My main critiques concern the story, so be aware that this review will contain spoilers. And a little over 5,000 words. You have been warned.


With this game, I believe that you get out what you put in. And for me, that's quite a lot.

I'm at just under 170hrs in at the time of writing a first draft review, and still on my first playthrough: no NG+ for me as yet. I have just come to the beginning of the true ending, and so there is certainly scope for hours more play to come.

I assume. Because right now, I'm not thrilled.

With this game, you get out what you put in. And for me that is, sadly, very-nearly all.

The world, the earth and air of it, is rich. I have greatly enjoyed spending my time roving the roads, the caves and crags, the ruins and settlements of Vermund and Battahl, whilst seeking out their secrets. I have enjoyed encountering a wide array of enemies who genuinely feel as though they have a grip on these lands in a way that threatens life for civilised people, and their oxen.

I don’t have the same issue that some do with enemy diversity: I don’t subscribe to the post-Souls ‘every room/zone, a new monster’ mentality.

The enemy distribution makes in-world sense. Goblinoids are many, sadistic, opportunistic, and cunning; along with bandits they take up most of the abandoned habitation across the world, and both groups may enlist slow-witted cylopes to their cause by whatever means. Saurians and their ilk love warm rocks, slow flowing rivers, and shady caves. Obviously. Undead lay in wait in crypts and cemeteries, as well as the ground beneath your feet come nightfall. Larger monsters roost, nest, lurk and lair much as you might expect.

It all makes sense. The world is inhabited by these foes just as it is inhabited by humans, elves, beastren, and dwarves, and they are all vying for their place by tooth and nail.


For this reason and others, travel in the game can be a challenge. That is, up until you choose to rise to meet that challenge. As with the original, this game does excellent things with your sense of scale of your surroundings as it relates to, or versus, your ability to take it on. At the first level, a ten-minute walk can certainly be deadly, and several times over at that: have a hobgoblin appear in your backline in the lower levels and see for yourself what I mean.

But as you find your feet you begin to go further and further, and the world step-by-step finds its way to seeming smaller; where once the most meagre paths seemed endless.

Employing the equipment, vocations, skills, items and curatives earned through trial and hardship in concert with your accrued map-sense ends up forming your Arisen and Pawns in to a team which cuts through the harried landscape with increasing ease.

It is incredibly satisfying. Right now, I’m running an all-substance no-style kill-you-dead Warfarer with Thief’s Implicate in to Heavy Attack for routine instant kills, Concussive Leap for traversal, and Magick Archer’s Sagittate Avalanche for anything out of rope’s range, things made out of weak points, or things that flee by flight.

My Arisen feels like a genuine force in the land, possessed of a power entirely out of reach of mortal hands, mowing through enemies and reclaiming territory. Even if it doesn’t hold: I can always come back. In time, nothing and nowhere is closed to the True Arisen.

As for the world’s history, spirituality, aesthetics and politics: there is much promise. But promise only, I feel, by the end. There is so much left undelivered. I find myself wondering 'What ever happened to [...]' about Every Named Character, more-or-less. The plot falls apart as it goes, and the characters go with it.

Understand, I have been taking my time with this game. I have spoken to everyone, several times, at every opportunity. I have worn disguises. I have circumvented conventional wisdom and roundabout-ed any and all railroading.

I have approached NPCs at all times of day in all kinds of ways sometimes bearing gifts and sometimes bearing they themselves aloft on my shoulder before going on to drop them quite roughly as this seems to lower their affection without also affecting that of everybody around me and some of the NPCs just get a little weird with it when they're in their feelings about you.

I completed quests that my peers did not know existed. Compared to my experiences, the fan wikis are a desert. (I am bad at this game do not come to me for advice).


The last stretch of the game suffers at the hands of this undelivered promise the most and, as a result, is narratively nonsensical. I can try and pick it apart, but the combination of baffling choices, dead ends, and loose leads makes me dizzy.

The greater part of why I have started this review as a draft is because of this weakness in storytelling. Not just marking that it is poor, but marking in what ways it is poor proves quickly mystifying.

The review is going to get a little unhinged from here, by necessity. I’m going to be asking a lot of questions that I don’t expect anybody to have the answers to, because they are generated via trying to make a case for the failings of the story being intentional – and I don’t believe they are.

Apologies in advance.

Let's first ignore all of the characters who are signposted nice and early, if not routinely, and then driven past at high speed, birds flippin' all the while.

