Without Itsuno

 

When legendary developers fade from our studios it is often usually the end of a run we're not going to see again for quite a while. When Hideo Kojima left Konami that was pretty much the end of thier relevancy as a game developer- they've not even managed to scratch the AAA world since despite recent attempts- but hey, I guess they're happy serving slop up to their audience of awaiting guppy fish. When Shinji Makami left Tangoworks, he did so under the force belief that if they just kept making award winning games then someone would want to keep them around- obviously they ended up being shut down in the next year and had to be bailed out in a temporary resurrection we can only hope sticks. (Bailed out of a shutdown? Huh, I guess that means someone found the award winning studio worthwhile. How bizarre.) And now that Hideaki Itsuno has left Capcom- what does that mean for the franchises he left behind?

Itsuno's legend began a little bit into his career when the man was brought on as a 'reorganiser' to a failing project that was spiralling down a pit. The horrifically disastrous Devil May Cry 2 was being helmed by a figure purposefully hidden to history because the mess they were making of the project was that bad all have stricken their name from the books. Devil May Cry 2 was apparently on a nose dive and with the hard work of Itsuno in refocusing the project the team managed to squeeze out something that could actually be released in the public- but if you've ever actually sat down and played the thing you'll know that's small praise. A largely gutted charm and wit, distinctly missing stylistic flair of the original, thoughtless level design, unambitious combat improvement, (or, more appropriately, regressions) laughably ill-conceived bosses- yet also the only actually worthwhile secondary campaign in the franchise. It wasn't something worth resting your cap on. And Itsuno agreed.

What happened next could only have been the result of someone with a fire lit under them, because the absolute heel turn from Devil May Cry 2 to 3 is a mind-blowing achievement. When I did my playthrough of the franchise recently, even all this years removed from the original environment and release dates, I could feel that Devil May Cry 3 was something special without any context. Combat wasn't just revived, it was rewritten- they created the style-based combat the franchise has been known for ever since. Dante and his brother Neo-Angelo/Vergil got their souls this game. The supporting cast stood out proud with great moments and designs so good we're still comparing modern Lady redesigns to her original. The game was challenging, the bosses were impressive and memorable, the title was a powerhouse- plain and simple. And Itsuno established himself as a director with a mark to leave.

He may not have birthed the series himself but Itsuno would go on to help define Devil May Cry over the years with the honestly under-appreciated Devil May Cry 4- which refined a lot of what 3 was doing into an actual half-decent evolving narrative, the heavily critiqued DMC, which is the only game I haven't had the pleasure of in the franchise so far, and my favourite of the franchise- Devil May Cry 5- the absolute pinnacle of this genre of games, a master in every facet. All with Itsuno either in the director's chair or on as a supervisor. If the man was so eager to rewrite history so he wouldn't go down as the cause of Devil May Cry 2- he ended up going above and beyond in his role. But what if I told you the reason I lauded the man's work had nothing to do with any of that?

You see, a while ago there a little Fantasy title that dropped off the face of the earth for being released at the same time as Skyrim- the single biggest fantasy game of that console generation. This title was not as big as Skyrim, nor as immersive, nor as pretty. But do you know what Dragon's Dogma of that age did well? God it was charming. And unique. Dragon's Dogma was an action adventure hack-n-slash brimming with identity and purpose in the robust grapple and climb mechanic to the cleverly designed and dynamic boss enemies- I could go on about my love for Dragon's Dogma until the cows come how- and how severely underappreciated it was by the public! 

Itsuno similarly agreed that the game never got it's flowers from the public and spent a decade trying to give it another go around. In that time we'd forever hear allusions to a potential sequel, got a middling Anime to tide us over and had to endure China bragging about their country only MMO version of the game. Only now, in the year of our lord 2024, was Dragon's Dogma 2 finally given the greenlight to release and it finally introduced the world to a game unlike what they expected. A creativity machines begging it's audience to play around, just like the modern combat for the Devil May Cry franchise. And whilst I have my issues with it, I would love to see more content come to DD2 to push it ever further beyond! But now, I'm not sure that's ever going to happen.

Like a spirit hanging around past it's due it would seem that Itsuno was just hanging around Capcom in the hopes of getting Dragon's Dogma out the door and now that's done- so is he. Itsuno has left the company behind and in doing so robbed Capcom of their strongest talent- in the shaky hope that those left behind will be capable in his absence. But so far? All I know of non-Itusno products is the absolute mess that was made out of the non-chinese release of the Devil May Cry Mobile game- a once exciting little product in it's own right. And Dragon's Dogma? I'm afraid to see that delicately balanced little swansong dragged off a cliff by weak directors manhandled under dumb executives.

Capcom aren't going to drown, they'll always have Sonic. But my reasons for still keeping up what the blue studio was up to? Yeah that was pretty much exclusively caught up in the many machinations of this one creative powerhouse. Truly the company isn't going to be the same and the legacy he leaves could be in shaky hands. Dragon's Dogma 2 pleads for more content but do I really want a DLC that Itsuno didn't work on? Do I want more Devil May Cry games that he didn't work on? We kind of starting from scratch in the trust department and that's always the sad part of departures like this. I just hope the man is proud of himself.

Dragon's Dogma 2 Review

I knew you loved this world too much to leave it behind!

Being quite honest with you all- I, like many other diehard Dragon's Dogma fans, never thought this day would come. For years it seemed a forgone conclusion that the quirky little action RPG with a sprinkle of something indescribably swashbuckling and reckless was consigned to forever populate the annals of cult-status curiosity. Even when the announcement was made and the clock fully set- I'd be lying if I didn't confess a bit of disbelieving whiplash, an unwillingness to really comprehend the fact that one day soon I would be playing a brand new Dragon's Dogma adventure, therefore it was only really in the final week that those last second jitters started creeping up upon me. Is the magic still going to be there? Will I find some of those returned design directions cumbersome in the decade apart and deprived of these here rose-tinted glasses? Will I get back that easy 'pick and play' wonder that I've missed from my RPGs of late?

In answering these queries I picked up my copy, on the Xbox Series X for hopes of taking advantage of the 4k offering to see this game at it's best- a decision which might have saved me a lot of the PC launch woes we hear the game suffering from. That being said, even the Series X console version is not free from some stutters, occasional slowdowns in the more busy post-game sections (never prolonged but enough to be temporarily disruptive) and one crash, early on. Although across about 49 hours of playtime, that isn't the most terrible occurrence in the world. I'm also quite surprised to report there were no quest bugs for me throughout the entire game, which seems strange to gloat about but... man, I've endured Assassin's Creed, Baldur's Gate and my umpteenth playthrough of Skyrim across the past few years- totally bugless quests are a novelty to me!

