Dragon's Dogma II - "They’re masterworks, all – you can’t go wrong"

[Shinji]

 

[d1r]

Soundtrack? What soundtrack?

 

[deuxhero]

The title theme is literally call center hold music tier. It's like they lost the rights at the last second and had to scramble to come up with a replacement title theme.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Capcom is addressing all of the complaints made by people who never heard of the game. Our time is comin bros.

 

[Shinji]

Hideaki Itsuno has found a new home.
He will lead Tencent-subsidiary Lightspeed Studios in Japan

The Osaka and Tokyo-Based LightSpeed Japan Studio Will Focus on AAA Action Games

LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS, a leading global game developer, has announced the establishment of LightSpeed Japan Studio, its new game development studio focused on the development of original AAA action game titles, marking a major step in LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS’ global expansion.

LightSpeed Japan Studio will be led by the legendary game director Hideaki Itsuno. Born in Osaka, Itsuno is the former Capcom veteran, where he not only planned the Street Fighter Alpha series, but also directed iconic franchises series such as Rival Schools, Power Stone, Capcom VS. SNK, Devil May Cry, and Dragon’s Dogma.

https://www.lightspeed-studios.com/news/Japan-Game-Development-Studio.html

 

[Cyberarmy]

Dragon’s Dogma 2 (Pre-release Denuvoless Devbuild) just got leaked and game will probably be cracked today.

 

[itsme]

It was leaked yesterday. Its playable already. Build is from feb 27 2024. If you havent tried it yet you can try this as a demo before buying (or not).

 

[Shinji]

Someone posted a screen capture of a debug menu containing the string:

マルチプレイモ一 ド 「新月 の塔」

which translates to:

Multiplayer mode “New Moon Tower”

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It’s not really a surprise they were working to implement that idea in Dragon’s Dogma 2 at some point during development. Its more a surprise it again didn’t make it in, since the multiplayer tower was one of the big ideas of the original game that didn’t make it the first time around, and the team already kind of did the idea to a degree with the Cameo System in Devil May Cry 5. Maybe it makes it in this game sometime down the road.

 

[ADL]

Dragon’s Dogma 2 (Pre-release Denuvoless Devbuild) just got leaked and game will probably be cracked today.

I'm curious who is leaking these debug builds? Assassin's Creed Mirage leaked this week as well.

 

[Elttharion]

Some laid off or outsorced QA dude probably

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Its more a surprise it again didn’t make it in

Not a surprise at all, the game's 2nd half is quite obviously unfinnished
The debug image above (as well Itsuno leaving Capcom for Tencent) is further proof that the game was rushed
2nd time this happened, what a cursed IP

 

[Sentinel]

Its more a surprise it again didn’t make it in

Not a surprise at all, the game's 2nd half is quite obviously unfinnished
The debug image above (as well Itsuno leaving Capcom for Tencent) is further proof that the game was rushed
2nd time this happened, what a cursed IP

if every game you direct is "rushed" despite having pretty long dev times, maybe you're the problem.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's actually so much worse the second time, as they already had the blueprint of the first game to work off. Utterly inexcusable.

 

[Shinji]

Let's also take into account that Dragon's Dogma is a very difficult game to produce.

Itsuno's goal was always to make a fantasy world simulator, which is pretty complex to get right, especially for japanese developers.
After all, how many japanese developers have even attempted making their own Elder Scrolls/KCD type of game (and with good combat on top of it)?

They've also decided to make the areas and entities all load seamlessly without any loading screens, which was impossible to do in the first one.
This enabled some pretty cool moments like flying on top of a Griffin or on top of the Sphynx to a different area.

And having the world dry up on Unmoored World was a pretty ambitious goal. Having to design the world around that was probably a lot of work.

It really feels like this game could only reach its potential if a company like Capcom was eager to take more risks and give it more dev time.
Unfortunately, it's also one of those games that costs a lot and sells "just enough" to not be considered a bomb.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Its more a surprise it again didn’t make it in

Not a surprise at all, the game's 2nd half is quite obviously unfinnished
The debug image above (as well Itsuno leaving Capcom for Tencent) is further proof that the game was rushed
2nd time this happened, what a cursed IP

It’s still a surprise given a version of the idea was done in his Devil May Cry 5 game he made right before this one.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Its more a surprise it again didn’t make it in

Not a surprise at all, the game's 2nd half is quite obviously unfinnished
The debug image above (as well Itsuno leaving Capcom for Tencent) is further proof that the game was rushed
2nd time this happened, what a cursed IP

if every game you direct is "rushed" despite having pretty long dev times, maybe you're the problem.

Please
You know very well this is primarily Capcom's fault
And we can be sure of this, because this lack of concern is not something exclusive to DD - REmake3 and RE8 were botch jobs, Pragmata is still nowhere to be seen, they left Kunitsu-Gami to die and all their other IPs still briming with porential are frozen.
All they care about now are Resident Evil, Street Fighter and Monter Hunter
Yet even those games aren't exempt from Capcom's greed and stupidity - you can go to the MonHun Wilds thread right now and see for yourself the absolute state of that game

Both DMC3 and 5 weren't rushed, Itsuno was given the all time he needed, development went smoothly and in the end both games turned out comercial and critical successes
Auto Modellista, while not having sold 1 million units, also had an untroubled development and turned out to be quite a good game and today its cult classic
While we still don't know the full extent of cuts and revisions DMC4, we know that game's developments stemed both from difficulties with the engine and specially issues with the producers (Bingo Morihashi - the scenario writer for DMC3, DMC4, DD1 and DD2 - quit Capcom mid-way through DMC4 development and only returned because Itsuno begged him)
And for DD1 we know that from the start Capcom executives were highky sceptical about the project, we know the project only got the greenlight after Itsuno scaled down his initial proposal to fit within the projected budget and development resources, we know that despite that agreement the game was still released incomplete and we can reasonably assume that was the executives fault, because we know that after DD launch, Itsuno (despite having a reputation for being a company man) to went up to them and threatened he would quit if they ever pulled that shit on him again - a promise he evidently kept

