Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

An amazing open world RPG where the combat really shines, it still holds up all these years later. The classes (vocations) have a wide variety of options, so there should always be something you'd like. Climbing monsters and stabbing them in their weak spot never gets old, and still feels cool. After the announcement of Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, it made me realize I never wrote a review for this game. But I prefer this one over the second. Let's hope they will improve just as much as the Dark Arisen expansion did for the first game. All in all, can definitely recommend this game!

[h3]5/10[/h3] I really tried to love this game. In fact, I gave it two chances, five years apart, and dropped it both times. Dragon's Dogma has an excellent combat system, creative vocations, and the Pawn system remains one of the most unique companion mechanics in any RPG. Fighting monsters is genuinely fun, and it's the main reason I kept playing for almost 20 hours on my second attempt. Unfortunately, almost everything around that gameplay feels painfully dated. The UI is confusing, quality-of-life features are lacking, fast travel is restrictive, and navigation often feels frustrating. I had to look up guides multiple times simply because the game gave me little indication of what to do next. The open world was my biggest disappointment. Exploration rarely feels rewarding, enemy variety is surprisingly limited, and you'll spend countless hours fighting the same goblins, wolves, bandits, and harpies. Stamina draining while sprinting outside combat only makes traveling even more tedious. The story never hooked me, the characters left little impression, and many side quests feel repetitive or poorly designed. Escort missions, in particular, are some of the most frustrating I've played. I can absolutely understand why this game became a cult classic, especially for those who played it when it released. But playing it for the first time today, it simply hasn't aged well enough for me. If you're curious about the series, it's still worth experiencing, just be prepared for a game that shows its age in almost every aspect outside of its fantastic combat.

[h1]I Still Don't Understand the Charm of This Game[/h1] I first tried Dragon's Dogma many years ago while looking for a fantasy RPG that wasn't Skyrim. Back then, I wasn't a fan of the Pawn system or gameplay that relied so heavily on companions instead of fighting everything solo, so I dropped the game after roughly four hours. Fast forward to 2026. Since then, I've played many more games across all kinds of genres, including several RPGs with companion systems. I also believe that the 2012-2014 era was one of the golden ages of gaming. It felt like developers were creating games with genuine passion, optimization was often excellent, and many titles still hold up visually today. Games like Ryse: Son of Rome, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, or Dragon Age: Inquisition all excelled in different areas, whether it was graphics, storytelling, or gameplay. Even many smaller studios today struggle to create games that leave the same impression. So I decided to give Dragon's Dogma another chance. This time I knew exactly what to expect. I specifically wanted another single-player RPG with companions and satisfying combat. After searching for a while, I kept seeing people praise Dragon's Dogma. Everyone agreed the story wasn't its strongest point, but they also claimed the combat was among the best. So I started playing again... ...and I was just as disappointed. If this had been my first time playing the game, I might have blamed my expectations. But it wasn't. I came back years later with far more experience in the genre, genuinely hoping I'd finally understand why so many people love it. I still don't. [h2]What Didn't Click for Me[/h2] Graphics? Most major games released after 2012 look better. Story? Plenty of games from the same era put much more effort into their writing. Character customization? I had always heard Dragon's Dogma was praised for it, but I honestly found it very average. Even games released years earlier, like the original Mount & Blade, offered more detailed facial customization. The body and stature options also felt strangely limited. And then there's the combat. I genuinely don't understand why it's considered one of the game's greatest strengths. It's certainly smooth, but the stamina system constantly interrupts the flow, and many of the skills feel underwhelming—not because they're weak in terms of damage, but because they simply aren't that interesting to use. [hr][/hr] I think people should try other games that excel in the areas Dragon's Dogma is often praised for. You might be surprised by how much those games improve on the very things this one built its reputation around. Sorry... ...not sorry.

What can I say? I really gave this game a try (3 tries, in fact). It is a difficult game to recommend, but the reason for this is far from simple. For one, I remember (having dropped this for well over 3 months now) it having an exceptionally addictive combat system. I played as a melee character the first 2 times I tried to get into the game and finally settled to being a mage on my third try. The spells looked flashy, their application was exhilarating. Every time my character upgraded, I looked forward to gaining new skills only to see what they looked like in action. As a game which is 90% combat and almost no memorable story, character or dialogue whatsoever, this should be a very good thing. Except I found myself struggling to pick this game up every time I put it down. And I think it's because Dragon's Dogma is game design friction done wrong - unlike Kingdom Come Deliverance where the hunger mechanic, inventory management, and weak starting character all contributed to immersion and the feeling like you existed in a hostile Medieval landscape, friction in Dragon's Dogma punishes the player for no reason other than to "appear hardcore" - In a world where wizards and dragons exist, there is no reason why fast travel should be so difficult, why my character cannot run for 2 seconds in this big empty world without stopping to pant. The inventory and the UI are a mess, and honestly feel unfinished? Most of what I remember of this game was me fiddling with menu screens and staring despairingly at my stamina bar. It made traversing through this already uneventful world an absolute chore, which is a shame because there are some genuinely unique places and boss encounters which I won't spoil. But there is just so much padding, so much BS that I dreaded returning to this game every time I put it down and played something else. Am I a casual because of this? Maybe I am. But this only goes on to show that the game certainly doesn't appeal to everyone. And you know what? That's fine. I think if you can tolerate a lot of the stuff I mentioned, and you like fighting battles in a Medieval fantasy setting and you don't care about stories in video games, this could be an excellent game where you'll easily sink hundreds of hours into. I certainly found it engrossing at times. Also the endgame DLC is supposedly very good. But there is no way in hell I am going to suffer through another 60 hours of tedium only to get to it. Also this game has some serious balancing issues. There will be difficulty spikes that feel unfair (as in there is no way, no skill you could develop which would allow you to survive some of these encounters), stun locks by basic bandits, and bosses that you can cheese. The game overall feels very unpolished. Most quests are fetch and kill quests, animations sound stiff, the companions you recruit spew the same 3 lines every time they walk past the same location. I wonder why instead of padding the game out to a 70-hour chore, devs couldn't have instead spent all that money and resources smoothening these REALLY rough edges and delivered instead a more refined experience? But that's all moot now. Dragon's Dogma is not a flawed masterpiece. It's just flawed.

The game is great, but i´m very disappointed that after all those years, several bugs that can and will break some quests never have been fixed.

I find this game boring and ugly. I can't find any enjoyment in the battle, and the lack of "real" party members doesn't help the dynamic.

35% + Huge sense of scale for the release year + Plenty of character and pawn customisation + Animations are really clean in combat and traversal - Slow, manual saves - Too easy to get pulled into quests you are under-levelled in - Repetitive combat with pre-determined enemy spawning in parts - No sense of enemy level/health - Quests/Inventory systems are extremely unintuitive - Poor, uninteresting story