Upon starting Dragon's Dogma you will confronted with the most brazen aspect of this game's ethos- that it is in some ways as much a reboot of the DD franchise as it is a sequel. I was actually quite surprised to see the game entitled 'Dragon's Dogma' on the title screen, sans the 2, and actually 'tabbed out' (so to speak) in order to check that the software name was still called Dragon's Dogma 2 and that Capcom hadn't suddenly decided this was a definitive remake at the last second. (They hadn't, the game is still called 'Dragon's Dogma 2'.) And it is a decent point to check on because with this release Dragon's Dogma appears to be much more of a 'Final Fantasy' style anthology than we might have originally believed. (Although I've never had the opportunity to play the Chinese MMO release- so maybe such groundwork was laid there.)

Sure, those that are familiar with the original might think they know what that entails- to spoil the original game a bit; (it released in 2012- you've had your chance!) that narrative was framed around a loop of 'Arisen' revenants hunting the Dragon that stole the hearts out of their chest only to go on to then become the next Dragon or rise even further to assume the role of 'Seneschal' and watch over the loop on your own. Dragon's Dogma 2 was sold as an 'alternate world story', but we're already familiar with the 'world hopping antics' of our Pawns (player designed companions who remain our allies throughout the game) as they enter the games of other players and return with useful snippets of information- 'Alternate world' is not as grand of a concept to introduce as Hideaki Itsuno may have believed when he said it. But let me be clear for him- this is an alternate universe.

That is to say, Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't even depict the same Dogma that the original game did. The order of the world that we knew, of Arisen meets Dragon meets Seneschal- entirely irrelevant in this new setting- and I think that is an important nugget of the world for new players to grasp lest they confuse themselves trying to fit in the rules of this new world within the constraints of the one we knew. (Not least of all trying to figure out how any of this is happening in the first place when the canonical 'true ending' of Dragon's Dogma 1 involved, as the theme song quoteth 'Finishing the cycle of Eternal Return'.) This story is a story anew.

And with a new story should come a fresh introduction- for those coming in for the lesson. Here we go- Dragon's Dogma 2 tells the story of 'The Arisen' an immortal warrior chosen by the herald of doom itself 'The Dragon', to be the world's champion. This individual is identified for their display of abnormal will, typically in the form of courage, and then has their heart delicately ripped out of their chests by an overly-long dragon claw before that beast then pops the organ in it's mouth and scarpers. Thus forms the bond between Dragon and the now-immortalised Arisen, and thus starts the prophecy wherein that Arisen must slay their Dragon, lest risk their will breaking against their nerve, thus severing the covenant- roaming the world as a failed Arisen forever more.

To this task the Arisen, the player, commands AI companions known as 'Pawns'. Pawns are soulless beings born to be directed into action by the Arisen, and crucially each one is designed by another player courtesy of the neat 'shared world' of Dragon's Dogma's online! Each player designs their 'Main Pawn' near the beginning of the game to be their one constant throughout the adventure, but that Pawn can spawn in, or be summoned into, other Arisen's worlds to serve as one of their Side Pawns. Everytime you rest (in this game that means sleeping at an Inn or your bed but not when you do it at a campsite) you'll get a brief report of the other people who hired your pawn, be awarded some Rift Crystal currency and maybe even receive a little gift for the hardwork your little helper put in.

                                        

Pawns go a little deeper than that too this time around. Quests that they go on enter into the Pawns memory, meaning that when you have an objective that is obscure or far away, knowledgeable Pawns in your party that experience that same quest in another world will chime in to lead you to your destination with pin-point accuracy. (And only the occasional AI pathfinding meltdown.) They can also be equipped with one of a few specialisations which gives them a role beyond their vocations (class) to stand out as unique. One might feed you consumable curatives in battle if you equip them with some, others might democratize picked-up loot automatically in order to prevent the Arisen becoming overloaded and hitting those 'slow down' thresholds in carry weight. And one might just translate Elven for you. Which is so insanely helpful- I've got no idea what the knife-ears are saying about me behind my back!

This forms the pseudo-online character-sharing aspect of the gameplay trifecta which characterises the unique gameplay loop of Dragon's Dogma with the second being the actual combat itself. Vocations of the Arisen and their pawns can be switched out without any cost at any of the guild members found in all populated settlements- this isn't one of those games where you build a character for one class and stay rigid in that role, nor is this one of those games where there aren't really any classes and every character kind of just evolves into becoming the same character once the obvious better skills start becoming apparent. Instead you swap between being a spellcasting mage one day to a cartwheeling rogue the next, a elemental arrow raining 'Magic Archer' to a pirouetting sky dancing 'Mystic Spearhand'. And much to the game's credit- every single class feels like a fresh character.

With the pedigree of the recent Devil May Cry games on the game director's resume this shouldn't be any great surprise, but the amount of small details that go in to make each class feel mechanically simple but blossom with systemic distinction is quite masterful from the design department. Magic Archers will balance a lock-on reticule to disperse their magic effects over a wide range of enemies, or focus in on a single big enemy with a dozen simultaneous effect arrows. Whereas a non-magic archer has to aim true and move fast, with the trade-up being unbeatable single target damage when you get in that perfect zone to focus. Mystic Spearhands are constantly vying for the all-import stunstate which allows for a devastating finisher hit so powerful it knocks entire health bars off some bosses. Fighters become moving fortresses, Thiefs are free-scrambling death dealers- and Tricksters are a particularly difficult to manage class of decoys, feints and enemy misdirection. Not a single class is tacked on to fill a gap- and I have played them all extensively because they're that much fun to mess around with!

And if that isn't enough, there is the final ultimate vocation that even I, with my plus 100 hours playtime, still don't feel comfortable enough to work properly. The Warfarer (not 'Wayfarer' as it is so often mistaken to be) allows the player to wield all weapons at once but only with a very specific selection of skills curated from the larger list. Core skills of each class are retained, as are playstyles, and the Warfarer's special skill is essentially the ability to switch through each in a line- presenting a logistical puzzle of setting up complimentary class switches in the right order; a direct evolution of the Devil Arms system Nero works with through Devil May Cry 5. Warfarer is essentially the end-game way to play the game, and those who master it will essentially have turned their arisen into a medieval version of Dante through bitter trial- a jack of all trades and the all around master to boot.

