I am a huge fan of Role Playing Games. It doesn’t matter what the setting is as long as it keeps me hooked for hours on end with a solid story and strong character development.Dragon’s Dogma was a title that I was very much looking forward to after early trailers and screenshots demonstrating the wide range of interesting enemies and challenging looking boss fights along the way, all with gorgeous graphics to boot.
I missed out on playing DD the first time around, so when given the opportunity to get my hands on and review Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, I was very pleased - a new, original RPG to sink hours into, happy days.
Dragon’s Dogma was released in May 2012 to a decent reception overall by critics. Dark Arisen is an expansion pack in a way, but includes the full ‘enhanced’ version of the original game along with a new zone called Bitterblack Isle. As you can probably gather from that, you are not required to own the original game to play Dark Arisen, however, if you do you can upload your saves for in game rewards such as currency and armour sets. Having never played the original I am unable to compare the game’s original content.
Anyway, where was I…ah yes, happy days, blah blah. It became quickly apparent that my days were not to be happy for the duration of this review. I can categorically say that there is close to nothing that I like about Dragon’s Dogma. The only redeeming factor is the imaginative enemies that you battle.
So let’s start from the beginning - which was quite confusing in itself. You start it what I thought would be the prologue, but it was more a prologue of a prologue, controlling some dude that turns out isn’t actually you (Now this may be explained further in the game, but it was so painful to play I didn’t get more than a few hours in). Fight a couple of enemies, before jumping into combat with your allies (called ‘pawns’) against a fantastically thought out creature with 3 different heads on a couple of different bodies – essentially a really fancy lion). But dear lord was the battle dull and repetitive, going through the motions of light attack, then jump on for some more light attacks, and maybe get a heavy attack in now and again. And this is the theme for the remainder of what I played.
From the get go you are introduced to droning and monotonous voice acting, accompanied with dated text and poor graphics throughout despite the installation of the second disk. Once you get the first prologue out of the way, you can move on to creating your character and into the proper prologue. Where you get to fight a mountain of a dragon!!! Hold your horses though; it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds. But then again, I guess it is probably fairly accurate of what would happen. You’re a hapless little man, running around the ankles of a giant dragon, pathetically swiping away with a less than impressive sword before the dragon thinks enough is enough and eat your heart. Cue less than dramatic cutscene, character dead, the end (or so I had hoped). You’ll soon be waking up in some kind souls house, finding out you’ve been stricken with a curse (as if being heartless wasn’t enough) and you have to go defeat the dragon to get your heart back. And begin…..
You move from something that should be exciting but isn’t, to something that doesn’t look like it’s even trying. The world you explore and complete quests in, seems lifeless. Yes there are NPC’s scattered about, but they bring nothing to the table with regards to feeling immersed in a virtual world. I may aswell have been walking around with cardboard cutouts of people littered along the way.
The RPG elements didn’t seem to be fully explained, I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with all the items I was looting, and how I could use them. There are a 3 different classes to choose from, Mage, Fighter and Strider. I chose mage, and maybe this was one of the reasons I didn’t enjoy the game. There didn’t seem a huge variance in what I could do, of course there are powers to unlock as the game progresses and you improve the character, but it’s a fighting system that is lacking… something.
Such was my disappointment with this game I could only play for 20 minutes at a time, and as a result only managed to get a few hours in, resulting in me being unable to get to the additional content that came with the disk. If you haven’t played Dragon’s Dogma yet, don’t bother. What was teased when it was first announced hasn’t come close to full realisation. One of the most disappointing and frustrating games I’ve had the displeasure to play, and it is a genuine shame after I had held so much hope over it.
