I made it to the first big city and quit. I had all the DLC loaded at the time and i was running into lvl 40 quests when I was only lvl 8 and shhh, then there was a lvl 20 side quest at the same level for some special weapon from a blacksmith that I tried and got owned, and I was like, F this, I am not gonna go around looking for quests my level. Great game, but next time I try, I won't be pre-installing any DLC until I finish the main campaign.
TW3 has a very unusual leveling and XP system that's mostly built around completing quests around where your own level currently is at. If you wait too long and don't do a quest until you're well above it, you'll get little to no XP, so its best to just focus on the ones around where you are as you come to them, and just keep the others that are high level for later on.
I always felt under leveled, as early as level 5. Seemed like leveling up took forever. I'll keep that in mind next playthrough.
It took me a while to understand it all. Honestly, I didn't fully understand leveling, the skill tree, and how to use the mutagens until I'd read some really good articles explaining it before my second playthrough, after the DLC had been released. The good thing is that if you have both DLC packs (which I highly, highly recommend, because they're awesome), the maximum level is increased to the point where if needed, you can get as high as you need to in order to get though most things. When I did my third playthrough this past Spring after the PS5 upgrade was put out, I was good to go the entire way through. It was the first time that I was able to beat several bosses without dumbing it down to easy mode.
I've had a lot of people recommend Dragon's Dogma to me when I've asked for suggestions, and given that its included in PS+ this month, I decided to give it a try. I'm trying to be open minded, but man is it rough around the edges. The PS4 remaster plays like a C-level Skyrim and looks like a PS2 era Final Fantasy game. It also gives the player too little information and guidance, and I'm glad that I'm very experienced with the genre or I worry I'd be pretty lost.
You really have to evaluate it in a vacuum, and you also have to realize it was originally released two generations ago. It was a very unique release for its time. The climbing monsters, the vocation/pawn system, the grimmer narrative, the day/night cycle was pretty different compared to other action RPGs of its time. I played it pretty religiously on release and enjoyed the heck out of it, and I'm sure it's shown its age. My buddy has played through it half a dozen times, but I wasn't that zealous about replays 10 years down the line. It took elements of games like Shadow of the Colossus, Dark Souls, and other games for its unique mixture. The obtuseness of its quests was also against trend in the era of follow this path conveniently marked for you, do the questy thing, and fast travel back. The damage scaling is a little wonky. No other game has touched it, scalewise, on the spell casting front. It's not for everyone, but it was for me when it first released. I will play the hell out of the sequel. It looks way more expansive than the first.
Yeah, all of those features are about the opposite of what I like, lol. I want bright, not grim, and give me all the information possible!
Bought my partner Super Mario Bros. Wonder as part of her Xmas complement of gifts so we can play coop. Only played a couple of levels so far but us putting our heads together to try to figure out the secrets has been a pretty fun coop experience so far. I was worried it was going to be too easy but it's been a good balance so far. I got $125 in PS Store gift cards. I got Baldurs Gate 3 for 10% off and put my pre-order in for Dragon's Dogma 2. Excited to dig in to Baldurs Gate 3. I've been watching a lot of videos in anticipation of getting it for Xmas.
I got Assassin's Creed Mirage, God of War Ragnarok, Hogwarts Legacy and My Time at Sandrock, so I've got lots to keep my busy for the forseeable future. I finished Dragon's Dogma, and had a solid time with it, but it didn't grab me the way it seems to a lot of other people. I wish that I could build a team of permanent pawns to keep that would level up instead of having to switch out every five levels or so. I'm going to keep a close eye on the sequel, but I won't buy it at release either way. I'll wait for a nice sale some time later on.
I'm on my 2nd playthrough with about 20% of the game left. I have 300+ hours into it. The build-crafting is so fun. Late to the party, but I've been playing Sunbreak, the expansion to Monster Hunter Rise, while I wait for Dragon's Dogma II.
I started My Time At Sandrock a month ago and I'm 110 hours in. When I finish I'm going to jump back into God of War Ragnarok, and I figure I'll be focused on that one at least until the end of February.
These are the games coming out during the first half of the year that I'm absolutely interested in and will eventually be getting, although none of them at release.
I completed the main story of GoW Ragnarok, but had to dumb the difficulty all the way down to story mode to do it. I swear that on the new console generation, games are getting more and more challenging than ever. Story used to be for people who don't even usually play games or for children to get their way through at a level where its almost impossible to fail. Now, its as difficult as normal used to be. The story of the game was very satisfying and emotional, though. I was glad to see it through to the end. I started playing the DLC, but was sad to find that its mostly a series of difficult combat and timing challenges and not more of the RPG-style game. I'll eventually get back to it and try more, but for now I'm putting it down and moving onto Hogwarts.
