Dragon’s Dogma 2 preview– a bigger world brings bigger monsters to fight
Capcom returns to the world of its cult classic fantasy RPG with a faithful sequel that’s fun but leaves room for innovation.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 probably has the best shield bash in any action RPG I’ve ever played. True, the game isn’t out yet, and a lot of things could change between now and full release, but I already know this to be true from the hour and a half I recently spent with a preview build. Scouring the open-world grasslands with a party of pawns, coming across giant monsters and then clambering on their bodies to take them down with a sword stab to the skull feels just as inventive as it did in 2012. Equally as fun, however, is the act of approaching pint-sized goblins upon a nearby mountain top and launching them into the sky. Over and over again.
Moments like this are indicative of the silly fun Dragon’s Dogma 2 is willing to offer in between its serious storytelling compared to a lot of other high-fantasy RPGs. Such creative combat is part of the reason why the first game has deservedly gone on to achieve ‘cult classic’ status. It was incredibly refreshing to see that my very similar actions were still being rewarded in this sequel, over a decade on. Admittedly, the ability to pick up any NPC and yeet them (alongside the shield bash) was always going to make this game a winner in my book, just has much as the returning pawn system and core monster-climbing mechanic.
In my demo I had the choice of three vocations – classes, essentially – to test out: Archer, Fighter and Thief. The latter two warped me to level 15, planting me within the vastness of the land; while playing as the former started me out much earlier on in the story, where (as before) a dragon ate my heart to dub me as a mysterious being called the 'Arisen'. Beginning my experience as the shield-bashing Fighter first, traversing through the forest on a mission to cull monsters instantly felt like second nature. Complete with a party of three pawns, we quickly got to work fighting trolls, bandits – and even took down a griffin at one point by rushing it off a cliff and drowning it in a river.
With a full party by my side, it was initially a tad chaotic to try and see where my efforts would be best spent. I soon found plenty of use for my flame-imbued sword, though, deploying weapon skills like Airward Slash and Blink Strike with a short shoulder and face button combo. Dragon’s Dogma did a great job back in the day of making pawns feel like they were actually useful in battle, and the same is true here. Members of your party will call out when enemies are close, try to heal you when you're downed, and offer general support to make this single-player title still feel like a team-based experience.
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This party-centric approach continues even outside of combat, with pawns offering to guide me in the right direction of the objective whenever they could tell I was unclear of where to go next. In one amazing instance, I opened the door to a quaint cottage where an enemy archer burst out. My three friends soon made light work of him, with one member taking pride in their kill by high-fiving my custom character completely unprompted. It was one of the coolest NPC interactions I’ve seen in any game for a while, and hopefully indicative of how much Dragon Dogma’s pawn system has evolved.
Might and magic
As a melee specialist, the Fighter vocation worked expertly to have me get up close and personal with every towering foe my team and I came across. That said, I still felt like I stood a chance against them after switching to the lower-levelled Archer, popping off different types of shots from a distance without fear of running out of arrows. Holding R2 to climb on foes, while keeping grip before my stamina depleted, was a thrill that was always maintained. It was made more gratifying as I thrust one of my arrow heads into a troll’s oversized shoulder.
Even from the short time I got to spend with Dragon’s Dogma 2, I could tell that its open world was big. Like, really big. Travelling on foot never grew tiresome, however, because there was always a new group of monsters to take down, interesting landmarks to see, and the constant commentary provided by my pawns. I did only get to spend an hour with the game though, as mentioned, so here’s hoping Capcom has included plenty of voice dialogue for these interstitial moments where there’s a brief lull in the action. It could get annoying hearing voice lines repeat too often.
If there’s one area where I was surprised to not see Capcom innovate in the decade between the first game and its sequel, it’s in how you navigate this world. Not having traditional fast travel points or mounts is fine as a way to make you better engage in this (admittedly more beautiful) world, but I couldn’t shake the thought that it was a missed opportunity not to include traversal a la Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In a game all about climbing giant creatures and beasts, I was immediately brought back down to earth whenever my character constantly bashed into a rockface searching for grip.
Little drawbacks like this reminded me that Dragon’s Dogma 2 very much feels like a sequel to a 10-year-old game, as opposed to a modern action RPG that has taken the various genre’s other innovations totally onboard. I feel a similar way about the custom-created character. You’re once again thrust into the ‘chosen hero’ role of an Arisen, but without a proper voice, I hope I don’t struggle to connect to the overarching narrative. Luckily, much of this personality once again looks to be provided by the pawns’ dialogue, which consists of mostly believable English accents.
It might be that Dragon’s Dogma 2 has some surprises up its sleeve that I wasn’t able to ascertain from this preview. What it does very well is what it did fantastically in the original; with mechanics like climbing hideous beasts, being able to bounce off a party of pawns, and an impressive sense of scale again setting it apart from the slew of other high-fantasy action RPGs. Dragon’s Dogma 2 appears to be going for a bigger scale again, and so far it seems to be paying off – as evidenced by new weapon skill abilities like the absolutely amazing shield bash.
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