Pushing Buttons: What makes Dragon's Dogma 2 a fiery breath of fresh air

I love when a game properly captures me, to the extent that I'm thinking about it throughout the day while going about my real life. It doesn't happen very often these days, because I have played too many games in the past 30 years and am becoming immune to their most common spells. When it does happen, it's usually because a game does something I haven't seen before – like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom last year, with its madcap contraptions. Or sometimes – as with Dragon's Dogma 2, which I am very much still playing after reviewing it last week – it's because it does something I have seen before but not for a very long time. In the 12 years between the original Dragon's Dogma and this sequel, the only game that has come close to recapturing its chaotic and stubbornly idiosyncratic brand of fantasy action role-playing was Elden Ring.