Let's ignore the characters who grasp you firmly by the shoulder and look you right in the eye as they assert 'See you in just a little bit my babyguy I will be right back', and who then BAMF in to nothingness forever and ever amen.

Let's ignore the Empress' (can't remember her name, seriously, they just do not give you the time with these characters) main bodyguard (same, loved her though) definitely sowing the seeds for a ‘Pawn Tolerance Renaissance in Bakbattahl’ questline which just withers in the canyon-red dust in an instant.

Let’s ignore it'll-come-to-me-uhh-I-want-to-say-Disa apparently consolidating her supporters in Melve, setting the stage for ongoing conflict even if a successful player coronation does come to pass; only to have that whole map section baleeted the moment the true ending begins, otherwise not being mentioned once between its coming-to-be and its coming-to-be-n’t.

Let's ignore the information we delectably form out of pieces: those dotted across various stone carvings, or journal entries; I certainly wouldn't want any of that information to become actionable! Nor would I want to know much, much more about what is written!

Let’s ignore the fact that the dragon, The Dragon, of ‘ ‘s Dogma’ fame, barely registers as a nemesis and nor does(/do?) the seemingly experimental Lesser Dragon(s?).

Let us finally also ignore the initial primary setpiece, i.e. the Throne and the player character's recognition as Sovran, disintegrating in to a (in two of three cases) hurried ending; only to then return at the point of Literally The End Credits in which both are won as a prize for dealing with the dragon one way or another (THAT WASN'T THE DEAL) or by happenstance that the pretender is dead, rather than it being the birthright of the True Arisen (THE DEAL) who by the way there are several of somewhy (IT ISN’T THE DEAL FOR THEM APPARENTLY DON’T ASK).

And by the way again! The plot to keep the Big Chair and Special Name from the player character by Disa and the False Sovran and chums was only ACCIDENTALLY resolved via a bafflingly knockdown-heavy ruckus prior to ACCIDENTALLY facing The Dragon, just after a botched ritual we learned of by walking in to it in near-complete ignorance just moments ago i.e., in other words, so to say, namely, that is: ACCIDENTALLY: AGAIN.


Let us ignore once more (once more, I promise) how Phaesus proclaims the ‘Royce Dragon!’ with such reverence and triumph: it sure would be cool to know what that means!

Is Royce a name sourced from similar experiments in defiance of the supposed divine in the world’s past? Is it an extant archaic word, or an invented archaic word such as are peppered around the game world but which otherwise tend to be parsable through context and application?

Is it a name from the first game? From the first game’s DLC? Does it even matter for a monstrous character that exists for about all of fifteen seconds before being gratuitously cooked?

Ostensibly it seems that the drawing down of this dragon is intended to shift the Eternal Return off its casters, but if so, then what was the Lesser Dragon and where did it come from?

The Royce Dragon has no weight in name nor in deed nor even in being. It feels like it's supposed to be A Big Moment but there's zero other mention or build-up. Various baby name sites (big ol’ grain of salt, then) give ‘Royce’ the meaning of ‘son of the king’, wiki etymology gives it as a derivation of a given name meaning ‘rose’, others extrapolate this further in to meaning ‘red’ or ‘ruddy’, and Collins provides an entry on an old American philosopher who espoused 'the need for individual loyalty to the world community'.

Did you mean to invoke that, Capcom? With the right hammer and crowbar I could make it work, if this review says anything it surely says there was One subject I was good at in school, but I would be surprised if it was meant. It honestly registers as meaningless in the moment. As nothing but pomp.

Yet Phaesus seems to be having a grand old time, knowing what he knows! He wholly appears to recognise and to utterly inhabit his hard-won moment in victorious, transcendent rapture. It'd be nice for the player to be able to mirror that in horror and dismay, opposed, and thereby lending stakes to an adversary we've heard whispered about since we first arrived to Vernworth.

As it is, we chase him for no reason, he utters words which mean nothing to us if they mean anything at all, his creation is then instantly undone, he dies a pouting failure, and in so doing he fast tracks the True Arisen to one of three of their destiny's ends completely without intent.

You cannot tell me that this scene wasn’t originally supposed to be a template-match for the squishing of the Elysion in the first game. You ran out of time. You rushed. You shipped an unfinished product. It can be seen.

Why claim otherwise?

For me, the point in the game which ‘tells on itself’ is this:

Why does the quest log have us so hell-bent on delivering the Empowered Godsbane Blade to Lord Phaesus?

