This review contains spoilers
Every moment spent playing Dragon’s Dogma was suffering. Every moment away from Dragon’s Dogma, I could think of nothing else.
Despite constant frustrations with the inventory and quest management, I loved this game. I don’t think the story itself was bad, but the way it was told (or neglected) was ineffective at best. The tone and the music were perfect for this world though and the time I spent exploring on my own always felt good provided I remembered to save the game before I inevitably died to something cool and got sent back to my last save. Fighting big monsters I found along the path to a destination was exciting once my gear was upgraded a bit. The Pawns were the best part though. They are excessively silly with their repetitive dialogue and bizarre behavior. I was so endeared to them. Even when I was having a rough time in this game, the Pawns kept me coming back.
Unfortunately the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m all for subtle lore but I think pacing is doubly important if a story is going to pull that off. In Dragon’s Dogma, the dragon appears at the very start of the game and we don’t hear anything about it again outside of people being scared of it until the end. Maybe there’s quests about it I didn’t find, that’s possible. But the meat and potatoes of the game is all mostly unrelated to what this story is supposed to be about. For such an ambitious narrative, I needed more direct attention being paid to it for an ending like this to land. Plus the romance mechanics were barely able to be controlled and my “beloved” was one I actively disliked. It was awful seeing them in the cutscenes.
So nothing about the ending worked for me and I wish I could have just continued running around with my silly Pawns and getting thrown off cliffs by Cyclops. That part was great. Whenever I get around to doing Bitterblack Isle, I think I will enjoy that a lot.
Despite constant frustrations with the inventory and quest management, I loved this game. I don’t think the story itself was bad, but the way it was told (or neglected) was ineffective at best. The tone and the music were perfect for this world though and the time I spent exploring on my own always felt good provided I remembered to save the game before I inevitably died to something cool and got sent back to my last save. Fighting big monsters I found along the path to a destination was exciting once my gear was upgraded a bit. The Pawns were the best part though. They are excessively silly with their repetitive dialogue and bizarre behavior. I was so endeared to them. Even when I was having a rough time in this game, the Pawns kept me coming back.
Unfortunately the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m all for subtle lore but I think pacing is doubly important if a story is going to pull that off. In Dragon’s Dogma, the dragon appears at the very start of the game and we don’t hear anything about it again outside of people being scared of it until the end. Maybe there’s quests about it I didn’t find, that’s possible. But the meat and potatoes of the game is all mostly unrelated to what this story is supposed to be about. For such an ambitious narrative, I needed more direct attention being paid to it for an ending like this to land. Plus the romance mechanics were barely able to be controlled and my “beloved” was one I actively disliked. It was awful seeing them in the cutscenes.
So nothing about the ending worked for me and I wish I could have just continued running around with my silly Pawns and getting thrown off cliffs by Cyclops. That part was great. Whenever I get around to doing Bitterblack Isle, I think I will enjoy that a lot.