Back-to-back RPGs can be daunting. I finished Baldur's Gate 3 last year, and to date, I've played it to completion roughly six times (and counting). Off the back of such a behemoth experience, let alone one that I enjoyed so aggressively, approaching something like Dragon's Dogma 2 felt more than a little bit intimidating.
Having never played the first game, I went in blind. What I'd read about the game gave me a glimmer of hope since, at face value, it seemed to share a few similarities with my GOTY of 2023. I'm used to exploring and fighting alongside my BG3 companions, so Pawns sounded helpful in their essence. The core four Dragon's Dogma 2 combat classes hold similarities to a few of those in Baldur's Gate 3, making it easy enough to choose the rogue-like Thief vocation as my Arisen's starting point. Hell, even the mind-wiped protagonist hinted at flavors of the BG3 Dark Urge. But after playing Capcom's latest for roughly five hours, I'm starting to see the error in my judgment. These comparisons just served to give me unfair expectations of Dragon's Dogma 2 from the get-go – though thankfully, I'm still having a blast.
My personal Everest
Gritting my teeth and loading into Dragon's Dogma 2 for the first time gave me mixed feelings. On one hand, I was excited to delve into another thriving fantasy world teeming with monsters, mystery, and mayhem. On the other, I was secretly hoping for another Baldur's Gate 3.
Yes, I realize how silly that was in hindsight, but can you blame me? It's only April, and I've rolled credits on six games already – and three of them were RPGs or open world games. If trudging through the Sword Coast for hundreds of hours wasn't enough, I then finally got around to playing Red Dead Redemption 2, spent another 121 hours exploring Persona 3 Reload's harrowing twists and turns, and followed that up immediately with Mass Effect 1 and 2. I certainly wasn't going to let RPG burnout stop me, so to ensure I followed through with Dragon's Dogma 2, I had to play a bit of carrot-and-stick. I'm on a roll when it comes to role-playing games and the like, I told myself. What's one more?
While this method was effective at getting me in front of the screen, controller in hand, it didn't serve me well in terms of expectations. The games mentioned above are some of the best RPGs ever, or in the case of RDR2, an action game that left me breathless from the sheer narrative impact of it. But Dragon's Dogma 2 is an entirely different beast in that its story is perhaps the least interesting thing about it.
Unserious fun
By welcoming the jank of it all with open arms, I've found that Capcom has given me a valuable gift.
That fact took some getting used to. As soon as the opening cutscene began, I was stifling giggles at the pompous, somewhat disjointed Ye Olde English monologue being performed before me, the words spilling from a mouth that was moving completely out of sync. It soon dawned on me that this is just how everyone speaks in Dragon's Dogma 2, and for a brief moment, my heart sank. I pulled myself together, though; this is not a game to be taken seriously, despite all the flowery language, and that's the way I chose to approach it.
Once I'd accepted that a rollicking script and meaningfully-crafted dialogue would not be the main draw for me here, Dragon's Dogma 2 got easier to love. Stepping out into the open world and testing my snappy thieves' blades out on an unassuming goblin for the first time was exhilarating, even if I did accidentally pick up and carry around my helpful steward for a few seconds by accident. This moment filled me with glee; I'm able to just pick people up and wander off with them? And I'm not even playing a berserker barbarian? Hell yeah. I went on to make good use of this discovery for the rest of that first fight, simply lobbing the little goblins over cliffs with reckless abandon until I realized that maybe I'd have liked to loot them first.
Mechanics like these are what makes Dragon's Dogma 2 feel like a truly interactive, immersive experience – even if I can't chat up my devoted Pawns as the Arisen. I'm still finding them somewhat of a nuisance at times, lauding praise upon me for offloading heavy camping kits unto them instead of tossing me an icy one-liner. These Pawns might not have the charisma and depth of Persona 3 or BG3's party members, but they do love to high five you after each and every scuffle. That's something I don't see myself getting sick of anytime soon.
So, is Dragon's Dogma 2 everything I expected it to be? No, and I'm glad of it. Weird dialogue aside, the emergent storytelling, combat, and Pawn interactions have already led me down the start of what I'm sure will be an epic adventure. So much so that I've already forgiven its basic quest design, chuggy graphics courtesy of a 30 FPS ceiling, and frankly goofy NPC content. By welcoming the jank of it all with open arms, I've found that Capcom has given me a valuable gift: freeing me of the expectation of having my heart shattered in every RPG. And, wow, does that feel amazing.
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