Picking your class is a huge moment in every RPG. Even in a game with respecs, your chosen class dictates the next dozens of hours of gameplay. Do you sling spells, wield a two-handed axe, or shoot arrows from afar? It is an important choice normally, but in Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2, it is even more important because picking a melee class is the best way to play.
Combat is a huge part of Dragon’s Dogma 2 and when making a character players have four vocations (read: classes) to choose from. The starting vocations are the usual suspects. The fighter is a tanky melee combatant; the thief is a steal-focused damage class; the archer is a ranged class that wields different types of arrows; and the mage is a classic spellcaster. Regardless of their vocation, they can switch at any time in most cities and towns.
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Each vocation has numerous skills and passive upgrades that can be unlocked as they are leveled up. Each character can have four skills equipped at a time, with some permanently unlocked, such as the mage’s ability to hold a button to charge spells faster. Combat in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an exciting balance between using skills and an impressive game engine. After getting used to it, you’ll be pulling harpies down from the sky, holding enemies so your allies can hit them, and throwing them to trigger traps in no time. And that’s not even including climbing around on giant creatures a la Shadow of the Colossus.
Those interactions are what make Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s combat unique and fun, and melee classes predominantly use them. If you play a thief or fighter you have to use all of the game’s mechanics. You’re constantly in the thick of combat, dodging, blocking, and grappling to survive. You can pick up a knocked-down goblin and throw him into an explosive barrel. Cyclopses can be climbed to reach their heads and stab them repeatedly. Dragon’s Dogma 2 combat is dynamic and cinematic thanks to these interactions.
If you unfortunately chose mage or thief, however, you will only be watching your AI-controlled party members have all of the fun. With so few abilities at a time, ranged classes not interacting with enemies in that way makes them feel very limited. Players using ranged classes may use some of the options occasionally, but hardly enough to make them stand out.
Ranged classes also have very little health and low defense because of their limited armor options. This makes positioning critically important for those players. That means that playing them is primarily a routine of slowly walking around on the fringes of combat using the same couple of abilities repeatedly. It may be fine for players who prefer a slower playstyle, but it hardly capitalizes on what makes Dragon’s Dogma 2’s combat unique. The problem is especially bad for mages. Every spell requires time to cast, leaving you stuck in one place, just holding a button for a time. I understand where the developers were intending with the class. Making players consider how long it takes to use spells to stay safe seems interesting in theory. In practice, though, it is just kind of boring.
Throughout their playthrough players unlock advanced vocations. These vocations offer more powerful and specialized abilities, allowing players to fine-tune their playstyle and party composition. There are six total for players to unlock. Around half of these advanced vocations focus on merging magic with other styles of combat. This is where magic feels like it belongs in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Adding magic options to another class adds some fun options while allowing the class to still interact with all of the game’s mechanics.
There is nothing wrong with playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 in whatever way you find fun. I love mages in almost every game, and I wish that I could have fun with them in this game. If you can, I’m jealous. But I think it is disappointing how much less attention seems to have been given to non-melee classes here. There is so much potential for these classes to take advantage of the game’s mechanics that feels under utilized. You might need a mage at your party for their healing spells, but you don’t necessarily have to play one. That’s what pawns are for, after all. So saddle the AI with the boring stuff, grab a sword or some daggers, and jump on in so you can have as good of a time as possible.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
