Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[fork]

Play it, yes.
The exploration is definitely there, it even has skills that can aid in it.
Pretty much every place rewards exploration, just the rewards can sometimes be underwhelming.
But it would be one of the first games I'd recommend to someone asking for an exploration-heavy game.

 

[Nikanuur]

Play it, yes.
The exploration is definitely there, it even has skills that can aid in it.
Pretty much every place rewards exploration, just the rewards can sometimes be underwhelming.
But it would be one of the first games I'd recommend to someone asking for an exploration-heavy game.

I seldom take advices from the dumbfuck tagged, but when I do, it's at times like these. I will try it then, thank you kindly.

 

[somerandomdude]

I am tempted to replay this with the no menu healing mod

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma/mods/481

Also with deliberately underpowered gear.

Or maybe unmodded but with self imposed restrictions. Basically treat it as a make your own challenge action game sand box.

Play it without pawns.

Playing without pawns is technically easy mode. The autonomy augment gives you extra stats on your arisen when they're solo.

I'm really hoping that they make pawns a lot better in the next game, I'd prefer if the combat was more strategic, and there were combination attacks between the arisen and their pawns, etc. Better AI, with the option for the arisen to request a specific move from a specific pawn at a given time, etc. The trade off would be a less powerful arisen.

 

[HereticGuy]

(you know, secret stashes, crevices that lead to hidden places, chests that can be opened only if you've completed puzzles, treasures behind the waterfalls, going behind places and finding a corpse with a lores scroll and ancient sword, etc.)?

Open world part doesn't have any interesting exploration places. Honestly, open world feels like a chore; it wouldn't lose anything if it was Hub-based. Game doesn't have a fast-travel / portal mechanic from the get go. You have to reach main city, there you will recieve an "Eternal Ferrystone". With it, you can teleport to main city (but you can't teleport back to dungeon, like in Diablo II). To teleport other locations in the map you have to find a "Portcrystals" and place them. Game let's you place 10 Portcrystals in the whole world.

Dungeon parts of the game is better. If you expect levels with puzzles and secrets like in some blobbers / immersive sims; you will be disappointed though. The exploration part comes from jumping / climbing some places. If you like to explore, I suggest you to pick a class that have "double vault" skill ( Strider / Ranger / Assassin / Magick Archer). I like exploring the map, too; and I feel limited if I don't pick one of the mobile classes.

Some say the exploration is there, some say it's very scarce. Could someone please clarify, preferably with examples?

There are some nice places in open world and kinda-secrets in some dungeons, but I don't want to spoil them for you. Do you remember "D&D : Tower of Doom" and "D&D : Shadow Over Mystara"; Capcom's beat'em-up games from 90's? Consider Dragon's Dogma as a 3D version of them and keep your expectations in that way. It's my favorite game in last decade, but I would understand if you don't enjoy it.

 

[fork]

Play it, yes.
The exploration is definitely there, it even has skills that can aid in it.
Pretty much every place rewards exploration, just the rewards can sometimes be underwhelming.
But it would be one of the first games I'd recommend to someone asking for an exploration-heavy game.

I seldom take advices from the dumbfuck tagged, but when I do, it's at times like these. I will try it then, thank you kindly.

I really hope you won't be disappointed.
Give it a bit of time to get used to, it kinda has a slow start.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Hello guys, I am jonesing for some exploratory, adventurous cRPG. I have played most of the major releases since the dawn of PC gaming, so there is probably only a handful of games that could surprise me in this regard. Haven't played Dragon's Dogma yet though. Is it at least somewhat like the mentioned (you know, secret stashes, crevices that lead to hidden places, chests that can be opened only if you've completed puzzles, treasures behind the waterfalls, going behind places and finding a corpse with a lores scroll and ancient sword, etc.)? Or is it largely devoid of exploration, its focus being mostly on killing monsters, filler quests, and occasionally opening a chest?
I am getting mixed responses. Some say the exploration is there, some say it's very scarce. Could someone please clarify, preferably with examples?

