Review of Dragon's Dogma 2
The original Dragon's Dogma was one of the most innovative role-playing games when it was published back in 2012. Although the game was a financial success and had positive reviews, it didn't quite get the attention it deserved. Of course, the first Dragon's Dogma was still full of flaws, but if it had been published a few years later, it probably would have received a lot more positive reviews. After more than ten years, Dragon's Dogma 2 is finally out, and at a time when players are clamoring for games that don't hold their hands and allow them make errors with actual repercussions, it seems less like a sequel and more like a "I told you so" moment.
It would be an understatement to say that Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't hold your hand. Many missions have no map marks and just hazy instructions, certain foes are impervious to specific kinds of damage, and while you're merely trying to go back to town, goblins, thieving thieves, and enormous creatures with numerous life bars will often attack you. One of the most fulfilling role-playing games of our age results from the combination of all these potential annoyances.
Dragon's Dogma 2 concentrates on building a "living, breathing world" with "deep combat," "emergent gameplay," and all the clichés that RPGs plaster on the back of the box, even if there is a respectable plot to follow. This game lives up to the promise of adventure—and all the boredom that accompanies it. Simple roadside experiences are tremendously gratifying despite limited rapid travel, frequent camping, food and supplies rotting, missions failing after a few days, and other obstacles.
In many ways, Dragon's Dogma 2 intentionally harkens back to the era of vintage role-playing games. To address this, the Pawn system in the game enables you to call party members from other players' worlds, simulating the feeling of sharing tales with other players. A Pawn will point you in the proper way or provide tips that will get you one step closer to your objective if they have located a secret passage, finished a mission, or unearthed buried wealth in another realm. As a result of Pawns' lack of experience or leveling up while in your party, you need rotate your AI allies often to keep communication between players going.
It was a pleasure to share Pawns with other critics and media people even throughout the evaluation phase. Even though they still sometimes regurgitate the same conversational quips from the original game, which may be tiresome, pawns play a big part in giving Dragon's Dogma a lively air. It helps make the purely solitary experience seem a lot less lonely to hear stories from other players about how they like Beastren in their travel groups or how they once threw a goblin down a cliff only to have a summoned Pawn get enthusiastic to inform their own master about this exciting new technique.
Naturally, if the rewards weren't up to snuff, the obstacles you must overcome in Dragon's Dogma would be more annoying than rewarding, but there is valuable stuff hiding around every corner. Although exploring a deep tunnel may often provide a potent new weapon or piece of equipment, Dragon's Dogma offers more unusual gifts.
For example, you may use the world's Forgotten Riftstones to unlock additional filters for the Pawn system, which will allow you to search for useful items like Pawns with certain talents or stupid stuff like tall ladies. Finding a Pawn that speaks Elvish or who can sell you goods from anyplace in the globe is very helpful. Additionally, since exploring the realm has so many facets, Dragon's Dogma 2 enjoys rewarding players with items like Ferrystones and Portcrystals, which allow for quick travel, to entice them to embark on the game's most difficult tasks.
In addition, the game awaits you with a wealth of difficult difficulties. For the first several hours of the game, you won't even dare to go after the sun goes down due to how perilous the roads are at low levels. You'll come across cyclopses, minotaurs, ogres, and other monsters that are essentially boss fights for underequipped explorers, even in the protection of daytime. After a few excursions between villages, you'll become an intimidating monster killer, but the first exploration of the environment is nerve-wracking.
However, it's in these large-scale battles that Dragon's Dogma 2's fighting system really excels. Beyond the standard "use fire damage to win" tactics seen in other role-playing games, each adversary has strengths and weaknesses that you must overcome in order to prevail. For example, ogres would naturally go for the ladies in your group; you may take advantage of this. As long as you can control your endurance and hold on long enough, you can also cling on and climb huge enemies, allowing you to reach vulnerable places like a cyclops' eye.
Fast-moving Vocations such as the Thief are absurdly delicate, whereas most special powers and sword attacks are methodical and sluggish. To defeat formidable opponents, you'll need to mix the advantages of each Vocation and exploit your surroundings. A griffin may mostly withstand standard blows, but if an Archer uses a special arrow to cover it in tar and a Mage uses a flamethrower spell to put it on fire, the griffin's health bar will melt away.
A victorious score emerges as the beast falls, and your group attacks its target with critical strikes and final blows. These kinds of scenes give Dragon's Dogma 2 the impression of being the pinnacle of fantasy dream fulfillment.
The mission structure of Dragon's Dogma 2 also follows this loose-form gaming approach. You have to follow a beggar with a weird amount of money to his name in order to complete an early side objective. I followed him for a whole day before finding his residence, but I ran into a progress barrier where I was unable to figure out how to enter. I just brought him beyond the city gates and hurled him down a cliff to get to his house after giving it hours of thought. After that, I simply went to the morgue—where all deceased NPCs go—and used a rare item called a Wakestone to bring him back to life. Although it wasn't the planned answer to this puzzle, it did the job.
For the most part, the game leaves you on your own—even on big plot tasks that are often simple in other role-playing games. It's vital to talk to NPCs and listen in on their discussions, but the game is careful and won't highlight critical dialogue on your map. You need to go out there and see the world, think independently, and come up with answers. This greatly increases the weight of conversation and exploration, particularly in missions with important choices and several possible ends.
The gameplay of Dragon's Dogma 2 is also influenced by this weight, which explains why it feels so nice to handle. Physics interactions give spells and assaults a gratifying feel when they land, and every character and object seems fully rooted in the environment. You may even push over boulders to topple groups of opponents like bowling pins, or pick up rocks and other objects to hurl them at your adversaries. It also increases the lethality of fighting since you now have to worry about being launched into a wall by an orge as well as having your club smashed away from you. In a manner that previous video games could only imagine, Dragon's Dogma 2's fighting and surroundings are so challenging that it seems like a real world.
Unfortunately, the game's performance suffers as a result of its lofty goals and stunning graphics. Although Dragon's Dogma 2 has an uncapped framerate, game typically runs at around 30 FPS and becomes sluggish in crowded battle scenes and cities. The performance difficulties just add to the frustration of already chaotic gameplay, especially during fights when visibility is limited at night and spell effects burst off. Because the game is so demanding, there are very few instances in which the uncapped framerate helps; thus, an FPS limit would be much welcomed.
In the end, Dragon's Dogma 2 builds upon the qualities that made the first game so fantastic while making just enough changes to make it more playable for a contemporary audience. While there is a large, perilous world to explore, difficult puzzles to complete, and important choices to make, Dragon's Dogma 2 respects the player's intellect and won't punish them severely as long as they meet it halfway. The fact that Dragon's Dogma 2 is a really gameplay-forward role-playing game that lets you make errors and leaves you on your own is enough to set it apart in the current gaming scene. Everything else that it excels at is only icing on the cake.