There is a scene in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey where Bilbo Baggins is running from his home in the Shire exclaiming that he is going on an adventure and I have earned to feel that same feeling as he had in that moment. I have always wanted to know the feeling of heading out into the unknown with a sword and friends by my side on an epic adventure of epic proportions. Dragon’s Dogma 2 delivered that feeling to me every time I left the quiet comfort of whatever town or city I was residing in. When you take those first few steps outside the safety of civilization, you are met with breathtaking landscapes and a world primed to explore.
Even though I have played well over 20 hours of Dragon’s Dogma 2, I don’t think I have even scratched the surface of the game’s story or world in the slightest. The story follows you, the Arisen, a character connected deeply to the world around them as the game’s chosen one, destined to set off on the heroes journey. But I will put all of my cards on the table here as a reviewer and tell you my care for that went out the window once I figured out I could literally pick up and throw my enemies. How could I be forced to care about the world at large when I could spend so much time picking up goblins in the middle of combat and throwing them at other enemies. The story seemed epic in scale but I wanted to make my own path. With that in mind, most of my game time was completing side quests given to me through my journey that let me develop my skills and learn more about the world in a way I wanted.
When you start Dragon’s Dogma 2, you are tasked with creating your own character with one of the most robust character creators I have ever seen in a game. The character creator was released early for people to play with and I have seen some truly remarkable creations. Someone made Willem Dafoe which I debated on recreating but opted to make a basic hero for myself instead. From then, it’s pedal to the metal. You face a gorgon about ten minutes into actual gameplay and I was smiling from that moment on.
Each encounter in the game feels completely unique to your own play style and which vocation you are currently using. Vocations are the games versions of classes which can be changed at any time in certain towns so you aren’t married to one class through your entire play through. The class I focused on was Warrior, a sword and shield-wielding class which faired well with my headfirst-into-battle mentality. Even if the combat system isn’t the most complex, there are tons of abilities and moves you can add to each vocation, further tailoring the game to your play style. Even though I was playing as a Warrior, whenever I got a new vocation then I was able to go back to town and switch into it. There was no major penalty for trying out the different things the game had to offer.
I could simply just switch my vocation by using points I earned leveling the current one to switch. These points come from slaying monsters, quests, and general leveling but they are not lost when you die. While so many games have leaned into the punishment style of a roguelike, Dragon’s Dogma 2 sticks to an autosave and regular save system that allows you to really run helmet first into the world. So there is never a true penalty for trying new things to see what works best for you as your Arisen. It was so refreshing after wanting a game like this but so many times just being turned away by the level of progression loss if you make a single misstep. That isn’t what makes a game fun for me. I want to be able to think about something cool I could do then try it.
For example, I was standing in the city center of one of the games cities trying to figure out what kind of gear I wanted to venture out with when suddenly the town was under attack. A massive troll monster literally stumbled into town and started to take out the innocent left and right. My first instinct was to get to higher ground and jump onto the monsters head. So I did it. I leapt from a higher wall and grabbed onto the monster’s head were I started to stab it in it’s noggin until it collapsed with me still on it. It was one of those moments where I was taken aback at how exciting a battle was. You feel that every time you get into a large scale battle in this game.
But you aren’t alone in your travels in Dragon’s Dogma 2, no. You have a party of what they call “Pawns” who are inter-dimensional travelers that are created by other players. Each person has their own pawn which they can level up, customize, and make their own but there are two additional slots to hire other players pawns as well. I had no idea that this was a thing when I first made my character so if you run into an archer pawn out there in your world named “Shrek”, please treat her with kindness and send her back in one piece.
It makes for a great party system with truly unique followers who can storm into battle with you. I kept my team balanced with an archer, a mage, and a thief type. Watching the mage literally fly into the air and cast spells as we fought large creatures brought a sense of wonder and excitement I don’t feel in many games. It made each encounter memorable even if I wasn’t sticking to the main story quests as much as others may have. I was carving out my own adventures.
When I first saw Dragon’s Dogma 2, I was afraid that it was going to be just like all the other action adventure fantasy games out there right now that have pushed me away from the genre. When I realized I wasn’t going to lose my progress every time I died, it excited me to try new things and experiment. Even if half of the time, I was tossed across the map by a dragon of a monster, I was still having the time of my life. But I do have to get back to Dragon’s Dogma 2 now because I’m going on an adventure!