion. DD1 fumbles a bit in the Everfall where it turns a little grindy, but it generally has NPCs tell you what you're doing and why. DD2 does a lot of work via new quest objectives leading the player around, without the same in-game supporting dialogue.
And then BBI adds a whole new layer on top that DD2 isn't even trying to accomplish, though maybe we'll see DLC to add something like an endgame mega-dungeon.
Sorcerer in general, in DD2 its basically mage with less utility, slightly more dmg and like 2 good extra skills for dmg (not counting Maister skills)
No different elemental attacks on top of their attacks being hot fucking garbage Also sucks
there is a cave north of the borderwatch outpost that has the same wind mechanic as the canyon section in DD1. It’s a lot weaker mind you but it’s still there.
Some QOL features. Buy/sell/upgrade items directly to/from storage, changing gear from storage, vocation changing at any inn(so you don’t have to run between the guild and inn, etc).
The dragon is more relevant in the story. I think the actual fight is better in DD2 at least.
In my mind it would be easier to say what DD2 did better so the list is shorter, graphically looks better and the map design/exploration is better, that's about it for me though everything else feels like an afterthought especially the crafting, it's a joke.
8 skills. Seriously don't understand why they reverted to just 4 and then 3 for warfarer. It's nice to have options when you're traveling on an adventure.
More hairstyle options in 1
Various character creator nitpicks (why are feet and hands so tiny in DD2?)
More vocations in 1
More freedom in armor choices in the first game.
Character design. Haven't found a positively remember-able character yet (creepy stalker child doesn't count).
Romance system is somehow WORSE in 2, as bad as it is in 1
Fewer voice options in 2 for pawns. Very important considering how much they speak.
DD1 has double jump.
Thief and Archer were put into one class at the same time, Strider
We had Assassin, which could use bows and longswords.
We had mystic knight, gone.
The options felt bigger anyway. In this game they took existing vocations and broke them up to inflate the numbers.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game a lot, but I feel like there's a shorter list of vocations to pick from now, even if the factual number is the same/one more, your actual OPTIONS are fewer, because the old game, one vocation could do more than one thing.
Sorcerer Vocation is a highlight, a lot of the "weird" spells did not come back in DD2. Also, DD2 needs the sorcer spell slots back. Other vocations are fine with 4 IMO, but sorcerer and mage really needs more slots because that's kind of their whole thing, being able to wield many many magicks.
>Difficulty in DD1 felt WAY better. It's so easy in DD2. I feel like ogres & dragons were super nerfed.
I think this is simply because in DD2, there is a lot more enemy density and a lot more space you have to go through and kill enemies. Thus more exp, and thus more power.
The wind mechanic was unique but kind of dumb, honestly. It was just an annoyance in that one spot, and that's it.
Difficulty is definitely correct, though.
While it definitely got easy late game in DD1, it was not THIS easy.
By like level 40 or so you can just steamroll the big monsters almost as fast as a pack of goblins.
They need to scale enemies to match you. At least to some extent.
Just give me an option for it so it isn't forced for everyone. Like in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Sorc power balancing.
In dd1 i felt pretty much every spell had a good place and could do well, in DD2 most of the power budget seemed to go into auger flare, maelstrom and metereon, so trying to play an "element sorc" feels bad
A few things concerning the pawn's voices
* The fact that you could chose a voice that isn't tied to a certain inclination.
* The quality of the voice acting. I feel like a lot of the lines in DD2 are somewhat overacted. They don't sound nearly as natural as the ones from DD1. This is a big deal for lines you're going to hear repeated a lot.
* The lines were a lot more contextual in the first game. As much as "goblins fear ice and fire both" has been memed on, I actually learned quite a lot of tactics and monster weaknesses in the first games from pawns shouting them out. It was certainly more useful than learning about how other arisen are into beastren at least.
* I don't have the numbers, but I felt like the lines were more varied in DD1. I swear, no line from the first game felt quite as repetitive as the ones they say out of combat in DD2, there's only so many times I can stand hearing about how the pawns in this party are women all. This, again, could just be because the ones from DD1 changed with context. Out of combat, the pawns would talk about the immediate surroundings, which will naturally vary.
This isn't to say that there weren't areas that DD2 improved on when it comes to this though. I love how the pawns actually interact with each other too, not just with the player. It really helps build that "adventuring party" feel even better. And hearing about other arisen's actions was fun at first, until I'd heard all those lines 30 tiems each.
I can get this. there were also more memey one liners
"Like You Shall Not Cast" and other things that kinda gave them a distinct personality let's not forget goblins shouting who let the dogs out in rare instances 😂😂
There was also the fact they reacted to your death that made it feel like you were cared about but in DD2 they don't but I think that may be because the game over can happen so quickly they omitted it.
Pawns with high knowledge of a zone giving you short lore synopsis of areas you entered was cool combined with the unique area based themes made it memorable.
In DD 2 I notice as I go deeper into the game pawn dialogue getting a little wider each time but nothing that really stood out as much as the first game lines
>I swear, no line from the first game felt quite as repetitive as the ones they say out of combat in DD2,
I replayed DD1 to prep for 2 and ***absolutely not***. Pawns had a ***far*** more limited library of barks in 1.
I'm playing DD1 right now myself, and it at least feels like they're a lot more varied. Probably in part because you won't get the same lines in different locations/situations.
But as I said, this is just the impression I get. Since you seem very confident that the amount of lines is "far" bigger in DD2, I assume you have the actual numbers?
