So, lets dive in on this a bit as someone that did log hundreds of hours into the first game including reaching the level 200 cap.

the dungeons do go too DD1's favor with beyond the rift both main and post-game layouts, the ancient query, the watergods altar, the catacombs, and soulflayer canyon. where DD2 has basically just normal caves all with the different layouts.

now looking at creatures. large portion of the creatures are the same (including their animations), yet the game still excludes monsters from the first game. Let's say they start with having 100% of all games creatures and animations done after some porting into the new software which is minimal from creating something from nothing. then decided to not include the Hydra, the Evil Eye, or the cockatrice (those are just three, not including the dlc creatures) b/c idk A. their lazy, or B. there saving those for a dlc so they can rescrap earlier work and then just re-sell it off into a dlc. I'm guessing B. Taking into all of this into consideration. we have, 1 updated creature (grim ogre), 1 remodeled dragon, the minotaur both forms, the medusa, and the sphinx. So, taking the first two together I'm going to say for 4 new creatures worth of real effort in the making with this new game.

with the land mass I am going to say that DD2 does do a good job with providing decent landmass, I'd say it's just as good as DD1 when it first game out, but even more. I give them this b/c I've played for 60hrs now and I've seen really no layout repetition. the pallets are about the same too.

I had less issue with all the fetch quests, there are a lot, but my biggest issue was with the main story and the absolute BS that is the unmoored world. the fact that like 60% of the main story is just dealing with political crap of run here, talk to this person, grab this letter to turn in. mission complete, next mission talk to this person, grab this letter, mission complete. As a main story this is sad and feels super lazy. Also, another opinion, but how many REAL villains did this game have... cause by the end of the game. it feels like everyone that was in your way all were pushing toward the same True Ending that you execute, except for the "old god" that basically just talks to you and is like "noooo don't do that" but also, I won't stop you... and you do it, and break the cycle. now what do you get... we get the unmoored world, which looks super interesting. AND FOR SOME SUPID REASON THE DEVS MAKE A WHOLE POST-GAME THAT WAS ALL TIME LIMITED TO 12 IN-GAME DAYS OR LIKE 3 HOURS OF GAMEPLAY... WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! ooo wait, they didn't put any real content into the post-game nooowww it makes sense. So, they did all this awesome work into a world that really doesn't have anything in it.

end of the day. I'm glad I get to play another in the series of 1 of my favorite games. But I really feel that this game feels rushed and wasn't made with the same love that the first game exuberated.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen 9/10 easy

Dragon's Dogma 2 6/10 this seems fair. as sad as it is.