Intro: Dragons Dogma 2 places the robustness of a good book in combination with the promise and intrigue of colorful characters and a world that aims to (hopefully) satisfy players. When playing this game it created a strong immersion that I immensely enjoyed in the beginning. The game in the first couple of hours had great pacing, the bosses were so much fun, and the magic was utilized interestingly. As the game went on, the pacing slowed, the story lost its luster, and I started noticing problems in the mechanics that unfortunately made it feel like the game was dragging on instead of embracing me in the world that I wanted to fall in love with.
A journey of patience:
I was so excited to start Dragons Dogma 2, the cut scenes, the initial story, and everything in the first two hours grabbed me in and made me feel incredibly excited. From the first boss to adventuring with my pawns the world was ripe for the picking. Adventuring around the world felt like I was in a mixture of The Witcher and Fallout, I know, an odd combo. The Witcher aesthetic we can all see how that’s viable, but with Fallout I felt they were similar because of the NPCs. The Fallout games have incredibly well-written NPCs that bring the world to life, same goes for this game.
The pawns and interacting with them made me incredibly happy and showcased a level of fun spontaneous camaraderie in the game that I wish more titles would incorporate. The pawns have charm and character that brought them to life in a way that made them feel real. It was like I got to travel with a friend. Another thing I enjoyed about the pawns was how they took it upon themselves to do a lot of things like bringing a dead pawn to you to revive or leading the way for a certain quest. The pawn is to represent the will of the arisen, since the arisen is bound by their will, the stronger you are as a person, the stronger your pawns will be.
While there are good things about the Pawns, let's talk about the parts that I found quite troublesome. Towards the end of the game, there is a main story mission that requires you to obtain fifteen Wyrmslife Crystals after fighting a lesser drake, which was an experience, to say the least. I obtained what I needed and was on my way, or so I thought. When I got back to Ambrosius the crystals were nowhere to be found in my inventory. I panicked and went to see if I sold them off to someone else (which you can't check what you've sold to another vendor), for some reason I thought I'd check. They were nowhere to be found, so I decided to make forgeries. I made forgeries of the crystals and then checked my inventory and then looked at my pawns inventory and low and behold, the crystals were in my pawns inventory… If they see that you’re carrying a heavy load they will take things off of your person. If your pawn dies and it's not your main pawn, however, your items will rerun back to your storage. So I had a full minute of questioning the game and wondering if this mechanic was even in the first game, (no I did not play the first Dragons Dogma).
At this point I wanted the game to be over:
After handing over the crystals the game shifts and proceeds to go into end-game mode where you have multiple ways in which you can end the game. You can skip the guardian gigantus and go straight into the last chapter, but if you do that you’re missing out on a lot of story bits that could be fun to go through. With mainlining the story/game you unfortunately won’t get as much story as you would have if you had adventured around and done some side quests/exploring. To be frank, you shouldn’t have to do a massive amount of exploring to get an idea of the story and what it's trying to convey to the player. The way the story was approached by the fourth chapter created the dull, trite feeling where I wasn’t getting excited anymore, I was just mindlessly going from area to area (dying a lot mind you), and hoping there was a cut scene along the way to beef up the experience.
Going from each segment of the map, I found one thing that stood out to me as a mechanic that I did not like in particular. the health system. Every bit of damage you take slowly drains your max health until you go rest at an inn or a campsite. The campsites became a beacon of hope in this game and something I looked forward to too often. On the one hand, I like that everything could be at stake for you and your pawns, on the other hand, it was incredibly annoying at night time in the game trying to find a campsite, and getting one-shot by enemies that I couldn’t see because the screen was too dark. My pawns were carrying lanterns, and even if there was enough light, I could only see what was immediately in front of me, not anything more. I tried fixing the lighting in the game but it made the quality of the picture muddy. This is the only game I’ve played where the nighttime sections were incredibly difficult for me to see/maneuver around even with my glasses on.
PC Vs console:
I played the entirety of the game on Xbox series X and also played a bit of it on PC, Here’s how they compared performance-wise. On PC there was a lot of stuttering, frame drops, and crashes happening. I got through the first hour of the game before it would continuously crash when I would go to either pause the game or change settings. On Xbox, however, the game was smooth for the most part besides a few frame stutters here and there. On the console, I don’t know if this would qualify as a bug, but it will be in this section just in case. Early on in the game when I was in the caged magistrate quest I got arrested, then after I paid the bail and left, at any time I would bump into one of the guards any one of them would become aggressive. I lost count of just how many times I got arrested in that quest. I went to Twitter to inquire about this because it seemed like the logical thing to do, I was told to find an inn, rest, and reboot the world so any character that was aggressed ceased to be so essential. That is the last time I run and bump into an NPC, I will from now on gracefully waddle.
While I was on console there was a bug that occurred (more than once) during the Lesser Drake boss battle where it would get stuck in the stairwell. Luckily for me that put it in prime position for me and the other pawns to wail in on it, but it was also unfortunate because it would get stuck every time it took it on. That boss battle was fun, but also a doozy with how fast you can get killed if the dragon so much as touches you if you're low on health. Thank goodness for the campsite right below the boss!
The true Arisin:
Into each generation, a slayer is born…Oh, whoops, wrong game. Each cycle, or each period if you will there is a chosen Arisin. Each time a arisen dies or is fallen it becomes a dragon. In my first time playing it, I didn’t know a lot of story bits and I had to do some research while writing this review after I had played the game. Now not getting enough of the story is a result of one of two things that could be going on here, either a.) I wasn’t looking carefully enough throughout the game to get the information I desired, or b) the game did an awful job at explaining the core principles of the story through the time I was playing it.
By the time the game ends you encounter the dragon that took your heart, how romantic. You are given two choices, either fight the dragon or walk away and sacrifice the NPC you have become closest to. Fighting the dragon in my view is some of the best dialogue in the entire game, and some of the best voice acting.
Final thoughts: Did I enjoy this game, yes and no. There were things like the cut scenes, the pawns, and the bosses that I truly enjoyed, and got a kick out of seeing how everything worked in tandem. Seeing how the pawns were silly giving the arisen high fives after a well-fought match, or some of the one-off lines that NPCs said. A lot of it was comical, witty, and fun. The health system and the pacing of the story put me off and at some points, the game was boring and incredibly repetitive (not in a fun way). I get that games have a repetitive nature to them, but this was one of those moments where I didn't feel like the repetitive nature added anything to the game. I’m also not a fan of the fact that Capcom added microtransactions when in reality you don’t need them in any way to progress in the game. Microtransactions are a key feature in a lot of free-to-play games, seldom do we see them in a game that, with tax, is over $70 USD. A company as high standing as Capcom doesn’t need to utilize these practices, and for some reason they do. I wonder if these microtransactions are put in place for convenience or another reason entirely. The MTXs are entirely pointless since they are items that you get by either exploring, doing quests, or going to the vendors in the game. This game was such a mixed bag that I can say yes, I would recommend it. Search the game carefully, read the notes, and cook a steak that looks ever so real.
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