1. He already has a Godsway which we are told does the same thing for his purposes.

2. All signs indicate he is our enemy and is behind the manipulations of the Vermundian Court (and what were they for by the way? In this world, the True Arisen taking their place as Sovran is neither here nor there re: the Eternal Return. All requisite materials and locales for Phaesus’ plans exist in Battahl).

3. There is no narrative fork of 'Phaesus' methods are severe and steeped in fell magic, but they are necessary', or of Phaesus running a 'Join me and we shall rule this galaxy as equals' con with anyone in particular, or even of an intentional 'Go undercover in this lab and see things through to their absolute end no matter what for some reason'.

Why, then, am I running him this sword? I'm not trying to cut him off, get somewhere first, interrupt a ritual, have a clash of wills or beam battle with him; I'm just taking it to him. I’m not even meant to stab him with it? I’m not even meant to stab him with it!

I check the Quest Guide, several times. You're just taking it to him, it says.

Okay, do we know why?

‘Deliver the Empowered Godsbane Blade to Lord Phaesus’.

Yes, I know that, but why? Is it part of a trick, is it.. it's not really just a delivery is it?

‘Deliver the Empowered Godsbane Blade to Lord Phaesus’, intones the Quest Guide.

I'm not actually meant to take the instruction of Forbidden Magick Research Lab’s #1 Lord Phaesus Superfan, the scientist Ambrosius, literally and hand this over to Lord P. for him to do with as he wishes, am I? You’re sure you’re not going to update as I get closer an-

‘Deliver the Empowered Godsbane Blade to Lord Phaesus’.


It is as though the game forgets whose side it’s on and begins issuing quests to a tried-and-true adherent of Phaesus’ heresy – quick! It’s an honour! Hurry, he needs the MacGuffin!

Well he doesn’t need it per se, but Ambrosius thinks it would be nice for him to have! He just needs it to open a door, fancy-styles. An honour!

Okay. So you set off, you don’t even make it in time, a major setpiece battle that took a good bit of focus in the marketing campaign plays out whether you interact with it or not, after the resolution of which we get an additional ‘Deliver the Empowered Godsbane Blade to Lord Phaesus’, and you wee-wee-wee: chase Lord Phaesus all the way to-and-past the end of the game. In. Minutes.


What???

As far as I can recall, I went to Battahl under Ser Brant’s direction trying to figure out why going near the False Sovran gives my Pawn a headache so bad she literally never stops talking about how much it hurt.

And I do that, we find that, it's written down everywhere and somebody says it out loud and honestly we've just kind of known since the prologue anyway. So let me go talk to Brant about that.

No? Odd, but okay. Not the first time I’ve tried to intuit an interaction with an NPC with zero game direction and have it not pay off but, interestingly, it’s not every time.

Ah! But how about now that I have a working and in-fact superior and quasi-divinely ordained and/or sanctioned form of this mystical technology, in hand, to show to Brant?

Still a no, I’m afraid. Bizarre.

That’s where the tale should have gone next, for me.


Using the knowledge gleaned from a covert excursion to the Forbidden Magick Research Lab, the True Arisen divests the False Sovran of his Pawn-controlling powers and then goes on to deal with him in line with the player character’s morality-of-choice. Execute, imprison, exile to his native village to face the justice he once escaped: whatever you like.

From there the True Arisen would take the Throne as Sovran or choose to install Sven, and together with Brant as a reinstated public-facing leader and Wilhelmina as a covert operative with a foot each side of the border, the trail of corruption in the palace well-uncovered by now would lead to the lab in Battahl: and the game could continue on from there in much the manner it does now.

Ulrika continues to house loyalists and the grateful in Harve, which becomes a hub away from the political centre of Vernworth where those the True Arisen has aided most personally choose to congregate.

Meanwhile Disa perhaps continues to meddle and resist from Melve, with Phaesus focusing his attentions domestically now that the attempted Vermundian shadow coup is at an end. Maybe we even get an inkling as to Why They Wanted To Do That.

Concurrently, the Arisen works on fostering trust in the people of Battahl by continued heroic deeds whilst also fostering better public relations for Pawns; going on to uncover their plight there in the form of their enslavement and bringing the Phaesus/Empress ideological schism to light. Which would also lead back to what’s going on in the lab, plus the tower dig itself: and the game could continue on from there in much the manner it does now.

