Dragon’s Dogma 2 Review – Endless Captivating Adventures in One of Capcom’s Best 

There is no way to easily summarize my feelings for Dragon’s Dogma 2, aside from singing praises as I duke it out with a seemingly inconquerable monster before a sigh of relief as I achieve a clutching victory. Once a blue moon, there comes a special game that has you non-stop talking about it, thinking about it, and wanting more of it – Dragon’s Dogma 2 is that special game.

There is no denying that the 2012 original was flawed, but there was also always a sense that it was only a few steps away from absolute greatness. Not to say it was bad – Dragon’s Dogma was just different, decorated with its own quirks that were against genre conventions. To many, a lot of Dragon’s Dogma’s design choices may seem questionable, but the game garnered a cult following with fans who recognized its charm and loved it to death. 

Still, it was a highly obscure franchise, which is why the sequel came as a surprise. And after 12 years, you would think Capcom would give a series a complete makeover to make it more palatable to the masses. Instead, director Hideaki Itsuno and his team stick to their visions, doubling down on the general blueprint of the original, and using its unconventional designs as its strength.

Otherworldly Adventures  

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is in every sense of the word, an RPG through and through, one that masterfully immerses you into its world by offering a true sense of adventure. In this dark fantasy world, you take on the role of an Arisen, a “chosen one” whose heart has been stolen by a dragon – quite literally, open heart surgery and all. You eventually awaken with a loss of memories and find out a whole geopolitical medieval drama awaits you as an imposter has taken your place. Turns out, you as the Arisen, is supposed to be the rightful ruler of the kingdom Vermund. 

The narrative is there, setting up the world that you will be plunging hours into. It is certainly an enjoyable premise, with its engaging moments and interesting twists. More importantly, it complements the game’s biggest strength which is to have its open world and gameplay leads to your own little stories. This is a game that puts exploration at its forefront, with a living breathing world that is beautiful to behold – lush forests and alpine peaks decorate the scenery. 

Everywhere, every minute, there is always something that demands your attention. Traversing through the dense forest and your companions, the cheeky Pawns would give out passing comments, pointing you to directions for an indiscernible treasure chest hidden at a cliffside or ladders just out of reach. Amplifying the living world is the dynamic and organic encounters that you would face – feral monsters that are out to turn you into their happy meals. One time as I was hard at battle against the gargantuan Cyclops, a Griffin flew in to join the fun for a chaotic party with lowly Goblins taking the opportunity to ambush us. 

This is only one of the many “emergent gameplay” at play here, the many “that just happened” moments to get you talking about with your friends. Emergent gameplay is not a new concept in games, but it is greatly displayed very regularly throughout your time in Dragon’s Dogma 2. I can go on and on about my encounters, from a Griffin attempting to unleash its rampage at the city gate to a Minotaur attacking a caravan in the night with a group of passing by NPCs initiating a “raid” against it.

The game wants you to experience these surprise unexpected encounters. By design, it eschews the convenient fast travel system that is the norm of most open world titles. Or should I say, there is fast travel, but it is not available anytime and anywhere, rather you have to interact with very specific Portcrystals to set them up and consume precious items called Ferrystone to teleport. Beyond riding oxcarts, the only other means of traveling is by foot as you walk miles and miles to your destination through forests, riverbanks, and other equally beautiful biomes. 

Quests are also deliberately hidden, where dialogues reveal just enough information and markers only loosely guide you to the quest location. It may seem to be odd design choices to not have readily accessible fast travel or clear quest waypoints on such an enormous sprawling map, but the game sticks to its bold decision and lets its dynamic world encounters speak for itself. You can be running through the same road multiple times, and on each run, you could be meeting new foes and unexpected events. Goblins attacking the local wildlife as the menace they are, harpies circling a poor NPC with lullabies, or Saurians having war against patrolling guards. 

Glorious Vocations Invocations 

All these encounters against ferocious monsters in the open world would mean nothing if the combat is subpar at best, but combat is undoubtedly Dragon’s Dogma’s other biggest highlight, even in the original. Right from the get-go, you are given the choice of four different vocations, with more to unlock as you progress. The vocations are varied, each distinctive from one another with its own strengths and weaknesses. 

