PLATFORM: PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: MARCH 22ND
The sequel to 2012’s Dragon’s Dogma invites players to step into the shoes of the Arisen once again, chosen by a dragon to protect the land while also having to master your own abilities to reclaim your heart from the very same being that put you in this position in the first place. After being sworn in as the Sovrun of Vermund at the start of the game, you suddenly find yourself in jail for reasons unknown. Put to work with the rest of the slaves, you make your escape during a series of calamitous events, after which the reasons for your predicament become clear and your journey to reclaim your throne – and more – begins.
After customising the look of your character, you’re asked to choose one of four “vocations” which act as the game’s character classes. The fighter, archer, mage and thief are all fairly standard fare in the realms of RPGs – each has their own unique attacks and abilities that they can learn, with new skills becoming available to unlock as your vocation rank increases. There are no skill trees to get lost in – beefing up your abilities is a simple case of heading to a guild and choosing from a list of skills and augments (stat boosts). As you progress through the game, six more vocations become available – again all with their own related skills, these vocations are much more varied and interesting than the starting four, expanding the potential combinations of attacks that can be used by your main character and the party of misfits that follows you around. If you try out a vocation and decide it isn’t working for you, it’s easy to swap vocations at a guild and try out something different, however each vocation levels up independently from the others though, so swapping to a brand new class after levelling up another can sometimes feel like you’re taking a huge step backwards…
As in the original Dragon’s Dogma, keeping you company on your journey is a follower known as a Pawn, who – in an excellent way of getting you to immediately care about them – you get to create yourself. Your pawn will help you in battle, fighting monsters and throwing healing items your way, as well as learning new abilities that again you’re able to customise on their behalf. Additional pawns can join too, summoned via a riftstone from a pool of player / developer-created characters, allowing you to create a party of warriors with vocations that suit your needs. Summoned pawns don’t level up, however, so you’re likely to find yourself swapping them for stronger ones as you level up and take on bigger challenges.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an almost unapologetically old-school game that doesn’t concern itself with modern RPG trappings and instead opts for a noticeable lack of handholding and guidance. Fans of the first instalment won’t have too much trouble figuring out what the game expects you to do, but DDII feels so different to most other modern titles that newcomers might have a bit of an uphill battle to get to grips with things. Dropped into the world and left to fend for yourself, you’re rarely signposted towards anything – sometimes there won’t even be an objective marker on your map, forcing you to wander around and explore to progress through quests and uncover the game’s secrets. For example, during a quest to find a boy who has been kidnapped by wolves, the only clues to his whereabouts comes from finding and speaking to a couple of NPCs who give you a couple of hints that you then have to put together in your own mind in order to decipher where he might have gone. Fantastic for those who like to fully immerse themselves in an unknown land, but others might struggle to figure out what they’re supposed to be doing.
The game’s “loss gauge” reduces your maximum health as you take damage in battle, only allowing you to replenish the overall meter by sleeping, thereby insisting that you carry a fairly heavy camping kit at all times (taking up a sizeable chunk of your weight limit) or spend time travelling backwards and forwards to the various inns found in settlements across the map – it’s possible to use an item to fast travel, but these are in fairly short supply, and other than an ox cart that takes you to a limited number of destinations, there’s no other transport available so you’ll be spending a lot of time retracing your steps just to stay alive. Combat can also take some getting used to, as there’s no lock-on button so your attacks don’t always hit their intended target, which can feel very strange until you get accustomed to how things work.
The previous two paragraphs aren’t intended to sound negative – this is just how the game works. There aren’t too many games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 out there, and while the gameplay itself isn’t especially tricky, the game does seem to cater towards a more hardcore RPG fanbase. If you’re up for a huge high fantasy romp filled with goblins, monsters, mysteries and secrets, where even the shortest of journeys can turn into a lengthy adventure, this will suit you down to the ground.
