I’ve been replaying it and it just captures something I can’t quite describe.
Good news for future you!
There’s the obvious Monster Hunter, of course. Other than that, Shadow of the Colossus, maybe Dragon Age for the tactical combat. If you just want to fight absurdly large bosses, God of War, Asura’s Wrath, and Jotun are great for that. Maybe Horizon: Zero Dawn, it’s very different but it does have you fight enemies larger than yourself and force you to consider your approach. The Witcher 2 & 3 are in a similar vein to Horizon (just ignore 1, this isn’t a suggestion).
I only played a bit of DD, so take these with a pebble of salt.
Man, that’s a tough find, tbh. Luckily they announced a sequel recently, so there’s that. :)
In the meantime, I’d recommend the following:
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Newer Monster Hunters (World or Rise): Gameplay wise the closest one I’ve come across so far.
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Elden Ring: I mean… Kind of? Similar Fantasy world, character building, even somewhat similar plot (in my opinion). Obviously it’s more FromSoft than DD, but I think it’s worth a comparison.
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Dragon Age Inquisition: Now, I get that this one’s kind of far fetched, but I mean it. Especially the freedom of character building (except locking into a class at character creation), traveling with npc companions (tough with more personality) and the general fantasy-world vibe
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Shadow of the colossus: If you’re mainly into climbing huge monsters and defeating them (primarily) that way, this is one game I would greatly recommend! Tough, this gameplay, a stamina system and the vague fantasy setting are the main comparisons.
Bonus: I read somewhere that with a plethora of mods you can nudge Skyrim more in a DD direction (and who would be surprised about that), but I don’t know any pointers on that one. Google might help, tough.
Hope this list is somewhat helpful :D Maybe you could describe what you liked about DD?
+1 I would appreciate some encouragement to try out DD.
Well, I can do that for you. :)
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If you like magic: just go for it. Seriously, if you like to play mages and magic classes, this game might set a new standard for you hardly rivaled by more modern ARPGs. Oh, also no classic mana. Just stamina and charge time.
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Character building is not overly complicated, but still indepth enough to feel important. There are a total of 9 vocations (classes), fitting into the broad categories of “warrior”, “rogue” and “mage” - and 3 of them as a mix between them.
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The monsters. Goddamn, the monsters! A thing of beauty when you fight your first ogre, manticore, dragon (can be huuuuge), and many more. As you probably read in my comment above: you can also climb them to target heads, tails, legs and other parts directly, to cut, smash or otherwise damage a monster (and maybe their abilities).
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The world is beatiful. Even though you barely get a glimpse into more diverse biomes, the world is just a spectacle to look at and traverse through (except for a certain kind of quest).
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You will only have “pawns” as companions - effectiveness emotionless mercenaries, but customisable by yourself (your main pawn) and other players (“rented” pawns for a few levels). Which means, you’ll occasionally switch your team out, fitting it to your current needs and own development.
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Truthfully, you’ll either love or hate the pawn system. Many find them irritating, as they will often repeat a multitude of phrases, depending on your location or your enemies and their associated knowledge (there are ways to make them less talk active - though I really liked them, lived up the adventure)
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There are some really cool gameplay systems in place for added immersion and strategical thinking. For example, you wouldn’t normally want to fight right after traversing a river - you’ll be soaked through! (if I remember correctly that one lets you drain more stamina for actions)
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Fournival is Bae.
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They’re masterworks all, you can’t go wrong
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The expansion. So good, albeit pretty whacky.
I could go on for a long time and lost even more stuff - but I’ll stop here and instead list the two main drawbacks of the game.
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If you’re not playing on pc you’ll be locked to 720p (I think?) and 30fps.
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Most modern ARPGs will not feel complete to you. Seriously, you’ll be chasing the feelings this game gives you. Whether that will be the combat, the look, the monsters, classes, characters, or something else, I can’t say. But it most likely will happen.
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I have actually played all of these, except for modded Skyrim. I might have to look into making it like DD. But I really enjoy it’s gameplay on top of it being pretty light on story until you decide to go in, I enjoy just being plopped into a fantasy world and being able to just go and do stuff without worrying about the story unless I want to.
Thanks for the suggestions though!
Well, in that case… Maybe you’d like:
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Outward (literally getting thrown into a survival-exploration-RPGs), didn’t play much, but liked what I saw. Seems to be very deep in it’s systems.
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Elex (plus Sequel, I didn’t play): Techno-Fantasy-mix by the guys who made Gothic 1-3 (also good contenders, but a bit old), so expect some good eurojank. This one’s a bit more story heavy, though.
If I can think of more, I’m try to post here again 👍
+1 for Outward. That game rules.
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Maybe try out Kingdoms of Amalur? I don’t know if it’s quite in the same spot for me, but it’s pretty similar in a lot of ways.
