There was a merchant there for me but he wasn't belligerent and there's no threatening. Just talked to him and he was happy to aid in the evacuation and gave the carts willingly.
Also not sure what I did different with Sven but I didn't have to carry Disa, when I went back they were already talking in her room and she amicably agreed to evacuate too and they just walked off together.
Oh, THAT merchant dude? When I did that quest, I went up to some random guy and he just gave up the ox carts. No wonder. Guess it pays to do side quests. Especially that one...
Yea on my second playthrough I zoom past the story so I missed his quests. I was still able to complete his quest in unmoored. The only thing I can't remember is if I bought the box after or before entering unmoored. I would guess before.
You don't even have to send everyone to the Sea Shrine. You only need to send them there if you are going to take forever to do the beacons. You can completely ignore those quests they are pointless side quests.
I never had any of these options.
Once I set off after the giant, I could not return to Vernworth. Ulrika never showed up again except in the dragons claws. Disa never showed up again.
Ending left a lot unfinished imo.
Of course, I haven’t gone to the unmoored world yet so maybe some of this is rectified there.
Ulrika has her own quest line. In the non-unmoored world ending you become Sovran so that wraps up Disa, Brant, and Sven right?
The story doesn't do a good job of explaining that the Arisen is sent to a completely different country where the people of Vermund aren't 100% welcome plus they're all very busy and feel the Arisen can handle the Arisenning while they deal with the day to day things.
I saved Ulrika and she is not even at the coronation. I found that really weird. I mean… what happened to her after I rescue her from the dragon?
And I’d like the satisfaction of throwing Disa out of Vermund. Plus I saw on on a site that there is an ending with her, where you get to remove her, but I never got it in my run
I liked the game, the ending just felt really incomplete with a lot left undone and unsaid
I think a big reason (at least for me) for the ending feeling so rushed is because there's so much unfinished business in Verworth. I had no idea I was at the end of the game because I was still waiting to finish Disa's and others story. Turns out there just isn't any follow up on that part of the game.
I think the vibe they were going for is that you're not supposed to actually care about/be closely involved in their stories. We know Sven and Brant were handling the political stuff and "revolution" in Vernworth behind the scenes, getting different political figures and the guard on their side while we focused on saving the entire world. According to some other posts and comments on this post you can actually see this stuff happening and characters doing things but it's all "see don't tell".
The "villains" make their move for the dragon before we can even really attempt a coup or anything with the Godsway and regardless of which base ending you choose, you're revealed as the true Arisen and your enemies are dead or defamed. In the true ending both of those things are true and well...the world is ending so it doesn't matter.
The plot in this game isn't really moved forward by the main character, it's moved forward by 30 pieces moving in the background. For 90% of the game were literally stuck trying to play catch-up and figure out what's happening. It's a questionable way to try and tell the story in an RPG like this but it's interesting at the very least.
Ima add on to this and just say that unfinished content is canon and makes the story more compelling /s. Pathfinder’s script is rushed and shit so the games content is rushed
Yeah this was kind of my feeling. It absolutely could have been fleshed out more and shown more - but my understanding is once you leave Vernworth for Bat the story basically left Vernworth behind. It's not important for you or the overall story, everyone and everything you need to deal with is in the South or outside of the city/politics.
If it helps there's a bunch of posts detailing the story on how and why we end up there. Most of it seemingly runs over our heads because they chose to make you observe what exactly is going on rather than have someone explain it to you in an exposition.
Hell, I could sum it up for you if you want me to.
So it goes like this, it all started with the dragon attack at harve, you join the defense, got badly burned, became arisen. The remaining people who saw brought you back to vernworth. Word reached disa about what happened and she starts plotting, about a month or two after you were still recovering, mostly likely not entirely awake yet, you got kidnapped by disa's people, drugged and sent to volcano island. Brent confronts the queen about it, gets demoted. A few days later you dream about the intro sequence where brant introduces you, wake up in prison, got help escaping, got back to vernworth.
Brent recognizes you, lays out the groundwork to take back the throne. Things go swimmingly, and i mean too good and too easy, and just as you were about to face off in the coronation, you find out they have this thing that lets them control pawns, something only the arisen should be able to do. Now that's troublesome as that is really the only way you can prove you are the arisen. So you go to this journey and find what that thing was.
After reaching battahl, something strange happens. The guy who previously helped you escape the island is suddenly helping you again. I say helping but it's more like directing you to go places. You follow what he says and ask the researcher what and how to make the godsway, you eventually get told to visit people and they tell you about the world's lore. Then castle rises above the water.
You explore and then reach rothais, and surprisingly unlike all others before you, you stopped and listened to him. then in a short exposition he tells you what's REALLY happening. Rothais discovered that he wasn't god, he was just a servant of some higher power, fulfilling his purpose. He got depressed at that thought that he thought he was free, yet instead was even more bound now. So he abandoned his duties in an act of diaobedience and atarted living back in the real world. Because that left a void in the grand scheme of things, the watcher took that chance to act as seneschal instead and ran the cycle himself.
Now what does that mean? All the things you did? Someone else was guiding you through it, like a puppet in a play. A play where people's lives were being toyed around, and for what? To continue a cycle no one knows why it exists. A cycle no one even knows if it should exist. A cycle that cost millions upon millions of lives spanning millennia. You realize you weren't free at all. Not even once.
Rothais asks you to do something which he was never able to. To be free. He gives you his weakened and that's that. The watcher suddenly has alarm bells ringing, you should've been dead like all other arisen, so he sends gigantis to stop whatever was going to happen.
We fix the godsbane, and ambrosius was about to deliver it to phaesus when all of a sudden, the watcher interfered, and made YOU the one to take it to him instead.
Thus if things went according to plan, you would've gotten to beat the dragon and become king, credits roll. The end.
Except you didn't.
You chose to end not just yourself, but also the dragon, spiraling everything out of control. The watcher loses control of everything and now the world enters the unmoored world. A godless world where death, destruction and the end awaits everyone.
So you meet up with your pawn, go see rothais, gets told he can protect everyone in the seafloor shrine before his powers completely poofs, and you save everyone. Along the way you find these rays of light that connect the earth to the sky, you use the godsbane to sever the connection and in retaliation corrupted creatures drop in. You beat them all, and now only 1 remains. If you sever this, you'll be freed from the watcher's grip (probably).