Dragon's Dogma is a combat-focused game, but it has decent dungeon and encounter design for a handful of dungeons in the base game (especially The Watergod's Altar, The Catacombs, Bluemoon Tower, and Soulflayer Canyon), and the high-level expansion Bitterblack Isle presents a single enormous dungeon. Note that the game was originally conceived to be Open World, inspired by Morrowind and Oblivion, but budget limitations led to great cutbacks in the size of the overworld. Although the end result is superficially Open World, the main quest and a handful of important side quests will lead you to every meaningful location in the game, while attempting to explore in an Open World style will almost invariably result in disappointment. Those major locations do contain hidden stashes and so forth, so you can enjoy the dungeon-crawling.

 

[fork]

Exploring Open World locations can be rewarding as well. Gran Soren's rooftops for example. It's just the wilderness which I'd call disappointing, but even there you can find the odd hidden cave and some rewarding enemy encounters.
BTW, thank god they ran out of budget, or we might have gotten a soulless monstrosity like Elden Ring. I doubt the game would've been deeper, just wider.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

(you know, secret stashes, crevices that lead to hidden places, chests that can be opened only if you've completed puzzles, treasures behind the waterfalls, going behind places and finding a corpse with a lores scroll and ancient sword, etc.)?

Open world part doesn't have any interesting exploration places. Honestly, open world feels like a chore; it wouldn't lose anything if it was Hub-based. Game doesn't have a fast-travel / portal mechanic from the get go. You have to reach main city, there you will recieve an "Eternal Ferrystone". With it, you can teleport to main city (but you can't teleport back to dungeon, like in Diablo II). To teleport other locations in the map you have to find a "Portcrystals" and place them. Game let's you place 10 Portcrystals in the whole world.

Dungeon parts of the game is better. If you expect levels with puzzles and secrets like in some blobbers / immersive sims; you will be disappointed though. The exploration part comes from jumping / climbing some places. If you like to explore, I suggest you to pick a class that have "double vault" skill ( Strider / Ranger / Assassin / Magick Archer). I like exploring the map, too; and I feel limited if I don't pick one of the mobile classes.

Some say the exploration is there, some say it's very scarce. Could someone please clarify, preferably with examples?

There are some nice places in open world and kinda-secrets in some dungeons, but I don't want to spoil them for you. Do you remember "D&D : Tower of Doom" and "D&D : Shadow Over Mystara"; Capcom's beat'em-up games from 90's? Consider Dragon's Dogma as a 3D version of them and keep your expectations in that way. It's my favorite game in last decade, but I would understand if you don't enjoy it.

The game would lose a lot if it was hub based. You drop the open world, you lose the whole night and day system with different stronger enemies coming out at night. You’d lose the whole feeling of coming out of some dungeon only to discover it’s night, and now you’ve got to deal with that darkness and what the night brings. If it was hub based you’d mostly just be skipping over that, and that’s one of the most interesting aspects of the game.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The game would lose a lot if it was hub based. You drop the open world, you lose the whole night and day system with different stronger enemies coming out at night. You’d lose the whole feeling of coming out of some dungeon only to discover it’s night, and now you’ve got to deal with that darkness and what the night brings. If it was hub based you’d mostly just be skipping over that, and that’s one of the most interesting aspects of the game.

Would agree except that with the Dark Arisen expansion Capcom slashed the price of ferrystones to one-tenth what it had originally been, while increasing the number of portable portcrystals from one to five, with the first one obtained quite early in the game.

That being stated, I certainly didn't mind the superficial Open World aspects, but it is important for new players to realize that Dragon's Dogma is not truly an Open World game, especially with those changes to fast travel, since it might lead to unrealistic expectations about exploration and result in a player become discontented when wasting time on overworld exploration instead of pursuing the major quests.

 

[HereticGuy]

The game would lose a lot if it was hub based. You drop the open world, you lose the whole night and day system with different stronger enemies coming out at night. You’d lose the whole feeling of coming out of some dungeon only to discover it’s night, and now you’ve got to deal with that darkness and what the night brings. If it was hub based you’d mostly just be skipping over that, and that’s one of the most interesting aspects of the game.

I appreciate the extra development time for day / night system; but it doesn't work as intended because of gameplay mechanics. It could be impactful, but because of these points it's not :

1. Ferrystone : If your only fast-travel option would be carriages & boats, which you have to travel to them first, it would force the player to stride in night time. But if you are beaten after a dungeon, you can just Ferrystone to the town.

