Review of Dragon’s Dogma 2 – a giant of the genre

The first part of this series captivated me so much in 2012 that I used its screenshots as avatars on social networks for quite a long time. I mention this vague information because the game may have fallen into disrepair at the time, but it eventually sold 8 million copies and became an outright cult game for many fans, which I wouldn’t be afraid to compare to the original version. Souls of Demons. So, if you have never heard of this series, then know that it is much more interesting and higher quality than you think. It’s not that easy to explain, since at first glance the game may seem quite generic. But once you start playing it on your own controller, it will captivate you like few others, thanks to, among other things, its excellent combat system, enemy designs, and most importantly: an absolutely stunning, vibrant open world.

• Platform: PS5 (review), XSX|S, PC
• Publication date: 03.22.2024
• Developer: Capcom (Japan)
• Genre: Open world ARPG.
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: non/asynchronous (Pawns)
• Download data: 64 GB
• Game time: 40+ hours
• Price: 1799 CZK (Alsa)

Groundedness and freedom

One of the things that manages to grab the attention of both entries in this series at first glance is the extremely natural and earthy visuals, which bear almost no resemblance (perhaps with the exception of the adorable faces of almost all the characters) to traditional Japanese games. . It feels much more like the game takes place in Europe during the Middle Ages or as if it came straight out of the pages of Tolkien’s books. Compared to them, however, there are fewer absurd megastructures here – local villages, towns or castles also seem more like something from European history than an exaggerated fantasy. Thanks to all this, of course, our native will feel much more comfortable in this environment.

The emphasis on realistic environments and costumes is reflected in the landscape itself, whose plains, mountains and forests also remind us most of the time of our part of the planet, or perhaps Skyrim. This element is extremely important because, despite the giant open map, the game very deliberately doesn’t offer the option to ride a horse – you’ll almost always be wandering around this beautiful, vast landscape on foot, unless you think about the extra speed. – travel options, which, however, have limited structure and resources, so you will still be able to implement many routes in your own way. And this is where the best feature of the game comes into play.

This is where the best feature of the game comes into play.

The open world here is incredibly alive with all sorts of monsters, passers-by, ruins, caves and, in short, a stunning stream of completely optional locations and events in which you can freely participate according to your mood. This is, without exaggeration, one of the best open worlds in gaming, and can stand up to the amazing exploration experience they’ve given us. legends such as Zelda, Skyrim or Elden Ring. The exploration experience is further enhanced by relatively strict rules, with physics playing a big role in where and how you get there. Plus, there are some really scary nights if you get stuck on the road before dark. On the one hand, night means real darkness, without a flashlight you can hardly see anything – and most importantly, a much larger number of often much more dangerous monsters are crawling out of the darkness.

Monsters, sword and magic

Some fans of the series might argue that its best feature is still the combat. I agree that it is also exceptional and in the second part, of course, things are moving even further, especially with completely new professions, such as a teleporting “magic spear” or an insidious “saboteur”, who practically does not participate in battles manually, but influences them, causing all sorts of hallucinations and traps , poisons and so on. But at the heart of the game are four main professions that classically attract fantasy lovers – a warrior with a sword and shield, a magician with a magic staff, a hunter with a bow and a clever thief with two knives. The difference between each of these professions is huge: for example, if you are an archer, the gameplay is more like a shooter than anything else (as you unlock things like zoom, rapid fire, fan fire, magic or elemental arrows, etc.) d.). over time).

The enemies also deserve a lot of attention – given the game’s aforementioned “realism”, you might wonder how dangerous an encounter with a pack of regular wolves might be. Or how much scarier they look when their eyes glow green at night in the light of your fireplace or lantern. In addition to traditional enemies, the game also quite generously doses giant mythical monsters, whose appearance on the stage is almost always epic and terrifying at the same time. It is enough if some five-ton, ten-meter giant with five “hilbars” rushes out of the forest. Even more terrifying is the attack of a giant griffin or even a dragon (of which there are several types). Then a completely separate chapter is to enter, for example, the lair of Medusa, whose glowing eyes in the darkness of the cave mercilessly petrify any unfortunate person who looks into these eyes at the wrong moment. As for the monsters, here too the “down to earth” audiovisual design of the game helps create a strong and believable impression of them.