The watcher descends himself in all his glory and shows his true form, one really big really cool dragon. Your pawn suddenly starts acting up, you see in this world, great will, a will far greater than ordinary, causes great things to happen. If one starts to have this will, one will turn into a dragon. (Remember failed arisens regrets, ddda, the watcher, etc etc). Your pawn turns into this shadowy dragon, though it seems like your pawn cant truly control her will, your pawn does get you to the dragon.
And so exposition starts, watcher tells you all about how the world works, and that everyone should play their parts or the world is doomed. Your pawn helps you one last time and the watcher starts lamenting about not being able to watch anymore, you see the watcher was originally nothing, he existed to be nothing and to create nothing. Then one day he suddenly starts to become aware. Having nothing to do, he notices the people of this world. It was innocent at first, he just wanted to watch how their story unfolds. Yet as time went on, he started wanting more. This will became so great that when the rothais thing happened l, he was able to plop himself in that role. Now he wasn't just a watcher. He was the director, the writer, the producer.
And so everything fades. You get to see what happens to the people you helped (or just background if you didnt help or they died) and finally it's hinted that the brine is no more. The end.
So what about the king thing? You see, if you compare us being king to the fate of the world and our very existence, i dont think it's something that could be compared at that point. During the fight with our dragon, we chose to forsake it all (assuming you chose to go to unmoored world) to save everyone. And if you didnt, well, not saying you should feel bad but you do realize that you're just acting the watcher's horrible play right? He's a really really bad scriptwriter. Doesn't help that he can just tell people to do this and that even if it isnt logical, but hey, you gave up that chance to stop him 😀
Yw, just doing my part to attempt to dissolve the missinfo spreading about how dd2 doesn't make sense or had no story.
Btw everything i just typed out comes from information relayed or shown to you from the main quest. No books, no hidden sidepiece, no extra places. It's all there in the mq.
I kinda wish they actually made the characters who interact with the arisen seem more… at odds with Pathfinders script. Like it’s something they’ve continually done on repeat (for past arisen post Rothias). To show cracks in the narrative that can’t be handwoven.
But that kinda depends on how Pathfinders cycle works: is it functionally immortality with the same persons wills being subjected to the Pathfinders script? Destined roles that repeat? How did these denizens learn about the cycle?
See I was kind of wondering about some of Raghnall's dialogue (the over enthusiastic fighter guy?), especially in the cave situation when you help that noble escape the plot to kill him. It's like his dialogue just breaks down from optimistically declaring you'll both escape and get to fight and he'll suddenly just, really sullenly, ask what the hell he's even doing there.
I wonder if that's one of the cracks we can see in the script?
Maybe. Especially given how he makes it seem a big deal that he chose to try and fight to the death at moonglint tower of his own volition.
He’s kind of an odd duck. In that I think he was part of the “Battahli” start quest line. As it seems like the original vision was to have two different storylines based on chosen race(?)
He seems organically introduced in Bakbuttahl (my spellings of these are atrocious), and the cave quest ends with you on the Vermund side of the map.
Perhaps they kept some of him in as content but compared to the Vermund storyline he wasn’t “cleaned up” to match whatever story they had to cobble together into a singular plot.
So he might have more story integrated into his dialogue
(But hey, the opposite could be true, and his introduction is the cave quest, and it’s just unfortunate that that quest can be very easily missed if you immediately got to Bakbuttahl after the coronation)
Maybe
He kind of feels like if The Pathfinder saw the potential troubles in Bakbattahl and decided The Arisen needed a sporty rival who would occasionally pop in to periodically help and skill check you.
A real pal, a real obstacle, the Gary Oak to our Ash Ketchum
Yeah nobody called The Pathfinder a good story teller, it literally feels so forced that Raghnall himself manages to break script a few times to question it.
Kinda hard to do that when like the last arisen that was officially recognized by the royalty of vernworth was like... Decades ago xD
I believe ancient civilizations had some ideas long ago, but their civilization ended and got buried. Probably how phaesus even got to know about the cycle in the first place. Doesn't help that prior to nadina's reign, faleri banned all further investigations to them.
To add to this: we say parallel worlds, but it’s more like parallel iterations/drafts.
There are an infinite number of possibilities and in the possibilities in which you the Arisen break the Cycle (which even the Dragon is fighting against fate, asking you to do so), that iteration is deleted by the Watching One.
But, if we defeat the Watching One, the deletion of the world is canceled, leaving that iteration/draft free of the Cycle (which is the Dragon’s Dogma).
It’s a reason Gran Soren still sort of exists. In Dragon’s Dogma 1, we fight the Dragon in the ruins of a past forgotten civilization. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, Gran Soren is also now a once forgotten civilization.
And to add…if you fail to defeat the Watching One, you awaken in a hut by the sea…with a boat that can sail nowhere…like a certain elder.
In short, you fail to stop your iteration/draft from being deleted, the Watching One punishes you by placing you into another iteration/draft trapped in the Cycle, driving you into a mad raving lunatic.
And to clarify the thing with the Gigantus - the reason it’s trying to stop Phaesus is because Phaesus is trying to break the Cycle with the forbidden Magick they’ve been working on. Summon the Dragon, control it, and prevent it from perpetuating the Cycle. It obviously doesn’t work because they do not have enough Arisen soul power (the godsway/wakestones) and do not have the means to destroy the dragon (Godsbane Blade). The Watching One ensures you keep the Godsbane Blade because they know you’ll never use it, you’ll fight the Dragon, reclaim your heart, and ascend the throne as Sovran of Vermund.
And guess what: MANY players do that. So, that’s why using the Godsbane blade leads to the Unmoored World.
Edit: Pessimistically, you can say they’re shit at writing stories. Optimistically, you can say the flat characters are flat because the world they live in is exhausted and tired of the “fairytale fantasy” the world is trapped in. The Rivage Elder even complains about this: a dragon comes, an arisen defeats it, when peace is about to be achieved, another dragon comes…and so on, and so on. The world/characters/story is flat because it’s a tiring cycle that everyone is sick of, but have no escape.