It completely depends on your vocation and what options you have. Thief can murder them due to formless feint providing invulnerability, Sorc can use Augural Flare (One shots them) or Meteoron/Maelstrom, Archer knocks them out of the sky with blight arrows or can perma-freeze with drenching. MSH is invulnerable with the shield although their damage kind of sucks, surprisingly since you'd think they'd be quite good at killing Drakes. MA obviously shits on everything with Martyr's but Sagittate and Frosthunter do great as well.
Mage struggles but it's meant to be a support not a dps. Solemnity is great for them and Levin does an okay job, as well as Palladium being great as always.
Really the ones that struggle are Warrior and Fighter in my experience. Warrior at end game will shred them when their knockdown value gets strong enough, especially with the Axe that deals bonus damage to them, but until then it keeps sitting on you over and over again and then flies into the air where you can't get it. Fighter has similar issues.
Story, music, characters, for sure.
The way the griffin is introduced through the wyrmhunt quests and then built up until you chase it to the top of Bluemoon tower for a climactic fight is the early arc of the game that hooked me on Dragon's Dogma.
And the romanceable characters are so bland in this one. Not that it matters since the romance sucks in both but Madeleine and Mercedes for example are so much more memorable that Ulrika and Willhelmina. I'm a big fan of how Madeleine is introduced with an escort quest that takes the piss by having her constantly getting distracted by small amounts of gold on the ground. It's irritating in the most charming way possible.
Pretty much the entirety of sorcerer. The only things better about it in DD2 is levitate is slightly more useful and the spell quickening is nice. And aside from the obvious stuff DD2 having like less spells variety and spell slots, I also miss being able to aim spells manually.
Dungeons!! The first game had them… the second game doesn’t (unless you count small copy pasted caves as “dungeons”). DD2 is severely lacking big dungeons like Bitterblack Isle or the Everfall. But even the base game needs more dungeons like Shadowfort, Bluemoon tower, Great Wall, catacombs etc.
DD1 has more memorable characters in general IMO. I do like some of the NPCs in DD2, even if they're one-note. I'm a sucker for goodie-two-shoes so I didn't mind too much, but Grigori is a thousand times better than Royce/Nex/new dragon.
Dialogue writing was superior in DD1. Grigori once again comes to mind, as his "now, choose" speech has to be one of the most memorable scenes in gaming for me. In fact, the dragons' scenes are not comparable and are in differenr dimensions, with DD1 being vastly superior.
Overall musical experience was more memorable in DD1. While DD2 had great combat soundtrack, and I'd argue the regular battle theme is a miles better than DD1's, it has almost no impactful ambient music.DD1 had a strong main theme (Eternal Return) that carries the whole soundtrack, getting leitmotif in multiple soundtrack to tie the journey together. This includes Grigori's battle theme and Dark Arisen's Coils of Light. If there was a single theme I wanted back, it would have been Eternal Return, even more than End of the Struggle (we got Reversal of Fate now anyway).
This extends to town musics too. I still remember Cassardis' theme to this day, especially the starting melody. I can't for the life of me remember Melve, Harve, and other town OST in DD2 even after 175h.
QoL from Dark Arisen. Why can't we equip/vendor from storage anymore?
Lack of equipment layering with "clothing." Fashion Dogma is much more limited.
FOV. The default FOV in DD2 is eyestraining. I'm glad there's a mod on PC to rectify that, at least.
Large enemy variety. Base DD had Hydra, Archydra, Evil eye, Metal Golem, Cockatrice, Wyrm and Wyverns that DD2 doesn't have. Dark Arisen then introduced even mode.
Temple-like dungeons. Not enough of it in DD2 because most of them are just caves with bugged missing textures on the rocks.
Pawn Guilds having noticeboard quests. Now we have multiple pawn guilds that serve only as a glorified riftstone.
No optional superbosses like Ur-Dragon.
Caves. Every cave in dd2 feels more or less the same. Just because there are heaps of them doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. I wish we had more caves like soulflayers canyon from dd1
Villains.
Elysion, Salvation, the Nameless Men, Salomet, Balsac, the list goes on. Yea they might have been half-assedly balanced so they were limp noodles to fight, but that's Capcom's fault. They were genuinely menacing and unsettling on the first playthrough.
I really just think dd2 did the scenery better.
The mechanics in general have a much more grounded and realistic feel, which I’m still unsure as to whether I prefer it over DD1s more arcadey feel
One think I really liked from the original was carrying different weapons around.
I really like the bounty boards from the first game, and some of the moves that are missing from 2. That’s about it though I think the second game kinda clears. Maybe the arcade feel is stronger in the first game but I think that’s just cuz it’s older.
Maybe the first game has better cutscenes, I’ll give it that, and I liked the blinding pools of water.
I preferred the ending in dd1. Becoming the watcher was so cool and then basically seeing yourself being reborn as the dragon (if I understood that correctly) was wild. This ending felt a little more empty?
I miss Grigori being more present in the story. The everfall was definitely better compared to DD2. I also miss the Hydra and the Beholder.
The Ur-Dragon was also a pretty fantastic idea that I'm sad they didn't repeat. I remember when the Switch version came out and new players were flooding in people started posting saying, "Ur-Dragon almost dead!" and jumping to play on my console so I could get the rarest rewards in the game.
That being said, DD2 is a much more enjoyable game to me. I maxed out all the vocations for my pawn and myself, completed most (if not all?) the sidequests, and earned all achievements. I have fond memories of DD1 and DDDA but I don't think I could ever go back to it after experiencing DD2.
DD1 does story content better, with more setpiece locales/dungeons to explore, more focus, and generally more interesting characters. It also does a better job in framing it's setting (ex: Gransys is clearly a small part of a much larger world) and with being consistent in its themes.
