please-don’t-change-anything-for-dragon’s-dogma-2

It’s official! Dragon’s Dogma 2 is on the best way. Here’s what we’re hoping to see within the sequel.

Sequels are supposed to be progressive, allegedly, justifying their existence with huge new options that’ll make you overlook all about its predecessor. Maybe it’ll blow minds with creepy, practical tooth. Or be 10 occasions the dimensions of the unique. There’s at all times a boast, even when numerous sequels have didn’t dwell as much as the expectations they spawn. But for Dragon’s Dogma 2, I do not need any huge modifications. 

OK, possibly it may stand to look a bit prettier. Obviously a visible improve is inevitable, however I’m extra involved with the artwork. Dragon’s Dogma just isn’t an unpleasant game, however it may be a bit on the tasteless facet, which does not do its already pretty generic fantasy world any favours, even whereas the programs that exist inside it are something however. Aside from that, although, I actually simply need extra of the identical. 

(Image credit score: Capcom)

Capcom actually did simply knock it out of the park on the primary go. Some video games depart a mark on the medium simply with a single neat function, like Shadow of Mordor’s nemesis system, however Dragon’s Dogma has these items in spades. 

Capcom actually did simply knock it out of the park on the primary go.

First off, there’s the climbing. Link, Eivor and Nathan Drake can all piss off, as a result of Dragon’s Dogma is the champion of desperately clambering up surfaces you should not be capable of climb—particularly, the various monsters patrolling the world. With this in thoughts it is no surprise it is so typically in comparison with Shadow of the Colossus, however the comparability is just a little superficial. 

Shadow of the Colossus’ encounters are puzzles. Sure, you’ve got acquired a bow and a sword, however they’re as a lot problem-solving instruments as they’re weapons. Each colossus you climb is an enormous, essential occasion, a boss battle, where there is a right strategy to do issues. Your purpose is to determine what that’s.

In Dragon’s Dogma, it is simply one other day on the workplace.

Your job is stabbing monsters all day. And it is messy, bloody work, where fights descend into chaos as spells pop off, monsters burn and pawns get squished. Strategies like chopping off a chimera’s heads or burning a griffon’s wings to maintain it grounded are puzzle-adjacent, however typically there is a looser, much less prescriptive really feel to the fights. 

Uplifting

Those grabby little palms additionally come in useful elsewhere, letting you choose up folks and smaller monsters and toss them round. It’s an ideal source of comedy, working round whilst you hold onto a not-very-pleased goblin. Pinning enemies, in the meantime, can be very helpful, giving your buddies a possibility to deck them whereas they’re down. It’s a stage of physicality that you just simply do not see fairly often in open-world RPGs, and it makes Dragon’s Dogma a lot extra playful and foolish.

Pawns are simply as essential an ingredient. These customisable NPC companions are goofy, chatty, typically janky and I really like every one in every of them—even those I have never had the pleasure of assembly. In my newest playthrough (on my Switch this time, although I’ve the PS4 and PC variations too) I’ve made my hero seem like D&D movie star Drizzt Do’Urden (however even sexier, someway), so I needed to create a pawn to match, and the strong character creator was very happy to oblige. So I traipse round with my wee dwarf pal, Bruenor Battlehammer, in tow.

(Image credit score: Capcom)

I really like creating my very own sidekicks, however I admire the flexibility to borrow others simply as a lot. Borrowing pawns from different gamers is simply such a neat thought—if not totally distinctive to DD—and offers you a close to infinite pool to attract from. What weirdo will you meet subsequent? It’s all very thrilling. And it is good to know that, even when I’m not enjoying, my pawn may very well be serving to another person. In my very own little method, I’m contributing to the success of a stranger’s playthrough. I like being useful, particularly when it includes no effort on my half. And I get a wee reward, in addition, with my pawn bringing stuff again with them to my world. How diligent!

In my very own little method, I’m contributing to the success of a stranger’s playthrough.

Pawns have their very own proclivities—inclinations that decide how they act on the battlefield—which in tandem with their vocations make them surprisingly energetic and dynamic. Adding some pawns belonging to different gamers, then, can actually shake up your group. Some pawns are desperate to climb, others will at all times cost on the strongest enemy and a few courageous souls will forgo therapeutic for so long as potential. This additionally informs their transient snippets of dialogue, which in flip reinforces what they’re all about.

“What about the boring side quests, Fraser?” I hear you cry. And yeah, there have been some stinkers. But smaller quests, a little bit of busywork right here and there, make all of the epic adventures really feel only a bit extra significant. Cutting a little bit of the padding could be welcome, thoughts, with out altering issues radically. Less backtracking or a strategy to get round sooner, no less than, with out counting on teleportation would not go amiss, both. Maybe a horse? If you may climb a dragon, you may undoubtedly trip a horse. Maybe the horse may very well be a pawn. Actually, it 100% needs to be a pawn.

It’s good for me, however I will not argue Dragon’s Dogma is an ideal game. What it does not want, nevertheless, are a bunch of latest options or a gargantuan map that makes the previous one seem like just a little playground. The scope and scale of the unique is excellent, and in an age where open worlds simply do not know when to say “enough is enough”, one thing a bit extra restrained, or no less than one thing that is aware of what it’s and sticks with it, is an actual deal with.

Broadly, I simply need extra Dragon’s Dogma. When I’m hanging on for expensive life as a burning griffon cuts via the air and my pawn beneath me yells “I’ll support you!” I could not be happier. It was so novel, formidable and bizarre a decade in the past that it exists out of time—a singular RPG that many might evoke, from Monster Hunter World to Elden Ring, however that nothing ever fairly matches.