Together with the slot-in abilities that you can switch between in rotations of 4 in order to refine an exact tool set and you've got yourself dozens of ways to play through the 10 different available classes. The only real let-down of this system is the fact that the absolute tons of great looking weapons and class specific armours you pick up throughout the game hold no further influence upon playstyle. All they offer are stat numbers and the occasional miniscule resistance to certain debuffs. In that vein the game offers similar itemisation to Souls-Borne games in that they largely serve only to feed the 'fashion souls' gameplay angle. To which I can actually attest- there are a bunch of really cool different types of armours throughout Dragon's Dogma 2 that cater to a vast array of medieval fantasy tastes from your chainmail solider to your tin-hat paladin, fur cloaked mountain barbarian and bone horned hunter- all with mix and match potential. I don't typically comment on cosmetic variety in my games, and when I do- it's because I find them particularly noteworthy.

All these tools go into crafting the monster slaying arsenal, with the large-scale boss battles making up the heart of the Dragon's Dogma play cycle. Squaring up against towering Ogres and monstrous dragons feels run-of-the-mill on paper, but until you've scrambled up the swinging tail of a floating drake and stabbed a knife in it's heart sending the beast crashing back to the ground in a brutal heap- you've never seen these scenarios at their best. There's a undeniable cinematic quality in the spectacle of Dragon's Dogma's 'David vs Goliath' approach to boss design, and coupled with the popping beauty of Capcom's RE engine, some of the the most frantic moments of the biggest fights are simply mouth-watering! But the combat is more than skin deep- each boss is infused with inherent weaknesses that the player must pick up and exploit in order to bring creatures low- and they span far more than just your typical elemental weakness! One-eyed Ogres can be blinded, Griffins falls out of the sky if their wings are set ablaze and Trolls lust after women so much they put themselves in harms way. Scrambling up both sides of an armoured Ogre in order to break it's fastenings, stripping the armour that keeps you crawling up to that ever-vulnerable single eye is peak Dragon's Dogma at it's absolute best.

The key most evolution of Dragon's Dogma from 1 to 2 is the way that the team realised the world space- which is a pretty big deal given that the gameplay loop of Dragon's Dogma 2 always revolves around travelling and navigating their overly hostile world. Seeing as these roads are one's you'll be walking up and down for hundreds of hours, part of the thirst for a sequel was the fact that these routes were often so simple and basic and easy to grow tired of. Which is probably why Dragon's Dogma 2 ramps up it's exploration so considerably. You'll find dozens of caves, alternative paths, breakable rock walls, collapsible floors, gaps that can only be covered with special skills, heights that can only be reached with Levitation. I even know you can push a stumbling ogre over a cliff edge in order to form as bridge. (I know it's possible, I just haven't managed it yet.) And just this morning people learned that you can feed stone blocks to the giant discarded trebuchet around the map to destroy even larger clumps of rocks and open up even more paths. 

With the introduction of a whole new biome, the craggy deserts of Battahl, that exploration has spanned out even more with crumbling ruins of some bygone civilisation scattered across the wasteland, and precarious pully-rope bridges that suspend you over the deadly gorges, but themselves are often beset by gangs of harpies. Even the city world spaces you'll be traversing, Vernworth and Bakbattahl, are so much more alive than the duke's city from Dragon's Dogma 1. They are less flat and more varied, stuffed with nooks and crannies to discover, and constructed with obvious cultural distinctions. From the Western European inspired medieval buildings to the Eastern European inspired mountain dig-out homes- you'll feel like you've travelled the breadth of a continent from one end of the world to the other. It makes you wish that the Photo Mode didn't suck so bad. (Seriously- it might as well just be a 'turn off HUD' button for how useless it is!)

The Beastren, who occupy Battahl, are your typical anime 'monster people' race- only with the good grace to actually commit to making them cat people, rather than just giving them vague cat accessories. This race is actually fairly well conceived on a visual level, carrying enough distinctiveness for one to be recognised to another, although obviously not nearly as much as regular humans do. I just wish there was perhaps a bit more material detailing their specific cultures or origins, as even the narrative makes it clear that Battahl is not inherently their land, meaning it's customs are not their ancestral ones. Heck, Vermund was founded by a Beastren! A little more thought could have gone into to realising their narrative distinctiveness, similar to how Races are handled in The Elder Scrolls franchise. (Speaking of The Elder Scrolls- I'm sad that the Beastren don't speak in Khajiiti voices. Big shame.)

One of my fondest memories of an unforgettable trek was during my journey to track down a Dragon to seize it's valuable blood. A journey that led me through an in-game business week of pushing through the Battahli wastes. Making ground until my party couldn't stand straight anymore and then camping over the night. We were beset by duo Ogres and swooping Griffins here and there, and even ended up getting lost down an ancient cave and coming face to face with a Medusa, which I managed to grapple onto the back of whilst it failed and brutally decapitated it. All this before the actual designed intended showdown against the Lesser Drake atop the mountain sliding ruined Coliseum. That alone was my own personal little 'Jason and the Argonauts' style adventure.

The only real problem with all this is the fact that, lo and behold, there's little tangible unique content worth exploring all this world to uncover. Inside all those caves, atop all those rooftops, and tucked in all those back corners- all you'll typically find are a clump of the same few monsters you've seen dotted around the open world. Chests with a small assortment of decent to good consumables stuffed in them. Maybe now and then you'll get a cool piece of armour, but it's rare and there's little logical sense as to where these items spawn. (And you'll need to buy all the best gear anyway.) The bosses, Dragon's Dogma 2's most fun content, aren't plentiful enough for many unique one's to be squirrelled away in these back corners of the open world either- as far as I know I think there are only two hidden unique monster spawn locations- one for each biome.

Which touches on what is easily the biggest let-down of Dragon's Dogma 2- enemy variety. We heard a lot of talk about the way the team have handled monsters since the days of Dragon's Dogma 1 and a little bit of mention of variety. But I remember watching those previews and seeing the same Goblins, Wolves, Ogres and Trolls from the original. Fantastically realised monsters, of course, but one's we were already familiar with. With the full game out, it actually seems there is less enemy variety than we got in the first game! There are no Beholders or Cockatrices or Dire Wolves- in fact, the 'petrification medication' is literally only used for a single boss in the game that spawns in a single location across the map. Killing monsters with fantastic skills, learning their unique patterns and how best to exploit them- that is the height of the gameplay cycle in Dragon's Dogma 2- which is why it is so unthinkable that the team pulled back so heavily on expanding these vectors out! At the very least, if they couldn't greatly diversify the rooster, they could have least focused on monsters unique to the one's we know from the first game! Granted, each monster has been designed totally from scratch, such that Saurians are no longer impossibly annoying to fight and Harpies actually take advantage of the fact they can fly to stay out of reach- But I think we are all saddened by the inability to meet and learn about a fresh new cast of monsters.