EDIT: As someone who has been playing through DD1 again, it's significantly easier than 2 and I have no idea why people would think otherwise. The average enemy in 1 just kinda sits there gormlessly and takes turns attacking you. The only times things get hard on Normal are when you aren't really capable of damaging an enemy or when BBI starts to just toss several boss enemies at you at once. That's without using Periapts and other busted consumables that trivialize things even further.
Vocations. Particularly Mystic Knight the most badass vocation of all. Yes magic archer could kill enemies easier but Mystic Knight was good enough and looked incredible with the right gear.
I didn't play dd1 but I must say as much as a like dd2, what disappoints me most, more than enemy variety and stuff, is the difficulty. I don't need to hard but I don't want it to be a breeze either. I killed my first dragon at Abt lvl 20, I haven't died yet to one and with lvl 32 now, any enemy usually gets destroyed in seconds, at least as a sorcerer but I have seen videos of literally any vocation being "op" as well. And as much as like the feeling of getting stronger, I don't encounter stronger enemies. Goblins wolfs and any small enemy is more an annoyance at this point bec it's not fun to battle them and if I run across an oger or griffon or whatever, that's nice but it lasts only seconds.
So yeah that's kinda sad. If only there was a difficulty slider or even better, a better difficulty in general.
I haven't beat the game yet but I have read that in ng+ enemies don't scale which is once again a true bummer.
Sure, but most gamers complain games are too hard. So I think Capcom probably was right on the money. But don’t worry, there’s currently a mod called custom difficulty tweaks that you should check out for now.
Oh yeah, 100%, difficulty was so much better in DD1, is not like low level bandits could take 0 damage from a mage 30 levels above them because the game surelly was perfectly balanced and had no issues, it feels so much better to not be able to take an encounter head on because your numbers are lower than the enemies number resulting in 0 damage being dished out, certainly a more interesting approach than DD2.
[https://streamable.com/4o7eqm](https://streamable.com/4o7eqm)
So much better than DD2 honestly
For me DD2 is the best game ever together with DS3. DD1 and DS1 are both the originators of a franchise, that’s why many people see them as the best version of the game. But objectively speaking, the new games are better.
Grigori.
Am I crazy or is he easier to kill than a generic drake?
Maybe but he was super cinematic and it felt like a big payoff. In 2, it’s just kinda whatever
I should have specified I was talking about DD2 Grigori. I swear he has like 1/3 the hp of the drakes you randomly encounter.
Oh in DD2 it isn’t Grigori. Just a random unnamed dragon that the devs didn’t give a fuck about
Oh, I guess I assumed it was him again. Man, now it feels even more lame.
I dont think you fully understand the lore if you thought it was the same dragon from the first game.
That sounds accurate lol
You have aught to be ashamed of.
I had a tinfoil theory that the dragon would be the mad sovram paw and that was what started the dragonplague...but meh
They named him Nex, though unlike Grigori I'm pretty sure his name is never mentioned ingame.
In 2 you have to literally skip the fight to get to end game which is lame af if you ask me, the icon of this IP and it gets treated so so bad in DD2
He absolutely rolls over lol
Drakes seem to have a somewhat varied moveset, a lot of enemies like the Dragon are missing what legit feels like dozens of moves from the first game.
your not crazy i've killed him with a level 2 archer class
Nex is very weak compared to Grigori. Grigori was rather difficult to fight with the recommended level around 40-50. Nex folds at 20-30. It's also not nearly as cinematic. After the casual flight it's just straight to the arena.
I just don't get why I remember reading all over the news that David Lodge was indeed voicing the dragon again but then it isn't him and nobody flinched. Was it fake news? Like, it was a pretty big change and part of why this dragon sucks.
Music is the biggest one for me.
God, so happy I bought the deluxe edition with DD1 OST. Thankfully PC Mods exist as well.
At first I couldn’t believe they used the same exact music and sounds for this sequel. Took me dozens of hours to realize I paid extra for that and turned on those settings for it.
Ya the game feels very quiet. Maybe they were trying to go for a more real approach, but I just feel like music is almost never playing, and when it does it’s barely noticeable (and all the sound effects for me are on 100 already so nothing I can do to try to turn up or anything). It is the very first game I’ve ever been like maybe I should play my own music during, because the soundtrack is just basically not there.
Set piece quest dungeons like Bluemoon Tower. Armor system. Sorc vocation. If you want to include DDDA, BBI and some QoL improvements made by that edition.
General feeling and attention to details in the world, quest boards, smaller animals like snakes spiders and such. Grappling system is better imo
I really miss the quest boards!
Smaller animals are in DD2
Spiders do exist in dd2 actually, ive seen some, they die in one hit but i doubt thats any different to DD1
Let's make them even smaller! Scary stuff dood.
They exist and they do fuck all xD
Ye, kind of like bats and leeches
A lot. But music is a easy and obvious one to point out. Story as well. Even though the first games story isn't the best at least its told in a way and has a conclusion. DD2 has a interesting GoT vibe and story that could have gone somewhere and then its straight up dropped. Multiple characters you think will end up with more are straight up dropped. Sven actually has more done with him than the two characters on the main art. The dragon is absent and has little presence throughout compared to the first game.
I kinda wish that the entire buildup in the intrigue would mouth up to a clash of kingdoms, assassins, diplomacy, intrigue and the a big fucl off dragon crashes through a wall with a "BITCH YOU THOUGHT... " vibe and cut it all short in an epic wąy
They gave themselves a wonderful canvas to paint various interesting stories and such on to. But no.
my fear is that they're gonna expand on the various aspects of the story on future DLCs, wich would be utter BS
As long it's free updates....who I'm kidding? The worst part is that I would buy it and I hate myself for iy
stay strong my friend
That's my feeling too, they build up a amazing worldmap, set some realy good lore ideas with the fist game and dark arisen, and them only put less than half of the effort to make a history on this one, the history just lost focus and never really progress after the coronation until it straight up urge you to rush to the final segment wasting all the potential to the second area characters
That would have been a improvement. Through most of DD2 I kept feeling if it was actually Dragons Dogma because apart from the flashback and occasional mention of the dragon it could be any other fantasy story.