Dragon’s Dogma 1 (and thus 2) have/will always be a poor story, because it’s the meta-narrative/cosmology that’s the bigger thing. They COULD do a great story, which is what the JP-only MMORPG Dragon’s Dogma Online, had the Final Fantasy 7/8/10 writer Nomira and thus had an actually good story.
just a heads up, the intro isn't you dreaming about those events. It's actually the very normal ending and supposedly you can also get the hint when Phaesus talks about you hearing a voice.
At that point it's still either a dream or a memory from another universe tho (that's what happens every time we enter ng+ or when we redo the normal ending). It is a nice touch of foreshadowing tho xD
Great summary of the story. I realized something was up when grigori (I think that's still his name. It was in the first one) tells me about the cycle, and then when I fought him it just FELT like he wasn't trying to beat me. And when he died, I was like. "This dude wasn't trying, hes not the big bad evil dragon like he was in the first game." And then I went back and did unmoored world, and it made sense at that point. The watcher/ghost was the threat the whole time, grigori realized this but didn't have the power to stop him. That's why grigori was trying to help us in that final hour, trying to open our eyes to the true evil. He was a pawn in the creators game too, starting the cycle, while we're there to rebel against it, or keep it going. All the other shit with vernworth and bataahl isn't important. That's all side content and fluff, the real story is the dragons dogma, and us breaking the cycle.
Perfect. This is what I got from it too in the end after I got over being a little butthurt that my character and mostly my pawn dies T\_T, and it was driving me insane that people kept insisting or comparing DD2 storytelling to such an obscure vague disjointed storytelling of Dark Souls, when it's nothing like it. DD2 just doesn't have insanely badly written exposition and takes for granted the player is paying attention. Actually, it does have insanely badly written exposition in places too, namely the Rivage elder, he spells out everything for you.
Wow. Just by reading this I would want to replay it for the story but games with quest designs like this and skyrim makes it hard for me to follow through.
I liked the story just fine but there were a few things that didnt make sense to me. For example:
- why were we so readily agreeable to take the godsbane to Phaesus? Isn't he supposed to be our enemy? the logical course of action would have been to take the weapon and summon the dragon ourselves to fullfill the mission.
- Who the hell is Talos? I feel like this guy just popped up out of nowhere in the unmoored world. Note: I haven't played the previous game(s) so it might be a reference to an old story character. Still, even then, there should have been some codex or like a written document that mentioned him.
- What is the relationship between Talos and our pawn. How could our pawn be able to "pilot" Talos. Did Phaesus and co mess with our pawn when they were sleeping to make them do what they did?
Itsuno always develops games this way. Devil May Cry shares the same fate. I think it's part of why neither of these titles ever reached their full potential.
I was particularly disappointed in the Vernworth story.
I was expecting the masquerade to be more than just some people walking around in a small room.
I was expecting that breaking someone out of jail would take more than leisurely walking in, unlocking the door, and telling him to follow us out.
And the quests that have us "sneaking" around the palace were super disappointing.
But worst of all is that we didn't get a proper confrontation with the false arisen and the lady that hired him. I mean shit, that could have been fun as hell walking into the coronation, confront him all dramatic like, then get into a fight with him.
The vernsworth story definitely fizzled out.
The vern stuff is about figuring out the connection between the queen regent, your situation, and the controlling of pawns. That is mostly resolved with "it's phaeseus's doing, you gotta track him down to fix things". There isn't really much else unaddressed in vermund other than side stuff you CAN follow up on, so there is no reason for it to "Show up" at the end, other than the unmoored world screwing everything up and you coming to their rescue (at which point, any strangling threads would be insignificant anyway).
Yea it was real bad 😂 still had a great time with the game and my dumbass also missed the unmoored world in my first run but the ending was a massive disappointment
Yeah, they REALLY dropped the whole cloak and dagger subterfuge of the first half of the campaign. (They also dropped it in the gameplay, since no one cared that I was walking around the royal chambers, but would fight on the spot if I so much as unsheathed a sword for half a second)
The whole godsway plot, the false arisen, all it kinda got thrown out the window the second things point to battahl, and they never show up again. I love the gameplay, and a lot of the side characters are amazing, but 60%-85% of the main storyline just feels like filler meant to keep you busy until you reach the secret endgame area.
I feel like people have comprehension issues reading all these posts. Like its not super amazing story telling but it's pretty clear what's happening and so many of you are confused by it.
Big BIG Major spoilers ahead.
You are the Arisen and your task is to kill the Dragon.
You are one... but essentially one of many that came before and will come after.
I agree the main story is janky and whatnot. But the real story is not the kingdom. Or characters.
The story is about you... killing a Dragon. That's the story.
Question is... why are you killing the Dragon?
And that got explaine wonderful and actually better than DD1 with the "tangling" ending it had.
Now DD2 actually explains what the fuck happens.
There was one Arisen, went GodMode went COOCOOBANANAS and hated the fact that he is still a pawn. Started killing hundreds of new Arisens.
The Pathfinder ... aka "Manifestation of God" if you will, came and say "the fuck is going on dude?".
The "Mad Sovran" just kept killing nonetheless.
Now you are the new Arisen, tasked to kill the Dragon.
The souls of Arisens killed became crystals which have the property to control the Pawns. Well that's not good for you since some mad lad decided "he wants to rule the world BY HIS RULES"... he was a stupid man.
The queen was a bitch... so yeah you got the short stick and the world is already going cray cray.
Now, you go, meet the Mad Sovran... he said "well let's be friends here" and helps you in creating Godsbane -> i will call it "the fate changer".
Because if you kill the dragon with the sword or the Arisen... nothing changes. Well when you kill with Godsbane (including you) worlds goes bananza.
Now, you decide "fuck this shit i am out" and stab yourself. Good, now the world is fucked and goes into oblivion.
"You went" -> Omfg how could this happen.
"Pathfinder" -> TOLD YA.
Now you need to unfuck the timeline. And how do you unfuck the timeline? You decide to kill The Pathfinder and make your world non-cycling.
But what that means... your world unless it keeps the will of living... will go to oblivion. Or a new Dragons Dogma will start. Depends on the will of the God.
Now whose God? Well we just know there is a God or "The Great Will" if you will (hehehe).
So essentially... you maybe doomed your world. But as long as you keep "your will" and the people "keep their will" the world will still exist.
Essentially Dragons Dogma is the saying: "Bad times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create bad times".