2. Health Potions : You can carry many, many potions with you and the game isn't difficult at all. If there was a hard limit for your medical items and the difficulty would be consistent throughout the game, night system would be impactful. (Difficulty, even on Hard Mode, is a problem only at the very beginning)

3. Game's genre : It is a Devil May Cry game with more RPG mechanics in high fantasy. You can sprint really fast, double jump, flying attacks, powerful magick etc.. If the gameplay would be slower more like something "Severance : Blade of Darkness", the night time would be scary. But then, it'd be completly different game.

So, although the night / day mechanic in an open world game sounds good; it doesn't work for Dragon's Dogma. ( I agree though, it adds to the atmosphere and world building)

 

[curds]

Give me DD with Gothic 2-esque world design.

DD2 would be lacking without an open world. They just need to step up their open world design.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The game would lose a lot if it was hub based. You drop the open world, you lose the whole night and day system with different stronger enemies coming out at night. You’d lose the whole feeling of coming out of some dungeon only to discover it’s night, and now you’ve got to deal with that darkness and what the night brings. If it was hub based you’d mostly just be skipping over that, and that’s one of the most interesting aspects of the game.

I appreciate the extra development time for day / night system; but it doesn't work as intended because of gameplay mechanics. It could be impactful, but because of these points it's not :

1. Ferrystone : If your only fast-travel option would be carriages & boats, which you have to travel to them first, it would force the player to stride in night time. But if you are beaten after a dungeon, you can just Ferrystone to the town.

2. Health Potions : You can carry many, many potions with you and the game isn't difficult at all. If there was a hard limit for your medical items and the difficulty would be consistent throughout the game, night system would be impactful. (Difficulty, even on Hard Mode, is a problem only at the very beginning)

3. Game's genre : It is a Devil May Cry game with more RPG mechanics in high fantasy. You can sprint really fast, double jump, flying attacks, powerful magick etc.. If the gameplay would be slower more like something "Severance : Blade of Darkness", the night time would be scary. But then, it'd be completly different game.

So, although the night / day mechanic in an open world game sounds good; it doesn't work for Dragon's Dogma. ( I agree though, it adds to the atmosphere and world building)

They work in Dragon’s Dogma. The night in Dragon’s Dogma can fuck you in early game if you’re not careful. Now in the latter half of the game when you’re all leveled up it’ll cease to be a problem, (until maybe the end game) but leveling up to the point where things that were previously a problem no longer are (either to the same degree they previously had been, or not at all) isn’t a bad thing. Likewise, regardless of time of day, just happening upon some types of monsters can do this early on, and you might want to stay hidden from their view and go around them. It’s a part of the experience of the game, and it’s one that would be completely lost if the open world was dropped for zones. The only way it wouldn’t be lost is if your talking zones so big that at least as far as Dragon’s Dogma is concerned (because it’s not exactly a giant open world) it may as well still be open world...at which point sectioning things off into zone doesn’t really change how any of it feels.

The only real negative aspect to Dragon’s Dogma’s open world, and this isn’t even totally the game’s problem, (although the game could’ve alleviated this) is the players perception of how quest work. Because Dragon’s Dogma isn’t a game where you’re meant to take a quest like in most other games, you do that quest, then when you’re finished you go back and take another. You play the game like that and the open world can start feeling extremely tedious; (I’d actually say that’s the wrong way to play this game, and a fault of Dragon’s Dogma is it doesn’t warn you of this wrong way that can make it boring) and other games have kind of trained the player that that’s how quest should be done. The first time I played Dragon’s Dogma I went at it this wrong way, and I found the game pretty boring, and on top of that when I got to Gran Soren I was under leveled and was getting my ass kicked by the skeletons in that first mission you do there. But after a while I ended up starting over, I took some escort quest in the opening village from there to some place north of it, and during that playthrough I happened to take every quest that wasn’t a “go to this place” or “get this person” type deal, and ended up doing every little “kill X” or whatever type quest I got in the process of doing the bigger escort quest and it was like: Oh, this is how the game is meant to be played. Those types of peripheral quest should probably be set up in a way where your Pawn “takes” them automatically, and the game just informs you you’ve done them when you’ve done them; kind of along the same lines as when you get a reward for killing some chimera. Because when I just ended up doing those “kill X number of X” quest during the bigger escort quest, I wasn’t even actively trying to do them, I just ended up doing them in the process of fighting stuff on the way to the other thing...and because I had accepted those quest beforehand I got something for them.