At some point, or even at a few points, The Dragon-as-nemesis should appear to challenge, chide, and punish.

At some point thereafter, with tensions eventually eased on multiple fronts, the two nations successfully form a coalition to face The Dragon proper and we’re provided with something which harks back to Savan’s assault from the prologue of the first game. Delightful! Gorgeous! Stupendous!

And if not: the Arisen has at least won some die-hard supporters as they face their supposedly ultimate foe, albeit with potentially less-surmountable odds.

Everything else that happens in the game and postgame can still happen, and, importantly, there is still room for mystery.


There would still be factions and holdouts and adversaries. We know of the mobilisation of near-martial law in Melve, and in Vernworth we come across a war-criminal posing as a nun – both of which currently go nowhere but which speak to this unrealised Something More.

This wouldn’t be an easy feat for the player, I don’t take this for granted; it takes a lot of exploration and bumbling-in-to side quests to learn the little that I have: and I imagine about the same would be required to Good End this sort of scenario.

A scenario in which the politics and subterfuge of the game are treat a little more seriously, respectfully and respectably, and aren’t disposed of in a way that makes no sense for the player character or the narrative built so-far.

A scenario in which the pieces of the picture that the game provides to the player come together to matter.

As it is, there is a missing chunk, a leap of consequence, a tripping-over of sequence – if not a discarding. And it is visible, I feel. Tangible. Palpable. All of this was signposted, it just never came to be.


This all ultimately leads me to my core criticism. We were told that the game that we were sold, was the game as-intended. That the director's vision was fulfilled. That it had not been rushed out the door. That it was complete.

I wanted that to be true. As somebody who fell in love with the first Dragon's Dogma, I wanted that to be true.

As somebody who played the Character Creator and Demo of the first Dragon's Dogma in to the absolute ground prior to the game's debut, I wanted that to be true.

As somebody who over a decade later saw: 'DRAGON'S DOGMA II' announced and felt pure joy, I wanted that to be true.

And as someone who heard the director speak of their new game in language so alike my feelings about the first, and their return to this world, I could not wait also to return.


But here we are. It's just like its older sibling. Whispers, moments, indications, breadcrumbs, hints, suggestions of something more. A richer story that couldn't be told. Or in this case, simply wasn’t told.

I loved the first game. I felt that I understood the first game. That it was nearly perfect, but it ran out of time and so its story suffered.

So to hear the confident and enthusiastic clamour from Capcom prior to the release of this game in which selling points (yes, selling points) included that it was Done, Full, and Signed Off on by the Director as his Fulfilled Vision, it seemed to put it on track for a closer and well-deserved run at perfection.

It seemed to acknowledge where the original fell flat, and it seemed to speak of a vivid intention to get it right in full this time around.

For the fans.


But I do not understand this game.

I genuinely believe that I have the fullest available lore up to the point of the postgame, give-or-take a few crumbs.

The game does not feed anything to you except the ending; everything else I have sought out. And I cannot fully account for the accumulated assumed knowledge from the first game that goes on to play a part in this one, because it is so ingrained in me. More on that, later.

What are we to take from all this, then?

That the team behind this game are incapable of telling a story in full?

Or that the story, as told, is all there is and that the way it takes shape is intentional: that the apathy inspired by an ever-cycling destiny is inherent to the game in a deep-seated way and that sometimes, all we learn or say or do may just be meaningless after all, and that striving for meaning in the first place is folly and in order to attain peace (in lieu of satisfaction), the world should just end about it?

If the game is complete, then it must be at least one of these.

It’s not that the story suffered in development: that would require the game to be admittedly incomplete.

It's not that, given the recursive nature of the world in Dragon's Dogma, that a more illuminating story is to be told by later DLC releases which may be inserted anywhere: that would require the game to be admittedly incomplete.


At some point, tens of hours ago, I had convinced myself this was the case, that it was intentionally lacking or lacking through inability to craft a whole.

The player comes to the game world as the Arisen, a foretold hero who handily has amnesia at the moment.

Okay, I thought. Rather than playing the game by doing whatever I'm told by whichever least-evil-seeming NPC comes to me first, why don't I play the part of a responsible amnesiac with a possible heroic destiny, and go out in to the world, see and learn all I can, and win what allies I may?

And I did and I had a blast.

I was honestly surprised by just how much I was able to achieve by, politely, blowing Brant off and carefully, fastidiously, painstakingly questing my way across two nations.

