Dragon's Dogma 2: All They Did Was Add A "2" and It's Peak

I never got around to playing the original Dragons Dogma in 2012. I don't remember many people talking about it, nor did it make many year-end lists. Capcom’s been on my radar as a reputable and quality developer — I've played many of their games over the years — but Dragons Dogma slipped by me. I did technically play the game 4 different times over the 12-year gap, but only once did I buckle down and play it to completion. The game became one of my favorites: I enjoyed the combat, the pawn system was unique, and wandering the world to pick fights against massive monsters in grueling struggles felt awesome. The story is surely its weakest aspect: I only remember how the game ended, and nothing of the first 2 acts sticks out in my mind.

I feel more or less the same way with Dragon’s Dogma 2. I’ve been torn on whether or not I view this as a good, bad, or disappointing thing. I will say, that in a perfect world, Dragon’s Dogma 2 would have been released maybe 2 or 3 years after the original. Apparently, director Hideaki Itsuno had campaigned with Capcom for years and years to get the green light to develop a sequel to his original. Itsuno views Dragon’s Dogma 2 as his “true realized vision” of the original game. I can’t help but be just a little disappointed by this. Dogma 2 is not about finally making a sequel after so many dormant years, no: Dogma 2 is about delivering the “real” version of Dragon’s Dogma.

So it’s a remake, then. Dragon’s Dogma 2 walks a mile in its predecessor’s shoes but doesn’t dare to take another step. Anything the first game can do, part 2 does…well, it just does. It doesn’t try to be better, it doesn’t give or take. I can’t help but imagine if I had not had the thoughts of the original title within my mind as I played through 2, I would have walked away as blown away as I was with the first game.

The story kicks off when the player character, a prisoner, is attacked by The Dragon during routine prison duty. As with the first game, the player gets their ass kicked but ends up having their heart stolen by the Dragon and thus, they become the Arisen. After escaping your prison’s shackles, you make your way through the land of Vermund to reach the capital, where the main driving force of the story is made clear: a false Arisen has taken the throne as “Sovran” of Vermund. The Arisen meets with Brant, the captain of the Royal Guard, where you conspire to put together a plan to unseat the false Sovran and prove your worth to the kingdom.

Without getting into spoilers, that's about as much I can explain. Not because explaining further will spoil anything major, but because I genuinely couldn’t tell you anything else that happens in this game story-wise. Much like the first game, I only can recall what unfolds in the game’s final hours (which I will admit, are just as awesome as they were in the first game). I’ll speak more about it later.

When you make your character, you choose one of 4 initial classes (vocations) all returning from the first game. Later in the game, you unlock more vocations to play with. I picked the Fighter and moved on to Warrior when I unlocked it later on and stuck with it through the entire game. Each vocation levels up individually and that only serves as a way to unlock active skills and passive perks that go along with the vocation itself. You can switch to any other vocation at any time. The only thing holding back your effectiveness will be the strength of your equipment, as your overall character level only affects health and your base damage. There are no stats to allocate. Equipment is class-specific, and because of this, I found it tough to swap to other classes until way deep into end-game content. You’d have to spend a great deal of currency to get your equipment up to speed with your combat level. It’s one of the many little quirks that I found a little frustrating throughout.

The Pawn system returns from the first game and remains relatively unchanged. At the beginning of the game, you’ll create your Main Pawn who will accompany you throughout the game and level up with you. You select its vocation and equipment, manage its inventory, and dictate its personality. My Pawn was a Mage, and dedicated itself to a support role in my party, with heal spells and buffs. You’re also allowed to bring along 2 other pawns in your party, both of which will be hired from other players in the game’s online Rift features. When a player makes a Pawn, it’s put on the server for other players to scout out and hire. So whatever you do with your Pawn will be made visible to other players around the same player level and they will be able to hire them for their adventures. The hired Pawns do not level up, so you’ll be swapping between them as the game progresses. A unique feature about Pawns is they learn from the Arisen as well as other Pawns.

They’ll learn about monsters’ weaknesses, learn where collectibles and treasures are, they’ll learn where to go on quests, and sometimes they even gossip about other Pawns. Whatever they learn they take back with them to whomever hires them and will present it to the player and the Pawns.

The combat is where the game truly shines. Most of the battles in the game do feel like headlock struggles with every member of the party taking on a fight of their own. In group fights, everyone takes on their role. Fighters stick to the front while Magick users stick to the back line and provide support. It feels as if a Final Fantasy battle was running in real time. Physics play a big part in the combat as well, if an attack is powerful enough, you’ll literally knock an enemy off their feet and send them flying. If you’re positioned properly, you’ll knock enemies into each other and stagger them as well. For warrior classes, you can hit knocked-down enemies with a heavy attack for a hard finisher, so I use this to my advantage quite a lot.

