What do ya know?
With all this slobbering and drolling I've been doing over the prospective remake for Metal Gear Solid it really feels like I've let something slip me by... Not just something, as if I'm talking about some passing breeze which blew through the curtains, nah I'm talking about a real thing. Some fundamental part of my gaming tastes which flew up, boxed me on the nose and then disappeared like some thief in the night. Oh right, Dragon's Dogma 2! (It was in the title, obviously.) To be fair, it wasn't a total shock, we knew this game was coming for an age and a half and I at least was kind of hoping that after all this faffing around we'd at least get an announcement with a release date attached, but what do I know? Still... perhaps it's time to brush off my excitement and really come to terms with the fact that my favourite underrated game is getting a sequel. Hell yeah.
Now, you may not have heard of Dragon's Dogma. If that is the case: https://store.steampowered.com/app/367500/Dragons_Dogma_Dark_Arisen/. Come back when you're done. No, I ain't kidding. Do your damn duty, get the game and play it. Right now. When the tutorial is over, you're cleared to continue. Done? Good. Now; god am I excited that we're finally going to see more of this RPG world unlike any other! Of course, it's a bit of a stranger title for a lot of people out there, it wears the janky nature on it's sleeve and jutting out from under it's shawl in a clearly unconvincing manner; those without an eye to see beauty in imperfection have found it easy to write the game off over the years as another lukewarm or even an average euro-medieval action RPG from Japan but they would be so very wrong. There's no action RPG that plays with the rules and conditions that Dragon's Dogma did in the way that it did.
For one, Dragon's Dogma places an obnoxious about of emphasis on the power of the journey. And I'm not talking about the progression of the narrative. From fishing village to military camp to grand city to wall patrol; the game often tasks players with the simple task of delivery across vast distances because the actual gameplay of surviving the rigors of a dangerous fantasy travel-route is a key gameplay pillar! Learning what provisions certain routes through the forest might require because they may lead you past a known basilisk den, knowing when to stop off somewhere safe to sleep for the night because the dark is inevitably a dangerous travel partner- And learning how to withstand the nattering of your pawns with is incessant and unforgiving in it's own. Most see only the tedium, but honestly- you genuinely come to terms with the peaceable wonder of hitting the world on large sprawling journeys. All the original game was missing was more varied locations to keep such trips visually engaging- which is where a sequel can come in!
Of course, combat is the other central pillar and Dragon's Dogma had some great systems to play with there as well! Traditional fantasy creatures brought to life with accurate vulnerabilities and strengths that need to be learned and exploited in order to prevail, scrambling over enemies and locational crippling systems for strategic takedowns, and the online interactive pawn system, having players share custom built companions between one another that would share their remembered insights on dealing with certain monsters and quests and travel complications from their own journeys. Like living chronicles of adventure and strife. I yearn for an experience with so many curiosities to it's systems as Dragon's Dogma had!
Dragon's Dogma 2 had already teased us with a snippet of gameplay which mostly exists as a proof of life. We know that the game is real, that it's going to maintain the monster climbing and the pawn system and the classic European monster influence- and there's practically nothing else of value to learn about the thing. Okay, that's no entirely true. We also know that there's an entirely fresh race of lion people Khajitt types who absolutely did not exist in the original game. There was never any indication of any race other than humans and even though the character creator held options of elf ears, there weren't even technically any elfs in the narrative. These beings really have popped out of nowhere, but their fate seems somehow important enough for them to make the front cover art- so I guess this new generic fantasy beast race at least isn't going to be throw-away.
Of course the game looks a cut above what the original had going on, what with the new entry being rendered by the stunning RE Engine, such that we can finally look on Dragon's Dogma gameplay like it's of the... well... of the current generation might be a bit of a stretch... Look, even with the RE Engine powering it, there's no pretending that Dragon's Dogma doesn't look jank- but I guess that really is some of the latent charm of the games, isn't it? We expect them to look kind of silly with slightly cartoonish character models and a few over-exposed colour bursts in outdoor scenes. It would actually be a little disconcerting is this game looked as stunning as Resident Evil 4- as if the game were adopting a pretence of something that it's not. Dragon's Dogma doesn't have to be a looker, it just needs to be fun!
I'm also loving some of the more interactive elements we're seeing with the pawn player which can either be indicative of vastly improved AI or perhaps even some multiplayer inclusions. One scene presents a party member being launched off another's shield so that they can grabble onto a monster's face to get some slashes in; another shows us a troll dynamically destroying a wooden footbridge to drop you off of it- this is the kind of stuff which makes the perilous journeys of the DD game loop into exciting death-defying adventures that you keep coming back to relive! And the magic appears to be getting a bit of a face lift too, which is nice considering the magic of the original was powerful but oh-so un-flashy. Now we literally see meteors being summoned out of the sky to burn our foes alive! That's what I'm talking about!
I know it's a bit of a cult title, but I don't care- Dragon's Dogma brings me back to those days of staying up late into the night watching livestreams on my giant laptop from the top of my bunk bed- wondering about the possibility of what you could do in a game that looked as tactile as that original did. Dragon's Dogma 2 has yet to impress me with how much new stuff it has cooking up, and I really do think there's some significant areas in which a sequel could improve (more biomes please! Ice and desert are all I want.) I'm honestly going to get the game even if it just slaps a fresh coat of texture over the old map and calls it a day because I've been waiting for this sequel way too long to sweat any of that small stuff. Thank you for holding that candle all these years Itsuo-san, you really are a trooper!
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