For a couple of days now I've been living two lives. One of them is between laborers, caves and wagon trips. I've been testing Dragon's Dogma 2; Capcom's latest work that returns to the franchise more than ten years later.
Dragon's Dogma 2 It is available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
The protagonist of your story
It's common in RPGs where you create your own character and rush into an open world for the story to be more of a path with directions than anything else. In Dragon's Dogma 2 There is a unique feeling of freedom. This concept is going to be represented in all aspects of the game and is perhaps what I am going to repeat the most in this analysis.
It is not necessary to have played the first part to understand what we have to do. Many even believe that this second game is simply a remake or the definitive game in the saga.
After creating our character with an elaborate editor (which you can even try for free if you don't have the game purchased) we are launched into the adventure. We are the “Arisen”, the one chosen to rule the kingdom and defeat an evil dragon. Of course, at the beginning we appear in a slave mine without memory and discover that our position has been usurped. Between plots and betrayals we are going to meet allies and enemies. And although it may seem obvious, the only way we can move the story forward is to venture into the unknown.
Both the main and secondary missions are the basis of the game's story. But I have to warn you that it is not simply being a “che pibe” or delivery guy where we go from one place to another. Everything has a rhythm, a logic. And that realism is where many players are going to be scared.
Harder than reality
Dragon's Dogma 2 It is an RPG that relies heavily on exploration and action. It's not a classic role-playing game where you're going to have to worry about what stats to raise or what skills work better than others. Yes, there are elements of ingenuity against one enemy or another; but the truth is that the meetings are much more direct than strategic.
At the beginning of the game we choose one class from those available but as we progress we will be able to play with all of them and even unlock new ones. I thought this was great, without forcing us to start from scratch with a new character, but rather having the opportunity that if you chose to be a magician and regretted your vocation after 20 hours of playing, you could go and become a warrior. Of course, the time you dedicate to each class improves your level of experience with each one. This unlocks new skills that we can buy and acquire. And there are also missions that are unlocked with a certain class.
The items, weapons and armor function to a greater or lesser extent like other RPGs. There is a lot to collect and also to combine into potions of health, stamina or other effects. Weapons and armor obviously depend on each class and can be improved with some vendors or blacksmiths in cities. We can buy them or find them in enemies or guarded chests. There are many chests although most have coins or items to create objects.
Do you feel alone? There may not be multiplayer or invasions from other users in your game but in Dragon's Dogma 2 The last thing you will feel is that you are abandoned in this fantasy world. The pawns are here to serve you.
The pawn system consists of having a party or group under your charge. But its scope is much more elaborate and ingenious. We can create one near the beginning of the game to demonstrate our skills as “arisen”. We give it the look and class we want. We will have up to 3 pawns in total. The other 2 being created by the system or by other users.
The thing is that in certain areas of the game we are going to open a portal where we can access other users' pawns, with their stats and classes. We can summon them to our side and take advantage of their experience. Since the pawns are smarter than we say. Many carry our luggage, create potions, sell items. They act as support or go straight to the action. It all depends on the attitude they have towards combat or exploration. They come with knowledge of the “other side” which is the games they have played with other real players. So they know if we pass through an area and there is a secret cave. Also, depending on the class, they will be able to access areas that we cannot and be able to bring us an object that is out of our reach.
A curiosity of these weeks was the “appearance” of a disease that affects the laborers. They have red eyes and usually ignore you. If you have one of these on your team, the days go by and you will wake up looking at how a large part of a city's population disappeared. You will have to use a resurrection stone to fix this problem and give life to the NPCs (many valuable to the story). These details without any type of warning are just a sample of everything that can happen to you in a game of Dragon's Dogma 2.
Our journeys are long, mainly because there is no “fast travel” or mounts. In the words of the game director Hideaki Itsuno himself, they wanted the road experience to be fun and for players to not have the need to carry a horse; as if the latter were only to speed up getting from point A to point B. And I fully agree with this.
The moments where you enjoy the most Dragon's Dogma 2 That's when I left the road. Of course I died in 200 different ways. Luckily we can respawn at the last save point or in a room.