Even more terrifying is the attack of the giant Vulture.

Experience with larger monsters greatly improves the ability to grab and climb their bodies during combat, as made famous by Shadow of the Colossus. Enemies often have their weakest points hidden above or perhaps below their wings, so you’ll need to work your way towards them (so unless you’re playing an archer or mage, they’ll have an easier time hitting certain objects from a distance). ). As for the realism of the game, it will happen to you more than once, for example, a wounded Grif will decide to give up the fight and fly away, so while you desperately cling to his body, he will float with you a kilometer above the landscape, which, of course, means certain death if you fall. As a result, the game not only creates an amazing exploration experience, but also an amazing combat experience.

History lies, Pawns rule, consoles cannot keep up with them.

As for the plot, while the trailers clearly promise life-changing dialogue and strong characters, the plot seems absurdly trivial: an evil dragon has consumed your heart, thereby turning you into an immortal Resurrected hero, destined to save the earth and find and defeat the dragon. . But this huge cliché is actually very misleading. Anyone who has read the first part knows that the entire “Dragon Dogma” that lies at the heart of the story is just a pretext for something much more complex and interesting. But if you don’t know, I won’t give anything away and just promise that the second half of this story will show you something you never dreamed of, and only a few games have dared to do this – I could name Nier as a definite comparison. This feature of the game was already absolutely amazing in the first part, but in the second part it goes even further and even better.

The prophecy promised that the Risen would receive the support of unique assistants in their campaign. They are called “Pawns” (which in chess terminology loosely translated means “pawns”), they are also immortal and, in addition to our world, they also move in the “Rift” dimension, from where they can be called using a special stone. shrines. Just as you will be able to create the appearance and attributes of the character you control, you will also be able to create your main pawn. A good combination is, for example, a warrior hero and a mage/healer pawn. Additionally, you gradually add pawns of other online players to your group of four, but you can’t level them up, so you have to rotate them regularly. A pawn, having experienced or discovered something interesting in one player’s game, then speaks up in another player’s game and offers to take him to a given location. It’s a fun system full of unique and cool situations. You always control only your character, but you can give orders to pawns. Their automatic accompanying dialogues with you and with each other also work very dynamically.

A pawn that discovers something interesting will be heard in the other player’s game.

I quickly fell in love with this game, just like its predecessor many years ago. Unlike many other games, this one doesn’t push you into the main storyline, you can easily wander around the world for tens, even hundreds of hours and do all sorts of side activities. Side quests are often very interesting, for example a messenger decided to run away with his master’s jewel but lost it on the way – you have the option of finding the jewel and giving it to one of them, or making a counterfeit copy of it, or a combination of both. This leads to some pretty crazy, funny, and tragic situations. The action in the game world proceeds realistically even without you, so if you do not have time to save someone, for example, he will die and you will be out of luck. After completing the story for the first time, I immediately jumped into New Game Plus, where I began training my strong character from the first playthrough, going through new professions and all sorts of combinations of his abilities. Without having to review another game, I would have played Dragon’s Dogma 2 for the third time.

I have more or less one complaint about the game, but it is a very serious one: the smoothness of the game on PS5 is unacceptable. The unlocked frame rate sometimes rises above the promised 30 frames per second, but often drops to 20, which is really quite annoying and makes it difficult to control, for example during wild action. I’m not kidding when I say that at times I felt physically ill, similar to how someone feels dizzy when playing a virtual reality game. Watching this game’s absurdly choppy spectacle at times gave me a headache. The developers should have somehow tamed this at all costs, even if the game looked worse. Maybe they’re already relying on the PS5 Pro? I really hope that the criticism from players will be loud enough that a future patch will fix this. However, I did not encounter any other technical problems.