Dragon's Dogma 2 (PS5) Review

Face a world-threatening dragon once again.

 

 Dragon's Dogma 2 is the long-anticipated sequel to Capcom's 2012 fantasy RPG, Dragon's Dogma. One of the games I've been excited for this year, it took me a while to get to as I had a bunch of other games to play. You once again play as an Arisen, who must reclaim his heart from a dragon that plans on plunging the world into chaos. I've played the first game prior and found it to be a flawed, but an enjoyable time. Dragon's Dogma 2 aims to recapture the spectacle of its predecessor while offerings new gameplay changes to the mix. Does it succeed? 

 Set in a new world completely unrelated to the first game, you play as your blank-slate character dubbed the "Arisen", a hero who will stand against the dragon and take the throne of the kingdom of Vermund. Well, the dragon's here and it's up to you to stop it, but a false Arisen has taken over the kingdom of Vermund, leaving you on a quest to prove yourself. As the true Arisen, you command a legion of "pawns"-- doll-like helpers who will follow your every command and act as party members during gameplay. The story itself was decent as I was mostly hooked, but none of the characters left an impact and the plot is mostly a retelling of the first, so it's predictable. Even the evil dragon here wasn't as memorable as Grigori, who was a much more menacing force. That being said, I enjoyed the true ending path as it was filled with some neat spectacles and high-stakes. 

As the chosen Arisen, set out on a journey to fulfil your destiny.

  Dragon's Dogma 2 is an open-world RPG where you control your character as you fights monsters like ogres and dragons, explore caves to level up, and meet various NPCs that offer quests. The core gameplay gets slightly improved as melee and ranged attacks are much more fluid. Sadly, you can only equip four instead of six skills per Vocation, which are the game's job system. Dragon's Dogma 2 features new vocations like the Mystic Spearhand, which is a mix of melee and magic attacks; Trickster, that let's you buff your party while inflicting status ailments on enemies; and Wayfarer, a jack-of-all trades that lets you use multiple weapons. I enjoyed the new vocations as I initially started off as a Fighter then kept switching between the Mystic Spearhand and Magick Knight. Pawn AI has been improved as they're more involved in combat and can guide you to quest locations.

 The open-world is much more larger as you get to explore the land of Vermund and its rival nation, Battahl. The world is filled with monsters to climb on and slay as well as some neatly-hidden treasures to find. The main four hub areas like Vernworth, Bakbattahl, Sacred Arbor, and Agamen Volcanic Island feature merchants, inns, blacksmiths and rift stones that you can use to summon new pawns. You can choose between official pawns from Capcom or player-created ones, that were way cooler. There are no quest boards anymore as NPCs will often reach out to you to give quests or you'll have to interact with one to unlock them. Just like its predecessor, some quests are timed and annoyingly, you can miss a good chunk of them while playing the story without warning, including ones you haven't even started. 

The combat and new vocations were pretty fun,
albeit with flaws.

 I loved exploring and getting immersed into the game's world as I never stopped wandering off the main path to look for treasures and enemy encounters. I only wished to see more populated small towns and dungeons than exploring the same old caves that can be completed in a matter of minutes. Fast travel sucks just like Dragon's Dogma as you still need to use ferrystones to travel between areas, which you can buy a limited amount of from merchants. You can't travel to every place you've explored since you need to place a Portcrystal, which serves as waypoint for that area. As you'd expect, they're even more limited than ferrystones so you'll be doing a long stretches of walking during the early game. Thankfully, there are Oxcarts that will transport you, but only to main towns. Why couldn't they just have had a streamlined fast-travel menu is beyond baffling.

While the open-world could've been more livelier,
I still enjoyed exploring around.

 My playthrough took me over 64 hours to complete and it had me doing lots of side-quests and general exploration as well as aiming for the true ending. Some of the more noticeable shortcomings were the lack of a lock-on feature, making fights against enemy groups a mess and general feel of the combat clunky. Moreover, there isn't a huge selection of enemies as come the final hours of the game, you'll still be fighting the same old ogres, goblins, and bandits of the early game.

 Dragon's Dogma 2 is a stunning game thanks to Capcom's flashy RE Engine, with character models and backgrounds being an upgrade over the first game. I found myself admiring the region of Battahl as it looked beautiful whether you are exploring during the day or night. Performance is a mixed-bag as the game drops frame-rates when the action gets heavy and in populated areas like Vernworth in the true ending path. Also, the game crashed on me once, though thankfully I didn't lose much progress. The voicework was solid all-around and I liked the soundtrack-- with the Dragonforged theme being my favorite track.

The presentation is great despite the technical issues.

 While I enjoyed most of what Dragon's Dogma 2 offered, it didn't feel like a proper sequel due to its many shortcomings that could've been easily remedied. The story and characters were forgettable, the gameplay was good, open-world was average, and presentation was mostly fine. The game just wasn't the upgrade that I thought it would be after beating the first Dragon's Dogma. It's a fun game for those looking for an engaging action-RPG, however, series fans will be disappointed.