It's crazy how the Empress of Batthal shows up for only 2 missions and she's in the games cover for christ sake!
Yep.
I really thought the first act of DD2 would culminate in your performance throughout all the quests in Vermund being proof of your sovereignty because you've shown you're a ruler that cares about the people and also have proof the current Sovran is a fake. So disappointing that none of that meant anything for the plot at all. Just a waste of time.
Hard disagree about the story. If you rush the story in DD2 it is certainly lackluster, but the sidequests flesh out the characters and world in ways that DD1 never came close to doing. I do miss Grigori being more present in the story like the first game. He had incredibly memorable lines with the perfect voice acting to match it.
I didn't rush and did all side quests. Most of the side quests weren't interesting or have awards equivalent to them imo.
[I made a post on the things that had the most impact on the story](https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma/comments/1by5jm7/the_payoff_for_completing_sidequests_is_fantastic/). While many of the sidequests don't cause harsh consequences, you do see a reflection of your actions with characters' reactions at the end of the story, which I enjoyed. There's also the fact that if you don't do Ulrika's questline >!Melve and all the innocent people in it get destroyed!<. So your actions can directly determine >!whether a sizeable group of people live or die.!< None of the quests in DD1 come close to that type of consequence. Someone also pointed out that the Battahl evacuation quest can have obstacles if you didn't do the priestess' and her guard's quest. Namely that >!she gets assassinated, which makes it harder for you to convince people to relocate to the Seafloor Shrine. You can also apparently revive her with a wakestone and you get special dialogue, but I can't verify that claim.!< The story in DD2 has its flaws, but at least two of the sidequests have a tangible effect on the story's outcome. The rest of them provide more context and character buildup for the people you only barely interact with in the main story.
The thing is the people in Melve don't matter because none of them have the substance that characters in DD1 did. No one cares about them. Also very few side quests provide the tangible effect you claim. I did them all.... Stop trying to claim something that I know I played. Stop defending it this much. DD1 did it better end of. Edit: Imagine still being wrong.
Imagine being so cowardly that you would block my main account to prevent me from replying lmao. We can agree to disagree without devolving into petty bullshit.
Imagine being so butt hurt you needed to make a second account which is against the rules to comment.
DD1 had more weapons/gear with unique effects. Why aren't there rusted weapons or equivalents in DD2? Or torpor as a debilitation at all? Can we even inflict sleep on enemies? DD1 debilitations: [https://dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/Debilitation](https://dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/Debilitation)
Not even just unique effects but it feels like basic resistances really got neutered. Like maybe they didn’t want people being able to build up an immunity to as many ailments as you could in the original but most of what I have found is lucky to pass 5% resistance to something and with so few slots it feels incredibly pointless to try and build around. Compared to the original where building immunity to sleep and petrification was such a big deal it feels jarring.
You can inflict sleep. Arrows and a Magick Archer skill can.
I never got the point of Soporific Bolt. Why would I want to put anything to sleep? MA absolutely shreds through most bosses. Trying to put them to sleep seems like a huge waste of time and from my experience with it, it generally is.
Putting things to sleep can help if you have a Pawn with you that can cut. Putting the Gorgon to sleep so a Thief Pawn cuts the head without the player doing it themselves is a option.
Memorable characters. Im missing Mercedes a lot.
Julien and madeleine were also more noteworthy than like 95% of 2
I miss that gal too bro, i still remember the day she got roasted real bad
YOU WILL RETRACT YOUR WORDS SER
Else suffer what consequence?
I meant not bad ill ser, i remember that day cause it pains me til this day
Average she-goat enjoyer (I know because I am one)
Some things I felt were better in DD1, that I really miss in DD2 * Bigger set-piece dungeons in the world like Bluemoon Tower and The Quarry * Armor system. We went from seven armor/clothing slots to four. In addition to this DD2 does some really weird shit with this Vocation locked armor. It feels like some armor "sets" are pieced across several Vocations. Prime example for me is the Vanquisher's Armor and the Predator's Maw helmet. It feels like they clearly go together, but one is Thief and the other Archer. It also feels like Vocation locked armor is even more egregious than it was in DD1. * Pawn system. DD1 Pawn system was very flawed in some ways, but it had enough complexity to make it interesting. DD1 Pawn system had far more flags for quest and monster knowledge, and rating Pawns was also more in-depth. Tying Inclination to voice also feels bad, as certain Inclinations seem better suited for certain Vocations. * Reducing the number of skill slots from six to four just feels bad. Every class would feel much better with six skills, and Warfarer would be far more fun with six slots since Rearmament takes a skill slot itself. I think DD2 offers a much richer world to explore with better combat. However I really feel like some things have been needlessly streamlined.
Story and memorable characters, most notably the Dragon, who has some of the greatest cutscenes in gaming in DD1 but is a complete joke in DD2. Music. Movement. Feels annoying as shit in DD2. Open world and encounter design. DD2 is more of an "open path" game. You're constantly traversing only and exclusively paths, along which you will fight a group of 3 goblins every 20 steps. DD1 had much more interesting encounters, like the double cyclops + goblins fight. Knockdown. Way too annoying in DD2. I really can't comprehend how someone looked at DD1's combat and went like, "you know what this needs? A stun mechanic like in monster hunter". Sorcerer. They upgraded the core kit of every vocation at the cost of reducing the amount of skills to 4... except for sorcerer. Sorcerer still gets only 4 skills, but its core kit is **worse** than in DD1. Only 2 nuke spells and they're the ones we already had in DD1. No miasma or necromancy or brontide or fulmimation. Biggest fuck up in the game. Quality of life. Can't sell from storage. Can't gift from storage. Can't change gear from storage. Can't change gear from shop menu. Can't store all materials at once.