I took off tomorrow (called off months ago) for the release of Dragon's Dogma 2. It's getting rave reviews and looks to build what made the first one so unique in tone and game design.
Also, for anyone interested, I noticed that DD2 has a free demo that allows you to create a character and store it available on the Playstation Store. A fun way to mess around and get a little ahead of the game if you're planning on buying it or curious about the graphics. EDIT: I bought the game, and am already starting over after borking the first big quest by wandering off the intended path and screwing it up from that point on, lol.
Hope to not ruin anything, but I went off the beaten path when I was being "escorted" to the capitol and let's just say that the party of knights sent for me are now in the morgue because I thought they'd have the muster to handle a nearby cave with me. Lol.
On a serious note, I'm having fun with the game. This is the first one in awhile where I'm playing mostly blind. Last night I got to really dig into the main quest a little and got some meaty side quests in the process. Here are my constructive criticisms: - Damage calculation seems to be back from the first one, which isn't a good thing. There are some enemies where you just don't do ANY damage because you're simply not strong enough because you're not across a certain stat threshold. Contrast that with a game like Elden Ring where you can pretty much take anything on at any level if you're skilled enough. This has led me to straight up running at some points without the proper firepower. - The save states can be really annoying sometimes. I got caught in a loop of restarting (after dying) and the game puts me back into the middle of the fray to die again. Takes a lot of head beating against the wall to escape those situations. Has happened to me a handful of times now. - Collision detection and floaty controls leave some to be desired. Can't wait for a performance mode update for PS5. PC versions seem to be really bad. One of the few times it's been beneficial to play the console version instead. My character got froze on a griffin head last night and instead of dismounting the griffin flew up and then I fell to my death (undeserved). - QoL with main pawn inventory. I hate having to give my main pawn an item to equip it. Should be an option in your main characters inventory instead. This adds nothing to the immersion. - Inventory management, in general, could use some additional QoL with sorting and grouping and the like. - The circle button. When looting corpses, I often accidentally start dialog with one of my pawns. Annoying and inefficient. I think I'll change the option to hold circle to conversate which also feels unnatural. Stuck between rock and a hard place with that one. - Sometimes my enlisted pawns just straight up disappear. Usually when I'm traversing over water or something. Very annoying to have to search out a rift stone which interrupts basic exploration. - Fighting in tight quarters is rough both from a "what the **** is even going on" standpoint. So many effects and the camera is inhibiting. - A game like this should have more map marker options. Not like markers that lead you directly to objectives, more like markers you, yourself, are able to put down. 5 markers only? Come on! In Elden Ring and BotW, you have so much more to work with. I'm really having fun with it though. Played until 2:30 in the morning, last night, after my girlfriend fell asleep. There's just a lot of secrets and discovery around every corner - reminds me of old RPGs where you play along with a notebook in hand and I've often thought of getting one out for my first plahthrough. Combat is great. Visuals are stunning despite the framerate being sub-60. I can't wait to pick it up and continue.
30 hours into my second go after restarting, and I agree with just about everything that you said. I'm at level 36, and just recently entered the second main area of the game, around Battahl. I'm glad that I waited, because some of the enemies are just brutal, and there is a common habit of groups of them joining in and attacking me when I'm fighting something else, especially the damn wolves. Right now my favorite class to play is thief, because of the combination of damage and speed, but holy cow as you said, sometimes the camera can just be brutal and I've got no idea what's going on. The game also continues a recent trend around the industry of your character being able to be ragdolled way to freaking easily, and I find myself thrown into the air, left stunned on the ground, and then stomped on all too frequently. I am very, very glad that once you hit a certain point (I think level 30) you start gaining strength, stamina and carry weight capacity. Given that there's no real level limit (its 999) I might just spend some time building up my character and main pawn for a while to deal with the frustrations that come along with not being able to carry enough. I also wish that the game did a much better job of handling the camera during coversations, in line with games from Bioware or others like Horizon. Its really primitive, and I've laughed multiple times at how its far more reminiscent of PS2 era Final Fantasy games than Western RPGs. I know its a Japanese game, but its 2024 and we're playing on the PS5, they really need to get with the times. I also wish that we could zoom in on characters a lot better, because the graphics are capable of showing a lot of detail (such as in the logbook photos) but everything is so far away and you've got no control out in the game.
