REVIEW: ‘Dragon’s Dogma 2’ Provides Pleasure And Pain (PS5)

Capcom released the first Dragon’s Dogma game back in 2012, and it quickly became a cult classic. The title was unlike many RPGs of its time, as it allowed players to engage with the world and fight daunting foes in many unique ways. Now, in 2024, comes a highly anticipated sequel: Dragon’s Dogma 2. After playing through the game, I can confidently say that it is a much more improved title in several ways, but many of the frustrations seen in the first title are still present.

In Dragon’s Dogma 2, you are the Arisen, a highly respected and beloved warrior destined to defeat a rampaging red dragon. Contrary to the first game, the Arisen in the sequel is a bit more special. They are appointed as the royal leader in the game’s kingdom of Vermund.

The story starts with your character, an amnesiac slave worker, forced to work in a dungeon. One faithful day, monsters attack where you work, and you and your fellow workers fight them off. After a short display of power, you and the people around you acknowledge you as the true Arisen. Eventually, you slowly start to remember your memories of becoming the Arisen. After summoning your Pawn, a loyal associate from another realm, you travel to the capital to prove yourself. In the process, you learn of a plot by the Queen Regent to usurp the throne in your absence. It’s now up to you to stop her plans while proving yourself as the Arisen.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 has a more interesting narrative than the first title, as it presents more unique narrative elements. This includes more interesting characters, relationships, subplots, lore, and more. Due to its direct nature, the narrative is easy to follow. Unfortunately, after the first few hours, the story is put on the back burner as the main mission is to complete a series of quests with minimal narrative progression and cut scenes between them. This is disappointing, as the game presents a fascinating world, and it would’ve been nice to learn more about it through the story.

Thankfully, what Dragon’s Dogma 2 lacks with its narrative, it makes up for with its engaging gameplay. At the start of their journey, players select one of many Vocations that serve as classes. Each Vocation provides a unique playstyle, ranging from simple to advanced classes. One of the base Vocations is the Fighter, which is basically a standard knight class. Players wear heavy armor, fight with one-handed swords and shields, and deal with heavy melee attacks.

There’s also the Mage class, which deals with a variety of Magick spells. This ranges from restorative healing spells to offensive spells like shooting streams of fire, erupting ice from the earth, standard ranged spell attacks, weapon enhancement, and more. Then there are mid to advanced classes, which have a range of more unique and powerful attacks but are a bit harder to get the hang of. These include the Warrior class, which lets players deal with more powerful attacks with the use of heavy weapons like Greatswords but at the cost of more stamina use.

There are also the Mystic Spearhand and Magick Archer vocations. These two classes combine melee and magic skills for a more versatile selection of combat skills. The Mystic Spearhand Vocation allows for more combos and lets players hone in on monster weaknesses. On the other hand, Magick Archer combines Magick spells with range combat, mainly through elemental range attacks like fire arrows that explode on impact, healing arrows, and more. These are just a few of the vocations the game offers. All the vocations in Dragon’s Dogma 2  provide an impeccable gameplay experience, allowing players to fight freely with any play style.

Another fantastic part of gameplay and combat are Pawns. Capcom did an excellent job of ensuring that Pawns are helpful teammates. This is especially true in combat, as they react exceptionally well to each scenario. Fighting monsters with a full team of three Pawns makes challenging circumstances much less daunting. They support your attacks by enhancing your tools as Mages or following up your attacks as Fighters or Warriors. They also heal your health and stamina whenever they notice you’re struggling.

The Pawn AI is also noticeably more advanced, as Pawns rarely stay in one position doing nothing and quickly follow your instructions whenever possible. Additionally, while their dialogue lines quickly become repetitive, you’ll never feel lonely with a full party of Pawns. They’ll always do cool things like point out when you have only women in your party and give you high fives when they think you did a great job chopping off that lizard man’s head. Because of this, playing with Pawns in Dragon’s Dogma has never been more fun.

Outside combat, the game offers engagement in unique ways via traversal and world exploration. However, these features are also some of the most frustrating parts of the game. In many ways, Dragon’s Dogma 2 feels more like a medieval fantasy RPG simulator than a standard RPG. There is no such thing as unrestricted fast travel in the game. Players can only use ferrystones, a highly limited and expensive item, to instantly travel to specific locations that allow them. Aside from this, they can also use Oxcarts, which only travel between two close towns.

Other than these two methods, players walk everywhere for the majority of their time playing the game. It’s also worth noting that running quickly exhausts your stamina when traveling, making traversal much slower than other games. Additionally, beasts and monsters dynamically plague Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s forests and streets, so you rarely feel safe moving between locations.

While this isn’t an issue in and of itself, getting ambushed by monsters when traveling long distances for missions quickly builds up frustration. This is because getting attacked multiple times will decrease your overall health and limit how much health you can regain through healing until you rest at an inn. As such, traveling long distances on foot is not only slow and annoying but also dangerous, as each monster encounter reduces your maximum health. You cannot travel easily, and traveling at night is more dangerous as more enemies are around. Visibility is also limited, and to make things worse, there are no manual saves in Dragon’s Dogma 2, so if you’re stuck with a tiny health bar at night surrounded by many enemies, you will have a bad time.

However, while these elements make gameplay very frustrating, they also make it highly immersive and engaging. These features make gameplay feel more intense but also satisfying when you are victorious in unfavorable conditions. It also succeeds at making exploration more entertaining. While the game succeeds at evoking these feelings with these features, it is also fair to note that many players will not appreciate them due to their frustrating nature.

Thankfully, there are many missions in Dragon’s Dogma 2 where players won’t travel long distances or fight terrifying monsters. Many missions in the game task players to complete them through non-confrontational means. This includes sneaking into areas by disguising yourself to look like a specific race or acquiring certain items. However, several timed quests are also in the game. You cannot play them again in the same playthrough if you miss them. This also means that some monsters can be missed if you aren’t careful.

Other than that, Dragon’s Dogma 2 also sports amazing visuals. The game’s models, art direction, and environments make you feel like you’re living in a medieval fantasy setting. The soundtrack further enhances this feeling with a range of calm and melodic lute tracks heard during quiet moments and frantic but engaging songs heard during intense moments.

Overall, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an intricately crafted and highly engaging action RPG. However, it has many frustrating mechanics that could potentially alienate many players. Despite its disappointing narrative, it still provides a highly entertaining experience that Dragon’s Dogma and hardcore action RPG fans will undoubtedly enjoy.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 will launch on March 22 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.