Back in Dragon's Dogma 2 for Dark Arisen
It's been a few months since I last fired up Dragon's Dogma 2. It's always been a game I can come back to. The action is fun, the world is pretty, and while many of the characters and side-stories are vapid, there's some aspects of the world building and story philosophy that are oddly compelling.
I returned this weekend for a special occasion: the release of the Dark Arisen DLC. After a few years of silence, Capcom quietly announced the Dark Arisen DLC and, fortunately for me, it released just in time for my long weekend.
Dark Arisen brings us to the frozen and seemingly abandoned lands of Norgan. We won't have to just contend with monsters here: the weather can be just as deadly as the local wildlife, and multiple NPCs (including pawns - your summoned NPC party members) inform you of this fact.
The DLC wastes little time throwing you into danger. I landed in the woods at twilight. The harsh wind was bringing with it a blizzard as the light was faded fast. A glow of red pierced through the scraggly tree tops - the only beacon I had as the night began to close in around me.
As I moved to investigate, humanoid figures emerged from the shadows, sided by large, white wolves.
My warrior was quite capable at destroying anything her sword collided with. Not so in Norgan. I didn't have endgame gear, admittedly, but I had the tier right below it; I may as well have been hitting the brigands with a pool noodle. We bested them, and hurried toward the light.
The light was a village, fortunately. I got my first couple of introductory quests, then stopped a while to admire the aurora borealis before sleep.
It was a really strong way to lead players without railroading.
I decided to pursue one of the quests the next morning. Another band of barbarians ambushed me not far down the road, and my pawn loudly proclaimed they must have had relics. Relics are unidentified items that drop off of enemies in Norgan. They require rift crystals to identify, though nothing exorbitant. It's essentially the same system from the first Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2013).
We overcame the ambush, and claimed two relics - a light weapon and a heavy weapon. I brought them to the town elder who identified one of them as a giant two handed axe, and the other as a one handed axe. I had hoped the light weapon would be daggers for my pawn, but one out of two on my wishlist is pretty good and it's better for me to have the upgrade first. Let's just equip it and-
It's so unfair how much the first piece of DLC loot outclasses my old sword. The Northern fashion set I got from pre-ordering the DLC also powercrept my old armor, to be fair.
Another benefit of these new relic weapons is that they have skills attached to them. Like, my new Three-Fanged Axe has an upgrade to the Razing Sweep skill called Razing Ruin. As I expected, I was now able to actually hurt things again, but still had to keep on my toes in a melee.
There's a crafter in town as well. The DLC also offers a few quality of life changes, such as multiple save files, the ability to equip six skills rather than four, and allegedly the ability to transmogrify the appearance of my armor (though I haven't found this one yet). There's also a Hard mode I haven't tried, but it's apparently a challenge even for veterans.
It's good to be back in Vermund again.