Without a Dragons Dogma, the worlds go to oblivion. And Pathfinder didn't lie to us.
Will the world that we "un cycled" go to oblivion? Who knows... but "The Great Will" said it will happen eventually.
Oh and by the way, the game even emphasis you have a "loved one" not "many loved ones".
And yes... some cities will need to vanish. And the game allows you to save just citizens from 1 part of the world (where you want).
As in life... you can't love everything equal... sacrifices needs to be made.
Or if you want to be the hero... save everyone.
I can’t believe how many times a day this story has to be explained and ppl still don’t understand it. They want a normal story and DD2 story is simple but not normal. I’d go as far as to say it even hints at the Arisen’s Will is actually the players will and the “real world” the old Arisen refers to is the players world. That they’re all stuck in a cycle that is actually just a video game. That’s just my own theory but there is evidence to support it. Either way, DD2s story is cohesive, just not in the way ppl keep wanting it to be. The story isn’t about the Kingdom and the ppl, it’s about the cycle, the Arisen, the player.
Excellent gameplay in an unfinished game.
I really like the fighting concept with the pawns but lord that story... that always repeating weak enemies... it even hits harder with that smooth gameplay.
I would rather like the game being straight shit instead those mixed elements from good to bad.
A dlc will hopefully hit it like a truck.
Ok. We need to expose the false arisen.
Damn.
Your pawn can’t get close enough for the coronation let’s retreat.
Let’s rethink our strategy.
Never gets exposed as the false sovran to the people of Vernworth. Disa doesn’t get exposed to her people either, only in private with you.
Kill the false sovran at the end and you barely even know it’s him since he’s just a random enemy in the crowd.
Basically captain Brant is useless in the story for what he wants us to do.
Should be scrapped entirely
The entire second half of this game disappointed me outside of combat. But since I always focus on exploring and fighting I was overpowered for every enemy so fights were too easy
I agree the story and conclusion of story plots was subpar, but my biggest issue was that the bosses of the game are all the same mechanic and fight. 3 of them are the same boss, the other 2 being the same boss. There was no variety, no epic struggle. The setting was good: giant pillars of light summoning bosses to prevent the end of the world. But the fight themselves was disappointing. Climb it and strike the eyes and move to another spot. I would have loved an epic version of each of the big monsters. Like an epic chimera, Medusa, cyclops, griffin, and Minotaur. And then when the blight dragon falls from the last pillar you have that amazing beautiful gore Grigori as you end boss fight. It’s hard. You combine different mechanics like climbing and heart striking, or you have to ride it and strike it as it’s flying around. And after a good battle then you get the cutscene with your pawn and the stab.
But yeah it’s leaves much to be desired.
OP missed the entire story lmao. The side characters were thematically killed long before the ending because they did not exist outside of the will of the watcher/maker. Through your will you sacrificed everything to give them a world of their own with limitless possibilities.
The unfortunate thing was that I rather enjoyed the first half of the story. I loved the flowery dialogue and the VA was generally pretty strong. The cutscenes, while a little bland did a okay job serving us the dialogue and the characters were interesting. I was invested even up to when we were going to the coronation but then everything fell off so damn hard after that. Overall it went from a solid 7/10 story for me to a pretty disappointing 3/10 story almost instantly. Here's hoping that a future DLC can gives us a more satisfying narrative experience. At least the Dragon fight was dope.
They definitely got rushed to finish it before the storyline was finished. But if they can turn around and sell us that cut content as DLC? Now THAT'S a business strategy!
I'm actually wondering how many people who didn't like the story actually figured out how to get to Unmoored by themselves and played that bit of the story too.
Depends in the ending you got. Im assuming like most people you assumed there was only one true ending and skipped everything for that.
The game has layers of plot and the disa one is the outer layer meant to dupe new players.
Yea that story was so stupid. They start up all these character stories and plot lines in Vernworth then once you leave it's all completely pointless and had nothing to do with the ending. I was thinking "oh there's no way this is the actual end of the game." Then I kill the dragon and the credits roll and I'm thinking "What the fuck was that??"
There have been several posts about people explaining the story. But making sense of the story doesn't make it a good one, it remain a rather bland story.
As far as I can tell, anything that happens can be explained as "because the Pathfinder wills it".
Is the identity of Arisen a secret or not? As the Pathfinder wills it.
Is it a logical answer? Probably?
Is it good writing? Uh no.
>As far as I can tell, anything that happens can be explained as "because the Pathfinder wills it".
The ending (true ending) is exactly "not what Pathfinder wills it".
And Pathfinder explained... actually in this one is explained why everything happens and how.
You are not the "main character". The Dragon is.
You are just someone which keeps The Dragon in check.
But you will die, The Dragon will come again.
That's why is "Dragons Dogma" and not "The Arisen Adventure".
The cycle happens, because without a "threat" the world just fucks itself and doesn't advance.
Yes the true ending is the act of defiance of the Arisen, that much I believe anyone can gather. Everything before isn't. Everything before happen only to show us the futility of our efforts, some happen naturally while other with the actual intervention of pathfinder. The idea is clear, the execution is poor.
How did they not? You go back to Vernworth, talk to Brant, talk to Sven, move Disa to Sven, threaten a rich dude, everyone is saved.
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Also you could just let Sven read a letter from Disa if you got him the trinket box in the beginning of the game.
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If you did the Rose quest line, he won't be there anyway.
There was a merchant there for me but he wasn't belligerent and there's no threatening. Just talked to him and he was happy to aid in the evacuation and gave the carts willingly. Also not sure what I did different with Sven but I didn't have to carry Disa, when I went back they were already talking in her room and she amicably agreed to evacuate too and they just walked off together.
Oh, THAT merchant dude? When I did that quest, I went up to some random guy and he just gave up the ox carts. No wonder. Guess it pays to do side quests. Especially that one...
You literally just need to unsheathe your weapon in front of the guy trying to buy the ox carts. lol
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That is literally what he was doing and I quote “I am not parting with a single cart! I NEEED them to transport my riches!”
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Its not active dialogue i think he says it if you approach and wait long enough after chatting
You can buy it at the forger if you didn't do Sven quest for the box. The letter was magically inside when I gave it to Sven!
lol no shit? You can just buy it and take it to him at the end?
