Dragon's Dogma 2: launch issues

 Eternal Return

So I've been playing quite a lot of Dragon's Dogma since the day it launched, and without spoiling my progress, let's just say that: 'I've reached Dragon's Dogma 2', if you get what I'm saying. As of so far I can safely say that I'm super happy with the game that we've got in so many ways- the world design is leagues above the original, I love going off and exploring little caves tucked up with hellish creatures that are all so much fun to fight, the combat feels tight and vary's so wildly between vocations you feel like you're playing a different character each time you switch- in all ways apart from monster variety, which actually seems to have been toned down from the original for some incomprehensible reason, Dragons Dogma 2 has me hooked. However that hasn't blinded me from the fact that my experience has not been the same as everyone's.

You see, I long ago made the choice to buy Dragon's Dogma 2 on my Series X because I intended to make use of the 4k functionalities which, upon review, don't actually appear to be that apparent with Dragon's Dogma 2. It doesn't look nearly as crisp as even some retroactive 4k enabled games like Devil May Cry 5 (checking that brazen fact... okay, so it seems that 'Special Edition' launched with 4k. I still think I'm right then, until someone who knows better tells me otherwise.) But apparent from slightly grimacing at the annoying film grain across the screen that I seem unable to turn off in settings, Dragons Dogma 2 has run as smooth as butter for me. And never did I know the absolute hell upon earth I dodged by the whim to not get this game on PC for at least the first year. (Of course I'm going to double purchase eventually- I'm a DD addict.)

PC launches have fallen into this muddy realm of travesty over the course of the past few years, to the point where it's hardly considered strange for a game to appear largely inert for huge swathes of the PC player base. And sure, the issues of varied hardware across the space makes the challenge of developing working software across the board a headache- we've all heard the excuses- but if most games can launch without inescapable crashes every other minute, you would hope that Dragons' Dogma 2, a AAA RPG of beloved ancestry, would be able to figure it out. The crashes aren't consistent across the board but they're regular enough to be a problem. And beyond that, universal frame rate drops plague the PC community. I've even noticed some, although rarely to a disruptive degree, on Series X. (Particularly in the more busy city action scenes during "Dragon's Dogma 2".)

By and large this has gone to sully the launch of what should have been a celebration for the gaming world- a sequel to a cult classic finally getting it's dues. It's clear enough that those who have played the game found something special- and I'm so thankful for a brilliant modern day action-combat RPG that isn't a Soulslike game. (regardless of how much "Dragon's Dogma 2" was clearly influenced by Miyazaki level worldbuilding) The reviews are glowing with 9/10's glittering across aggregate sites, streamers are eating the game up with wanton abandon, and those who get stuck into the game simply can't put the thing down- it's lived up to every dream I'm sure the creators had in mind. Except for the blow up about microtransactions, which is worth a chin wag or two.

Now you know how I feel about Microtransactions by this point, I don't like 'em. But like a beaten puppy I've come to just accept their forced inclusion into everything I would otherwise love as a side feature that I totally ignore. Such that I didn't at all comprehend the launch DLC that Dragon's Dogma dropped with, and even seeing them now- I actually don't understand the backlash. Don't get me wrong, I dislike Microstransactions and Dragon's Dogma 2 certainly is not improved having them- but how can people say this is the line of decency crossed? Rift crystal packs, some ancillary starter game items- this is literally the stuff that Japanese games have launched with for years. Yakuza 8 had them, Resident Evil 4 had them, Devil May Cry 5 had them- they were loved in none of those games; it's just kind of their cultural stamp at this point. 

I know some have particularly rallied against the fast travel items in the store, incensed by the apparent broken promise of the director who claimed that fast travel is only necessary when your game world is uninteresting- but I can only imagine these people never played the original. The offered Port Crystals (waypoints) and Ferrystones (consumable fast travel tokens) are not 'fast travel' in the traditional sense, but hardwon short cuts for the late game that the become more necessary as events grow grander. The original game had them, Dragons Dogma 2 offers more than enough to cover the entire map's worth vanilla. Admittedly, these microtransactions are the only ones that active challenge game balance, given that the stinginess of offered ferrystones is a key part of Dragon's Dogma 2- but is this 'game breaking'.

All of this is without even bringing up the fact that technically, these are only 'Microstransactions' in the original sense of the word all the way back from Modern Warfare 3. Most of them are pre-order bonus starter items, the rest are on time purchases of frankly inessential items. (RC has never been a particularly sought after currency.) It's not one of those situations where you can endless buy these consumables to forever boost your power in this single player game, similar to a mobile shop. We've seen games like those before! Although it should not be forgotten that this is a full price released game, so Dragon's Dogma 2 does absolutely forgo any potential moral ground they could have claimed arguing that these miniscule bits of DLC supplement development costs. "That's what the extra £10 worth of blood money you've sucked out us is for- don't be greedy bastards!"

And as much I hate 'whataboutism' arguments- I can't help but point fingers at a game franchise which sails along doing much worse than any AAA Japanese franchise I've ever seen. Isn't it about time we turn over the Assassin's Creed franchise for their over-monetised insanity? Actual Microtransactions, EXP boosts and in-game currency packs, their own premium currency, most unique armour sets are sold exclusively in their extra stores, most cosmetics too, and even some reskins are for base game Armor sets- all thrown on ingame stores. Assassin's Creed games offer a simply sickening amount of badly implemented MTX and they've yet to had their head placed on a spike for the absolute degeneracy they promote. But apples, oranges I guess. The point is that these little annoyances sullied an otherwise spectacular launch from another Capcom game which I suspect is going to go down as a little bit legendary. A bit of a shame that, really....