12 years after the first game, Dragon’s Dogma 2 manages to storm its way as a masterpiece.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 makes its way into the franchise after over a decade since the first title. Anyway, unbelievably another greatly awaited RPG rival has arrived on the same day, and it’s Team Ninja’s Rise of the Rōnin. And yes, the review for that game is also available for you to lay your eyes on, and boy you’ll also love to read it. But let’s focus on this for now, as you’re in for a phenomenal single-player, narrative-driven experience and there are reasons why this is a game worth getting.
If you haven’t used that great Dragon’s Dogma 2’s character creation tool, you better do so right now. Although you can obviously create your characters in the game, this tool allows you to create your Arisen and Main Pawns that’ll accompany your Arisen, before you even buy the game. Without having to go through that long process in the game, you’d be ready to go.
One of the largest customization options in a video game, enabling you to create a character including gender, race, and appearance that’ll perfectly match your ideal look. For instance, there’s a tweet circulating on X by someone who created a character that looked exactly like Dune and Dune 2 actor, Timothy Chalamet. It’s absolutely mind-blowing how unbelievably flexible the character creation is. The possibilities are endless with this tool, and you’ll have a field day with it.
It’s not so often that you’ll encounter a Shakespearean-level story, and immersive yet challenging side quests and dialogues until you meet the likes of Dragon’s Dogma 2 that ticks all of those boxes. Again, it’s been over a decade; precisely twelve years since the first Dragon’s Dogma, which is a very long period between a predecessor and successor.
However, it’s well worth the wait as Dragon’s Dogma 2 takes you through one of the most thrilling and magical journeys you’ll encounter in a video game that’ll surely surpass your wildest imaginations by choosing your own experience. You’ll play as a hero character that’s called the Arisen, who is targeted by a relentless dragon whom your character must destroy.
They say that “the more the merrier” as your AI-controlled NPC Pawns that you’ve created become your super reliable bodyguards throughout your Dragon’s Dogma 2 experience. You’ll be required to create a Main Pawn, but then you’ll be approached by other Pawns ready to offer their services to you. Think of it as a job application; view at their stats and attributes, and if you like what you see, you can hire them.
You can have a certain number of Pawns at a time, and you can swap one of the Pawns that approaches you to have better stats. You can even add them to the favorites lists for later. Your Pawns’s main roles include furnishing key information to you about foes, identifying interests, and of course assisting you in battles. It’s ideal for your squad to consist of Pawns from different vocations, especially when facing tougher foes.
You also can hire two more Pawns that were created by fellow players. Your Pawns also act upon your four commands: “Go”, “To Me”, “Wait” and “Help”. Your Pawns are very social beings, and you’ll love their regularly interesting dialogues with each other. Moreover, you’d be amazed that your AI Pawns learn and adapt to how you play.
Like the first one, Dragon’s Dogma 2 welcomes us to explore a seamless open world where there’s always something to do to keep you busy. The differences are that the sequel’s map is approximately 4x larger than the first game and this game’s world is parallel to the first. The world is divided into two kingdoms due to a geopolitical war that features treacherous monsters you lock horns with.
Here’s something you might not know, a monster can follow you and your Pawns into towns and fight you, your Pawns, and anyone else it lays its eyes on, leading to battles you may or may not have seen coming. This will cause anxiety as you lure multiple monsters to a location, which may be the electrifying chaos you were looking for, but at the same time could result in the potential deaths of important NPCs.
And speaking of battles, you’re going to love Dragon’s Dogma 2’s genuinely exciting combating system. A variety of incredible basic and advanced vocations for you to choose from for your Arisen and Pawns. Starting vocations like Fighter and Archer, and the advanced vocations like the Sorcerer and Trickster, which you’ll unlock after finishing a certain quest. The starting vocation I went with was the Mage, so it’s best to discuss this vocation and why I’ve specifically chosen the returning vocation.
Mage is a vocation for those who wish to master the mystical arts. An offensive and defensive magick unit that involves Arisens and Pawns using their very powerful staves to case many magic spells and enhancements against foes. You have the basic Magick Bolt spell that shoots lightning bolts semi-automatically. But there are a few more powerful magical skills that are my personal favorites and strongly advise you to try them for yourself if you were to choose this vocation.
The Flagration is an offensive spell that behaves as a flamethrower. Then the Levin spell is also offensive, and it rains lightning bolts from the sky. There are plenty of other very useful spells against foes such as the Levitation spell that enables you to hover for short periods and the Celerity spell that delivers a speed boost. Just like the Mage, every vocation has very unique abilities that help them during combat in many different ways and situations.
Moreover, this vocation is ideal for play styles that involve combatting longer proximities. You should keep a few things in mind. As a Mage, you’re potentially much weaker against melee foes, which is why you should attack mainly from safer distances for more damaging magic and enchantment attacks, as well as let your Pawns do more of the dirty work.
Plus, doing so means you can provide extra cover for allies from every vocation, making you an ideal source of support. And if a foe does manage to get close to you and attacks, you can activate the Anodyne that restores health for you and the Pawns that enter the Magickal Sigil. You’ll end up in a battle almost everywhere you go, and the more you fight and win those fights, the faster you level up yourself and your Pawns and improve your weapon and gear.
After going through intense battles, you should take advantage of the Resting Inns where you restore and recover your health and your loss gauge and fast travel. Depending on which inn you wish to rest in, comes with a price. In case you’re wondering, the loss gauge is a portion of your Arisen and your Pawns’s health bar that gets permanently depleted when taking damage or has been burned by the likes of sleep or debilitation. Two ways to restore this gauge and I just discussed one of them. The other way is to rest at a camp.
It must be said that it’s great having to loot for items, as well as using its crafting systems for those items. View the history of my adventures and tears, arrange equipment, thoroughly enjoy the Photo Mode for capturing picture-perfect moments, and more. And a special shoutout to the amazing visuals and designs of the massive map.
The frame rate performance could be a little better, but it poses as little to no threat to your overall experience. And everything that was mentioned in this review was just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of more exciting things you can do in Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Flawless is the perfect term to describe Dragon’s Dogma 2, and it portrays a beyond-sheer level of magnificence, making it one of Capcom’s greatest projects ever. This isn’t even close to being an exaggeration, but not only is this a Game of the Year contender, but it might be an all-time great. Not once did I feel the need to turn off the game and would often feel miffed whenever I had to.