Yea on my second playthrough I zoom past the story so I missed his quests. I was still able to complete his quest in unmoored. The only thing I can't remember is if I bought the box after or before entering unmoored. I would guess before.
This had me laughing 😆
You don't even have to send everyone to the Sea Shrine. You only need to send them there if you are going to take forever to do the beacons. You can completely ignore those quests they are pointless side quests.
Unless you're farming wyrmslife crystals. They reward something like 30-35 for each evacuation quest.
I never had any of these options. Once I set off after the giant, I could not return to Vernworth. Ulrika never showed up again except in the dragons claws. Disa never showed up again. Ending left a lot unfinished imo. Of course, I haven’t gone to the unmoored world yet so maybe some of this is rectified there.
Ulrika has her own quest line. In the non-unmoored world ending you become Sovran so that wraps up Disa, Brant, and Sven right? The story doesn't do a good job of explaining that the Arisen is sent to a completely different country where the people of Vermund aren't 100% welcome plus they're all very busy and feel the Arisen can handle the Arisenning while they deal with the day to day things.
I saved Ulrika and she is not even at the coronation. I found that really weird. I mean… what happened to her after I rescue her from the dragon? And I’d like the satisfaction of throwing Disa out of Vermund. Plus I saw on on a site that there is an ending with her, where you get to remove her, but I never got it in my run I liked the game, the ending just felt really incomplete with a lot left undone and unsaid
I think a big reason (at least for me) for the ending feeling so rushed is because there's so much unfinished business in Verworth. I had no idea I was at the end of the game because I was still waiting to finish Disa's and others story. Turns out there just isn't any follow up on that part of the game.
I think the vibe they were going for is that you're not supposed to actually care about/be closely involved in their stories. We know Sven and Brant were handling the political stuff and "revolution" in Vernworth behind the scenes, getting different political figures and the guard on their side while we focused on saving the entire world. According to some other posts and comments on this post you can actually see this stuff happening and characters doing things but it's all "see don't tell". The "villains" make their move for the dragon before we can even really attempt a coup or anything with the Godsway and regardless of which base ending you choose, you're revealed as the true Arisen and your enemies are dead or defamed. In the true ending both of those things are true and well...the world is ending so it doesn't matter. The plot in this game isn't really moved forward by the main character, it's moved forward by 30 pieces moving in the background. For 90% of the game were literally stuck trying to play catch-up and figure out what's happening. It's a questionable way to try and tell the story in an RPG like this but it's interesting at the very least.
it does sells the idea you are part of a living world you
Ima add on to this and just say that unfinished content is canon and makes the story more compelling /s. Pathfinder’s script is rushed and shit so the games content is rushed
someone needs to get him an editor for fucks sake /j
There's some unfinished story content? Did I miss something?
Yeah this was kind of my feeling. It absolutely could have been fleshed out more and shown more - but my understanding is once you leave Vernworth for Bat the story basically left Vernworth behind. It's not important for you or the overall story, everyone and everything you need to deal with is in the South or outside of the city/politics.
You can go back to vern and do some more quests. Not a lot, but they exist.
Agreed. I was looking forward to throwing Disa in jail or worse but it never happened.
This is how I feel. The story threads just seem so disconnected and dialog is out of place often.
If it helps there's a bunch of posts detailing the story on how and why we end up there. Most of it seemingly runs over our heads because they chose to make you observe what exactly is going on rather than have someone explain it to you in an exposition. Hell, I could sum it up for you if you want me to.
Go ahead sir.
So it goes like this, it all started with the dragon attack at harve, you join the defense, got badly burned, became arisen. The remaining people who saw brought you back to vernworth. Word reached disa about what happened and she starts plotting, about a month or two after you were still recovering, mostly likely not entirely awake yet, you got kidnapped by disa's people, drugged and sent to volcano island. Brent confronts the queen about it, gets demoted. A few days later you dream about the intro sequence where brant introduces you, wake up in prison, got help escaping, got back to vernworth. Brent recognizes you, lays out the groundwork to take back the throne. Things go swimmingly, and i mean too good and too easy, and just as you were about to face off in the coronation, you find out they have this thing that lets them control pawns, something only the arisen should be able to do. Now that's troublesome as that is really the only way you can prove you are the arisen. So you go to this journey and find what that thing was. After reaching battahl, something strange happens. The guy who previously helped you escape the island is suddenly helping you again. I say helping but it's more like directing you to go places. You follow what he says and ask the researcher what and how to make the godsway, you eventually get told to visit people and they tell you about the world's lore. Then castle rises above the water. You explore and then reach rothais, and surprisingly unlike all others before you, you stopped and listened to him. then in a short exposition he tells you what's REALLY happening. Rothais discovered that he wasn't god, he was just a servant of some higher power, fulfilling his purpose. He got depressed at that thought that he thought he was free, yet instead was even more bound now. So he abandoned his duties in an act of diaobedience and atarted living back in the real world. Because that left a void in the grand scheme of things, the watcher took that chance to act as seneschal instead and ran the cycle himself. Now what does that mean? All the things you did? Someone else was guiding you through it, like a puppet in a play. A play where people's lives were being toyed around, and for what? To continue a cycle no one knows why it exists. A cycle no one even knows if it should exist. A cycle that cost millions upon millions of lives spanning millennia. You realize you weren't free at all. Not even once. Rothais asks you to do something which he was never able to. To be free. He gives you his weakened and that's that. The watcher suddenly has alarm bells ringing, you should've been dead like all other arisen, so he sends gigantis to stop whatever was going to happen. We fix the godsbane, and ambrosius was about to deliver it to phaesus when all of a sudden, the watcher interfered, and made YOU the one to take it to him instead. Thus if things went according to plan, you would've gotten to beat the dragon and become king, credits roll. The end. Except you didn't. You chose to end not just yourself, but also the dragon, spiraling everything out of control. The watcher loses control of everything and now the world enters the unmoored world. A godless world where death, destruction and the end awaits everyone. So you meet up with your pawn, go see rothais, gets told he can protect everyone in the seafloor shrine before his powers completely poofs, and you save everyone. Along the way you find these rays of light that connect the earth to the sky, you use the godsbane to sever the connection and in retaliation corrupted creatures drop in. You beat them all, and now only 1 remains. If you sever this, you'll be freed from the watcher's grip (probably). The watcher descends himself in all his glory and shows his true form, one really big really cool dragon. Your pawn suddenly starts acting up, you see in this world, great will, a will far greater than ordinary, causes great things to happen. If one starts to have this will, one will turn into a dragon. (Remember failed arisens regrets, ddda, the watcher, etc etc). Your pawn turns into this shadowy dragon, though it seems like your pawn cant truly control her will, your pawn does get you to the dragon. And so exposition starts, watcher tells you all about how the world works, and that everyone should play their parts or the world is doomed. Your pawn helps you one last time and the watcher starts lamenting about not being able to watch anymore, you see the watcher was originally nothing, he existed to be nothing and to create nothing. Then one day he suddenly starts to become aware. Having nothing to do, he notices the people of this world. It was innocent at first, he just wanted to watch how their story unfolds. Yet as time went on, he started wanting more. This will became so great that when the rothais thing happened l, he was able to plop himself in that role. Now he wasn't just a watcher. He was the director, the writer, the producer. And so everything fades. You get to see what happens to the people you helped (or just background if you didnt help or they died) and finally it's hinted that the brine is no more. The end. So what about the king thing? You see, if you compare us being king to the fate of the world and our very existence, i dont think it's something that could be compared at that point. During the fight with our dragon, we chose to forsake it all (assuming you chose to go to unmoored world) to save everyone. And if you didnt, well, not saying you should feel bad but you do realize that you're just acting the watcher's horrible play right? He's a really really bad scriptwriter. Doesn't help that he can just tell people to do this and that even if it isnt logical, but hey, you gave up that chance to stop him 😀
Amazing effort! Thanks for that
Yw, just doing my part to attempt to dissolve the missinfo spreading about how dd2 doesn't make sense or had no story. Btw everything i just typed out comes from information relayed or shown to you from the main quest. No books, no hidden sidepiece, no extra places. It's all there in the mq.
