Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen has recently been re-released on the PS4 and Xbox One, two years after the re-release of the PC port. This Action-RPG made by Capcom has always struggled to garner enough fans to warrant a sequel, but the fans that are there are pretty passionate about this game. Why? Simple, after five years since its original release, Dragon’s Dogma is still one of the best Action-RPG’s in terms of gameplay.
Generic story, but…
The story of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen is not something that will grab your attention from the start. You first play through a prologue that acts as a lite tutorial and lets you take control of the ‘Arisen’. You make your way through several monsters and are then challenged by Grigori, a dragon, to fight him. You accept the challenge, which ends the prologue and fast forwards time to several years later. The main story then starts in Cassardis, a fishing village where your character lives. Before continuing the story, the game lets you design your own character with a fairly deep customization tool. Once your character is created, Cassardis is getting attacked by Grigori, the same dragon from the prologue. You try to battle him but to no avail. The mighty dragon eats your heart and leaves the once peaceful fishing village. Miraculously, you survived and learn that Grigori has not killed you, but made you into the ‘Arisen’ and gives you the opportunity to fight him again when you are ready.
The plot is as generic as a fantasy game can be. You are basically the ‘chosen one’ and have to take revenge against the dragon. Most of the story consists out of killing some monsters and villains until you discover the location of the dragon. However, the moment you fight the dragon, the plot takes an unsuspected turn and throws several plot twists at you. That prologue you played? Turns out there’s a plot-related reason why you had to play that with a different character. That dragon that cut out your heart and ate it? He did this for a reason other than simply wanting to fight you a second time. The last two hours of the main story is a rollercoaster ride that is, in my opinion, worth the slow buildup prior to it. Be warned though, to understand the entire story, you have to complete some rather tedious side quests that consist out of nothing else than ‘kill x amount of this type of monster’.
Unchallenged combat
While I believe that the story is one of the best parts of Dragon’s Dogma, the component that is most famous and praised by fans is the combat. Instead of taking turns or clicking the same attack button over and over again, like in most other RPG’s, Dragon’s Dogma uses a deep real-time combat system that offers a great amount of attacks and skills that make the gameplay challenging, yet fun. To start with, there are a total of 9 different classes (or ‘vocations’ as this game calls them) to choose from. There are three standard classes: Fighter, Strider and Mage. Increase your Rank enough and you can upgrade them to Warrior, Ranger and Sorcerer. If you want to mix up your play style a bit, you can then also choose one of three hybrid classes, which are Assassin ( a hybrid of Warrior and Ranger), Magick Archer (Ranger and Sorcerer) and Mystic Knight (Sorcerer and Warrior). All these classes have their own unique skills that play differently and have their strengths and weaknesses. These differences make them all great to experiment with, especially since you can change your class whenever you want.
But what is so different about the combat itself that it makes it so much better than any other RPG? Well, for starters, you can climb onto monsters whenever you want. There are no QTE prompts or specific objectives to fulfill. Just jump towards your target, hold the grab button and start climbing that thing. The advantage of this little mechanic is that you can reach weak spots to take down monsters. These weak spots are crucial to being victorious since enemies in this game are no laughing matter. They know when to strike and when to fall back or call reinforcements. Golems, for example, can kill you in a single hit and are practically invincible. Scattered around their bodies are glowing medals that are their weak spot. Destroy all seven of them and only then can you harm them, which is not an easy task. The moment you destroy the first medal, they start shielding the other ones. This means that you can’t hit them with your arrows if you’re a ranger or archer so you have to climb them in order to destroy the other medals up close with your dagger or sword. To make things even more difficult, they also enter a Berserk Rampage Mode when the medals switch to a red color. This mode increases their attack speed significantly, which can catch unwary or over-confident players off guard. This is only one example of how challenging the enemies can be in Dragon’s Dogma.
Another great change to the generic RPG combat system that Dragon’s Dogma offers is that every character has one basic attack and several skill attacks that are unique to every class. These skill attacks all have their purpose and have some weight to them. Arc of Deliverance, a Warrior skill, channels all one’s power into a devastating blow with a longsword or warhammer that can knock down basically anything. Sounds powerful, right? Well, it is but it is not so easy to perform. To use this skill, you have to charge up for around 10 seconds during which you almost can’t move and are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. It also uses a lot of stamina, which is your most important energy source. However, pull this attack off and you can force flying creatures like the Griffin to stay on the ground, making the fight a little easier. This is only one example of the many skill attacks that can be utilized in the game. It’s great for constantly changing your strategies and discovering new ways to fell your foes.
Pawns
Another rather unique game mechanic in this game is the Pawn system. From the start of the game, you can recruit up to three party members to accompany you during your quests. These pawns can either be ‘bought’ from other players or by creating them. They use the same character designer as your main character, so you have a lot of options to make them truly unique. Once you’ve created a Pawn, you can then choose which Vocation he or she will take. The only difference with your character is that they cannot have a hybrid Vocation. Utilising the Pawn system is crucial for surviving though battles since they can support you with magic or distract foes while you are looking for a weak spot. Pawns also ‘learn’ from their battles. Once they have defeated a number of the same type of enemies, they learn what their weak spots are and how to exploit those. The downside with this is once they learn something, they’ll never shut up about it. Should you play this game, be prepared for endless amounts of ‘tips’ coming from them like ‘Wolves hunt in packs, Arisen!’ or ‘Tis weak to fire!”. Luckily, you can turn these tips off in the options menu, so it’s not that big of an issue. What is a noteworthy issue though, is that these pawns are all AI controlled. There’s nothing wrong with the AI itself, but it would be nice if these could also be controlled by other players to make a co-op multiplayer mode. The game already uses online components for the pawn system, so the abscene of any form of multiplayer seems like a huge misstep in my opinion.
No changes or improvements
Dragon’s Dogma originally released back in 2012 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. One of the biggest issues it had back then was the regular frame drops. This issue was solved with the PC version that released two years ago, in 2015. This version also upgraded the graphical quality of the game with high res textures, new lighting effects, resolution options up to 4K and a framerate cap of 60 fps instead of 30 that the original had. These upgrades were a welcome addition back then because Dragon’s Dogma is not a pleasant game to look at. Everything in it looked grey and most of the characters looked like they had mud on their faces. Luckily, these graphical upgrades are also included in the PS4 and Xbox One ports, except for the 60 fps cap. For some reason, these versions perform at a framerate locked at 30 fps. Sure, it’s still an improvement over the shoddy mess that the original game was, but it baffles me that a mediocre looking game like Dragon’s Dogma can’t handle 60 fps on a ‘next-gen console’. There’s not even an option to boost the performance if you have a PS4 Pro.
So what new things or upgrades do the PS4 and Xbone One versions offer to convince fans that have played the PC version to buy the game again? Well, nothing I’m afraid. It plays exactly the same as the PC version but at a lower framerate and a maximum resolution output of 1080p.
Conclusion
If you haven’t played Dragon’s Dogma yet, then you’ll probably have a good time with these ports. The story is still great but it takes a long time to get going. The real meat of the game is in the combat, which is after five years since its original release still superior over most other RPG’s. However, these ports offer nothing new over the two-year-old PC version and perform at a lower framerate, even though the graphics aren’t impressive. Only get these versions if you don’t have a PC or if you really want to support the developers.