But when I came back to that main track, the main quest, the main story: it crumbled all the way down to the credits in what felt like moments.

I am no longer convinced. I drank up all there is and it amounted to nothing.

Why?


Something I mentioned back there might hold the key, if we’re being generous.

Assumed knowledge.

Of the first game in particular, and of fantasy tropes in general. As far as I can tell, the path to the true ending from a sole player POV without looking in on the community entirely relies on knowledge accrued from Dragon’s Dogma, a decade-plus-aged game.

After a point, Dragons Dogma II seems to skip the legwork in favour of appealing to ‘the givens’ of a world such as this, and indeed its own world anew.

But its audience is not equally informed across its audience’s breadth. Time has passed, and much of it.

The snippets about prior dynasties in Battahl, the environmental storytelling of the decapitated statues in Vermund... There's an immediately apparent heart, and veins, and blood to the story of this game so then why does it wither as did its incomplete ancestor?

There is enough, as I have displayed, to make a full story of.

So why is it not in place?


Is it that the game chooses to establish its canon with some political and historical set-dressing only, and then just insists that its audience assume the way it plays out?

Are we expected to become so powerful as the player character that none of it eventually matters, so why fill it in?

The True Arisen at their peak becomes a Doctor Manhattan-like figure. I can see an argument for that if a few NG+’s deep, but that’s not where I am.

Is it, then, that I am just playing the game wrong? It’s not impossible. Am I meant to NG+ over and over until I’m sick of this suprakarmic cycle and choose to cast the world adrift as Lord Phaesus apparently did for whatever reasons of his own?

Is the story meant to be… just vibes? It seems preposterous.

The story as-is bears up many questions such as these, whereas the story as-posited in this review, which I feel was at some point intended, does not.

I find that curious in a finished product.

So I find myself believing that this is not a finished product and that, once again, consumers have been misled.

Ultimately, Dragon's Dogma II as-it-comes presents a true feast of a world to play in.

Exploration and combat are a joy, tweaking a build is rewarding, the environments and equipment look stellar, and there is, despite everything, a sense of heart in the craft that makes up the game.

In Dragon’s Dogma II there are False Arisen and True Arisen, a False Sovran and a True Sovran, there are False Dragons of a few kinds and there is a True Dragon; and it seems as though the game may want to say something about identity and the mantle of a name versus the mantle of deeds done and known or not, via destiny and its ensuing sense of expectation both within and without.

But, instead, it doesn't.

The story is crap.

It is so, so very nearly not crap, and in so many ways, and there are various routes by which it might achieve a non-crap fate; but it seems to either refuse these or to fail.

It craps out.

It's crap.


But it is so much fun to play.

It is the playing of this game, that makes this game.

That's what games are for, at core, right? Fun?

It is: but is it all that matters?


I myself prize story highly in a game. I prize novel ways of storytelling all the more. Dragon’s Dogma The First blew my mind in 2012, even part-formed.

This falls short, and it falls short in the exact same way its predecessor did despite reportedly not having the same setbacks.

A short tale in a rich world, begging to be made richer. Heartbreaking.

I now have to decide for myself whether the mechanics and beauty of the game are enough for me to continue to engage with it in good faith; but that is made harder by feeling deceived by the creator.

And as close as that may come, I will not accept that this itself is meant as an intended metanarrative - IYKYK.


All I wanted out of Dragon’s Dogma was more story.
All I want out of Dragon’s Dogma II, is more story.


THE END

P.S.:
The English voicework is better than in the first, but not by much.

Some performances, and I do mean performances, are fantastic. Some are not.

David Lodge has not returned as the voice of The Dragon despite many people seeming to think so, rather it is an actor named Grahame Fox.

Fox does a great job, and to further confuse, along with Lodge has an Ian McShane vibe in his portrayal. Capcom hired McShane to voiceover a final trailer for the game prior to release.

Absolutely fascinating English voice-sourcing behaviour from Capcom.


As for the ‘Some are not’, as a native English-speaker who comes from a part of the world where people do still, to a diminishing extent, speak the way people do in-game: it is glaringly obvious when an actor isn't familiar with correct usage of words such as 'aught' 'nary' and the like, even when they sound to be native speakers themselves.

That's one thing, and the overall delivery another. Some lines arrive with all the impact of a bowl of cornflakes, new-driver low-cost car insurance, post-retirement savings schemes, slashed price deals on all new sofas an-wait, no, too energetic. You get the idea, it's more 'voiceover' than 'voice acted' in places.