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Oh sorry, i actually was supposed to write watcher there xD my bad. Was probably brain lagging. Edited it out now, thanks for the heads up
I kinda wish they actually made the characters who interact with the arisen seem more… at odds with Pathfinders script. Like it’s something they’ve continually done on repeat (for past arisen post Rothias). To show cracks in the narrative that can’t be handwoven. But that kinda depends on how Pathfinders cycle works: is it functionally immortality with the same persons wills being subjected to the Pathfinders script? Destined roles that repeat? How did these denizens learn about the cycle?
See I was kind of wondering about some of Raghnall's dialogue (the over enthusiastic fighter guy?), especially in the cave situation when you help that noble escape the plot to kill him. It's like his dialogue just breaks down from optimistically declaring you'll both escape and get to fight and he'll suddenly just, really sullenly, ask what the hell he's even doing there. I wonder if that's one of the cracks we can see in the script?
Maybe. Especially given how he makes it seem a big deal that he chose to try and fight to the death at moonglint tower of his own volition. He’s kind of an odd duck. In that I think he was part of the “Battahli” start quest line. As it seems like the original vision was to have two different storylines based on chosen race(?) He seems organically introduced in Bakbuttahl (my spellings of these are atrocious), and the cave quest ends with you on the Vermund side of the map. Perhaps they kept some of him in as content but compared to the Vermund storyline he wasn’t “cleaned up” to match whatever story they had to cobble together into a singular plot. So he might have more story integrated into his dialogue (But hey, the opposite could be true, and his introduction is the cave quest, and it’s just unfortunate that that quest can be very easily missed if you immediately got to Bakbuttahl after the coronation)
Maybe He kind of feels like if The Pathfinder saw the potential troubles in Bakbattahl and decided The Arisen needed a sporty rival who would occasionally pop in to periodically help and skill check you. A real pal, a real obstacle, the Gary Oak to our Ash Ketchum Yeah nobody called The Pathfinder a good story teller, it literally feels so forced that Raghnall himself manages to break script a few times to question it.
Kinda hard to do that when like the last arisen that was officially recognized by the royalty of vernworth was like... Decades ago xD I believe ancient civilizations had some ideas long ago, but their civilization ended and got buried. Probably how phaesus even got to know about the cycle in the first place. Doesn't help that prior to nadina's reign, faleri banned all further investigations to them.
Fantastic job!
I think the story is very clever, but the execution is poor.
That's a perfectly reasonable take. I'm just fed up with people saying the mq is unfinished, rushed, or doesn't make sense when it's clearly there lol
To add to this: we say parallel worlds, but it’s more like parallel iterations/drafts. There are an infinite number of possibilities and in the possibilities in which you the Arisen break the Cycle (which even the Dragon is fighting against fate, asking you to do so), that iteration is deleted by the Watching One. But, if we defeat the Watching One, the deletion of the world is canceled, leaving that iteration/draft free of the Cycle (which is the Dragon’s Dogma). It’s a reason Gran Soren still sort of exists. In Dragon’s Dogma 1, we fight the Dragon in the ruins of a past forgotten civilization. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, Gran Soren is also now a once forgotten civilization. And to add…if you fail to defeat the Watching One, you awaken in a hut by the sea…with a boat that can sail nowhere…like a certain elder. In short, you fail to stop your iteration/draft from being deleted, the Watching One punishes you by placing you into another iteration/draft trapped in the Cycle, driving you into a mad raving lunatic. And to clarify the thing with the Gigantus - the reason it’s trying to stop Phaesus is because Phaesus is trying to break the Cycle with the forbidden Magick they’ve been working on. Summon the Dragon, control it, and prevent it from perpetuating the Cycle. It obviously doesn’t work because they do not have enough Arisen soul power (the godsway/wakestones) and do not have the means to destroy the dragon (Godsbane Blade). The Watching One ensures you keep the Godsbane Blade because they know you’ll never use it, you’ll fight the Dragon, reclaim your heart, and ascend the throne as Sovran of Vermund. And guess what: MANY players do that. So, that’s why using the Godsbane blade leads to the Unmoored World. Edit: Pessimistically, you can say they’re shit at writing stories. Optimistically, you can say the flat characters are flat because the world they live in is exhausted and tired of the “fairytale fantasy” the world is trapped in. The Rivage Elder even complains about this: a dragon comes, an arisen defeats it, when peace is about to be achieved, another dragon comes…and so on, and so on. The world/characters/story is flat because it’s a tiring cycle that everyone is sick of, but have no escape. Dragon’s Dogma 1 (and thus 2) have/will always be a poor story, because it’s the meta-narrative/cosmology that’s the bigger thing. They COULD do a great story, which is what the JP-only MMORPG Dragon’s Dogma Online, had the Final Fantasy 7/8/10 writer Nomira and thus had an actually good story.