Aside from the beastly, the world of Dragon's Dogma is stuffed full of the NPC characters that are designed to give the world a heart- and through a series of robust world generation tools the team have given Dragon's Dogma 2 a decent foundation. You'll find every NPC with a daily life they live, jobs, friends, and frequent haunts- and the player is able to interact with them by learning of their favoured types of gift and showering them in those until they receive some attention in return. The procedural job board from the original game is entirely gone this time around, so there's no hope of earning profitable quests from liked individuals, but sometimes a few might show up outside your home to embark on a 'journey' to some backwater part of nowhere. Don't expect all these NPCs to be fully realised personality driven fonts of exploration- that isn't the point of the game- but expect just enough life to buy into the fiction of this world's existence and why you might care to keep people safe. Particularly given how easy it is for NPCs to die now that monsters have a chance to invade the capital cities!

I love how you can find certain NPCs walking the wilds and being beset by monsters who you can choose to save. Fast travel, achieved through travelling in the back of carts, can come under attack by ambushes who will destroy the transport if you let them, and might even murder the drivers too! There's this curious sense of a world simulation happening around you that not many games manage to properly convey, not even those that apparently go specifically for it. (Starfield comes to mind.) I was struck silly when rocking up to the Hot Springs on the otherside of the world from Vernworth, where I bumped into Sven the Regentkin- on his way back from a vacation of his own. Those little moments enforce the fiction of the breathing world, and they alone are what makes a world like this feel so special and alive on the most important level- the inconsequential one! 

Beyond the NPCs are the heroes and heroines you'll meet through side questlines and get to know, and of these we have a much more interesting slate to work with. Characters like Ulrika and Menella actually have places of import that shift throughout the world, and the amount you interact with them can ultimately decide their fates in the endgame. Character writing is far from this team's strong suit, however, and none of the cast are what I would call 'fully rounded individuals'. Brant, the captain with which you'll interact the most, is easily the most boring out of this cast. But engage with the game on it's level and you'll find some rudimentarily evolved relationships to tie your Arisen to the world around them- all important steps to making the themes of the game take root- particularly in the post-game sections.

The quests of Dragon's Dogma 2 are their own curious blend of freeform 'figure out where you need to go' mixed with slightly disguised fetch objectives. The actual fun of a lot of these quests are the expectation of scouring the world and listening to clues, or the directions of hired pawns who have already played these quests in their host worlds and want to guide you, to find waypoints not marked on your map. The team knew to feed back into their exploration loop and that results in a lot less quests than a typical fantasy RPG would boast, but a lot more infused with their own dynamic stories you carve simply by travelling their beaten path. It's an interesting way of sprucing up otherwise rather rudimentary quest lines. Yet there's little hiding the fact that many of these quests are pretty bare bones when you look at them objectively and unless you've already brought into the flow of the game and how it expects you to engage with it's world- you'll likely find most largely dissatisfying. And also- stealth missions are a total joke- I have no idea why this game even has one, let alone several! 

Dragon's Dogma 2's story was where I was the most curious to see how the team had evolved, given how the original game's narrative was largely bland and unmemorable whilst Dark Arisen was grand and complex. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but Dragon's Dogma 2 seems to have mixed both storytelling tools and come out with something disappointingly straightfaced on the surface with a pleasing amount of background depth if you actively try and engage with the world. The quest to depose the false Sovran should never have been the main drive of the plot, for how weak of a draw it is given that 'king-ship' is a mere side effect of being the dragon-slaying Arisen- but peeling back the layers of the story to peer at the world beneath by listening to the context clues of the right bizarre NPCs, or interpreting the silent ruins conveying non-obvious information: you'll see there's something here, just not anything the team were confident enough to commit to. It's rather disappointing we don't get the massive exploratory environmentally-explicit narrative story it seemed we were building towards from Dark Arisen. Now I have to hope we get another giant expansion re-release in the future to see that height of story out of this franchise again!

                                

And just as the original has, Dragon's Dogma 2 does boast a robust post-game that- I am happy to say- greatly outshadows the original's. Dragon's Dogma's post-game, tied to it's 'secret ending'- (Which is so not-secret I stumbled into it accidentally) is essentially the garnish to the dish you've been building unconsciously the entire game. It's where consequences come to fruition and what you've learned throughout the game really comes into play in a world where the stakes are finally somewhat real. I love the idea they went with, leaning a bit into the world building of Souls-Likes without slipping into being just another copy- my sadistic ass just wish they went even further in some regards! Again, though, I think the team missed a huge trick buy not having a final boss! It seems unthinkable that there's no blow-out post game fight against, I dunno, the Ur Dragon or something? Anything to cap off that genius concept of a post-game! Seriously, it's like the game keeps hopping around all the obvious routes to greatness and I can't even conceive of why!

Conclusion

Dragon's Dogma is as ever itself, which is what we kept the original in our hearts so long to preserve. It's less than average way of handling basic gameplay concepts, a world built around explorative navigation often without explicit waypoints in even the most obscure quests, dynamic world bosses with unique character traits and quirks you'll intrinsically learn how to exploit and inexplicably meaningful world interactions- are all uniquely clever in a way only this franchise can boast. But the game still holds a lot of the hang-ups from the original, in largely risk-lacking storytelling and a frustratingly lacking pool of enemies and bosses- which can often undermine the long journey of 12 years we've gone on waiting for this game. In some ways the game is every bit what it use to be, which is comforting, yet in other ways that is so frustrating it makes you want to tear your hair out! At least the core gameplay has undergone such significant bounds that this feels like a genuine revival for the action RPG genre outside of the Souls-Like sub-genre that every Action RPG has felt obliged towards.

I have enjoyed my time with Dragon's Dogma to the point of light addiction, which is probably why I feel comfortable giving the game my 'Brilliant but with room to improve' 'grade of A-'. In many ways it's the game I wanted, but in many more not the game I think this could have been. Still, Dragon's Dogma 2 achieves just enough that I think with one giant blow out expansion this could easily become a game lovingly referenced for the next 12 years hence. (And look at that, I didn't even mention the word 'Microtransaction.' Guess they truly are utterly impact-less on the title.)

How about that Character creator!

 

One of the most intimidating first bosses that any Role Play gamer has to contend with is the character creator- that moment when you are well and truly confronted the limitless potential of eternity and told to whittle everything down to split second- life changing decisions! Anyone who doesn't spend a good ten minutes looking over the options available before even seriously getting started making their face will never understand the sheer horror of looking back on the toil of a thousand petty slider movements only to realise- oh my god, I've created the most boring/horrifying creature ever conceived- back to the drawing board! And with many games that you wouldn't expect getting surprisingly varied and approachable character creators in recent years, I wonder about the philosophy behind what such creators are even supposed to achieve.

