Dragon’s Dogma 2 Review (PS5)

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Dragon’s Dogma 2 Review (PS5)

The Capcom cult classic returns with Dragon’s Dogma 2, an open-world, class-based fantasy role-playing experience that stands out in a market crowded with mundane open-world games thanks to its interesting AI companions and deeply immersive gameplay. After many years, the Dragon and the Arisen have returned, but has the Dragon’s Dogma formula translated well into the modern gaming world, or should the Arisen have stayed *****?

Dragon’s Dogma 2 kicks off with your custom character imprisoned in a work camp excavating strange artifacts. When a wild Madusa attacks the site, your character is given a chance to escape with the help of a mysterious stranger. You will end up in the kingdom of Vermund. The player will make their way to a nearby military camp and make contact with a rift stone, allowing you to summon your custom pawn and recruit other pawns to your party.

The player is then told that they are Arisen and the rightful ruler of this land, but strangely, there is already another Arisen, and they are soon to be coronated in the capital of Vernworth. On top of all this, the titular Dragon has returned and is wreaking havoc across the lands. Only you and your loyal Pawns can hope to stand a chance against this mighty ******. Even if you can defeat the Dragon, who is this new false Arisen, and why were you imprisoned?

Dragon’s Dogma 2 surprised me with its complex story. It went beyond a simple “chosen one” ****** the big monster narrative and delved into complex situations like political power struggles and manipulation. Vermund is a kingdom in conflict with an unpopular queen and a hostile relationship with neighboring Battahl. This may sound like you need to play the first game to understand the story, however, despite this surprisingly complex narrative, playing the first game is unnecessary. The games share almost no story connection beyond a few references meaning you can enjoy the story without needing a summary of the last game.

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The gameplay of Dragon’s Dogma 2 revolves around combat and exploration. The game has ten playable classes called vocations, but you’ll only have access to four at the start. While you play and explore, you’ll earn experience to level up your character and vocation, unlocking new skills and passives. The move-sets the player can access are limited, only allowing four moves to be equipped at a time, along with your light and heavy attacks.

The actual complexity of Dragon’s Dogma’s combat comes from the game’s NPC Pawn system. The Pawns serve as loyal companions throughout the game and can be any class, excluding the Hybrid vocations. These Pawns will ****** alongside you and can even lead you to secret areas you haven’t found and even translate different languages. This system leads to pretty interesting decisions as you play. Do you spend the resources to recruit a high-level thief but dismiss your archer, losing the ability to ****** at range? Perhaps you recruit a lower level Pawn to translate elvish for you or carry your stuff.

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The AI of the Pawns can be very impressive at times, but it can also be ******* just as often. The Pawns get stuck on terrain or fall down a cliff and **** just as often as they find a secret path or track down a treasure chest. One ****** against a drake had me cursing at my whole party as the Pawns dumbly stood still while a slow ******* spells one-shot all of them. The spell could have easily been avoided by taking a few steps in any direction, but the AI seemed utterly oblivious. There were many times I wished I could tell a Pawn to stand in a specific place or use a particular *******, but those kinds of systems aren’t in Dragon’s Dogma, instead, relying on the AI to do all the decision-making.

It’s a system that can produce impressive examples of the AI understanding of the game mechanics but can also leave the player screaming at them to “OPEN THE DANG CHEST!!” The Pawns work best as you traverse the open world, helping you find every secret in the incredibly content-rich world Capcom has created. You can’t go more than 100 feet in Dragon’s Dogma 2 without finding a *****, a chest, or a ******.

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The game’s day-night cycle also differentiates its world from other open-world games. Most games with a day-night cycle tint the screen blue for the night, but Dagon’s Dogma has a true pitch-****** night, limiting your vision to only a few feet without a lamp. The lack of a traditional fast travel system does so much to make this world feel unique. Every trip must be planned, making exploration even more rewarding when you find a camp or settlement right when your party is against the ropes.

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The Style of Dragon’s Dogma 2 strives for photorealism in a fantastical setting. Sometimes, it’s like looking at a nature documentary if the subjects were lizardmen and goblins instead of zebras and lions. Most monsters have mundane designs that try to keep these fantastical creatures grounded. It’s as if the designers took the original descriptions of these monsters and translated them to the game world as literally as possible.

I am no expert on the history of manticores or sphinxes, but I found these designs more believable as real animals that exist in a magic world rather than video game bosses. This grounded style also extends to your character’s arms and armor, with things like huge hammers and bows looking more like weapons made by skilled craftsmen in the world rather than digital assets created by a game developer. It all combines to make Dragon’s Dogma 2 feel closer to a simulator game than a traditional RPG.

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Dragon’s Dogma 2 runs around 50 fps on a standard PS5, but the frame rate tends to dip in denser areas, especially in violent fights. You can set it to a fixed frame rate of 30 fps and turn off ray-tracing and motion blur to help performance. Weirdly, there is only one save slot in Capcom’s fantasy title, so you can’t run concurrent playthroughs on separate save files and will need to start over from the beginning if you wanna replay a part of the story. The game is stable, and I didn’t experience any crashes, but there were a few times I needed to restart because my character became trapped in the environment and could not escape without using an item to teleport away.

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Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a game that understands what makes an open world enjoyable. The game is confident in its systems and refuses to undercut them by including features like readily available fast travel and checklists that are commonplace in more mediocre open worlds. Instead, it asks the player to engage in its world on its terms and refuses to compromise for convenience. It is a bold philosophy that may repel some players. However, I fell in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2 and see it as something all open-world games should strive to be. If not for performance issues and an AI that falls just short of being the ideal adventuring partner, it could have reached the rights of games like Red ***** 2, but for now, I’m sure its devoted fan base will be more than happy.

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