(AfroGamers.com) Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen from Capcom. I’ll tell you what: this game is relentless. It’s not like Dark Soul torture-unforgiving, it’s “survival is essential” relentless. If you’re not adequately prepared for your quests, you’ll be eaten alive because Dragon’s Dogma doesn’t give you breathing room in fights and the wilderness is trying to kill you on every trek.
Initial Impressions
This game came out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012 and was basically a harder Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It had the vastness with the world being large and there always being something in the distance to explore but it had a combat difficulty that Skyrim lacked.
When I first played DD, I was in awe. This game was large with a lot of places to go and the battles? Capcom was aiming for epic battles and landed it with their combat mechanic. Then the charm wore off. In 2013, Dragon’s Dogma prove to be a little too difficult for me to enjoy even on easy and normal. It was harder than Skyrim but it was Dark Souls super lite. Once I was hit with that Dark Souls vibe after not even enjoying Souls I pretty much put DD down for years.
That is until a week ago when I decided to give it another shot and actually soaked the game in with smaller missions. I’m going to let you in on the three big things that might deter you from enjoying Dragon’s Dogma.
Travel
We live in a era in gaming where fast travel is expected. If you’ve already been to a location or its already marked on your map as visited location, you can get there without difficulty. Dragon’s Dogma takes that concept, laughs in your face, and makes you dance for your fast travel. It’s very possible to get fast travel and it makes you really appreciate it.
I mean, in Skyrim or whatever, we take advantage of fast travel. The only time we don’t is when we’re playing “Survival Mode.” In DD, you have to travel to every location that doesn’t have a “port crystal.” A port crystal is your way to fast travel to a location, but you have to have a portstone which allows you to activate them. These cost 2,000 gold and trust me, you’ll want at least three at a time.
These port crystals pop up in the most random places for you snag. You can place them wherever you want. I’ll tell you now, you’ll want to place them in the most remote places you reach. Even after you do, you’ll still have to walk some ways to the your destination or to a useful spot.
Monster Squaaaaad!!!
The monsters and bandits you run into while traveling are so numerous, you’ll fight them off like Jet Li in The One. They just swarm you from all sides! Now once you level up in certain novice or higher up job classes, they become easier to handle. Also, your pawns–otherworldly servants that join you on quests–give fight advice and can learn enemy weaknesses through battle.
That’s all well and good but the ecosystem in this game can be wild. You might fight bandits and find a pack of wolves nearby. Both are pretty easy and the four of you and dust them up easily…until a gryphon appears and joins the fight!
You have three kinds of enemies: mobs (bandits and goblins), packs (wolves, harpies), and wyrms (dragon, ogre, trolls, etc). They can all be menaces and you’ll end up with a mission to fight each one. Not only that but the nature of travel in the game means you’ll have a hard time avoiding them.
Near Unfinishable Quests
Also, the game also had a splash of Monster Hunter in that you accepted jobs from a board and went about completing them. The difference between Monster Hunter’s job board and Dragon’s Dogma’s is that DD’s was in multiple towns and inns whereas MH’s had its job board in this one location.
Once a job was taken, you were basically teleported to a location for your mission. In Dragon’s Dogma, you have to travel to your mission. This means you need to have a lot of herbs, potions, and other healing items, on top of quality gear, and leveled pawns. You need to make sure you don’t use up all of your healing items on the way to your quest and you need enough stuff to heal you if needed while completing your quest.
On top of all of this, if you’re just starting out and don’t have a port crystal back to one of the two starting towns? You have to walk all the way back home! Not to mention, plenty of missions are just extermination jobs such as “Slay 25 harpies.” These you’ll probably end up completing without even knowing it or setting out to do it.
Others are a little out there because you’ll end up running around trying to gather specific things. Forget that!
So these were the three things that initially killed Dragon’s Dogma for me. At first it was interesting. Then it simply became too much to bother with and I dropped it without a second thought. Now that you know what you’re dealing with and what you need to do, maybe you’ll have a better experience with it than I did. Happy questing!
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.