The spurring of these thoughts came at the insistence of Dragon's Dogma 2 to launch early it's character creator for the purview of the curious. Through this we've been able to enjoy one of my favourite iterations of a slate of creation tools that I've seen in a game to date. Versatile and varied, Dragon's Dogma 2 enters into the nitty gritty of miniature slide management whilst bridging the gap for those that can't be bothered for the granular improvements by a wide slate of pre-set options making the art of coming up with a unique face a matter of a few moments work. Which I suppose is what empowered the team to fill the world with, reportedly, up to 1000 NPCs that seem to be hand-made- not just generated! I always love when the players get their hands on some slither of the full breadth of creation tools- because that is when the sky is truly the limit in character creation.

With Dragon's Dogma you start with 6 pages worth of pre- generated faces, and when you click one you'll receive a new page of faces similar to that choice, and after that selection you'll get another page of subtle facial structure alterations to pick from. From there you'll have your default character, and that is the canvass upon which you'll make the subtle tweaks to the rise of a cheekbone or the curve of a nose- as well as enjoy the decently robust scarring and tattoo system which allows for mostly free-form placement along the entire body so you can create the image from your imagination to a tee. It's this perfect meeting of complex and approachable which I can see really getting aplomb from all sides- a solution few were actively seeking but I feel that most all can readily appreciate.

Bethesda are well known for their character creators, ever since Skyrim decided to do away with the honestly mediocre systems of Fallout 3 and Oblivion and instead cobble together the most really robust slide-based system. That slide system was limited in it's functionality afforded to the player, however, which is why most people consider the commonly available mod that unlocks those sliders to their fullest potential an automatic download on even a casual playthrough. But there's a problem with that- with it's full potential unlocked, and even to some small degree in it's vanilla state, the Skyrim slate of options are just so vast- it's a bit overwhelming to be honest.

When you get to the sorts of games that offer several hundred slides for each slight tweak of a nose it can get to the point where you're just testing out what a slide does, figuring out you don't like it and immediately going back to defaults. Unless you have a crystal clear idea of exactly what you're going for, it's hard to maintain a unified design philosophy that guides your process. And when the options overwhelm you and you can't get a handle, you'll be less inclined to experiment which will lead to more generic creations. God knows I give up pretty quickly everytime I try to make an interesting player character in a Souls' like game for this very reason. Too much choice can be a curse in itself.

Baldur's Gate III on the otherhand veers into the direction of simple to such a degree that it is shocking how successful the character creator turned out! You literally only select between a small collection of faces and chuck some hair on top alongside some racial features- there isn't a slider in sight when it comes to building your character. Which to be fair is a lot more than they really needed to do given that this was supposed to be an isometric game- but Larian's obsession with making a fully cinematic RPG masterpiece necessitated high quality character models so I guess they were stuck between a rock and a hard place- and choosing to make every single character creation choice a curated 'body part' or 'extra feature' was certainly a bold choice indeed.

This could easily have turned out as utterly pathetic as Destiny's character creator (which still doesn't have any option to change after the tutorial despite this franchise closing in on over a decade old later this year.) Larian really honed in on all the character appearance choices that also crossed over with class building, including race and Class options, and threw in as many high quality assets as possible to give as much variation possible. Scales, Horns, pigmentation, there are even selectable genitals are in the game for some reason. The result is perhaps on the best simply character creators of all time, lacking the range of Dragon's Dogma 2, perhaps, but creating no less as memorable and unique love dolls for lonely BG3 players to vicariously find companionship through whilst convincing themselves that they'll also fall madly for some hyper interesting personality one day. 

 At it's very least a good character creator should give us the ability to conjure some rough approximation of ourselves to self-insert into a video game for the truly imagination deprived. But at it's best character creators invite players to launch themselves into tailor made shoes of their own conjuration, dreaming up a whole life to roleplay. Those who spend all those hours getting someone just right, as generic or fantastical as they ultimately end up, feel that pull of the other letting them step out of the shoes of the mundane into another life for a brief few hours. Maybe those who simply can't connect with that would be considered healthier individuals in a traditional setting- but name one mentally healthy person that's fun to have drinks with! Exactly! 

Dragons Dogma 2 approaches

 

Sooo... turns out I'm really bad at keeping schedule with upcoming releases, given that for some bizarre reason I expected Dragon's Dogma 2 to be a January release- Whereas instead I'm going to be waiting a few more months before getting my hands on the game I've waited a near decade for. Still, it's gratifying to see the surge of interest in this, new series, which I've always held to the highest regard- seemingly in spite of it's forgotten nature. Ever since it was brushed under the cultural wave which was the 'Skyrim' release, I knew Dragon's Dogma would be a series that needed to fight for it's attention, and given that the game originally won out my attention over the equally as brilliant Borderlands 2- the game was as much a heavy hitter in my book as any other generation defining console game. I just never realised it managed to worm into the headspaces of any other player like it had with me until reading all the equally as unhinged players desperate for a bit more of that unique ambrosia once again.

Dragon's Dogma impressed originally with it's sense of scale of how that actually factors into it's gameplay systems, rather than existing as a visual representation of power and scale. You could feasibly beat a dragon by stabbing at it's toes as in any other RPG on the market, but it would be much more effective to scale it's back when it isn't looking and plunging your sword into it's eye socket before the lizard can throw you off. Grappling feels like it should be one of those gimmick concepts that totally overshadows the breadth of the rest of the game, but the sheer utility it affords you, dynamically creating memorable battle moments, justifies the mechanic all on it's own. We've already seen, with their Colossus of Rhodes inspired boss, how this is legacy that the Capcom team recall and are feeding into. Team Ico should be proud of the solid foundations they no doubt inspired.

Of course, the 'box' feature which most people remember the game for would be it's Pawn system. The online system within which players share their personally built companion character with the world in such that they enter other people's games and share the knowledge of their experiences, as well as their combat vocations, with the team. A very diverse way of creating a party slightly sullied by the fact that every pawn feels roughly similar, like emotionless dolls who fight because they're told to- rather than members of a collaborative party who are working towards the same goal out of shared interests. That's probably why I don't remember them as fondly as everyone else. Once you've the same voiced character, with a slight octave change, in the same party- the magic starts to fade.

As such I find the proposed improvements to the system coming with Dragons Dogma 2 to be interesting, but ultimately not something to rest my hopes and dreams on. In a developer interview we've seen acknowledgements from Itsuno that Pawns used to repeat themselves too often, and how that is something they've tried to address directly with more voice actors and repetition redundancies. There will only ever be so far a system like this can feasibly go towards making these AI controlled companions feel unique, and I suppose my heightened cognisance of that reality dampens any hope I want to have about what they might achieve. At the end of the day, without relying on some incredibly complex AI generative system, all we can rely on is the recreation of appropriate 'Game Feel', a variable totally impossible to judge without hands-on playtime.

