One of the mechanically worst games I've played, made up for by a somewhat enjoyable story.
The game is quite literally broken and doesn't work sometimes. It's very fun.
The first game was better.
I see some other reviews saying that you need to play on easy or do all the side content. False. I completed the game on normal skipping all side content, git gud.

Note: I never played the original FF7, this is from the perspective of someone who's franchise nostalgia starts with FF10.

decent game
had fun

Story: 5/10. Servicable, nothing particularly special. A few story beats from nearer the start feel forgotten. Final boss was kinda underwhelming. Apparently I missed some telegraphed interactions in the credits that extend the story -- get used to this, because missing things the game puts no effort into making you aware of is a recurring theme.

Combat: 8/10. For me, the games highlight. Though, I only played mage and I hear archer sucks.

Pawn system: 5/10. Under-utilised with respect to side questing, past the 1st pawn which lets you get a melee/ranged combat setup, adding more pawns doesn't feel impactful. They yap a lot if you don't like people talking randomly.

Side-quests: 2/10. I really enjoyed the ones I did do - but really this is the problem. Side quests are not indicated to you in any meaningful way, the way you find them is you *happen* to be in the right place at the right time. Didn't go to Melve to get that quest before you did a story point? locked out, no way to save reset, no way of knowing it even existed without googling it first. Maybe this is an attempt at being "realistic", but it just results in making it way too easy to miss content, because the game doesn't give you a reason to go to these areas. This is where I say pawns are under-utilised - if they're going to yap, why couldn't they tell me that something might be happening in this area to alert me to a side quest? it's not a 2/10 because the side-quests are bad, it's a 2/10 because the game does nothing to encourage you to find them, locks them behind certain events and gives you no indication that they even exist.

Not a £60 game, but if it ever goes on sale it's not a bad buy. The combat is satisfying enough on it's own to keep me satisfied playing.
The state of this game is that if you don't want to miss content, you need to use a walkthrough or constantly backtrack to areas for no reason on the *chance* something new might be there, which is probably the biggest negative.
Would probably grab in a sale for like £20-£30.

I highly advice checking Nexus Mods if you experience performance issues. If you use a 40-series Nvidia GPU this mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/39) will you out a lot - this and some cpu tweaks have got me to hit 60+ FPS in all areas including cities.

The game is literally broken.
Had to pay $20.
Had $0.
Mortgage a property for $90.
The back button greys out. I can't go to pay off the lone. I'm now hardstuck on a screen where I can't un-mortgage the property, I can't pay the money I owe and I can't even declare bankruptcy. The only way out was to quit the game completely.
This game is not in a playable state and should not have been released.