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Like the original game, Dragon's Dogma 2 excels when you're out in its open world with your pawn allies, but it falls short in terms of quest design, convenience, and general polish.
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00:00Like the original game, Dragon's Dogma 2 excels when you're out in its open world with your
00:05pawn allies, finding hidden caves and treasures, fighting monsters and generally losing track
00:11of time in this amazing game. Also like the original though, it falls short in terms of
00:15quest design, convenience and general polish.
00:19Travelling from town to town in Dragon's Dogma 2 feels like a daring expedition. It may
00:31take days, so don't forget your camping gear and enough restoratives or a healer to sustain
00:36you. Sure, if you really want fast travel you can hop aboard an oxcart and nap through
00:41the ride, but you still might be rudely awoken by a bandit ambush and have to defend your
00:46bovine taxi before resuming your journey. And of course, oxcarts are only handy when you're
00:51going town to town, not when you want to explore off the beaten track, dipping into caves, clambering
00:57over hills and sniffing around ruins. Expeditions in Dragon's Dogma take so long not only because
01:02settlements are distances apart, but because the eye wanders, towards scenery that has yet
01:06to be investigated or creatures that have yet to be slain. Before you know it, you're stuck
01:11in the wilderness, encumbered, exhausted, travelling by lantern light, like swimming out to sea,
01:16only to then realise you don't have the strength to return. That danger, however, is one reason
01:20that the grand sense of adventure in Dragon's Dogma 2 is near unparalleled. Another is that
01:26for all the risk your journey entails, the tone of Capcom's sequel remains as camp and
01:30as silly as the first game, a high fantasy that contrasts gloriously against the work
01:35of From Software and its souls-like acolytes. Arguably, it's especially enjoyable from a British
01:40perspective, not least because a good chunk of its world feels like one of the rocky areas
01:45of our countryside, like the Peak District perhaps, but with goblins instead of tea shops.
01:50Friends are an essential part of the ingredient that makes up Dragon's Dogma 2, and it's
01:54oddly compelling. In this case, as in the original game, those friends are called pawns. You can
01:59have up to three of these upbeat AI-controlled companions by your side at once. Their sole
02:03purpose in life is to help you succeed. One of the three is your permanent main pawn, whose
02:08appearance, class and abilities you can select. The rest you summon from the rift. In effect,
02:13a server where copies of other players' pawns gather together, waiting to be picked for alternate
02:18adventures. Choosing auxiliary pawns from the rift thus equates to borrowing other people's
02:23creations to fill out your party, and they may in turn use yours, which adds a wonderful
02:27communal touch to proceedings. And because borrowed pawns don't level up while working
02:31with you, it's necessary to keep swapping them for others, perhaps trying out different
02:35class lineups. Do stick to the basic or experiment, all the while gaining a window into what fellow
02:40arisen have conjured from the detailed character creator and what kind of equipment they've
02:45discovered. As for the personality of the pawns, well, they can be quite irritating, but nevertheless
02:49endearing. They're irritating chiefly because they talk too much, jabbering on with hints
02:55and observations that may be painfully obvious or irrelevant to what you're trying to achieve.
02:59Their chatter also repeats a little too frequently, yet they're endearing in part because of this
03:04looping verbal diarrhea. What Capcom has done here is take the classic dumb RPG NPC and fold
03:10it into the lore of its game world. In particular, they buzz with joy at the sight of treasure chests.
03:14Hilariously so when said chest is actually just a strongbox in someone's house, which in their eyes
03:19is some great prize right for the plunder. Oh, and ladders. They love ladders.
03:24Pawns are not merely comedy cheerleaders, however. For one, they do point out interesting stuff you may
03:29have missed, including bringing information from other worlds they've travelled with other arisen.
03:33But most importantly, they'll fight tooth and nail for your cause, gamely charging towards the
03:39largest of creatures unless you beckon them away. And most of the time, you won't. Since combat is
03:44Dragon's Dogma 2's other strength, drawing on Capcom's own Monster Hunter series as much as any other RPG.
03:50In terms of your own participation in skirmishes, the game does a fine job of making each class
03:54genuinely different to play. As an archer, for example, you might use height and range to your advantage,
03:59while a sorcerer needs precious seconds to invoke powerful elemental spells.
04:03All are worthy choices. You'll likely try at least a few in the course of a playthrough,
04:07with bespoke special tactics and attacks to learn as you level up.
04:11Levitation lets a sorcerer reach higher ground or blast foes from beyond their reach,
04:15for example, while a thief can yank them around with a grappling hook.
04:18If you mix these skills together with some of your pawns, the result can often be merry chaos,
04:24especially against giant marquee monsters such as Cyclopses, Ogres and Chimeras,
04:29which are even more magnificent to behold this time, and have a habit of dropping in unannounced.
04:34Sure, some dwell within foreboding caves where you'd expect to meet them, but now and again an
04:38enormous griffin might swoop out of the sky, or you might arrive back at the capital to find a
04:43city guard in a pitched battle with the Cyclops, that had presumably just wandered through the main
04:47gate, and get to join in to bring them down. All of this improv mayhem is not without downsides,
04:52though. At times you can be unreasonably swamped by gangs of enemies converging in a single area,
04:58and it's not so awe-inducing if that griffin plunges from the heavens when you're fully focused
05:03on fighting an ogre already, crushing you under its talons. What's strange about this sequel is
05:07that in many ways it feels as if Capcom were happy to make the same game as it did over a decade ago,
05:12that is, a 2012 RPG rather than something more up to date. In short, this means you have to put up
05:17with an unevenness that seems less acceptable now than it did back then. For example, dialogue and
05:21cinematic scenes are haphazardly staged and directed. It's odd because there are some great physical
05:27systems in this world. You can collapse a rope bridge to send enemies to their doom, which in
05:31turn may force you to seek an alternative route, but other simple reactions don't register, such as
05:36trying to stop a minotaur charge by coaxing him into a tree. The biggest bugbear however is that certain
05:42archaic and sloppy features can cause you to waste a lot of time. The goofy writing might be
05:47charming coming from characters' mouths for instance, but not so in poorly explained quest
05:52objectives, especially when accompanied by confusing map markers. Also, as magnificent as
05:56the long journeys can be, some quests aren't worth completing because fast travel options remain
06:01stingy even after you've opened up a good chunk of the map. Yes, you can zip instantly to any location
06:07that has a port crystal, and even place your own, but there are few and far between, and each trip requires
06:12a rare and expensive consumable. Considering that multi-part quests are often requiring
06:17you to return to their point of origin after waiting a few days, if you moved on by then,
06:21it's really more trouble than it's worth. Maybe there's something to be said for convenience
06:25after all then. Certainly you might wish for a little bit more when managing your inventory,
06:29or while fiddling through shopping and storage menus that aren't quite slick enough. You also might
06:33wish for some shortcuts to accumulating cash, since the cost of living crisis really seems to have
06:39bitten hard in this realm. Still, Dragon's Dogma 2 itself remains good value due to that unique
06:43vibe and its excellent expedition. Like its craggy landscape, you take the lows with the highs,
06:48the rough with the smooth. Sure, it's not quite the holy grail of RPGs, unless you're talking about
06:53the Monty Python film, but embrace the chaos and there's nothing quite like it. We give it 3.5 stars
06:59out of 5. Let us attack with the full sum of our strength! We must try to delay its course, by any means!

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