Dragon’s Dogma is not Devil May Cry. It’s way slower than DMC. It moves aren’t as crazy as DMC. And mechanically the two games aren’t even kind of similar beyond both games have timed button press combos...and even then Dragon’s Dogma is a game with light and heavy attacks. Dragon’s Dogma can even functionally be played as a third person shooter, which, despite the guns Devil May Cry (with it’s locked on targeting system) is not. Dragon’s Dogma may be made by the Devil May Cry team, and their expertise in action games is why the combat in Dragon’s Dogma is so fucking good, but they are not even kind of similar.

Too much is being made of the optional Ferrystones. Especially since the game existed for a whole year before the Ferrystone system was changed with Dark Arisen because of complaints from people playing the game wrong. The game was never built with the player having the kind of access to them they later added in.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Give me DD with Gothic 2-esque world design.

DD2 would be lacking without an open world. They just need to step up their open world design.

Fuck that, gimme fistfights

 

[Anonona]

Fuck that, gimme fistfights

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Give me DD with Gothic 2-esque world design.

DD2 would be lacking without an open world. They just need to step up their open world design.

I do kind of wonder if the sequel will take a different approach to the open world design. So here’s the thing about Dragon’s Dogma, it sounds like the Everfall, or at least what became the Everfall, was meant to be something far more massive than what it is in the final game. But also, since Dragon’s Dogma came out there’s been that popular manga, and then later a anime, called Made in Abyss. Now in Made in Abyss you’ve got this city with a massive hole in the middle that’s basically this massive open air dungeon that explorers journey down into. I could see Dragon’s Dogma 2 going that way, founding the idea of the open world into something like the Everfall so the dungeon and open world are one and the same...and they could have smaller offshoot dungeons within that too. Maybe they go that way, or maybe they just do an normal style open world but bigger like they originally wanted to do in the first game. While it isn’t open world, it is a level based, DMC5 did take place in a massive tower; (as did much of DMC3) and they kind of toyed with ideas they wanted to do, but didn’t do in Dragon’s Dogma in DMC5 as well. Like I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the open world of DD2 was a massive dungeon full of dungeons that got weirder the deeper you went down into it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Fuck that, gimme fistfights

It's just not the same if no one punches back.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Give me DD with Gothic 2-esque world design.

DD2 would be lacking without an open world. They just need to step up their open world design.

I do kind of wonder if the sequel will take a different approach to the open world design. So here’s the thing about Dragon’s Dogma, it sounds like the Everfall, or at least what became the Everfall, was meant to be something far more massive than what it is in the final game. But also, since Dragon’s Dogma came out there’s been that popular manga, and then later a anime, called Made in Abyss. Now in Made in Abyss you’ve got this city with a massive hole in the middle that’s basically this massive open air dungeon that explorers journey down into. I could see Dragon’s Dogma 2 going that way, founding the idea of the open world into something like the Everfall so the dungeon and open world are one and the same...and they could have smaller offshoot dungeons within that too. Maybe they go that way, or maybe they just do an normal style open world but bigger like they originally wanted to do in the first game. While it isn’t open world, it is a level based, DMC5 did take place in a massive tower; (as did much of DMC3) and they kind of toyed with ideas they wanted to do, but didn’t do in Dragon’s Dogma in DMC5 as well. Like I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the open world of DD2 was a massive dungeon full of dungeons that got weirder the deeper you went down into it.

Made in abyss with dragon's dogma action combat would be super chef michelin star kiss.

That would kinda force them to abandon the grounded ish medieval europe setting tho.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Give me DD with Gothic 2-esque world design.

DD2 would be lacking without an open world. They just need to step up their open world design.