Just hearing the testimony of the developers however manages to paint a very confusing image of what it even is that they are going for with this game- to the point that I wonder if Dragon's Dogma 2 is even going to resemble the same play structure as the title I love. For example, just their comments on the dynamic nature of NPC interaction has me head scratching, as I'm trying to decipher exactly what is meant by 'affinity' interactions that can lead to NPCs 'fighting over you'. They tease systems wherein relationships between NPCs can permeate your good deeds, so that doing a good turn for one person makes you friendly with all their acquittances too. And apparently when two people who come around your house "to play" as part of this system (god knows what that means) "A fight might break out." Is this what a game like this even needs?

Personally hearing confusing testimony like this brings to mind memories of of early days of FABLE, when we heard stories about acorns that could grow into trees over the course of the game- despite there being no functional purpose for an idea like that existing. Such ideas became whittled down and removed as the game can into clearer focus, which made a liar out of the man who babbled about it in Interviews. (That's Peter M, of course.) The same happened with Hello Games and No Man's Sky. These comments are being made in the months before DD2 drops, so it really does seem like we're fast past the stage of experimental feature pulling- but do I really believe in some complex system of NPC affectations that lend nothing to the core fantasy of the Dragon's Dogma product? Honestly, I don't know. It certainly sounds roundly bizarre.

At the very least the forest isn't being lost through the trees; everytime I here Itsuno sit down and talk about the things that matter I nod to myself hearing the thoughts of a man who gets it. This isn't one of those wonder games that was made by an accidental collision of conflicting ideals that no one in the team quite understands how to live up to or replicate, like Saints Row 2- Itsuno seems to know what made that original great. Even just his comments on Fast Travelling made me smile. Yes, there are slightly more ways to get around the world for this new game, but actually going on the journey on your own two feet is the ideal way to get around. "Travel is boring? That's not true. It's only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun."

Dragons Dogma 2 sits at the conflux of a lot of elements, and I do wonder whether or not the game will live up to the promise we all have held in our hearts all this time. I know that myself I wanted to see our interactions with boss monsters get a focus for a sequel, so already this game isn't quite what I had envisioned all those years. (I wanted to see aquatic mythical beasts get brought to life. Maybe next time around, eh?) At the very least I know for certain that Itsuno is working on the game he always wanted to make, which is worth quite a lot considering this is the game who helped bring the Devil May Cry Franchise into the cultural eminence within which it currently resides. Slip a little bit of that grandeur and style our way, and I'll be one happy dragon slayer!

Dragon's Dogma 2 is nearly here

 

Yes, the news was already leaked an age ago because we live in a world where nothing can ever be kept secret save for the release date of 'Hollow Knight: Silksong'; a game I'm becoming more and more certain was nothing more than a case of mass delusion the more time goes on. But Dragon's Dogma 2 is more than just real now- it has itself an honest to goodness release date. It has some tangible stake to the world now, we have a thread by which to pull and maybe, one day, load this thing onto our consoles and PCs! Can you believe we made it to such a blessed time in history? Well don't believe it, because we're still a number of months out and Grand Theft Auto 6 is getting a trailer in a couple of weeks- living to that would be the greater accomplishment. Still, as a Dragon's Dogma truther I cannot believe we've made it to the other-end of the friendzone circle; the place from which nobody escapes. Except Ron Stoppable. What an example to men everywhere.

Where were we? Dragon's Dogma- Right! So after a decade of pondering how exactly one might go about continuing a perfectly circular narrative about the cycle of the Dragon that births it's slayer who then becomes the next dragon that births their slayer, I have to say I'm a little aghast that the option which was chosen was to literally throw up one's hands and call this an alternate world. I really liked the idea of slowly opening up the mythos of the world and tying the various rising dragon-threats to one another in an even larger Dogma just waiting to be uncovered- and I suppose this means that the TV show and Online game are still canonical in what is now officially the Dragon's Dogma multiverse? Gods, I'm getting sick of hearing that blasted term! Still, I guess the idea of multiple realms isn't totally new, it was always accepted that Pawns spawned from the worlds of other Arisen. (Although we were led to believe those alternate realities were just parallels of our own. Dragons Dogma 2 looks straight distinct!)

On that note, wow am I happy with the look of the game we're getting. There's a indistinguishable heart of Dragon's Dogma here that cannot be mistaken. It feels like the game we love, from the way the player moves to the bizarrely unrushed pace of the most energetic set-pieces! Watching the Arisen clamber onto their 'Colossus of Rhodes' parody and slice away at his weak points looked outwardly clunky, and I just know there's a swath of outside observers judging the pace of the game hard from such footage- but this is every bit of what made the original great. It's that very pace which expands the scale of these giant skirmishes into epic slogs, like something out of the old Jason and the Argonauts movie, cinematic and grandiose- if puppeteered and arguably a little slow. God knows how they managed to replicate that onto the RE engine, but god bless them for the attempt!

Speaking of- golly does this game look pretty! From the hilly greens to the savannah plateaus there is a touch of visual class borrowed right from the processing power of the stellar RE Remake franchise and I am giddy that tech is getting more chances to strut it's funky stuff! Dragon's Dogma looks nigh on a stunner with this fresh coat of paint, and it allows the game to feel the same but look brand new in a way that sends the nostalgia centres in my brain on a riot. This is how Dark Arisen looks inside of my delusions! Of course, this level of improved fidelity is benefitted from the starkly contrasted locales that Dragon's Dogma is going for- with the beastly desert empire opposite the human hilly duchy. My only fear is for some cringey article to come out and take the elements of this unique game and try to sum it up with a nonsensical portmanteau that establishes entirely incorrect expectations. What's that 'GamingBible'? "Skyrim meets Elden Ring"? Ugh... this is why you people are considered a third class species.

The prevailing thought I keep hear being aired about the Dragon's Dogma 2 gameplay is music in the ears of every fan. It's exactly like the first game, just better. And it's evident in the slickness of the animations, the bombast of the magic, the scale of the enemies, the responsiveness of the environments- nothing has been added that might distract from the core experience. Of course, we've yet to see the night time, so we can't yet say if this game will be quite as oppressively blinding as the first game was- to this day the only RPG where travelling at night really is as unappealing as all the NPCs insist it is! And I hope for the same level of hopelessness for the poor players stupid enough to think they can solo the game, only to wander into the very first CC effect and realise they literally can't break out of it without party assistance. And seeing as how one of the new classes looks to be a martially challenged circus dancer with an incense jar on a string- it really seems like the team are leaning into the 'fight as a team or die alone' mindset.