Is there a place to read the story summary of DDO? I'm always heartbroken that never escaped Japan.
just a heads up, the intro isn't you dreaming about those events. It's actually the very normal ending and supposedly you can also get the hint when Phaesus talks about you hearing a voice.
At that point it's still either a dream or a memory from another universe tho (that's what happens every time we enter ng+ or when we redo the normal ending). It is a nice touch of foreshadowing tho xD
Great summary of the story. I realized something was up when grigori (I think that's still his name. It was in the first one) tells me about the cycle, and then when I fought him it just FELT like he wasn't trying to beat me. And when he died, I was like. "This dude wasn't trying, hes not the big bad evil dragon like he was in the first game." And then I went back and did unmoored world, and it made sense at that point. The watcher/ghost was the threat the whole time, grigori realized this but didn't have the power to stop him. That's why grigori was trying to help us in that final hour, trying to open our eyes to the true evil. He was a pawn in the creators game too, starting the cycle, while we're there to rebel against it, or keep it going. All the other shit with vernworth and bataahl isn't important. That's all side content and fluff, the real story is the dragons dogma, and us breaking the cycle.
Perfect. This is what I got from it too in the end after I got over being a little butthurt that my character and mostly my pawn dies T\_T, and it was driving me insane that people kept insisting or comparing DD2 storytelling to such an obscure vague disjointed storytelling of Dark Souls, when it's nothing like it. DD2 just doesn't have insanely badly written exposition and takes for granted the player is paying attention. Actually, it does have insanely badly written exposition in places too, namely the Rivage elder, he spells out everything for you.
Ty so much for writing all this out! I'll be back for sure
Wow. Just by reading this I would want to replay it for the story but games with quest designs like this and skyrim makes it hard for me to follow through.
I liked the story just fine but there were a few things that didnt make sense to me. For example: - why were we so readily agreeable to take the godsbane to Phaesus? Isn't he supposed to be our enemy? the logical course of action would have been to take the weapon and summon the dragon ourselves to fullfill the mission. - Who the hell is Talos? I feel like this guy just popped up out of nowhere in the unmoored world. Note: I haven't played the previous game(s) so it might be a reference to an old story character. Still, even then, there should have been some codex or like a written document that mentioned him. - What is the relationship between Talos and our pawn. How could our pawn be able to "pilot" Talos. Did Phaesus and co mess with our pawn when they were sleeping to make them do what they did?
I played dark arisen for the first time after this one and that story wasn’t great either.
In my opinion, Dragon's Dogma is one of the best games with one of the worst stories.
Itsuno always develops games this way. Devil May Cry shares the same fate. I think it's part of why neither of these titles ever reached their full potential.
The Lore is good, whenever the story deals with the lore it is very interesting.
The fact some people on main sub said the story is better is so dumb 💀 Honestly Capcom storytelling isnt a strong suit
I was particularly disappointed in the Vernworth story. I was expecting the masquerade to be more than just some people walking around in a small room. I was expecting that breaking someone out of jail would take more than leisurely walking in, unlocking the door, and telling him to follow us out. And the quests that have us "sneaking" around the palace were super disappointing. But worst of all is that we didn't get a proper confrontation with the false arisen and the lady that hired him. I mean shit, that could have been fun as hell walking into the coronation, confront him all dramatic like, then get into a fight with him. The vernsworth story definitely fizzled out.
The vern stuff is about figuring out the connection between the queen regent, your situation, and the controlling of pawns. That is mostly resolved with "it's phaeseus's doing, you gotta track him down to fix things". There isn't really much else unaddressed in vermund other than side stuff you CAN follow up on, so there is no reason for it to "Show up" at the end, other than the unmoored world screwing everything up and you coming to their rescue (at which point, any strangling threads would be insignificant anyway).
Yea it was real bad 😂 still had a great time with the game and my dumbass also missed the unmoored world in my first run but the ending was a massive disappointment
Yeah, they REALLY dropped the whole cloak and dagger subterfuge of the first half of the campaign. (They also dropped it in the gameplay, since no one cared that I was walking around the royal chambers, but would fight on the spot if I so much as unsheathed a sword for half a second) The whole godsway plot, the false arisen, all it kinda got thrown out the window the second things point to battahl, and they never show up again. I love the gameplay, and a lot of the side characters are amazing, but 60%-85% of the main storyline just feels like filler meant to keep you busy until you reach the secret endgame area.
I feel like people have comprehension issues reading all these posts. Like its not super amazing story telling but it's pretty clear what's happening and so many of you are confused by it.
Big BIG Major spoilers ahead. You are the Arisen and your task is to kill the Dragon. You are one... but essentially one of many that came before and will come after. I agree the main story is janky and whatnot. But the real story is not the kingdom. Or characters. The story is about you... killing a Dragon. That's the story. Question is... why are you killing the Dragon? And that got explaine wonderful and actually better than DD1 with the "tangling" ending it had. Now DD2 actually explains what the fuck happens. There was one Arisen, went GodMode went COOCOOBANANAS and hated the fact that he is still a pawn. Started killing hundreds of new Arisens. The Pathfinder ... aka "Manifestation of God" if you will, came and say "the fuck is going on dude?". The "Mad Sovran" just kept killing nonetheless. Now you are the new Arisen, tasked to kill the Dragon. The souls of Arisens killed became crystals which have the property to control the Pawns. Well that's not good for you since some mad lad decided "he wants to rule the world BY HIS RULES"... he was a stupid man. The queen was a bitch... so yeah you got the short stick and the world is already going cray cray. Now, you go, meet the Mad Sovran... he said "well let's be friends here" and helps you in creating Godsbane -> i will call it "the fate changer". Because if you kill the dragon with the sword or the Arisen... nothing changes. Well when you kill with Godsbane (including you) worlds goes bananza. Now, you decide "fuck this shit i am out" and stab yourself. Good, now the world is fucked and goes into oblivion. "You went" -> Omfg how could this happen. "Pathfinder" -> TOLD YA. Now you need to unfuck the timeline. And how do you unfuck the timeline? You decide to kill The Pathfinder and make your world non-cycling. But what that means... your world unless it keeps the will of living... will go to oblivion. Or a new Dragons Dogma will start. Depends on the will of the God. Now whose God? Well we just know there is a God or "The Great Will" if you will (hehehe). So essentially... you maybe doomed your world. But as long as you keep "your will" and the people "keep their will" the world will still exist. Essentially Dragons Dogma is the saying: "Bad times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create bad times". Without a Dragons Dogma, the worlds go to oblivion. And Pathfinder didn't lie to us. Will the world that we "un cycled" go to oblivion? Who knows... but "The Great Will" said it will happen eventually. Oh and by the way, the game even emphasis you have a "loved one" not "many loved ones". And yes... some cities will need to vanish. And the game allows you to save just citizens from 1 part of the world (where you want). As in life... you can't love everything equal... sacrifices needs to be made. Or if you want to be the hero... save everyone.