The map is of little help in the game. Marking an area or going on a mission depends more on our cunning or memory. The world is based a lot on the verticality of its scenarios like the last ones Zelda either Elden Ring. So if we go straight to a point You have to go around or explore a cave to see if it has an exit in another area.
Within this wide world we are going to find lots of situations. Some typical like people asking for help from an attack and others incredible like monsters fighting each other. And we make the decision whether to participate or let them be.
The realism is such that both enemies and pawns react well or badly depending on the moment. Some things can be super smart like enemies hiding or clinging to cliffs and others super stupid like giant trolls falling into the void or pawns mindlessly falling into water to their deaths.
There are two great enemies that make us suffer and they do not necessarily have wings or a club. On the one hand, it is the stamina bar that is consumed by running or with special abilities. More than once we will be staggering from exhaustion. Luckily the laborers try to help us in those critical moments.
On the other hand; The weight of the objects will take us a couple of minutes to distribute between us, our pawns and the trunk to store them. But the heaviest thing is the camping supplies. And they are super necessary… believe me. Luckily there are some golden beetles that we can consume to increase our weight capacity.
When exploring, we must also take into account the change in climate and the time of day since they greatly affect how we are going to undertake a trip to an area. If we do not rest enough, our character and pawns lose life. At night we have to use flashlights and the oil from them is consumed. There are more enemies and visibility can be zero.
You can also find lots of NPCs in open places or cities. There is no way to know if these are going to give us a secondary mission; The only thing left is to talk to each one. Do not be shy.
For the anxious there are non-invasive ways to speed up the pace.
On the roads we can find a cart to get to a place (although they are always attacked). On the other hand, we have crystals to use for teleportation or stones that we can place but they are very rare.
Returning to the topic of combat, each character class is a world apart, but the idea of getting on the big enemies coincides with almost all of them. A unique sensation. Especially when we attack them in the legs or the back of the neck. There are even enemies that lose their heads or tails depending on where we attack.
Real time adventure
I think I mentioned the words real, reality and realism in this note more than ten times. But there is nothing that better describes Dragon's Dogma 2 that how this characteristic is built in its settings and characters.
The RE Engine (which we had already seen in great detail with the remake of Resident Evil 4 and other titles) here he does impressive work in the changes of seasons and in cities. It doesn't make an effort to create beautiful environments or hyper-realistic textures (except when you cook a steak for some reason) but there is so much work on the structures and everything that happens around you that you forgive it if some building looks the same as another. Or that there are areas of forests that repeat themselves over and over again (like life itself).
Many of the dialogues with other characters happen in real time and on more than one occasion it happened to me that other things happen behind the scenes. I always like when this happens and it doesn't jump to cutscenes; breaking the magic of continuity a little.
The music in Dragon's Dogma 2 is another debatable point. The adventure has totally epic themes at times but at other times it fades and disappears, making all the sounds of the stage heard. In my opinion it is a more than correct intermediate point. I couldn't stand spending hours exploring with the same repetitive music; but at the same time I love that it activates during moments of battle. It also serves as an alert to tell you that an enemy is nearby.
The adventure has just begun
The version I tried to do this review was on PC. It is already known that it was the one that had the most performance problems. In my games I had some frame drops, especially in towns or areas where there were more NPCs. But the rest of the scenarios such as caves, forests or open areas went without problems.
What I did suffer was a bug that stuck my character on a rock, I didn't want to start the area again so I insisted several times jumping and doing pirouettes with my skills until I was able to get out. But if this didn't happen I would have been quite angry.
Luckily there is an upcoming patch that aims to solve all of these situations. But I mention again in my case, the game worked without serious problems.
THE BEST
- Explore a world in constant change.
- The relationship you establish with your pawns.
- The combats and the variety of classes and skills
WORST
- The stamina bar can drain very quickly if you don't get used to its rhythm.
- It's not necessarily bad, but the lack of indicators in certain missions can drive more than one person crazy.
- On launch day, items began to be sold (for real money) to speed up the game experience, such as teleportation stones, crystals, and more. Similar to microtransactions.