One entirely new aspect of the game is the idea of distinct cultures and races, which was little more than aesthetic preference in the original. Pointy ear Pawns were all over the online, but no such thing as 'Elves' exsisted. Here they're not only a defined race but they have a language, one the player will likely not be privy to unless accompanied by a Pawn with translation capabilities, not too dissimilar to the whole 'kidnap a translator to understand Russian' mechanic from MGS 5. Given that we've only seen Elves speaking a different language, and the new beast race seems staunchly olde English spouting, I can only assume there might be some other fantasy peoples that the team are keeping underwraps. Maybe Dwarfs and Gnomes, or perhaps Tieflings? I know there won't be Tieflings, but god I love a good Tiefling every now and then! (The DnD race-elitist in me is showing!)

A curious note I've heard coined once or twice is a genuine surprise about the fact that the story doesn't sound utterly boring. With a kidnapped Empress and a false Arisen with Pawns called to his service by mysterious means. (Which I'm sure have nothing to do with the glowing purple neckless around his neck.) I think many people forget that Dragons Dogma's story, about a reverent attempting to win back their heart from an unstoppable Dragon, actually sounded pretty sick on paper too. It was the execution that made it mind-numbingly boring. On the flipside, Dark Arisen's narrative about a hero corrupted by their inability to sacrifice the one thing they loved is a shockingly effective tale, told in the piece-meal style of Dark Souls to spectacular effect! There's no guessing which way this one will go until we get our hands on it. We just have to accept the team are capable of both extremes, and hope for the better.

Dragon's Dogma 2. Gods, it feels so hairbrained to be talking about this game like it's a real thing but now it is, we're already here! I expected this to be drip fed over the course of years but nope- we're in the age of quick deliver, baby! I only hope that the ten years were enough time to get everyone's eggs neatly in a row, before the hatching- at least. Oh, and pray beyond prayer that this is an actual release date and not just some drunk executives random guess about when this game might possibly come together, like I can only assume the case has been with Skull and Bones over the past eight years. (February Release date? With literally no marketing at the last Ubisoft showcase event? Only if Ubisoft is every bit as dense as we've all insisted they are.) Dragon's Dogma 2. Wow, it's going to get some time to getting used to writing those words together. Dragon's Dogma 2. Dragon's Dogma 2. I can't get enough of it!

Dragon's Dogma 2 feels familiar... and that's a good thing!

 

I can't rightly voice how long I've been waiting for a follow-up to my personal 'most underrated RPG of all time' Dragon's Dogma. A game it felt like literally no one in the world had played except for me, yet one I couldn't help but fall madly in love with each time I played it for the style it possessed that no one seemed interested in replicating! The monster climbing mechanics with body part crippling, the Pawn swapping systems with dynamically learning and teaching AI moments, the sense of on-the-ground adventure in the vast swathes of travelling you were required to do, the supremely weird yet bizarrely memorable characters who under any other team would have all been classic RPG stereotypes but under the Dragon's Dogma team feel almost like winking homages both exaggerated and subverted. It teemed with possibility, life, intrigue... and all that snubbed because of a little game called Skyrim.

But times have changed! Bethesda have pretty much proven outright that they no longer have that magic spark to change the gaming landscape anymore and everyone's on the look out for the next swords-and-sorcery RPG to keep us satiated. In steps Dragon's Dogma 2, swept on wings of fury, claiming their rightly place as the it thing... at some point. We still don't have a release window and that slightly bothers me. We've gotten far too many 'forever in development' games for my liking. Still, at least Dragon's Dogma 2 is no longer an odd rumour that would pop up ever year or so hinting at the desire to 'get back to it' from the original director. We need wait no longer, gameplay and footage is here to consume! And with that we come across the big elephant in the room: It looks exactly like the first game.

Not in terms of graphical parity, mind you. Dragon's Dogma 2 is running on the latest iteration of Capcom's gorgeous RE engine, which has bedazzled the world year after year powering the stellar Resident Evil Remake series. (plus 7 and 8, obviously.) Of course liberties had to be taken on the complexity of character models, (I suspect Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't have the budget to so much as consider facial capture tech) it all still looks good. No complaints there. What I mean to imply is that Dragon's Dogma feels like the same principal of game that the first one perpetrated. Muddy green European country beset by grandiose, if crumbling, stone edifices- vast swathes of untouched fields populated only by wayfarers and dynamic beasts. It feels like the first game but more, more alive. And that's exactly what I wanted.

Dragon's Dogma always felt like it was meant to be one of those 'sandbox style' open world games where the world doesn't care about you. Everything reinforces that from the sheer scale of the giant boss creatures, the relative stinginess of the economy, the scale of the home hubs, even the rudimentary individual relationship system wherein you built friendships (and even love interests) on a one-to-one basis rather than by becoming the celebrated hero of the world. But at the time it was beholden to tech constraints. Still, there were hoards of monsters that would spawn in the brush and attack travellers, they just happened to be the exact same creatures that spawned in the exact same places everytime you went anywhere. (Until you entered the end-game world state, of course.) That seems like a dream Capcom's DD team are finally ready to capitalise on.

As we're still in the era of only talking strictly about what was shown off in the demo footage, there's not a lot that people on the game can talk about beyond ideas they wanted to explore. For one we've heard that a point of inspiration was Grand Theft Auto 5 and the way that game made every NPC feel like they are going about their daily lives. With a map 4 times the size of the first game it's important that Dragon's Dogma 2 put a bit of effort into feeding that illusion, and that hints back to the idea of a breathing open world that I think this game is going for. Already we've seen footage showing Griffins just raiding the countryside, which were more flagship encounters in the original game that stole the show. If those majestic creatures are more of a dynamic occurrence now, that just makes me wonder what the show stealers are going to be!

One word I always come back to when it comes to Dragon's Dogma, and which is starting to populate my thoughts on my favourite games, is 'robust'. I love an engine that will allow me to bend it's rules without breaking. Being able to throw an ally at an airborne beast so they can grab ahold of it felt great in the original game and we're already seeing examples of that being built upon for Dragon's Dogma 2. That one shot of the Troll having it's balance blown out from under it, forcing the monster to fall back over a mountain gap and wildly grab the otherside of the ravine, creating a makeshift bridge for the characters to scale, is just wild levels of creative ingenuity in gameplay- I just pray that's merely a taste of what's to come in the whole game.

And then there's jank. Dragon's Dogma is far from the smoothest running video game you've ever played in your life, in fact- it's a bit of a jittery ride. AI can be confused to the point where your own team can be an impediment to success, monsters sometimes stumble off of tall buildings to their own demise. The game is silly, but in the most endearing possible way. All that roughness is very much part of the identity we very much want to see replicated, and according to the preliminary impressions it's sounding like the game is every bit as adorably off-kilter as we need it to be. Not enough to ruin the experience, but enough to colour the gameplay in a way that's memorable. Because if there's one thing that can be said about Dragon's Dogma, it sure is memorable!

