Over the years, games have become increasingly easier. You can move quickly anywhere, anytime, and resurrect without penalty even after death. But the growing popularity of roguelikes (Spelunky, Binding of Isaac) and soullikes (Dark Souls, Lies of P) tells us that gamers still like it even when it’s pushed back, as long as it works well.
Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2, more than any other game, asks players to become invested in a strange fantasy world while getting to know its systems and idiosyncrasies.
In this guide, we’ll prepare you for what’s to come and welcome you to this unique game. You don’t need to know everything about everything before going in. Discovery is part of the fun! But using these tips can help ease some of the initial struggles. And, as the pawn in Dragon’s Dogma puts it, you might find “something useful.”
Have fun with the character creator
Dragon’s Dogma 2 has the best character creator. You can make your characters and pawns look like anyone from Timothee Chalamet to Albert Einstein, and you’ll be staring at these dorks for a long time. So whether you’re cute or geeky, make it what you want to see. .
Later in the game, you can use special items to tweak both your and your pawn’s appearances, but these items don’t come cheap. Instead, slow down and get your character right from the start.
It helps to take the time to create pawns that complement your protagonist. A character’s height and build can affect how much they can carry, how high they can reach, and their agility on the battlefield. A small person can run around a giant cyclops, but a big, burly person can fit more items in his backpack and pull it up to a higher ledge.
Take your time (if possible)
Dragon’s Dogma 2 features a large and often obtuse game world. It’s easy to get lost, but that’s a good thing. You get lost and stumble upon things. You may discover cave systems, structures, and even villages that you might not have discovered otherwise.
Most quests have no time limit, so you can postpone them indefinitely to explore. Keeping a few things in mind can help keep exploring fun. Time-limited quests are indicated by an hourglass icon in the quest menu or by the message “Check back in a few days” on the quest. If you pay attention to these two things, you won’t end up falling asleep on the road and ending your quest in failure.
Listen to your phone
Pawns, non-playable companions that follow you and assist you in battle, are one of the biggest elements that sets Dragon’s Dogma apart from other series. It’s easy to think of it as an extra blade or bow on the battlefield, but it’s a really complex character, at least from a systems perspective.
It’s easy to ignore pawn shop chatter because it’s repeated a lot (“Materials, huh? I won’t deny it. They have their uses.”). But they can also reveal everything about the world and change the feel of a battle.
As your phone travels the world with you, you learn where things like chests and collectibles are, what attacks monsters are vulnerable to, and where to go on your quest. You can use the pawn command “Go!” As your phone provides input, it will guide you through what we just discussed.
When you select someone else’s pawn (the swirling stones scattered around the world) to recruit in the Rift, you’ll see a lot of things that tell you about that pawn. If Quest Knowledge is set to “Yes”, the pawn has information on one or more quests and can help. If you don’t want help, recruit a pawn without any current quest knowledge.
Each pawn has a specialization, such as being able to speak a foreign language your character doesn’t know, using healing items, or redistributing items to reduce the character load, so pay attention to this when choosing your next ally.
Each pawn also has an alignment, such as calmness or straightforwardness, which affects how they speak to you and behave in battle. But the most important thing is that you should always have one in your party, to make the whole game more fun – a “simple” pawn with a “masculine” voice that sounds like Matt Berry (“What We Do In The Shadows”).
move around quickly
One of the most obvious ways in which the game’s friction surface manifests itself is the lack of a fast travel system found in other games. Despite what some YouTubers may think, this is not a ploy to get you to buy microtransactions. That’s the way the game is, and you have to work within the confines of the game.
All methods of movement in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are diegetic. This means that it is done in the context of the game world rather than through menus.
The fastest way to travel is via Peristone. Using Peristone, you can immediately travel to the discovered Port Crystal. However, Portcrystal is rare and Peristone even less so. It’s meant to be used when you’re running low on time to do a quest or are really scraping the bottom of your health barrel.