The fights against the massive monsters are the very best the game has on offer. I found myself seeking out fights with Cyclops and Ogres midway through the game because it was so fun and satisfying to completely dominate those monsters that gave me trouble in the early game. Knocking a cyclops off its balance and knocking it over, watching it bang its head into a wall and fall on its back, allowing you to get a fully charged heavy slam on its head, it’s a fun sequence that feels incredible to pull off. Grabbing onto big monsters and climbing to their weak point feels just as exhausting as it would in real life, but very worth it. Some flying boss enemies can be grabbed onto as they fly away, and if you manage to land a big attack while flying, there’s a good chance the monster will stagger and fall flat on its face to the ground, stunned and left open for massive damage.

While the fun gets going during combat, Dragon’s Dogma seems like it takes steps to make sure the fun doesn’t last for too long. One of the things I really hate about this game is how so self-indulgent it is in its NON-quality-of-life mechanics. I’ve already mentioned how equipment is class-locked, so switching vocations is not cheap or easy. Fast travel is restricted to using a one-time-use stone you must farm for, and can only go to certain points marked on the map. Oxcarts in cities will take you to certain locations, but can easily be raided and attacked by enemies mid-trip, and even be destroyed forcing you to walk the rest of the way. During nighttime much more fierce enemies gang up on you, and can easily wipe your whole squad. Taking any damage at all will reduce your max health which can only be recovered by resting. Camping at a site counts as resting, but that can also be raided in the middle of the night by tough enemies who will take your camping kit, forcing you to brave the nighttime in real-time instead. There are lots of quests in the game that either require you to visit at a certain time, or wait a few days to complete them, but never tell you either of those aspects. What time? How many days? …And where specifically do I go? I don’t know, it’s like a guessing game.

Speaking of guessing: getting into spoiler territory, I’ll talk about the endgame of Dragon’s Dogma 2. The game ends like the first: you eventually face The Dragon and kill him. The result is you take over as the Sovran of Vermund and unseat the false Arisen. You walk to the throne and take your seat. The credits roll and the game fades to black. You return to the main menu. Of course, that’s not the ending. You are allowed to start a new game from there, but in reality, you are expected to reload the fight against the Dragon and do something specific: you must sacrifice yourself on the Dragon’s heart to break the cycle of the Arisen and enter the Unmoored World. The title screen rolls again and the “II” finally burns into the logo (the title screen only said Dragon’s Dogma before, No 2).

This is the secret true ending of the game, and accounts for maybe almost a 4th of the game's content. The environment changes, and more enemies are scattered about, and even more minibosses (including powerfuls like dragons and chimeras) populate the land. This is because the world is ending, due to the cycle breaking. There are trials scattered around the map, marked by the red pillars, that the player must overcome to save the world from apocalypse. What the game doesn’t tell you is that there is a time limit, counting in-game days before the fog sets in and overtakes the world. It also doesn’t tell you, that if you die at ANY point in this post-game world, you will be sent back, and must complete all the quests in this world all over again. That was annoying to find out the first time.

I failed to get the “True” True ending. I didn’t know about the time limit and had part of the map destroyed by the time I finished the trials. At the final beam of light after all is said and done, the Arisen takes flight with the Pawn to take on The Dragon again, putting an end to all things as the credits roll as you slowly climb its back during flight. This is such a cool finale to the game and put a nice bow on things at the end of my journey.

After I finished the game, I wanted to go back in. I feel like I missed many questlines, and tons of bosses. I think this is how I felt after finishing the first game too: I was losing interest about halfway through the game, but something clicks for me in the final act. The secret ending made me want to get back into the fray with new game plus and see what other monsters I missed out on.

All-in-all, I enjoyed my time with Dragon’s Dogma 2. I do have to point out that it doesn’t really make many innovations to the first game but still remains its satisfying self. I will have fun replaying and spending time exploring the world some other time I play through it, and learn the ins and outs of the game's core design. For now, I leave the game at its true ending and I will maybe run through New Game+ at another time. I don’t think DD2 will be for everyone. It’s a game that you really have to “get” to enjoy it. For me, I still think it is one of the most fun action RPGs I’ve played. It might not have been worth an insane 12-year wait, and it might not be an upgraded version of the original, but it's still a great game and well worth your time playing through it.