Dragon's Dogma 2 Review - Arisen Once More

The original Dragon’s Dogma was always such an elusive game to me. I never had the chance to play it when it came out back in 2012, but I always held a sort of peripheral awareness that it was largely considered a monumental addition to the RPG genre.

Following an enhanced version titled Dark Arisen, the series remained dormant for some time, and there was a very real fear that Capcom would never return to it, despite keeping their fingers on the pulse of their other core franchises such as Resident Evil and director Hideaki Itsuno’s own Devil May Cry 5.

That fear was ultimately displaced with the announcement of Dragon’s Dogma 2 a decade on from the first game’s release. With knowledge in hand that the series would be seeing something of a great revival, it was time to dig in and see what I could gather from a newcomer’s perspective.

Would Dragon’s Dogma 2 have the power to sway me over to the series at large? As someone with a particular interest in RPGs, I was keen to find out.

Dragon's Dogma 2 Character Creation

Dragon’s Dogma 2 opens up, not with pomp and circumstance, but with imprisonment. Your character has been stuffed away underground, and it’s here the most important choice Dragons Dogma 2 has presents itself: designing your character.

The character creation tool, I was surprised to find, is immensely detailed – to the point you could spend many hours just picking around and adjusting every little aspect of the character. Between the various races, body types, hair and other facial features, the character creator in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is easily one of the most impressive I’ve seen just for how much you can manually adjust after selecting from various presets. There's special attention to detail in that it lets you be whatever you want, the only limitation is one's imagination.

But if you’d rather just choose from the pre-designed models, you can do that too, along with a starting job class or vocation. From the outset, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is all about freedom of choice, and that became further evident to me as I continued into the story.

After leaving the gaol, your character gets put through a short tutorial of sorts that culminates in fighting a Medusa and making a run for it. Your character has lost their memory prior to the beginning of the story, so you’ll have that to deal with, along with a thrilling tale of politics and stolen thrones, and reclaiming their right as the one known as the Arisen.

Dragon’s Dogma 2’s narrative is interesting, and it’s framed in a way that fleshes out the world-building, as well as various characters you’ll meet along the way without relying on knowledge of the previous game. This is further bolstered by a wealth of side quests that organically interlink with you as you’re taking on main tasks.

While this organic element exists to them, they’re not generally required. That said, I found myself wanting to go off the beaten path more often than not just to absorb more of what was going on in the world, and because the rewards were often worth some of the risks.

Questing also provided a bit of a breather from the main gameplay loop – that is, Dragon’s Dogma 2’s battle system and overworld mechanics. Taking a page from RPGs of eld, Dragon’s Dogma 2 can be unforgiving often enough. It’s not an easy game and that is evident in some frustrating design decisions ranging from having only one save space, to a health reduction mechanic known as the loss gauge.

This loss gauge will punish you for taking damage and going too long without resting afterward. Furthermore, should you hit a Game Over, you can reload from the last save, but the loss gauge will again be impacted. Dragon’s Dogma 2 really wants you to rest at campsites or inns and makes a point of letting you know that.

All said, the actual battle system is straightforward enough. You’ll pick a Vocation such as Fighter, Mage, Archer, or Thief with others unlocked during the course of gameplay. I ended up taking an Archer the whole way through because I prefer ranged classes and being able to take my time from a safe distance whilst wrapping my head around each system.

Archers are more than just shooting arrows – they can equip weapon skills that are activated by pressing pre-assigned buttons. Furthermore, the option to use specialty arrows, and Pawn abilities can add interesting status benefits such as weapons imbued with fire.

A Pawn In Your Plan

Pawns come into play as your main set of party members. One you’ll create early on in the story, and along the way you can recruit others to round out a four-man team. They’re important not only to help in battle, but their chatter can direct you toward quest areas and NPCs, as well as various comments about any location you happen to be at.

I found it most helpful to round off my Pawns with different Vocations so that there was no overlap. Having one that could heal, for example, was a must, as well as a straight up fighter, and a mage. With all the monsters on the field, it’s a must to keep them equipped and direct them if need be – some of the bigger enemies like griffons are powerful, and you’re best to run away and regroup for later.

I do wish there was a little more control to be had over the Pawns, however. The AI can sometimes be clumsy and having one of them die can easily turn the tide of battle against you, even against basic enemies such as goblins.

When I said Dragon’s Dogma 2 wasn’t easy, I wasn’t kidding. So meticulous are certain elements, that you can find yourself dead or severely damaged if your not careful. The day and night cycle plays into this tremendously, and I found that I’d really rather not be out in the open during that time because the enemies do hit harder. There are certain quests that can only be carried out in the dark, so be careful.

It's this reliance on being careful that really defines Dragon’s Dogma 2, I think. There’s a lot to explore, pick up, inspect, people to talk to, and discovering the unknown is something that really makes the experience shine. That is to say, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, however.

Technical Issues Experienced in Dragon's Dogma 2

During my playthrough on PC I encountered a number of technical issues that ranged from my Pawns sliding around to them attacking NPCs without provocation. Other issues included framerate drops in town areas, and quests not triggering properly.

There seems to be a decent load on the performance side of things especially, which I suppose makes sense when you consider just how vast and detailed Dragon’s Dogma 2’s world is and the mechanics of its living cycles. Hopefully, it can be tightened up in later patches.

My other gripes stem from the presentation. Dragon’s Dogma 2 has a lot going on, but it does feel like the character models could still be a little better – especially coming off other recent open world games in the same genre this generation.

Animations are a bit stilted even in cutscenes, and in battle it can become frustrating when a certain animation doesn’t go off and you end up dead because of it. There were many times where I tried to dash away but couldn’t due to this kind of animation lock.

Dragon's Dogma 2 Review | Final Thoughts

Overall though, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a massive experience and despite the core main quest, I think it’ll be different for everyone depending on what you make of it. That you can spend hours upon hours doing naught but the main story speaks volumes of what they’ve created here, and the emphasis on free roam builds a lot towards getting the most out of all the systems Dragon’s Dogma 2 has to offer.

Despite my grievances with technical issues and some irks in the game design, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a must-see experience for anyone looking for the next big hardcore RPG.

TechRaptor reviewed Dragon's Dogma 2 on PC with a code provided by the developer over roughly 39 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were captured during the process of review.