Then we have DD2
Which the first years of its development were spent making modifications to the REngine to support open-world and advanced physics
And the final release makes itself painfully evident alot times that it got fucking axed in regards to content

there's no way, this wasn't supposed to be a dungeon

And with the above image of the debug menu, we have concrete evidence the game suffered a MASSIVE late-stage cut
As early as the Japanese demos we had a moon in the skybox:

Whatever Itsuno's faults with the game are, it's nonetheless pretty obvious that both he and game got thrown to the wolves
Why?
Because Capcom are a publicly traded company, which has promised its shareholders a steady continuous yearly income growth
And there's 2 things to take into consideration regarding their fiscal year of 2023:

1. Exoprimal, which was meant to be Crapcom's FY2023 flagship completely bombed - not "it was almost successful" kind of bomb, but total 1945 Japan levels of bombing
2. MonHun had its 20th anniversary in Q1 of 2024, which was the perfect timeframe to release a new entry - they missed, because MH Wilds development has been going slower than expected (maybe another victim of Covid, who knows)

So, what they left with to salvage the situation and still end the year as another consecutive fiscal year of operating profit growth?
Scramble DD2 to end at least 2 weeks before the end of the fiscal year
And with that decision, they call Itsuno up for a meeting, where they basically tell him "Sorry pal. We know the game needs another year, but you're going to have to release it within the next 4 to 5 months"

 

[Sentinel]

Nice couple of excuses, still doesn't change the fact that Itsuno has more unfinished games in his catalogue than actual finished products.

 

[Raghar]

Dragon’s Dogma 2 (Pre-release Denuvoless Devbuild) just got leaked and game will probably be cracked today.

I'm curious who is leaking these debug builds? Assassin's Creed Mirage leaked this week as well.

Could it be people who hate DRM and greedy companies? People paid already, thus they can remove that crap from the game. Yet CAPCOM doesn't wanna. Thus a person who CARES about his work takes a development build, kills all traces that could be used to find him, and release it into the wild.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

It really feels like this game could only reach its potential if a company like Capcom was eager to take more risks and give it more dev time.
Unfortunately, it's also one of those games that costs a lot and sells "just enough" to not be considered a bomb.

It sells "just enough" exactely because Capcom doesn't have the balls to go all in.
C'mon ever since Oblivion released, there has not been any other single-player genre which has consistently been as financial and critically sucessful as the RPG genre.
A big reason why DD2 even had the success it had was exactely because with was the only worthwhile big RPG that released this year
With DD, Capcom has an IP that can directly compete with Dark Souls/Elden Ring, Final Fantasy, The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher
Shit, with DDO they could had a smash hit MMO, but for some reason they choose to only release it in Japan and didn't gave any consistent support and content
Yet they still remain sceptical of this potential
Because Capcom is the Japanese Ubisoft - great IPs, plenty of talent, run by morons

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Nice couple of excuses, still doesn't change the fact that Itsuno has more unfinished games in his catalogue than actual finished products.

• Star Gladiator
• Rival Schools
• Power Stone
• Power Stone 2
• Project Justice
• Darkstalkers Chronicle
• One Piece Mansion
• Capcom vs. SNK 2
• Auto Modellista
• Devil May Cry 3
• Devil May Cry 5

• Devil May Cry 2 (literally brought in 6 months before release to a project he knew nothing about and wasn't even half-way complete because the team had no idea what to do)
• Devil May Cry 4
• Dragon's Dogma
• Dragon's Dogma 2

Last time I checked 11 is a greater number than 4 (and honestly DMC2 shouldn't even count)

 

[deuxhero]

Rival Schools and Project Justice's western releases are unfinished.

Does the debug build include anything further showing the character creator was intentionally nerfed?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Rival Schools and Project Justice's western releases are unfinished.

Does the debug build include anything further showing the character creator was intentionally nerfed?

The western releases aren’t the main version that he made.

What weird point to even make. It’s not like he had control over how the American side of Capcom didn’t release the extra story mode stuff for the fighting game he made because it’d be too much work to translate everything.

 

[Ezekiel]

Spent another thirty to forty minutes editing the arisen in the free character creator (last "played" in March), which amounted to nothing as I then looked at other people's and saw more interesting faces. No getting around the neck that becomes bigger higher up, however. Like some animal.

They never maintain realistic (attractive) anatomy while providing the hundred sliders. The muscles in these character creators are always shitty, too. Same as in Dark Souls: textures. You can't make muscles with textures, you have to sculpt them. Again, the creators all suck ass. So few exceptions that it BARELY depends. Just let me find dev-made characters in the world and make my party. Would have more interesting conversations in the field and towns.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Spent another thirty to forty minutes editing the arisen in the free character creator (last "played" in March), which amounted to nothing as I then looked at other people's and saw more interesting faces. No getting around the neck that becomes bigger higher up, however. Like some animal.



The muscles in these character creators are always shitty, too. Same as in Dark Souls: textures. You can't make muscles with textures, you have to sculpt them. Again, the creators all suck ass. So few exceptions that it BARELY depends. Just let me find dev-made characters in the world and make my party. Would have more interesting conversations in the field and towns.

Pick a premade and put on a shirt. Who gives a shit?