Note: I played this game on PC – the Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen version. I have no idea how much of what I’m gushing about is part of the expansion and how much was in the original base game
I didn’t include this on my list of the bestest videogames everer made because, although I deeply, deeply, love this game it’s not without its quirks, flaws, and limitations. But, by George, it’s a marvellous game in spite of all that stuff. Much like how I raved about Prey and the way in which the story wraps everything about the presentation of the game up in a nice bow, Dragon’s Dogma has a premise which (when fully revealed) also justifies everything about the game including why a New Game+ actually makes sense. It’s a neat idea – evidently I’m a bit of a sucker for justifying game design tropes using game world logic.
Dragon’s Dogma does so many things right it’s a little frustrating that it didn’t immediately spawn a bigger grander sequel (glares at Dragon’s Dogma Online) – I love how the game is designed to be played and replayed over and over with the same character – rather than start a new game as a new class, instead you’re free to switch at any time. It’s wonderfully liberating and even if you settle on a preferred class early on (for me, it was Ranger), the fact that certain skills you unlock for one class may be used by another means that my time spent as a warrior was ultimately augmenting my ranger. I love that the game doesn’t hold your hand at all, that it just says, “right, off you pop then” and advises you very early on that there’s nothing to be ashamed about in running away. I love that the landscape is designed to be naturalistic rather than fantastical, that the capital city (although a gamey microcosm of a real city) actually has the stables and crops inside the city walls (glares at Skyrim). This is a castle city which could actually stand a chance of withstanding a siege. I love that there’s a canyon with strong winds which push you backwards depending on how heavy you are – I just wish it were a little longer. I love how nightime is genuinely dark and the lantern, though useful, illuminates such a paltry distance that it actually ends up making the nights creepier. The day length is pretty much perfectly set to guarantee multiple situations where you find yourself far from an inn as dusk falls without feeling stupidly short.
I adore the pawn system and casually wonder why no-one has utterly ripped this idea off yet. It’s a wonderful online element in an almost exclusively single-player game. Having a public face, via your pawn character, means you’re thinking not just about augmenting your own character but other people’s too. You want your pawn to be hired, so you end up giving it all your best gear – and since only armour your main character is wearing can be dragon-forged (a chance of upgrading when you defeat a dragon), there’s an incentive to switch classes so that you can dragon-forge the armour you intend to give to your pawn. It’s a testament to the game too, that even years later when I boot the game up for a bit, my pawn is still regularly hired.
Combat is immensely satisfying – the Ranger’s longbow has a real feeling of power, fast melee classes like Striders and Assassins are a joy, and even the slow two-handed weapon class (weapons I almost never use in games like this) is fun given the sheer power of the moves. But it’s grappling the larger enemies where the game really shines.
But I do have my issues with it. It would’ve been nice to have multiple character saves so that I didn’t need to overwrite my existing character to later play the game from level 1 again. It would’ve been nice if, in New Game+, there was a mechanism to remove class restrictions from clothing and armour – perhaps via the Forgery shop. It would’ve been nice if the game world was about 30% larger – there’s a moment in the main quest where the Duke tells you to prepare, you’re going to be away from the city for some time – heavily implying that you’ve got a new map region to look forward to. But it never comes to pass – something more urgent comes up. When I first experienced that, I was incredibly disappointed – it’s such a cruel thing to do to the player. I can only assume that perhaps at one point in development the game world was planned to be much larger but time and budget restrictions forced cuts. This moment of the story could be a relic of that original, grander, design. After all, the world map scrolls when it doesn’t need to at all – and feels like this map is but a subsection of the original planned map which would have needed to scroll[1].
No matter how much I try to like Skyrim, ultimately it bores me – it’s basically generic fantasy story the videogame. The world is nice, there’s a lot to do, but eventually it all just starts feeling lifeless and stale. In Dragon’s Dogma workers carrying tools and equipment litter the roads and oftentimes you’ll find a burning cart with fruit and vegetables strewn about the place while a horde of goblins dance around it. There’s life to it, even if it’s scripted. There’s a shortcut through a quarry you can open up if you clear it of monsters, and then it can be further excavated to open up new mining points as well as extra lootable chests. Other player’s pawns wander the landscape any of which you can hire – I just love it so much I’ve played through the whole game six times already and recently deleted my save so I could start over from the beginning again. The story is interesting – actually interesting. It’s not as well told or directed as The Witcher 3’s but it is unique, surprising and dramatic, particularly once you’ve completed what you thought was the game before you find out, nope – not only is there more to do, but the real point of the story, though alluded to earlier, is yet to be revealed. It’s a wonderful ending and makes you want to immediately repeat it all over again. The game’s got legs.
I’m still yet to play through on Speedrun and Hard Mode. That’ll tide me over until Capcom announce that actually they’ve been working on Dragon’s Dogma 2 for years… /sighs hopefully.
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen – worth every penny of £23.99
[1] One advantage, however, of the not-terribly-immense map is that even though the Dark Arisen edition comes with an Everlasting Ferrystone (ferrystones are the game’s method of fast-travel. These normally use-once-then-it’s-gone stones permit you to travel to any port crystal placed in the map – there are a limited number of these), you don’t feel inclined to use it (I’d go so far as to say that you slightly ruin the game if you do). The world is small enough that you may as well just run everywhere, collecting materials from monster drops and pickups along the way. Not only is this much more fun – resulting in many “help! it’s almost night-time!” scenarios, but you’re going to need the materials.