Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox Series, PC
Genre: Action RPG with AI-driven Pawns as reliable party members & limited fast travel

Who knew that restricting one of the most-used systems in open-world games could help enhance the experience of a role-playing game? In Capcom’s sequel to 2011’s Dragon’s Dogma, fast travelling between locations is restricted and expensive.

Buying a fast travel stone that teleports you to established hubs called portcrystals costs a bomb. Portable portcrystals are also few and far between, so you have to think long and hard whether you want to plant one in the city you’re in to save time on backtracking.

Most of the time, you have to hoof it with your party members -made up of AI-driven characters called Pawns you can recruit from the game’s online system- and roll with it. Your multiple long journeys to your designated quests will be waylaid by enemies, from goblin parties to a giant griffin crashing your parade from the sky. Sometimes when you think you can escape from enemies into villages, enemies will chase you down and there’s a good chance the NPC you need to get quests from might end up caught in the fray.

In fact, your Pawns can wreck your day if you’re not paying attention. While helpful and will adapt to your playstyle, there’s a disease that Pawns can contract from a dragon/drake fight that can be passed on to other Pawns online which causes great calamity if left unchecked. Coupled with all the other hardcore bits peppered in the RPG -losing total health when you retry fights, requiring to save & rest at inns plus campfires, enemy encounters potentially dogpiling you- and you would think that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is meant for specific audiences looking for a challenge.

You’d be right. And those players, myself included, are all better for it. You’ll have a more memorable experience in a fantasy RPG than most titles, especially with one that offers a challenge and no safety of save scumming. I do wish the game could be a tad different from its predecessor by a wide margin though. But we’ll get to that part in a bit.

House Of Dragon

As stated before, you have a main quest you have to go through: this involves you, the Arisen, having to deal with your mortal enemy, the red dragon on the title screen, while also dealing with the kingdom’s issues and the divide between the world’s kingdom of humans and beastren (the Khajiits of Dragon’s Dogma). You also come across all sorts of NPCs and a lot of people talking “Ye Olde Video Game English” which is both charming and unintentionally hilarious the longer you stick with the game for 30+ hours.

Sure, you can blaze through the main quest in 10+ hours if you’re focused, but where’s the fun in that? All those trials and tribulations I mentioned in the earlier paragraphs all combine to be a memorable experience that you will eventually “get good” at. See, you have access to a good bunch of Vocations (Jobs/Classes in the DD2 world) ranging from the tanky Fighter and Warrior, to the useful DPS class supreme Thief. Your main Pawn -the one you can create at the start of the game and can share online- can also be any Vocation you want so that they can complement your current party and playstyle. There are also a few Arisen-only classes that can be unlocked if you’re diligent enough, with most of them being worth the trouble. The Mystic Spearhand is a magic defender type class that can keep your party alive longer than usual, while the Magick-Archer deals a ton of damage from afar, moreso than the base Archer class.

The controls in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are just as good as previous games, and as comparable as your Capcom character action title. All the classes control like a dream, with responsive inputs and spot-on controls whether you want to throw people or climb up giant monsters and strike them with your weapon of choice. Fighting enemies just feel frantic, chaotic, and very meaty to the point where I welcome being dogpiled by more creatures, only to realize I bit more than I could chew. I learned then that it’s fine to run away when the going gets really tough. And the best part about turning tail? Your Pawns will get the hint and hoof it with you.

In fact, everything about this sequel is a bit too similar to the original 2012 Dragon’s Dogma and even the re-release-with-extra-content Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. Save for the low frame rate for 4K console games, unoptimized PC version at launch, and other technical kerfuffles, I feel like I haven’t left that decade-plus of action RPG gaming. In fact, I think this game could use more Vocations to play around with, more monster variety than the one we got in the main quest, and a lot more extra content than the post-credits endgame trial we’re stuck with.

I do feel that Capcom could have done better in some of these content aspects. I do understand that a game of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s scope is insanely big and a lot of hard work. But director Hideaki Itsuno and his team should remember that they need to make an actual sequel, not half of what seems to be one. And the less said about Capcom’s unnecessary tacked-on microtransactions for items you can get in-game, the better.

Still, if you haven’t played the first game, you could do worse.

Quite A Drag(on)?

And yet, throughout all those flaws and issues I mentioned, I still persevered and scrounged up tons of fun just being in Gransys 2.0. You can save anywhere, though restarting fights means your health gets reduced further and further unless you rest at an inn (or campfire). Ruins and underground areas open up shortcuts to far reaches of the map to cut down on travel time, and you can pay a small fee to ride an ox cart to get you to where you want without much work.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 lasts as long as you want it to. The world is just that engrossing to explore and faff about. One minute you’re finding flowers for an orphan in the poor part of the game’s main city, and the next you’re chasing out some random griffin or magic golem suddenly within the countryside. And a pack of giant goblins and harpies to follow suit.

While it may emanate some form of déjà vu for Dragon’s Dogma players of yore, that doesn’t exclude the fact that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a blast to play if you want a packed and well-made fantasy RPG that isn’t afraid to kick your teeth in half the time. Everything from its limited fast travel mechanics and save system is made by design so that you take the game and its trials seriously. If you give it your time and investment, you’ll have a blast exploring this brave and dangerous new world where it’s okay to run away from fights you can’t win.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 may not be for everyone, but if you want a fantasy role-playing game with all the thrills and excitement (and caveats) that make you want to better yourself and get immersed in, sink your teeth into this monster mash. Though if you just got off the first game and the Dark Arisen expansion pretty recently, you may want to wait until the game gets a discount. If you’re fresh in, go for it with dragonfire-tempered expectations.

Pros

• All Vocations are a blast to play thanks to great controls.
• Fun and dangerous world to check out and explore at length.
• Many secrets and sidequests to partake in.

Cons

• Punishing mechanics & design that may not be for everyone.
• Terrible PC optimization; console versions locked to lesser framerate.
• Unnecessary microtransactions (though optional)

Final Score: 60/100

Review copy provided by publisher.