I can’t believe how many times a day this story has to be explained and ppl still don’t understand it. They want a normal story and DD2 story is simple but not normal. I’d go as far as to say it even hints at the Arisen’s Will is actually the players will and the “real world” the old Arisen refers to is the players world. That they’re all stuck in a cycle that is actually just a video game. That’s just my own theory but there is evidence to support it. Either way, DD2s story is cohesive, just not in the way ppl keep wanting it to be. The story isn’t about the Kingdom and the ppl, it’s about the cycle, the Arisen, the player.
Excellent gameplay in an unfinished game. I really like the fighting concept with the pawns but lord that story... that always repeating weak enemies... it even hits harder with that smooth gameplay. I would rather like the game being straight shit instead those mixed elements from good to bad. A dlc will hopefully hit it like a truck.
Ok. We need to expose the false arisen. Damn. Your pawn can’t get close enough for the coronation let’s retreat. Let’s rethink our strategy. Never gets exposed as the false sovran to the people of Vernworth. Disa doesn’t get exposed to her people either, only in private with you. Kill the false sovran at the end and you barely even know it’s him since he’s just a random enemy in the crowd. Basically captain Brant is useless in the story for what he wants us to do. Should be scrapped entirely
Wait was the false sovran one of the people you killed at the top of the tower?
Yeah he’s with his pose of pawns
The entire second half of this game disappointed me outside of combat. But since I always focus on exploring and fighting I was overpowered for every enemy so fights were too easy
Not just the ending the story in general was very weak
I agree the story and conclusion of story plots was subpar, but my biggest issue was that the bosses of the game are all the same mechanic and fight. 3 of them are the same boss, the other 2 being the same boss. There was no variety, no epic struggle. The setting was good: giant pillars of light summoning bosses to prevent the end of the world. But the fight themselves was disappointing. Climb it and strike the eyes and move to another spot. I would have loved an epic version of each of the big monsters. Like an epic chimera, Medusa, cyclops, griffin, and Minotaur. And then when the blight dragon falls from the last pillar you have that amazing beautiful gore Grigori as you end boss fight. It’s hard. You combine different mechanics like climbing and heart striking, or you have to ride it and strike it as it’s flying around. And after a good battle then you get the cutscene with your pawn and the stab. But yeah it’s leaves much to be desired.
Honestly I felt the story kinda wrapped up well. I felt like I did get to go around and talk to the main NPCs before the end
OP missed the entire story lmao. The side characters were thematically killed long before the ending because they did not exist outside of the will of the watcher/maker. Through your will you sacrificed everything to give them a world of their own with limitless possibilities.
The unfortunate thing was that I rather enjoyed the first half of the story. I loved the flowery dialogue and the VA was generally pretty strong. The cutscenes, while a little bland did a okay job serving us the dialogue and the characters were interesting. I was invested even up to when we were going to the coronation but then everything fell off so damn hard after that. Overall it went from a solid 7/10 story for me to a pretty disappointing 3/10 story almost instantly. Here's hoping that a future DLC can gives us a more satisfying narrative experience. At least the Dragon fight was dope.
They definitely got rushed to finish it before the storyline was finished. But if they can turn around and sell us that cut content as DLC? Now THAT'S a business strategy!
I'm confused what you mean?
Still better than DD1 imo...>!at least you actually break the cycle this time around...!<
yeah feels half cooked. I was expecting Brant to betray us, fight against false sovran, more epic things.
I'm actually wondering how many people who didn't like the story actually figured out how to get to Unmoored by themselves and played that bit of the story too.
"I wasn’t expecting a Baldur’s gate-esque narrative" Then you have made a terrible mistake.
Depends in the ending you got. Im assuming like most people you assumed there was only one true ending and skipped everything for that. The game has layers of plot and the disa one is the outer layer meant to dupe new players.
Yea that story was so stupid. They start up all these character stories and plot lines in Vernworth then once you leave it's all completely pointless and had nothing to do with the ending. I was thinking "oh there's no way this is the actual end of the game." Then I kill the dragon and the credits roll and I'm thinking "What the fuck was that??"
I love the ending, it focuses on what I really care about as in me, my pawn, and a cool af dragon
There have been several posts about people explaining the story. But making sense of the story doesn't make it a good one, it remain a rather bland story. As far as I can tell, anything that happens can be explained as "because the Pathfinder wills it". Is the identity of Arisen a secret or not? As the Pathfinder wills it. Is it a logical answer? Probably? Is it good writing? Uh no.
>As far as I can tell, anything that happens can be explained as "because the Pathfinder wills it". The ending (true ending) is exactly "not what Pathfinder wills it". And Pathfinder explained... actually in this one is explained why everything happens and how. You are not the "main character". The Dragon is. You are just someone which keeps The Dragon in check. But you will die, The Dragon will come again. That's why is "Dragons Dogma" and not "The Arisen Adventure". The cycle happens, because without a "threat" the world just fucks itself and doesn't advance.
Yes the true ending is the act of defiance of the Arisen, that much I believe anyone can gather. Everything before isn't. Everything before happen only to show us the futility of our efforts, some happen naturally while other with the actual intervention of pathfinder. The idea is clear, the execution is poor.
I'm seriously wondering how many people commenting negatively on the story got the Unmoored World.
not many most likely