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How to be the worst wizard in Dragon’s Dogma 2 - Act 1The first of three hours with Capcom’s sumptuous, chaotic action-RPG
The first of three hours with Capcom’s sumptuous, chaotic action-RPG
Image credit:Capcom
Image credit:Capcom
Dragon’s Dogma 2 harbours several flavours of spell-caster. During the hands-on, I kick off with the Mystic Spearhand, which as the name implies, is a wizard who specialises in melee. With two PRs looking on, I’m given a party of default pawns comprising two mages and a warrior, and unceremoniously dumped outside that most romantic of medieval burgs, Checkpoint Rest Town.
Image credit:Capcom
My trio of pre-fabbed pawns in tow, I sally up the hill to the imposing fortified gate at the town’s summit. The PR guys inform me that this is the entrance to the desert realm of Battahl, the second of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s major areas and home of the Beastren. A gate guard looks up. Do I have a permit for passage? I check my inventory and why yes, I do have a permit – thanks PRs! But the guard is a deeply paranoid man. He refuses to believe that this is reallymypermit, and demands that I procure another one. Zounds, it feels like I’m nudging up against some quest or other. I consider showing the guard my enchanted spear and explaining that this is my permit, actually, but brutalising the constabulary is not going to get me through that portcullis, so I spin on my heel majestically and stride back down the road into the temperate countryside of Vermund.
It’s time to put this open world through its paces. First, though, some journalistic housekeeping: I need to make my pawn entourage properly wizardly. For the purposes of this super-sorcerous diary write-up, I’m going to give them new names, borrowed from great spellcrafters throughout the ages. I rename one of the mages Galadriel, aka Princess of the Ñoldor, Lady of the Wood, Mistress of Magic. The other I rename Donald Duck, aka The Duck. If you haven’t playedKingdom Heartsyou might scoff that Donald Duck isn’t much of a wizard, but I would usher you urgently to one side and explain in a whisper that Donald Duck is, in fact, one of very fewFinal Fantasycharacters who can cast Zettaflare, and that if Donald Duck were sufficiently provoked – say, because some asshole sneered at his spellduckship – he could murder you, me, Galadriel and everybody we’ve ever loved.
We enter the wilds! Everything quickly goes pear-shaped. Rounding a canyon bend, we spy a group of torch-wielding goblins harassing a goat. Donald Duck is apoplectic. He tries to hit the goblins with thunderbolts and is immediately stabbed in the kidneys. Galadriel then attempts to cast a healing aura and gets axed in the face. The goblins and goblin-variants in Dragon’s Dogma 2 seem nastier than their forebears in the 2012 game, opening fights with flying leap attacks that appear paced to stunlock you, unless you block, which we mostly can’t, because we’re a bunch of squishy sorcerors. As I catch up and wade in belatedly with my enchanted spear, my party’s lack of balance is painfully obvious.
Image credit:Capcom
Donald’s barrage gives me space to regain my feet – recovery times in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are long, comparable to those of the Monster Hunter games - and flex my budding Sith abilities with greater success. It turns out you need to wound enemies a bit before they’ll consent to be Farce Thrown, which, you know, that’s not how Darth Vader rolled, but you do you, Capcom. I hurl the reptiles around unscientifically while Galadriel, who isstilltelling me that anecdote about bloody pawn mythology, summons various healing and power-up auras. It doesn’t appear possible to use Mystic Spearhand telekinesis on your companions, not even “accidentally”, though as somebody who often employed Dragonshouting as a means of transporting glitchy Skyrim companions, I plan to experiment on that front down the line.
Following the lizard cave, there are wolves, harpies, more wolves, and some wolves to wash it all down. One of OG Dragon’s Dogma’s wobblier elements was its reliance on filler battles during exploration that often slop together into one, quest-length exercise in punching no-name wildlife. The sequel appears to share this weakness. Often, the ease with which minor skirmishes combine and multiply is entertaining, as when bringing a surprise Griffon to a goblin fight. But it does get a bit draining, especially when you’re a previewer trying to flush out more intriguing setups and stories.
Image credit:Capcom
I’m just beginning to lose patience with the fauna when lo, anOgrelumbers out of a bush with the air of a midboss returning from the loo. Nowthisis a foe worthy of Dragonkin Skywalker’s ample talents. I really hated Ogres in the first game for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they are massive creeps who make a point of scooping up female characters, running off with them and chewing on them like dog toys. Secondly, they get all rowdy and hyperactive when they’re low health, which is problematic in caves – thankfully, we are currently standing on a forest track, in full beaming sunshine.
Image credit:Capcom
The oxcart proves to be the Ogre’s undoing. It passive-aggressively buffets the monster into the cliff face, sabotaging its maneouvres while I teleport onto a flailing arm, haul myself up to the creature’s face and start jabbing it in the nose with my spear. In short order there’s a burst of victory slow-mo, a fanfare plays, and congratulations one and all - we have successfully defeated an Ogre with a party of magic-users. Those oxcart guards? Well, they chipped in a bit here and there.
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Part 2 is live!Click on for cautionary tales about dried fruit and emergent gameplay.
