In May of 2012, a much underappreciated generational masterpiece was released, Dragon's Dogma. Unfortunately it was released six months after Skyrim, and was completely drowned out by the hype for that game following its release. A year later, the expansion Dark Arisen launched adding the much beloved Bitter Black Isle. Three years after that, it would finally come to Steam. And now nine years later I'm finally giving it a review. My first review for any game bought on Steam, despite owning dozens of them. I played Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen extensively on the PS3 and own it on the Switch as well. Now after having completed the game entirely having gotten every achievement, I feel that is only proper I give it a review. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is a philosophical masterpiece that explores the concepts of agency, will, cycles, meaning, and purpose in a thought provoking and intriguing way. What is more is it does all of this while having combat that puts many modern RPGs to shame. I don't think I've played another RPG that comes close to matching Dragon's Dogma in terms of gameplay. If I have it was probably another Capcom game. The narrative of Dragon's Dogma begins in a humble fishing village and will quickly takes you across the realm and into the heady depths of politics and intrigue. However it is not in the narrative events, but the philosophical underpinnings surrounding them that the game finds its narrative value. Most of the narrative serves to build up the world and the actors in it, so that the game can later use this to explore the philosophical questions it seeks to explore. Don't expect The Lord of The Rings though, this game was on a tight budget and it shows in places. The narrative you are presented at face value is meager and lacking until you begin delving into the more heady philosophical questions the game first hints at, and then shoves blatantly into your face demanding an answer. The Dark Arisen DLC expounds even further upon this by taking you to Bitter Black Isle, where you will uncover more about the world's lore that can help to paint a clearer picture. Overall I would say this game's narrative is high quality in the areas that matter, but don't expect something that is easily digestible. Hideaki Itsuno, the game's director, seems to be fan of a meta narratives and exploring deeper ideas rather than popcorn entertainment. Skyrim this is not. The gameplay of the game is built off of nine classes, each with their own unique abilities and limitations. Though the spread of abilities and limitations was not equal. With some classes being borderline useless in a number of fights, and others being able to build themselves such that they never have any issues anywhere. Balance issues aside though, the actual gameplay is very good. Each class, with the exception of Warrior, gets six abilities. Using Strider as an example, you will have three abilities for your daggers and three abilities for your bow. In addition to having these six abilities though, you will also have light and heavy attacks available. The game manages all of this through some very clever control mapping. It is the skills themselves that are the real star of the show though, with nearly every skill in the game being interesting in some way. Even if it is only for looking cool. The game's balance issues due effect the skills to some degree though, and you will find that some skills never leave your loadout while you never seem to find a good use case for others. One last tidbit for magic classes, you can hit L3/LS while casting a spell to manually aim. Moving on to the world, Dragon's Dogma takes place in the world of Gransys. And while it may be showing its age graphically now, I would contend it is still a beautiful and spectacular world. More importantly though it is filled with unique and interesting creatures and a variety of quests. I make no guarantees for the uniqueness of the quests, only the monsters. Nor do I make a guarantee for the variety of the monsters, be prepared to hear your pawns shout "Wolves travel in packs Arisen!" many times. You will find more than just wolves though with hordes of goblins, cyclops, chimera, and other mythological creatures. You'll just find that some of them are far more common than others. The ones you do find though will be a lot of fun to fight as Dragon's Dogma allows you to freely climb onto large enemies like cyclops and chimera, allowing you to directly attack their weak points. Quests in Dragon's Dogma are fairly typical, you talk to an NPC and get told what to do or you go to a notice board and pick up a quest notice. NPC given quests are the more interesting story given quests, while the more mundane slay 8 rabbits or 10 bats quests are relegated to the notice boards. Quests given by NPCs however while largely optional, are with almost no exception, worth completing at least once. The main Narrative thread of this game can be completed in a couple of hours if you're speedrunning it, so it is well worth spending the extra time on side quests as they come up. This is especially true as certain points in the main quest will auto-fail certain uncompleted side quests if you don't do them first. There is urgency to complete the side quests in this game, but there is also help. Early on you will make a character that will act as an AI controlled combatant to help you on your journey. This character is called a Pawn, and your pawn may be hired by other players to help them on their journey just as you may hire other players pawns. If your pawn is with another player when they complete a quest, they will obtain knowledge of that quest and when they return to your world they will be able to guide you through the quest according to the knowledge that they have. Conversely you can hire a pawn that has knowledge of the quest you want to do. The pawn system has many benefits beyond just the timely completion of quests though. Pawns fight alongside you and by hiring additional pawns you can create a party of up to four ready to face whatever challenges await you. Pawns aren't just hired mercenaries though. They are a key part of the game's lore and learning more about them as you journey through the game will be important to understanding the world of Gransys. And the gameplay design of Pawns reflects this, being a very deep and nuanced system. Even to the point of its own detriment as it is all to easy to make a pawn that is detrimental rather than helpful. Most of the pawns you find ingame whether auto-generated or human made will be awful. With poor equipment, ability choices, inclinations, or a mix of all three. You will want them though, Gransys is a very dangerous place to travel alone for the inexperienced. Pawns bring many advantageous if you're judicial in your selection of them, and there are communities online where you can find other people's pawns to hire and get your pawn hired now. Overall, I would say that Dragon's Dogma was ahead of its time in many ways and the industry still hasn't caught up to some of the elements of its design. Pawns I'm talking about Pawns. Why are this game and its sequel still the only games to use this feature in 2025? Get with the program RPG devs, developer made followers are a relic of a game that came out in 2011. Player made followers is where it's at. But yeah, the lore of the game is top notch, even if the initial presentation is lacking at first. The game play knocks it out of the park even to this day, unlike a certain game that came out six months earlier. And the Pawn system is a stroke of genius. I give this game a 10/10 with highest honors. May we see more games like it in the coming years, and fewer games that aren't worthy of comparison to this one.
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