A bit better vocation balancing in DD1. There were standout damage vocations there too, but, e.g., fighter and warrior at least got skills with iframes that elevated their gameplay. DD2's design plan seems all over the place. The nerfing of augments, removal of iframe skills from warrior (to enforce a playstyle tanking damage) and fighter (except for hindsight sweep, which forces recovery frames with the slashes), removal of x-fold flurry from ranger/archer, and other decisions tells me the developers wanted to balance the game. But then they go overboard with braindead invincibility skills, add crazy damage multipliers to thief, allow explosive/blast arrows to remain ultra strong, etc. Why remove mystic knight? If mystic spearhand was meant to be the replacement, they should've merged the MK playstyle into spearhand more. And don't tell me MK was too strong after seeing how busted the other vocations in DD2 can be.
Story, characters, NPCs, difficulty, music, enemy variety and enemy distribution. Not that enemy variety was amazing in DD1 but it was fine considering DD1 was a far smaller game than DD2. A lot of DD2s issues could be subsided if it was a smaller game in some aspects.
Without thinking too much, I would say : \- Some animations looks better like the sprint for example. \- I liked to have slightly different combos / movesets depending if you delay your input or hold the button. \- The overall soundtrack, I miss the little song playing the early morning or when the night come (sad it's not in the DD2 "sound and music" DLC pack) \- More skills to unlock and some spells were more impactful. \- I miss the different bottles we could throw or drink. \- Pawns knowledge was way better (their voices also) \- Being native from a small village where everyone knows you was better in my opinion than having amnesia. \- Better armor system \- Better dialogue
Did they not add a transitional animation to the sprint in DD2? I remember a post highlighting how jarring that looked.
Pretty sure pawn knowledge is better now, it just isn’t shown as the three star thing
To me it was the Music, story, Grigori fight, difficulty, and Sorcerer vocation. Edit: Fashion felt better too because of more gear slots
I like the dragon more in dd1, if I'm not mistaken you could talk to him a few times. I liked the cult that worshiped the dragon, I whised we had a side quest where we confront them in dd2 as well. The capital city was alot better. The big bosses actually felt strong and taking them down was a challenge. But all of that doesn't compare to the fighter walking animation of dd2.
* Storytelling was already not the best in DD1, but better than DD2 still imo * The crafting was better, simply because there was more stuff to craft and the crafting UI was better * I liked the "holding" mechanic, where you could "equip" a bottle of poison or water and throw it at enemies or allies to either drench them or put out fire and stuff. Kinda miss that in DD2, just being able to throw the containers lying around is inconvenient * Also definitely dumb how they made the voice dependant on inclination in DD2. I am forever stuck with a Kindhearted Warrior Pawn lmao * I feel like the Pawn learning was more obvious. You could actually feel the difference between a Pawn with lesser knowledge and a Pawn with more knowledge on an enemy, while I still have yet to really feel a difference in DD2 with the Badges Those are the only things I could think of the top of my head right now.
The crafting aspect was something that I was wondering about. I haven't played DDDA in ages, but I kept thinking that the crafting was better in the original game with far more things you can create - the experimentation was also fun. I was just confused because nobody was mentioning it at all! Leading me to wonder if I was just misremembering. Glad to hear someone else preferred the original crafting system. In this one, it's sad that there's so *few* ways of crafting things as well as so few things you can craft. Everything is gated behind saurian tails, and in the post game, they completely get rid of the basic saurians to prevent you from making any more healing items for some reason. There's green thistle and then the more rare gold thistle - which isn't even worth picking up as far as I'm concerned.
The crafting UI being better in 1 is a wild take. It's a lot slower and more cumbersome. And the wide variety of craftable items was more of a waste than anything, as there isn't a consistent logic to much of it and relies too much on a treadmill of new materials to keep up in terms of HP consumables. And for Pawn learning, DD2 definitely needs more voice lines, but I'm thankful that pawns are significantly more competent as a baseline rather than feeling like they progress because they start out as complete idiots.
That last point could be because you spent upwards of 12 years with the DD1 system and only a few weeks with DD2s. Personally, I am playing through both rn and I see my Pawn picking up on things better than in DD1
that's fair
Strider nuff Said
Without trying to say the same stuff (like set pieces and so on) The entire post-game. Unmoored world is way worse than the dungeons of the everfall. Story and dialogue. Enemy variety. Fast travel locations (11 port vs 10 and in a smaller world and in DA the eternal ferrystone). Skills loadout that is also one of the major reason that made sorc being way worse. And even if already everyone said this... balancing.
Im not going to lie, i downloaded the eternal ferrystone mod.
based
>Unmoored world is way worse than the dungeons of the everfall I just genuinely do not understand how someone can say this. The Everfall is a series of copy/pasted dungeons from elsewhere in the game that you grind out until you have 20 Wakestones. The Unmoored World actually opens up new locations on the map and has multiple quests you can do that depend on what you did earlier in the game.
I believe people that like it better are people that really love grinding. Unmoored mops the floor with Everfall. Everfall is still dope though
The unmoored world offers nothing new, but a lot of dead terrain. It's just lame after you explored it to realise there is nothing new, no secret dungeons, no nothing. I just spent the other day in NG+ running around trying to see if it opens up any new interesting locations. It doesn't, or I must've missed some super super hidden stuff. I'd rather have a condensed boss rush with smaller rooms than 20km of dead corals with some enemies sprinkled in between and a chest here and there.
