Today I’m going to be covering a game I really enjoy but that doesn’t seem to get as much hype, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. It’s a medieval open world game (similar to Skyrim, which is also fantastic) with online features that didn’t get as much content as planned, but is still great to work with and fun to experience. You can create your own character and a pawn to support you (complete with lore!), and your character gets their heart stolen (more like eaten) by a dragon, thus gaining the title of Arisen (basically you can’t permanently die without your heart), and has to go on a quest to defeat it in order to have the heart returned to them.
FUN RATING: 4/5. This game is definitely a lot of running around killing monsters, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fantastic. There’s a bunch of different combat options to choose from, and there’s also a bunch of side quests to complete- however, I’ve taken a point off because of the lack of indicators about progression in the story. Certain quests get locked out as you progress through “stages” in the game, and you don’t get told this until you find it out for yourself. Definitely something to look up and keep in mind when playing the game- try to complete every side quest available to you before doing the big ones (as listed in stage progression link).
EASE RATING: 3/5. The base game quests are about 4/5 ease rating- you’ll do fine with other people’s pawns that you can hire to support you- a lot of them are specifically made to be “twinky”- underleveled with high leveled gear, in order to get lots of hires online by incoming players and make it into the top rankings. The other game area (technically made up of a bunch of other ones), Bitterblack Isle (my beloved, very similar to Dark Souls), is supposed to only be accessed after you beat the game- but obviously, nobody follows that. Even with decent gear or even gear that you beat the main questline with, you’re still going to get your ass kicked in here. This is about a 2/5 rating. It’s not as bad as Dark Souls, but you do literally just have to “git gud”. Post in the forums or on discord, see if you can’t get people to send you gear to purify for an extra boost or some RC (Rift crystals, part of the currency system in this game) to purify items, or pawns to hire that are at your level or above. That said, this will not carry you or get you guaranteed wins- you still need skill here, and to come prepared. This place is my favorite part of the game. Absolutely would recommend it if you don’t mind getting pounded into the dirt a bit.
REPLAYABILITY RATING: 4/5. The quest lock takes a couple things away, as mentioned earlier, so you can’t do anything anytime. But there’s a New Game Plus option for a reason, and it comes with some new things, like more customization options, keeping all your gear/levels, having new varieties of monsters to kill after the main quest, and getting to do the quests over again if you missed anything. There’s a Hard Mode and a Speedrun Mode, which are both pretty interesting and fun. You can aim to 100% your area knowledge or your bestiary, too, if you don’t have that already.
OVERALL: Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, is in my opinion, a fun and versatile game that is vastly underrated. There’s been rumors of a Dragon’s Dogma 2 in the works for years now, and there’s another game in the making that’s taken inspiration from it (the magic system looks basically copied from the casting of DD:DA which honestly is not a complaint at all), and the Gamefaqs boards and Discord server are still up and running despite the 2012 release of the original (the Dark Arisen part, with Bitterblack Isle, was released in 2013). The armor does suffer a little bit from the “sexification” of women’s armor, but it’s not a huge problem. Some of the men’s armor also gets this, so it’s fair enough. There’s a love interest system that’s a part of the end of the main quest for added impact, which is pretty interesting, but you do have to fight a little bit in order to get the person you want when doing certain quests like those related to the Duchess Aelinore, the wife of the Duke who rules over Gransys, the country where the game is set. Having quests completed can up someone’s affection for you, so you have to be kind of careful if you really care about it. You get to choose different weapon classes that you can change at any time, and the open world is always a bonus, even though some content had to be cut due to budgeting in the end. Overall, this is a great game that I recommend to anyone who enjoys other games with medieval settings, like Skyrim, or just people who enjoy fantasy.
(Psst! If you want to add my pawn on Switch, here’s his listing in pawnguild)
Very concise and simple review, and is an overall great overview of the game and I’m glad you enjoyed playing it.