So, I can now answer: ya. Big thumbs up. I think I'm about two thirds of the way through, but I'm certainly loving the game so far.
There are a few locations out in the wild that have HORRIBLE framerates: some broken bit of geometry, I expect. They are pretty small areas, and I've only found three so far in a very big world, but they sure are harsh when you find one. I don't have a framerate counter going, but my 3080RTX was taken down to some single digit framerate for sure.
The much talked about cities don't seem like an issue to me. It does have NPCs popping in if you run fast in town, though, which might be how they managed that. As I pointed out earlier, battles in cities are really rare, and wandering around town to talk to various people simply has no need of high framerates.
The bigger problem, in my view, is difficulty. I've found I like to get killed off in a game around once every couple of hours, on average. With this game, it's more like once per 20 hours once you get past the initial game, and that's only when you're too greedy to spend a wakestone to revive. Luckily, there are a few mods on Nexus that can help you with that, so that can become a non-issue if you're willing to mod the game.
There are a lot of really unique systems in the game that work well, at least for me:
- A night cycle that matters. When it gets dark, different monsters come out to play and, lo and behold, you can't see very well! Crazy for city folk to imagine, I know, but even with your lanterns turned on, you've got little clue what's in front of you. Trying to scramble up or down steep mountains just isn't going to happen at night. When the light starts to fade, you need to find a camping spot or plan to stick to the roads. (And, if you don't have camping gear, then it's going to be a long night.)
- Pawns! The Dragon's Dogma series will forever live in a strange space between single player and multiplayer, because you will be running around with one AI companion you design yourself and two more that other players designed. I could write a big post on this system alone. (Actually, did I already do that for Dragon's Dogma 1?)
- Healing spells are easy, but they can't quite heal back everything. When you get hit, your mage can heal back most of it, but not all. That requires sleep, which requires an inn or a campsite. That unhealable damage adds up. Especially if you're far from town with no camping gear.
- Interesting travel modes:
- Fast travel to particular points, called portal stones. There are a few in the important towns and there are a few more that you can place yourself. To use the system, you need to have a 'ferry stone.' These are in somewhat limited supply. If you use them when you need them, you'll have plenty. If you try to use them to empty out your inventory every time you start getting overloaded, you'll have big problems.
- Ox carts travel between some towns. You pay a pittance to sit in a wooden cart behind an ox. Press C to doze off for however long it takes to get to town - or for you to get ambushed. (You can stay awake the whole time, but it would take a really long time.) If the ox cart does get ambushed, you need to get out and help fight. These ox carts are just plain wood, it doesn't take much to break it. If that happens, you're walking the rest of the way.
- Gondolas act like ski lifts. I don't think they are quite as sturdy as an ox cart, though, and when something breaks one if these, you're going DOWN.
- Quest teleportation will happen rarely, when the game takes pity on you and just spirts you off to some other location.
- Walking. Get on the road and just go.
- The walking is FUN! You can find caves along the way, treasure chests, little seeker medallions, or just great views. Most of the monster encounters aren't hard, but they do add to that unhealable damage. You'll probably find some bigger monsters, too. Note that the exploration is fun for me in and of itself. It does NOT "pay well." If you are only exploring in hopes of getting super loot, you aren't going to be happy with it.
- You get both your main level and a class level in DD2. When you gain a main level, it looks at your class at the time and adds stat points accordingly.: warriors get more strength, mages get more magic power, and so on. However, all levels are not alike! Sometimes a level gain will add more HP and very little magic so, if you're a warrior or fighter when you gain that level, you'll get more benefit.
- Class levels are limited to 10 and switching classes is made very easy. They even provide some advanced classes later in the game. Switching classes isn't some advanced thing in this game - it's something you're expected to do in order to keep some variety going.
- Monster battles encourage the melee characters to grab on to the monster and climb it in order to attack weak spots!
- The big sorcerer meteor and tornado spells are back!
QUITE a list! No way am I going to let a few wonky geometries stop me from enjoying all that!
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