Dragon’s Dogma 2 shouldn’t work. The writing is average. Fetch quests abound. Combat’s fairly easy. And there’s an Assassin’s Creed level of loot chests.
And yet, for the most part, it’s pretty fun.
It’s like Elden Ring had a baby with Dragon Age.
You can run around fighting mythical beasts in your underpants. Your companions high-five you after a successful battle. And sometimes, you inexplicably find a big poo.
But a disappointingly capped vocation system combined with repetitive combat prevents this game from ever becoming challenging. Its bizarre ending lets down what otherwise is a solid RPG.
What is Dragon’s Dogma 2 about? No really, please tell me
With over 40 hours in Dragon’s Dogma 2, I’ve completed the main quest alongside the secret ending. And yet, I’m still not completely sure what the plot of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is. You’re the former ruler of Vermund, throne taken by ambitious usurpers. You’re also the Arisen, a mysterious chosen one picked by a dragon to have special powers. This gives you the ability to command pawns, although it’s never clearly explained what the pawns are, or where they come from. Nor are the dragons, really.
Despite relying on fantasy tropes – including the generic mysterious middle eastern kingdom of Battahl – the game was at its best when I thought it was a tale of good vs evil. I was here for a classic fantasy story, playing a hero taking back my throne as the rightful ruler. Cliche, yes, but enjoyable. While this review is spoiler free, the ending unravels a lot of good things the game had built up in the first 3/4 of play, taking the story in an unexpected direction. Instead of feeling satisfied I’d saved the kingdom, I was left wondering what I’d just experienced.
The main questline is surprisingly quick. The ending sneaks up on you so fast, you don’t even know you’re there, until you’re wondering why the credits are rolling just when the game got going. This side-swipe of an ending points to a major narrative issue in Dragon’s Dogma 2. The whole storyline feels flat in structure. The game doesn’t build up to epic moments or major boss battles to mark key points, apart from one odd fight towards the end.
This flatness perpetuates the game. NPCs seem rather nonplussed whatever you do, unless you’re wandering around town with your weapons drawn. You spend most of it as the Arisen, hiding out from usurpers, helping the lowly citizens of your kingdom. At the same time, nobody cares that you’re walking around downtown Vermund with your pawns, and most people recognise you as the Arisen.
Part of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s humour relies on this silliness; your key agitator is a bloke who spends more time in the pub than actually doing his guard duties. The next in line to the throne through his mother’s machinations is so helpful it hurts, rather than performing a Game of Thrones style takeover of the kingdom. And the main villain comes straight out of Villain School, complete with nefarious facial hair and long purple sleeves.
So much of this game and its story is missable. The effort put into signposting quests is wildly inconsistent; in one case, four NPCs told me about the same quest along the road to Bakbattahl. In others, I found I’d missed meeting key characters just for not going far enough into a building. If I was going to play it again, I’d have spent a lot more time exploring the world.
A lot of the information needed to play the game isn’t presented within the game. Much of my knowledge of what to do next came from helpful people in my stream chat. Many times I was lost finding quest markers. Don’t even mention the hours I spent running around trying to figure out where to plant a seed, only to realise that I’d simply missed a narrow window of pixels.
Which is such a shame, because part of me really likes this game. Everyone’s so earnest and endearing; the supportive words from my pawn companion Leonidas became a beloved part of my journey.
Gameplay lacks synergy
Apart from the story, the gameplay leaves something to be desired. It’s too easy; part of this has to do with the lack of synergy between team skills and vocations, partly that the attacks develop little further than the base level skills, and that there aren’t a huge amount of combinations to be performed in the game. It’s as if you’re fighting enemies with a bunch of individuals, rather than working with your pawns to build an attack. You’ll find yourself spamming the same repetitive attacks, which can get boring.
On the surface level, the system of vocations opens up some interesting classes beyond your traditional thief, magic caster, and fighter. But a lot of the gameplay issues stem from this system, which caps growth in a class to ten proficiency levels. Once you reach level ten in a vocation, it’s time to start again in another. The only benefits you transfer from classes are augments, which boost various stats and attributes. The Warfarer class goes some way to building on the skills you’ve learned across the classes, but you only get this fairly late in the game, making the vocation more beneficial in a new game plus run.
Granted, there are parts of combat which are hysterically funny, like kicking enemies, throwing them around, or grabbing onto them at an unflattering angle and flashing everyone your knickers. And it’s brilliant when one battle bleeds into another. Simultaneously fighting a griffin, an ogre, and a giant wolf in a canyon was one of the best combat experiences I had. But often, you’ll do the same old same old attacks while trying to whittle down the never-ending health bar of larger creatures. Even the end game drakes, dragons, and serpents don’t progress to a second or third stage. Dragon’s Dogma 2 needs very little combat strategy, which might frustrate those of use who prefer strategic RPGs.
Here comes the fantasy bus network (read: oxcart system)
You’ll end up in quite a few of these combat encounters, because you have to walk almost everywhere in Dragon’s Dogma 2. I’ve complained previously that fast travel makes hardcore games too easy, but here it’s taken to the other extreme. There are only a couple of fast travel points in the enormous map. It’s up to you to place portcrystals at convenient locations, all the while, not knowing what a convenient location is because of the lack of in-game explanations.
The only other way to get around the world is by the oxcart system. Read: fantasy bus network. It’s somewhat fraught; it’s not always in operation, and when it is, you’ll be waylaid on the road as you’re dozing off by various enemies. If the beast that’s pulling the cart gets killed, you’re walking to the next town. It’s both funny and frustrating. These combat encounters get a bit same-samey, with goblins, wolves, and ogres common on the fantasy road.
There’s plenty to explore along the way in this often beautiful world, including a plethora of caves. But there’s not a huge motivation to explore these outside of side quests. Attaching some level of lore or story to each area would have given more meaning to the larger world.
Should you play Dragon’s Dogma 2?
Should you play Dragon’s Dogma 2? Yeees? With the caveat, buy it on sale when you’ve exhausted your back-catalogue of better RPGs. Or if you’re sick of getting potatoed by the Elden Ring DLC and need some wins on the board. It’s a frustrating game: at its best, it’s endearing and often hilarious. At its worst, the simplistic combat system, builds, and wacky ending undermine the good to be found here.
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