I do kind of wonder if the sequel will take a different approach to the open world design. So here’s the thing about Dragon’s Dogma, it sounds like the Everfall, or at least what became the Everfall, was meant to be something far more massive than what it is in the final game. But also, since Dragon’s Dogma came out there’s been that popular manga, and then later a anime, called Made in Abyss. Now in Made in Abyss you’ve got this city with a massive hole in the middle that’s basically this massive open air dungeon that explorers journey down into. I could see Dragon’s Dogma 2 going that way, founding the idea of the open world into something like the Everfall so the dungeon and open world are one and the same...and they could have smaller offshoot dungeons within that too. Maybe they go that way, or maybe they just do an normal style open world but bigger like they originally wanted to do in the first game. While it isn’t open world, it is a level based, DMC5 did take place in a massive tower; (as did much of DMC3) and they kind of toyed with ideas they wanted to do, but didn’t do in Dragon’s Dogma in DMC5 as well. Like I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the open world of DD2 was a massive dungeon full of dungeons that got weirder the deeper you went down into it.

Made in abyss with dragon's dogma action combat would be super chef michelin star kiss.

That would kinda force them to abandon the grounded ish medieval europe setting tho.

I feel like part of DD's charm is that it grounds itself. You start in a fairly traditional fantasy D&D-ish setting with your village getting burned up by a dragon. Then on your quest to slay the dragon, you fight your way through the D&D bestiary. Only in the very late game (BBI and the end game of the main campaign) do you start seeing really epic, world bending type things that really sells how fantastic and awesome everything is and how far your hero's journey took you. If they make some sort of setting that's too weird, you lose that by default and may run the risk of losing part of what made the original game awesome.

 

[Reinhardt]

But also, since Dragon’s Dogma came out there’s been that popular manga, and then later a anime, called Made in Abyss. Now in Made in Abyss you’ve got this city with a massive hole in the middle that’s basically this massive open air dungeon that explorers journey down into.

long before there was japanese porn gaem

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I feel like part of DD's charm is that it grounds itself. You start in a fairly traditional fantasy D&D-ish setting with your village getting burned up by a dragon. Then on your quest to slay the dragon, you fight your way through the D&D bestiary. Only in the very late game (BBI and the end game of the main campaign) do you start seeing really epic, world bending type things that really sells how fantastic and awesome everything is and how far your hero's journey took you. If they make some sort of setting that's too weird, you lose that by default and may run the risk of losing part of what made the original game awesome.

The Saurians are arguably taken from D&D's lizardmen, but nearly every other creature in the base game stems from European mythology and folklore, whether classical (cyclopes, harpies, hydras, chimeras), medieval (griffins, cockatrices, goblins, ogres), or even early-modern (golems). These monsters are all present in D&D as well, of course, but the Dragon's Dogma designers breathed their own life into the larger creatures, with interesting takes on them. Of particular note is the chimera, based on the famed sculpture called the Chimera of Arezzo:

The Evil Eye is the one larger creature in the base game inspired by D&D, obviously derived from the beholder, and even there the DD designers crafted an interesting version suited for their combat system.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Dragon’s Dogma Online added more Greek mythological creatures likes a Medusa, a Sphinx, and manticores. Just pulling from the kind of European (Greek and British) and Middle Eastern One Thousand and One Nights stuff you’d expect, they could get much weirder. Arachne is Greek. Although Dragon’s Dogma is also a series heavily influenced by Berserk, and Daimon from Dark Arisen does look like a play on the final bosses in Capcom’s Ghosts 'n Goblins series.

 

[HereticGuy]

Dragon’s Dogma Online added more Greek mythological creatures likes a Medusa, a Sphinx, and manticores. Just pulling from the kind of European (Greek and British) and Middle Eastern One Thousand and One Nights stuff you’d expect, they could get much weirder. Arachne is Greek. Although Dragon’s Dogma is also a series heavily influenced by Berserk, and Daimon from Dark Arisen does look like a play on the final bosses in Capcom’s Ghosts 'n Goblins series.

I'd love to see a Dragon's Dogma game sets in Ancient Greek / Mediterrenian land. Cassardis has a beautiful archietecture and atmosphere; wish it was a little more detailed, or at least we had another town like it in game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You mean Gran Soren right?

 

[Wunderbar]

You mean Gran Soren right?

he meant Cassardis.
Gran Soren was based on Northern European cities.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You mean Gran Soren right?

he meant Cassardis.
Gran Soren was based on Northern European cities.

Other than terrain and size they don't really strike me as all that different architecture wise? Am I missing something? Have I spent far too long wandering the Bitterblack isle?