It’s charming at times, and jarring at others. Frustratingly, besides arguably the Arisen and a certain old man, Raghnall is the only character with a visibly complete character arc, but ends up lacking weight as a result of this approach to vocal performance.



P.P.S.:
Capcom, fix the affection system here. I heard it was bad, and I didn’t think it would really bother me, but I have no idea who that was... It might have been a certain would-be assassin? Insane.

I was giving out Wyrmslife Crystals like candy, sure, but I certainly had my favourites.

It would have balmed the rushed initial ending somewhat if an NPC I recognised, or better yet cared for, appeared in hand.

Likewise if my Pawns didn’t moan, on my first playthrough, that we had been here all-too-often and that it was getting boring – my first time in Moonglint.

Don’t let sabotaging the gravitas of the narrative be Your Thing on multiple fronts.



P.P.P.S.:
There are genuine issues with this game, and not only the story, and there is even a genuine shade of bad faith re: what we were given to expect versus what players received.

I don’t hold a great deal of hope for rectification whilst the greatest bloom of criticism towards this game continues to revolve around performance, Denuvo, and optional microtransactions (if you’re reading reviews for takes on the MTX: total nonissue, they may as well not exist, they are beyond optional).

But we’re just going to get used to it, like everything else, aren’t we? Paying ever-closer to 100 USD for under-delivered product.



P.P.P.P.S.:
And another thing.

'Checkpoint Rest Town',

'Forbidden Magick Research Lab',

hypergeneric anonymous notes at the feet of statues which indicate little-to-nothing.

This game is complete?

You finished writing this game?

Please.



P.P.P.P.P.S.:
Where is the music in this?

Being able to activate the original OST (as a DLC LOL) to some measure is somewhat telling.

The OST here certainly doesn’t hit as the first did, which is famously highly memorable.

I feel like the music could even be bugged? One visit to the Sacred Arbor was stunning when backed by its intended theme, but most times I’m there it’s… quiet.



P.P.P.P.P.P.S.:
So ready and willing to eat my hat if the post-game wraps up all these unmoored narrative threads.

Then I could take the true titlecard reveal as the flex it means to be.



PsPsPsPsPsPsPsPs:
🐈




Anyway ?/10, perhaps my favourite game of all time. We shall see.


THE END II






















Deliver the Empowered Godsbane Blade to Lord Phaesus

Straight from my review:

In the postgame, I tackled all of the red beams first. As I made my way towards the blue beam, another red beam appeared. Well, I thought, may as well clear the last of this category before attending to the blue.

Nope.

The game ended.

Biggest dragon you've ever seen appears. You do not and can not fight it.

The story is explained in assumed grandeur, as if we still don't get it, at length. Paragraph after paragraph which could have been better distributed throughout the body of the game.

Scenes play out indicating that I am victorious, appreciated, remembered. But they don't feel earned. I never got to run a single evacuation, but sure I'm glad everyone is still alive.

My beloved is still a stranger.

My player character stat screen pops up, and I don't even care to read it. It doesn't feel earned. I didn't Want to end the game. I wasn't finished playing. The stats aren't representative of what I intended to achieve with my first playthrough. I was denied that.

Not through some kind of skill issue in which I tried and failed at something in particular. I just happened to choose a red beam, after a line of red beams, instead of the blue beam.

There was no warning. Not even some nobody of a guard saying 'Hey the inn is back that way' as there is when trying to take Phaesus the Godsbane for no reason.

Many of my issues with this game lay in how much is unexplained, and how much key plot happens by accident, and then how much is overexplained.
And here I have ended the game by accident.

I just bought all-new gear for my Pawn and maxed it out. Now I'm hours away from testing it in end/postgame content.

The final sequence saves as soon as it initialises. Not just before, as it initialises, thereby locking you in. Unforgivable.

Capcom really seem to want to make you invest in your choices and have them matter, by having a strict save system. But then provide a game, a story, which doesn't matter. It just reads as pig-headed and sadistic, come the end.

I wanted, at one point, to 100% this game. That isn't really something I do. I'm six achievements short. Two are incidental. The rest relate directly to how the game handles, or mishandles, its order of operations, its story, and its signposting.

And this comes the day after yet another sparsely-described patch which claims that the endgame quests have been somehow improved.

I am so, so frustrated.