Dragon's Dogma is one of those games where what we love about it only requires magnification in order to satisfy the fanbase, and as long as narrative cues were taken more from 'Dark Arisen' than from the base game of the original, I have no doubt that 2 will finally scoop off the recognition this budding franchise has been lacking. You know, unless they do a 'Horizon' and surprise release the game during a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion or something else equally as moronic. There's magic in what Dragon's Dogma did, and that magic was alive along enough to bounce around Capcom for 10 years without abating, and I can't wait to load that up on my console once again. You know, as soon as we get a darn release date! (What is it with modern games slipping back into the 'no release date' meta? It's starting to get on my nerves!)

Oh right...Wasn't Dragon's Dogma 2 announced?

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!

Dragon's Dogma 2 is confirmed

 Get in!

It takes something very special to have me writing in stereotypical football hooligan slang; and Capcom popping out a Dragon's Dogma sequel is certainly something 'very' and 'special'. That is a game which is easily one of the most underappreciated role playing games of all time, and I do not use that term lightly or often, because it means a lot to me. For something to be 'underappreciated' by my standards, it needs to be deprived of an interest it should have gained because of factors outside of its own control. That doesn't mean it should have been the biggest game ever made, or that it launched in a broken mess and lost momentum before it was patched back into a working state, I'm talking about a game that was fit and primed to be a moderate hit before a tiny game called Skyrim rolled around and totally robbed all the air from the Role Playing community room. Any game that launched back then should be asking for it's marketing money back from Bethesda.

From day one Dragon's Dogma was doing things that no other RPG of the time was doing and what few dare to do even now, such as actually making the act of travelling from A to B a gruelling proposition due to the vast dangers and scale of the road, climbing and scaling huge terrifying beasts for the bonus of locational damage spots and having a companion system that is designed and maintained entirely by the online community. And these weren't just half-assed experiments that tried a few cool things and ultimately didn't amount to much; Dragon's Dogma cohesively and successfully pulled of so many interesting mechanics in its body that the rest of the world just refuses to acknowledge thanks to the slight oddness of the package itself. It's graphics look dated, it's world seems bland and largely flat, the monsters are traditional European fantasy beasts instead of wild fantastical originals; and apparently that's grounds to write the whole game off. Well I say 'nay' to that, good sir! Nay!

Because everything that makes Dragon's Dogma seem like another generic stone on the road is merely freckles on the face of a unique masterpiece in its own right, a game which plays like no other RPG I've played before or since; and I'll stand by that. The enemies based off of European fantasy: that's unique in a space that so often borrows those vague names and attaches them to hardly representative derivatives, Dragon's Dogma is the only game that takes them right from the storybook and devises ways that their storied characteristics can be utilised in a gaming formula. That world of mostly flat greenlands, serves as plains from which to exemplify the scale of the journeys you embark on so that at any point the player can look back or forward and take in the distance they've gone or the road they have left. And the dated graphics are just indicative of the time. Dragon's Dogma doesn't have a megalomaniac game director rereleasing it every four years, it's had to make do.

Where Dragon's Dogma excels for me in the places that matter the most for an action RPG games; such as the combat and levelling. It's split into a comprehensive job system that takes the basic classes we're all used to and gives them vastly different playstyles, unique equipment, evolutions and even advanced hybrid classes so that you can make a character who is in themselves unique, but still at the top of their game. Something I'd love a Bethesda game to be able to commit to, instead of their forever march towards character hegemony that their late game dichotomy always demands. Which is something I'm even hopeful that upcoming Action RPG games learn from, such as Avowed. (Looking at Starfield's levelling system, I figure they're already long past such an evolution.)

And then there's the Pawn system which to my eyes lacks an equal in the entire genre. Essentially players are tasked with hand designing their own personal side kick to roam the country side with, and to fill out their party with other player's personal side kicks. And when you aren't playing the game, your sidekick will travel with other players and learn from them. That's not just lip service either, they actually learn! Which is to say that as they fight new enemies or complete quests, that companion will remember the weaknesses of those foes or the locations needed for that quest and chime in to help the other players or yourself when they return and are put in those situations again. Admittedly, this learning system is the only flagship feature that feels a little experimental and maybe not utilised to its fullest potential especially on the quest department. (Given that most quests are excessively straightforward) But with a sequel who knows what could happen with systems like these!

What I'm hoping for, if I let me imagination run wild, is actually decently robust. (I've had a long time to think about this.) First I want a new location to explore, one where the central city is as much a playground for action as the wilds because I know there could be an incredible dragon set-piece battle set in a city, and I would love to see it. And I want to see a completely new dimension bought to the combat theatre, which in my mind could be the water. There's so many cool European fantasy monsters who live and dwell exclusively under the depths, and the ability to interact and battle them in a meaningful fashion would be awesome. I can just imagine grapping onto the scales of a some fast-moving aquatic abomination and holding tight as it torpedoes through the waves, all the while thrashing and flailing as it tries to shake me off- That's how you push this series further forward.

Additionally, from a narrative standpoint I hope the team learns from the mistakes of the first game, namely in how reductively vague and non-committing the core narrative was. Everything that happened after the wrap of the main story, including the epilogue and Dark Arisen, were absolutely great fertile grounds to build a franchise off of; but the main story felt so generic that people who value great and challenging stories were immediately turned away from the project. So I encourage the writing team to lean into the darker elements, explore the nature of the Dogma more, and maybe give the player a chance to flesh out the personality of their main character if that isn't asking for too much. (Although it definitely might be given how some JRPG protagonists act. Looking hard at the Dragon's Quest rooster here.)

Last but by no means least, the music. I feel like this goes without saying, but maybe it doesn't; the main theme that Dragon's Dogma launched with was trash. Dark Arisen reintro-ed the game with a perfectly apt track that evolved from a medieval old English ditty into a sweeping adventure orchestral love song to epic fantasy. You don't need to break it down piece by piece, especially when I've already done that whilst talking about my love of the game in the past. So whatever Dragon's Dogma 2 brings to us, let it be more in tune with that second song rather than the first, let us know that this new game will be firing on every cylinder. All of which is to say I'm ecstatic that Dragon's Dogma is back after it's extended exclusive stay in China and I just know that this time the game can go that extra distance to establish itself in the history books that exact same way which circumstance denied the first game from doing... unless history repeats itself and this game lands at the exact same time as Avowed... Please God, don't let that happen.