Dragon's Dogma 2 (PC)
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is the sequel to Capcom’s 2012 action role-playing game Dragon’s Dogma (cue staff roll with upbeat guitar.)
I’m not familiar at all with the previous entry, I think back then was during my teenage FPS brainrot so there was no way in hell I was gonna play a swords ‘n sorcery game that wasn’t maybe Skyrim. The most I ever heard about Dragon’s Dogma 2 was everyone complaining about the PC version’s performance and the weird implementation of microtransactions, which by the time of this review had all been cleaned up. Honestly, great call to my mate who spent the week pestering me to pick the game up, because I don’t think there was a better time for me to check this one out.
The entire game revolves around composing your party using ‘Pawns.’ As the Arisen you have a main pawn, someone you can make entirely yourself which felt like an eternity to do with the game’s shockingly deep character creation system which serves as your trusty companion throughout the entire adventure. Additionally you can recruit other pawns, sometimes created by other players through Dragon’s Dogma 2’s networking capabilities or sometimes from a litany of Capcom presets, to form a party of four that you’re encouraged to routinely rotate as the two tag-alongs do not receive XP unlike you or your main pawn. Despite how chatty a lot of these weirdos can be sometimes I was honestly charmed instead of annoyed. It gives the game a lot of recognition in that I didn’t really felt like I was playing just another kind of a specific fantasy action RPG. Except maybe Monster Hunter.
Besides the pawns, combat is probably the single biggest highlight here. Every ‘vocation,’ or class, has very explicit pros & cons that must be accounted for. Harpies can be aggravating to deal with when you’re a warrior who can only ever wield a 6 ft. tall beating apparatus. But you can always throw a large rock at it. Or bait it to drag you over to a more advantageous position. Or just hire an archer pawn if you don’t even want to waste time with them. Swapping vocations in this game means swapping your entire play-style in order to fight effectively, a commitment some people may be too afraid to take but that doesn’t mean you can’t instead just form a party to cover a lot of your weaknesses. The game has lots of detailed systems, but you’re given so much liberty on how to manipulate those systems that I’m undoubtedly probably missing something else because as of right now my main gameplay is blowing gryphons up with sorcerer magic.
There are still some rough spots. More than one spellcaster usually means a hit to your framerate. Player control can be unwieldy especially when you’re over a large pit or the classic 'Water That Kills You Because Lore.' And the AI behavior for pawns and especially escort quest NPCs can grief you when you’re least expecting it. But I think my biggest pain point is a mental one; I’ve got so much going on in my game library throughout the past couple years, and now you’ve given me a big action RPG where I can run around as a hot lady with a greatsword and a consort of abominable creations from the minds of people I will never meet in my lifetime. It’s not anything that is out of my comfort zone, which is why the game is going to be competing hard with retention. I’ve got backlogs in my backlogs in my backlogs in my backlogs--
Dragon’s Dogma 2 still needs to finish hammering in its nail into my head, but I’m excited to see what happens when it does, because I’m just about ready for something to obsess over in time for New Years.