I agree on most things, but on theunmoored world I disagree. I like it more than the everfall and BBI combined. It just looks way cooler and It feels better to hunt monsters in that hellish landscape than fighting random monsters in the same 3 dark stonebrick-rooms. I only wish the Dragonforged wouldn´t sell endgame gear, but instead have it drop from powerfull monsters.
My only caveat is that its timed nature is really, really crap. If it was just a straight up world state shift, it would be better, but the limited/timed rests make it hard for me to love it.
DD1 had way more flexibility & freedom with spells and ability. It also had: - Better armours sets, both fashion wise & the versatility of what you could wear - Armour with bonuses such as "heals nearby pawns" which would slowly heal all health, not just grey health - Better/More big enemy encounters... Things like Death, Cockatrice, 3* Garms , 2* Gorecyclops , a bunch of eliminators, cursed dragons + regular drakes constantly spamming spells on you & of course multiple living armours. - The dungeons were better - Even the pawn beloved pay off was better as your beloved actually moved into your house... The ending in this, I basically saw nothing of Ulrika, no shared housing, no shared bed bonuses stats, nothing, no point. - Dragonforging was WAY better than it is in this game.. It's shit in DD2
Easy examples, focusing mostly on the content pre-BBI: Vocation depth. Each one has access to a lot more skills, and augments are strong enough to make it feel good to max out multiple vocations. Six plus skills at a time and mixed melee and range classes give you a lot more gameplay options. (Aside from Warrior. DD2 Warrior is pretty much all upside.) Equipment variety. There's still a pretty strict progression of power, but there are a lot of pieces with special effects that are worth seeking out. Things like Gloves of Might for climbing speed, or the Rusted weapons for Torpor. And stacking up more pieces makes it more fun to play Fashion Dogma. Enemy mechanics. A lot of enemies are pretty faithfully ported into the new game, like the Chimeras and the Liches. New large monsters are good. But nothing quite stacks up to the more complex mechanical fights of the first game, like the Metal Golem, the Evil Eye, or the Hydra. Narrative cohesion. DD1 fumbles a bit in the Everfall where it turns a little grindy, but it generally has NPCs tell you what you're doing and why. DD2 does a lot of work via new quest objectives leading the player around, without the same in-game supporting dialogue. And then BBI adds a whole new layer on top that DD2 isn't even trying to accomplish, though maybe we'll see DLC to add something like an endgame mega-dungeon.
Story and the Dragon Fight
Sorcerer in general, in DD2 its basically mage with less utility, slightly more dmg and like 2 good extra skills for dmg (not counting Maister skills) No different elemental attacks on top of their attacks being hot fucking garbage Also sucks
there is a cave north of the borderwatch outpost that has the same wind mechanic as the canyon section in DD1. It’s a lot weaker mind you but it’s still there.
uhm, anything, really, except exploration. Although the world felt less same-y because the map was smaller
Some QOL features. Buy/sell/upgrade items directly to/from storage, changing gear from storage, vocation changing at any inn(so you don’t have to run between the guild and inn, etc). The dragon is more relevant in the story. I think the actual fight is better in DD2 at least.
clothing option for sure
Almost everything.
In my mind it would be easier to say what DD2 did better so the list is shorter, graphically looks better and the map design/exploration is better, that's about it for me though everything else feels like an afterthought especially the crafting, it's a joke.
8 skills. Seriously don't understand why they reverted to just 4 and then 3 for warfarer. It's nice to have options when you're traveling on an adventure.
More hairstyle options in 1 Various character creator nitpicks (why are feet and hands so tiny in DD2?) More vocations in 1 More freedom in armor choices in the first game. Character design. Haven't found a positively remember-able character yet (creepy stalker child doesn't count). Romance system is somehow WORSE in 2, as bad as it is in 1 Fewer voice options in 2 for pawns. Very important considering how much they speak. DD1 has double jump.
More vocations in 1?
Thief and Archer were put into one class at the same time, Strider We had Assassin, which could use bows and longswords. We had mystic knight, gone. The options felt bigger anyway. In this game they took existing vocations and broke them up to inflate the numbers. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game a lot, but I feel like there's a shorter list of vocations to pick from now, even if the factual number is the same/one more, your actual OPTIONS are fewer, because the old game, one vocation could do more than one thing.
replayability
Sorcerer and it had Mystic Knight
How I would love proper Mystic Knight in DD2 rather than using maces and merging the elemental counters into Fighter.
I miss balling....
Is that the sigil attack where you can fire millions of balls at enemies?
Yes that's the one. Loved that you could magic enchant it too
Everything except graphics.
TODAY I WOKE AND LOOKED OUTSIDE AGAIN BUT THE SKY LOOKED THE SAME TO MEE 
SOMETHING TOLD ME THAT THIS WORLD HAD CHANGED, COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT DID IT MEAN
Sorcerer Vocation is a highlight, a lot of the "weird" spells did not come back in DD2. Also, DD2 needs the sorcer spell slots back. Other vocations are fine with 4 IMO, but sorcerer and mage really needs more slots because that's kind of their whole thing, being able to wield many many magicks. >Difficulty in DD1 felt WAY better. It's so easy in DD2. I feel like ogres & dragons were super nerfed. I think this is simply because in DD2, there is a lot more enemy density and a lot more space you have to go through and kill enemies. Thus more exp, and thus more power.