I started as Thief, too, without much thought put into it. Now I read it's probably the best offensive and utility class in the game. I'm around level 26. Be careful with advancing the main story as it is apparently pretty brisk. Apparently, you're meant to do as many side quests as possible. I read the game also becomes piss-easy that the monsters become a chore instead of dynamic opportunities for cool fights. Combined with limited enemy variety, it seems the game becomes more uninteresting as you progress. Bummer. Like the first one, the core is there but a lot of meat left on the bone. I'll try to squeeze as much enjoyment out of it as I can.
I did absolutely everything quest related that I could find in the original areas before moving on, aside from a few where I really couldn't figure out what the point was. I play almost every game slowly and methodially, and always am worried about advancing too fast. As it is, I've only done the bare bones basics in the new city before going back out into the wild to explore and fight. I really like the two pawns I've currently hired, as they're both total wrecking machines (fighter and sorceress). After originally building my main pawn up as a sorceress, I switched her to mage, and now I've got her maxed out in both, and my character is maxed out in thief and archer, and I swap between them based on what I need where I am.
Millennia, which is Paradox's answer to Civ. If you love Civ so much that you also play Civ-likes like Old World and Humankind, this is another super enjoyable one. I like how they do a progression of tech in Ages that adds a wrinkle with each new age. Especially if you spawn a positive age or a crisis age. It just came out and if it is successful, I am sure it will get a lot of improvements like most other Paradox's games over the years.
Yeah, we'll see what its like in a while. As someone who's played the series for nearly 30 years, I'm on board either way.
Also, the footage and info on AC Shadows looks great, and I'm really excited. Star Wars Outlaws looks good, and I'm very interested as well. And then we get to Dragon Age 4.....Dreadwolf.....Veilguard.....which, I've waited ten years for and am a whole Hell of a lot more underwhelmed than I'd expected. We'll see more tomorrow, but holy heck my expectations have taken a nosedive. It does not look like a game made for those of us who have been patiently waiting a decade, but rather for an entirely different, I'm guessing younger demographic. I guess EA decided the old gamers don't matter all that much.
The art design is so uninspired compared to the earlier entries, which were pretty gritty. Someone said that the cast looks like a bunch of MOBA characters from a cell phone game and I think that nails it. The combat also looks pretty uninspired in the gameplay trailer, hit hit hit, dodge completely out of the momentum of the fight, rinse and repeat.
I'm less concerned about combat than I am the rest. I really enjoyed DAI, and a lot of people still complain about it, so on that end its wait and see. But the graphics and character designs are very concerning, as is the fact that they've apparently taken away the open world aspect. I've been waiting ten years for ANY game that took what DAI did and built on it and expanded it in the ways that I want, and its a punch to the gut that Bioware themselves has gone in another direction.
DA is straying from its identity IMO. Veilwhatever may be a fun ARPG, but it isn't a DA game in my eyes, even if Varric is back. Agreed on the art direction and mobile appearance, but the game play reveal actually improved my initial opinion after only seeing the reveal trailer. That isn't saying much though. Credit to them for taking a risk by changing up their IP, which a lot of devs get criticized for not doing. But, to go about it by creating a seemingly generic product is definitely a choice. I just want to meet Morrigan again. We'll see what happens.
The saddest thing is that the old crew at Bioware had so much planned out for what they wanted to do, and we'll never know what we missed with what could have been, and the DA4, 5 and maybe 6 that could have already been out between then and now.
For me, DA2 was a massive step in the right direction from the original, but I get that I have a different background than a lot of people who play it and/or are in the DA community. Mostly by coincidence, I'd basically just stopped playing JRPGs as my main genre after about 20 years because they weren't moving in the direction that I wanted on the PS3 generation, and I "discovered" a few Western RPGs, DAO included and gave it a shot. There were some things I liked about DAO, but I also found it to be a very frustrating, confining experience. So when DA2 made the changes it did, that was wonderful for me, and then when DAI came along and not only blended more of that into it, but also took ideas fro Skyrim and other games, I felt like gaming had FINALLY gotten to where I'd dreamed it could be, and I was so excited to think about all of the other big budget, AAA party based games that might come out that would go even further in that direction....... ....and crickets, mostly, the last decade.
That really isn't the reason for me stating I feel that it lost its identity, but seeing the game play with such a zoomed 3rd person view, I only hope that they'll let you zoom out and play more of a top down pausing to issue commands style of play. That's how I played them all, so maybe it did influence my opinion more than I thought. Either way, it still feels like it is missing something. I am reserving judgement and will give them the benefit of the doubt for now. I am a DA fan and will always look for reasons to get the game, not the other way around.
I have a pretty opposite opinion. If a game ever forces me to play in that paused, top down/isometric style like BG3, I am absolutely never buying it. That was a maddeningly frustrating experience. I want combat like DAI.