Many campsites have ox carts you can ride, but they are not available all the time and are only available in the mornings. You can stay away for the entire ride, which can take several hours, or you can doze off and ride in a new location and occasionally get interrupted by monsters. The city you’ll be traveling through later in the game is surrounded by trolleys hanging from ropes, and your pawns will be more than happy to crank them for you.
How Dragon’s Dogma 2 works really But wanting to use it is simply known as “hooping old school.” Put on your adventure boots and take a walk. It takes longer, but that’s it. The game wants to get you in the frame of mind that you’re going on an adventure, not just checking off a checklist like many games do.
When to sleep and when to save
You can save at almost any time in Dragon’s Dogma 2, and considering how big and obtuse the game is, the checkpoint system works pretty well for the most part. But there’s more to it than that.
As we’ve already discussed, Dragon’s Dogma wants to immerse you in its game world, and that’s where a lot of the friction comes from. Frodo couldn’t reload the game when Boromir was shot, and Dragon’s Dogma doesn’t want you to do that either. However, sometimes problems can occur with the game software, so we have some kind of backup: Inn Saves.
Each time you sleep at an inn, a separate inn save is created, and you can revert to the latest inn save at any time. So sleep in inns regularly. But don’t sleep on forever. If you’re playing on PC, it’s not that difficult to find out where your save files are and back them up by copying them to another drive. (You monster.)
Camping, a new mechanic in Dragon’s Dogma 2, doesn’t generate Inn saves, but it’s still useful. Fully replenishes your health bar, losing its maximum capacity when taking damage and healing during your adventure. You can also cook some of the meat you find to get a bonus for part of the next day.
One last thing to note: Dragon’s Dogma 2 has a feature called Dragonplague. This is a disease-like condition that a pawn can contract after fighting a dragon and spread to other pawns. If there is a diseased pawn in your party and you sleep in an inn, the result is… It can be frustrating.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 wants you to accept the consequences, but Dragonsplague overwrites both regular and Inn saves, so that’s something to keep in mind.
Find a new job
Dragon’s Dogma 2 has a variety of classes, from Fighter and Mage to Mystic Spearhand and Trickster. Some of these must be unlocked through quests or character encounters, but each class can be fun depending on your playstyle.
Each class has 10 levels that can be gained through experience in the world, as well as several moves, abilities, and enhancements that can be earned. In particular, augmentations can be used on any job once acquired. If you have already surpassed the limits of your profession, there is no use holding on to it. Move on and try a new job for a while.
If nothing else, all of this will help prepare you for the game’s ultimate class, the Warfarer. Warfarer is a class that combines the features and moves of several classes. Your pawn can take on some of these jobs too, so go ahead and change them up. Wizards are great healers. It would be easy to just put a pawn in the mage position so you always have a healer with you, but that’s what the other two pawn slots are for. Let your pawns explore and play with new move sets. Someone else does the treatment.
Learn the system, don’t struggle
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a game that requires multiple playthroughs. This is especially true when it comes to powerhouses like the aforementioned Dragonsplague. There are a ton of systems used in the game, from Affinity (certain characters can be used to romance, shopkeepers offer discounts, etc.) to the various inner workings of pawns.
The game becomes more rewarding the more you learn the systems, but you don’t want to spend a lot of time reading about them in great detail online. Experience as much organically as possible.
Use a guide or mod if you want. Avoid it if possible.
Ultimately, you have to play the game your own way. There are already mods for things like item cost and carry weight, so if you don’t like the friction these systems create, you can tweak your mods to work around them.
Likewise, Dragon’s Dogma wants you to use your instincts and your pawns’ quest knowledge to complete quests, but some people are more interested in completing the game as perfectly as possible than experiencing the quests dynamically.
There is no right or wrong here. It all depends on what you give. you Satisfying experience. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t use the guide. But at the same time, Dragon’s Dogma 2 rewards exploration, so don’t be afraid to mess up.
Editor: Andrew Hayward
Editor’s Note: Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a traditional “Web2” game and has no cryptocurrency or blockchain elements.