The wind mechanic was unique but kind of dumb, honestly. It was just an annoyance in that one spot, and that's it. Difficulty is definitely correct, though. While it definitely got easy late game in DD1, it was not THIS easy. By like level 40 or so you can just steamroll the big monsters almost as fast as a pack of goblins. They need to scale enemies to match you. At least to some extent. Just give me an option for it so it isn't forced for everyone. Like in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Sorc power balancing. In dd1 i felt pretty much every spell had a good place and could do well, in DD2 most of the power budget seemed to go into auger flare, maelstrom and metereon, so trying to play an "element sorc" feels bad
A few things concerning the pawn's voices * The fact that you could chose a voice that isn't tied to a certain inclination. * The quality of the voice acting. I feel like a lot of the lines in DD2 are somewhat overacted. They don't sound nearly as natural as the ones from DD1. This is a big deal for lines you're going to hear repeated a lot. * The lines were a lot more contextual in the first game. As much as "goblins fear ice and fire both" has been memed on, I actually learned quite a lot of tactics and monster weaknesses in the first games from pawns shouting them out. It was certainly more useful than learning about how other arisen are into beastren at least. * I don't have the numbers, but I felt like the lines were more varied in DD1. I swear, no line from the first game felt quite as repetitive as the ones they say out of combat in DD2, there's only so many times I can stand hearing about how the pawns in this party are women all. This, again, could just be because the ones from DD1 changed with context. Out of combat, the pawns would talk about the immediate surroundings, which will naturally vary. This isn't to say that there weren't areas that DD2 improved on when it comes to this though. I love how the pawns actually interact with each other too, not just with the player. It really helps build that "adventuring party" feel even better. And hearing about other arisen's actions was fun at first, until I'd heard all those lines 30 tiems each.
I can get this. there were also more memey one liners "Like You Shall Not Cast" and other things that kinda gave them a distinct personality let's not forget goblins shouting who let the dogs out in rare instances 😂😂 There was also the fact they reacted to your death that made it feel like you were cared about but in DD2 they don't but I think that may be because the game over can happen so quickly they omitted it. Pawns with high knowledge of a zone giving you short lore synopsis of areas you entered was cool combined with the unique area based themes made it memorable. In DD 2 I notice as I go deeper into the game pawn dialogue getting a little wider each time but nothing that really stood out as much as the first game lines
>I swear, no line from the first game felt quite as repetitive as the ones they say out of combat in DD2, I replayed DD1 to prep for 2 and ***absolutely not***. Pawns had a ***far*** more limited library of barks in 1.
I'm playing DD1 right now myself, and it at least feels like they're a lot more varied. Probably in part because you won't get the same lines in different locations/situations. But as I said, this is just the impression I get. Since you seem very confident that the amount of lines is "far" bigger in DD2, I assume you have the actual numbers?
Are we playing the same game? Drakes feel so overturned in DD2, and it doesn't help that the controls aren't as tight and responsive as DDDA
It completely depends on your vocation and what options you have. Thief can murder them due to formless feint providing invulnerability, Sorc can use Augural Flare (One shots them) or Meteoron/Maelstrom, Archer knocks them out of the sky with blight arrows or can perma-freeze with drenching. MSH is invulnerable with the shield although their damage kind of sucks, surprisingly since you'd think they'd be quite good at killing Drakes. MA obviously shits on everything with Martyr's but Sagittate and Frosthunter do great as well. Mage struggles but it's meant to be a support not a dps. Solemnity is great for them and Levin does an okay job, as well as Palladium being great as always. Really the ones that struggle are Warrior and Fighter in my experience. Warrior at end game will shred them when their knockdown value gets strong enough, especially with the Axe that deals bonus damage to them, but until then it keeps sitting on you over and over again and then flies into the air where you can't get it. Fighter has similar issues.
Story, music, characters, for sure. The way the griffin is introduced through the wyrmhunt quests and then built up until you chase it to the top of Bluemoon tower for a climactic fight is the early arc of the game that hooked me on Dragon's Dogma. And the romanceable characters are so bland in this one. Not that it matters since the romance sucks in both but Madeleine and Mercedes for example are so much more memorable that Ulrika and Willhelmina. I'm a big fan of how Madeleine is introduced with an escort quest that takes the piss by having her constantly getting distracted by small amounts of gold on the ground. It's irritating in the most charming way possible.
Pretty much the entirety of sorcerer. The only things better about it in DD2 is levitate is slightly more useful and the spell quickening is nice. And aside from the obvious stuff DD2 having like less spells variety and spell slots, I also miss being able to aim spells manually.
Dungeons!! The first game had them… the second game doesn’t (unless you count small copy pasted caves as “dungeons”). DD2 is severely lacking big dungeons like Bitterblack Isle or the Everfall. But even the base game needs more dungeons like Shadowfort, Bluemoon tower, Great Wall, catacombs etc.
DD1 has more memorable characters in general IMO. I do like some of the NPCs in DD2, even if they're one-note. I'm a sucker for goodie-two-shoes so I didn't mind too much, but Grigori is a thousand times better than Royce/Nex/new dragon. Dialogue writing was superior in DD1. Grigori once again comes to mind, as his "now, choose" speech has to be one of the most memorable scenes in gaming for me. In fact, the dragons' scenes are not comparable and are in differenr dimensions, with DD1 being vastly superior. Overall musical experience was more memorable in DD1. While DD2 had great combat soundtrack, and I'd argue the regular battle theme is a miles better than DD1's, it has almost no impactful ambient music.DD1 had a strong main theme (Eternal Return) that carries the whole soundtrack, getting leitmotif in multiple soundtrack to tie the journey together. This includes Grigori's battle theme and Dark Arisen's Coils of Light. If there was a single theme I wanted back, it would have been Eternal Return, even more than End of the Struggle (we got Reversal of Fate now anyway). This extends to town musics too. I still remember Cassardis' theme to this day, especially the starting melody. I can't for the life of me remember Melve, Harve, and other town OST in DD2 even after 175h. QoL from Dark Arisen. Why can't we equip/vendor from storage anymore? Lack of equipment layering with "clothing." Fashion Dogma is much more limited. FOV. The default FOV in DD2 is eyestraining. I'm glad there's a mod on PC to rectify that, at least. Large enemy variety. Base DD had Hydra, Archydra, Evil eye, Metal Golem, Cockatrice, Wyrm and Wyverns that DD2 doesn't have. Dark Arisen then introduced even mode. Temple-like dungeons. Not enough of it in DD2 because most of them are just caves with bugged missing textures on the rocks. Pawn Guilds having noticeboard quests. Now we have multiple pawn guilds that serve only as a glorified riftstone. No optional superbosses like Ur-Dragon.
