Dragon's Dogma 2

Some fun with exploring, traversing the map and genuinely entertaining fights with climbing on big enemies being the highlight of them. The rest is shockingly mediocre - the story is being told in a really basic, old-school way, all the NPCs are just static figures (or at least this is how the feel), the systems are unbalanced. Annoying stuff like being constantly encumbered, as you don't know what you might need and what's just a garbage, or losing things, as they disappear when you drop them.

The first few hours are amazing, it looks gorgeous, there's bits of story going on, you tier through some gear and skills, hire suicidal pawns according to their boob size, bash some goblins, skin wolves, climb your first cyclops...and then you realize: that's it. That's all you'll be doing. Well, that and suffer a weird blend of pretty specific, pretty unspecific and some timed quests. Why? Choose a design, stick with it and make it work. I'm all for a challenge, but this mix just confuses me.

I really hate the whole pawn system, from the wonky pathfinding and unbelievably awkward/annoying things they say and do all the way down to the basic idea of having to spend time recruiting and managing these characterless faux companions. Horrendous storytelling, too, which killed my attempt to enjoy the exploration and combat components