Fighters are resilient and can guard onslaughts of attacks thrown at them with their shields, but flying enemies are a bane to them. Sorcerers can unleash devastating elemental spells that bombard a large chunk of land but require time to channel their cast. Warriors, Thieves, Mystic Spearhands, and so on, all played differently yet all deliver satisfying impacts in the battle against the fierce giants you will face. 

Every move is deliberate, every hit packs a punch with visually pleasing effects and booming sound, and each spell cast enshrouds the screen with disaster-level elements. Accompanied by epic symphonies of orchestra, the battle may be fiction but you will be immersed in it and experience power fantasy at its best. 

Not to mention, the Pawns, the player-created companion that you can hire from or share with others. They are as delightful as ever, though can be overly talkative. While Pawns may not have access to every vocation the Arisen has, they still open up plenty of new tactics. With a more intelligent AI, Pawns now could learn and utilize more strategies in combat and you could further customize your main Pawn with specializations. Considering how varied the vocations are, especially with the variety of skills available, you can have a Fighter who helps springboard you up to hit airborne foes with their shield, or an Archer who specializes in explosive arrows, and so on. 

Strategies play an important role in combat. Not to say you can’t somehow brute force your way through, but enemies are unique from one another, and elemental resistance is an important part to consider. Slimes and Phantoms are invulnerable to physical attacks, goblins fear fire, and Ogres have a strange obsession with targeting females. Uniquely, Dragon’s Dogma also allows you to cling onto the enormous monsters you face, climb onto their back, and thrust your blade at them repeatedly Shadow of the Colossus-style. All these elements come together and further enhance the world, making each of its organic encounters special as you scurry around to figure out your next move. 

Performance 

Let’s talk about the Cyclops in the room, and that is the performance. This review is done on a PC with relatively powerful specs, running on High settings with Ray Tracing turned off and FSR 3 on Quality. The PC used to play Dragon’s Dogma 2 uses the following specs – AMD Ryzen 5 7600 CPU, AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, 32 GB DDR5 RAM 6000MHz, and Windows 11. 

In terms of performance, the game runs relatively decent, going beyond 60 FPS in most areas and dipping occasionally when in places with more cluttered foliage, but rarely below 60 FPS. There are of course exceptions and running across places crowded with NPCs such as the city center of Vermund or other villages, the frame rate does drop by 10% to 20%, with the lowest being 30+ FPS. As Capcom noted, it was mostly how the NPCs had resulted in large CPU usage. In most cases, the frame rates do slowly stabilize, and thankfully, the worse drops happen in cities and other relatively safe zones, where you would mostly talk to NPCs, manage equipment, and off your way to explore in the wilds. 

As such, frame rate issues do not really affect my experience all that much, as I noted, most areas run fine on my system even in foliage-dense areas. Even so, if you are someone particularly sensitive to unstable frame rates, you might have to hold Dragon’s Dogma 2 off until the optimization is ironed out.  

Truly Dogma of Dragons 

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is truly a one-of-a-kind role-playing experience, expanding on the best from the original and delivering the truest sense of adventure across continents in a living world, accompanied by satisfyingly wicked combat and rewarding explorations.

It is a game that is unconcerned with chasing the latest trends and embraces its identity without shame. Aside from performance inconsistencies, it is going to be an inherently divisive game regardless due to its various deliberate inconveniences. 

Even so, Dragon’s Dogma 2 plays to its strength and demands you to stay, giving you awe-inspiring adventures with captivating encounters like no other. To that, Dragon’s Dogma 2 deserves all its singing praises and is worthy to be a Pantheon standing alongside other great action RPGs, setting an example to others on what makes a remarkable open world experience. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2 was reviewed on PC via Steam, with the following specs – AMD Ryzen 5 7600 CPU, AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, 32 GB DDR5 RAM 6000MHz, Windows 11. 

Review code provided by Capcom. 

Dragon's Dogma 2

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 2024-03-22

PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox Series X|S

Dragon’s Dogma is a single player, narrative driven action-RPG series that challenges the players to choose their own experience – from the appearance of their Arisen, their vocation, their party, how to approach different situations and more. Now, in this long-awaited sequel, the deep, explorable fantasy world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 awaits.

Join Us!