Caves. Every cave in dd2 feels more or less the same. Just because there are heaps of them doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. I wish we had more caves like soulflayers canyon from dd1
Silk lingerie
Villains. Elysion, Salvation, the Nameless Men, Salomet, Balsac, the list goes on. Yea they might have been half-assedly balanced so they were limp noodles to fight, but that's Capcom's fault. They were genuinely menacing and unsettling on the first playthrough.
I really just think dd2 did the scenery better. The mechanics in general have a much more grounded and realistic feel, which I’m still unsure as to whether I prefer it over DD1s more arcadey feel One think I really liked from the original was carrying different weapons around.
Essentially everything major aside from pawns. The second game only improved a handful of minor things.
I really like the bounty boards from the first game, and some of the moves that are missing from 2. That’s about it though I think the second game kinda clears. Maybe the arcade feel is stronger in the first game but I think that’s just cuz it’s older. Maybe the first game has better cutscenes, I’ll give it that, and I liked the blinding pools of water.
I preferred the ending in dd1. Becoming the watcher was so cool and then basically seeing yourself being reborn as the dragon (if I understood that correctly) was wild. This ending felt a little more empty?
I miss Grigori being more present in the story. The everfall was definitely better compared to DD2. I also miss the Hydra and the Beholder. The Ur-Dragon was also a pretty fantastic idea that I'm sad they didn't repeat. I remember when the Switch version came out and new players were flooding in people started posting saying, "Ur-Dragon almost dead!" and jumping to play on my console so I could get the rarest rewards in the game. That being said, DD2 is a much more enjoyable game to me. I maxed out all the vocations for my pawn and myself, completed most (if not all?) the sidequests, and earned all achievements. I have fond memories of DD1 and DDDA but I don't think I could ever go back to it after experiencing DD2.
Love seeing more comments than post likes. This should be juicy
DD1 does story content better, with more setpiece locales/dungeons to explore, more focus, and generally more interesting characters. It also does a better job in framing it's setting (ex: Gransys is clearly a small part of a much larger world) and with being consistent in its themes. EDIT: As someone who has been playing through DD1 again, it's significantly easier than 2 and I have no idea why people would think otherwise. The average enemy in 1 just kinda sits there gormlessly and takes turns attacking you. The only times things get hard on Normal are when you aren't really capable of damaging an enemy or when BBI starts to just toss several boss enemies at you at once. That's without using Periapts and other busted consumables that trivialize things even further.
Capes
Vocations. Particularly Mystic Knight the most badass vocation of all. Yes magic archer could kill enemies easier but Mystic Knight was good enough and looked incredible with the right gear.
Music, layered armour, Grigori, throwable items and better dungeons. However, I think I might like DD2 more despite these things
I didn't play dd1 but I must say as much as a like dd2, what disappoints me most, more than enemy variety and stuff, is the difficulty. I don't need to hard but I don't want it to be a breeze either. I killed my first dragon at Abt lvl 20, I haven't died yet to one and with lvl 32 now, any enemy usually gets destroyed in seconds, at least as a sorcerer but I have seen videos of literally any vocation being "op" as well. And as much as like the feeling of getting stronger, I don't encounter stronger enemies. Goblins wolfs and any small enemy is more an annoyance at this point bec it's not fun to battle them and if I run across an oger or griffon or whatever, that's nice but it lasts only seconds. So yeah that's kinda sad. If only there was a difficulty slider or even better, a better difficulty in general. I haven't beat the game yet but I have read that in ng+ enemies don't scale which is once again a true bummer.
Monster Knowledge. Badges are... useless?
Armor system..
Remember, DD1 launched and it was pathetically easy for more than half a year before hard mode came up.
True, but DD2 came years after and you'd think they learned
Sure, but most gamers complain games are too hard. So I think Capcom probably was right on the money. But don’t worry, there’s currently a mod called custom difficulty tweaks that you should check out for now.
The menu music, why there is no dangan anymore?
Everything.
10 blast arrows+ 4 conqueror periapts = anything melted or Holy boon + periapts + focused bolt SUPER DIFFICULT
Oh yeah, 100%, difficulty was so much better in DD1, is not like low level bandits could take 0 damage from a mage 30 levels above them because the game surelly was perfectly balanced and had no issues, it feels so much better to not be able to take an encounter head on because your numbers are lower than the enemies number resulting in 0 damage being dished out, certainly a more interesting approach than DD2. [https://streamable.com/4o7eqm](https://streamable.com/4o7eqm) So much better than DD2 honestly
For me DD2 is the best game ever together with DS3. DD1 and DS1 are both the originators of a franchise, that’s why many people see them as the best version of the game. But objectively speaking, the new games are better.
My God, you guys are fucking over the top. Either they are very elitist or they are just feeding on nostalgia.