Dragon’s Dogma’s creative breakthrough—as a series, since much of what the sequel does was introduced in the 2012 original—is that it conceives of the RPG adventure not as a string of combat encounters or dialogue decisions, but as often arduous traveling through dangerous, unpredictable lands—with all the planning, consequences, and improvisation that entails. This angle is so daring and unusual that Dragon’s Dogma 2, which once again sees you set out as the chosen Arisen on a quest to slay the mighty Dragon (or at least it seems that simple at first), somehow feels unlike anything else that’s been released since the first game.
The loop of the game is in many ways similar to that of other action RPGs. Quests send you out into the wilderness to complete tasks and fight monsters before having you return to town to buy equipment and learn skills. This is a familiar rhythm, but Dragon’s Dogma 2 stretches and contorts it. Simple deliveries and fetch quests require heavy planning before you ever set out. There are camping packs and lantern oil to purchase, as well as decisions to make about your vocation (the game’s version of classes) or those of the three NPC pawns who comprise your adventuring party. It’s also important to consider which of the many possible routes is best to travel, and whether it’s worth shelling out some extra gold to take an oxcart instead (assuming there’s one traveling where you want to go and it isn’t too late in the day to catch one).
Once you finally venture outside the safety of a town’s walls, the world throws enough curveballs your way that you rarely arrive at your destination unscathed. Sometimes you may be tempted by the promise of a treasure chest or the mystery of a cave. But even if you stay diligently on the straight and narrow, massive creatures—maybe a gryphon swooping down from the sky or a cyclops smashing in through foliage—can interrupt you at seemingly any moment.
These have the potential to get you off schedule with lengthy battles that can wear on past sunset into the treacherous dark of night. Even if you flee, you’ll often be forced off your planned route, toward narrower or more circuitous paths. Added up, these diversions, combined with broken bridges, blocked paths, and the occasional yet inevitable mental slip-ups of you or your pawns, turn simple treks into vignettes brimful with emergent excitement and comedy.
The actual combat that punctuates your winding journeys just ups the unpredictability further. Where Dark Souls and its descendants are all sharpness and patience, and Monster Hunter is all depth and studious fluency, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is barely contained chaos and frantic reaction. Enemies are mean and crafty, often using your surroundings against you. Harpies swarm you atop towers just to pick you up and toss you uncaringly and repeatedly over the edge. Goblins ambush your pawns near the deep rivers that can kill them instantly. Trolls carry healers off just at the moment when you need them. Your spells are huge and your weapon attacks come out quickly and accurately, but since your enemies don’t fight fair, you don’t mind scrapping with every advantage the game’s powerful and wildly varied vocations provide.
Through all the chaos, there’s a disarming playfulness to the game that comes across most clearly in its pawns. These NPC party members, one of which you create and two of which are created (usually with names like Stinkfoot or Buttface) by other players, are an ever-present part of your adventure whose mechanical impact goes far beyond that of most follower characters.
Sometimes in Dragon’s Dogma 2, these members report back from other players’ worlds with the sincerity of a child reporting home from preschool, telling you where they went, what they learned, and whether or not they liked their temporary master. They all carry their weight in combat, sure, but they also lead you to objectives or secrets they may have found while working with other players. And all the while they banter, grumble, and vie for your approval in such a delightfully over-the-top way that it almost doesn’t matter how often they repeat themselves.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is such a profoundly strange and inventive game at so many turns that its occasional stumbles are largely forgivable. For one, there are a few too many side quests that leave you stuck in town, some of which lean on woefully underbaked stealth sequences. The technical performance is also far from perfect, with unsteady framerates and clear graphical errors popping up frequently. In total, though, these come across as the drawbacks of a game whose reach exceeds its grasp, which is better by far than a game with no reach at all.
This game was reviewed with a physical copy purchased by the reviewer.
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