Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen has made its way to the PC, and as the name suggests, it's the original plus an expansion to boot.
In the game, the player will take on the role of the Arisen, the chosen one who is capable of taking on dragons and controlling subservient Pawns with remarkable AI prowess.
The port was announced back in 2015, and Capcom kept its promise of a January 2016 rollout. Now that plenty of gamers have gotten their hands on it and tested it out, here's what they have to say about it.
The original version was pretty good, but it had a few hiccups here and there, and a lot of gamers considered it a flop. However, there are good points to consider as well, particularly the battles.
"As an open world game, Dragon's Dogma isn't very good. As an action game, Dragon's Dogma is one of the best around. The combat in Bethesda's games becomes stale after a few hours, but Dragon's Dogma kept me enthralled from start to finish, thanks to the amount of subtle control you wield over it," Patrick Klepek of Kotaku says.
Being the Arisen is a very serious matter. In other words, saving the world and all is a big responsibility, which Leif Johnson of PC Gamer refers to as a "job."
"Jobs can be fun, of course, and Dragon's Dogma delivers a challenging brand of action that's rousing regardless of whether it's played on the keyboard or with a gamepad. Greatswords crash with hefty weight, arrows fly with satisfying thwapps, and spells impale ogres with icy tendrils. So many RPGs could learn from how fun this is," he writes.
To reiterate how the console version failed, it clocked at around 15 to 20 fps. That's obviously a deal breaker. A game should at least be on 30 fps if it wants to be playable. It's different this time around, though.
Considering that Dragon's Dogma launched back in 2012, it comes as no surprise that the PC port runs as smooth as butter. Well, that's assuming that practically every rig that loads it up has a relatively modern setup.
"I booted the game earlier this week and ran through the first few hours. As you might expect, the game runs quite a bit better on a modern PC than it did on the old console hardware. Testing Dragon's Dogma on my GeForce GTX 980 Ti-equipped machine was (no surprise) overkill, easily maxing out the game at 1080p and maintaining north of 100+ frames per second," Hayden Dingman, games reporter for PCWorld, says.
As a testament to the gameplay, Dragon's Dogma offers quite the challenge. It's perfect for those who'd like to rise to the occasion and spend hours in the dragon-infested realm.
"It should be noted how difficult Dragon's Dogma is. It's by no means the level of something like Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, but there's definitely challenge to the gameplay, especially if you don't enlist a healer in the party. This isn't just bosses, either, as monsters that inhabit the vast lands can rip you to shreds within an instance if you don't progress intelligently and equip the Arisen and Pawn correctly," Hardcore Gamer's Adam Beck says.
Good combat system - check. Performance - check. Difficulty - check. Dragon's Dogma is passing with flying colors. However, it doesn't seem to deliver well story-wise.
"Dragon's Dogma avoids seeming like a clone of any one particular game, but there's little in the way of interesting storytelling or characters," GameCentral for Metro.co.uk remarks.
With that said, it's not exactly off-putting, as the game still has plenty to offer. Still, it would've been nicer to see a completely well-rounded game.
Again, Dragon's Dogma didn't shine well on the console, repelling a good portion of the gaming community. Fortunately, the PC version is doing a bang-up job in delivering what the game truly has to offer, converting some of the players who were driven away by the awful console performance.
"I quite liked the console release of Dragon's Dogma, but the performance issues truly obfuscated the brilliance of what's at the heart of this game. I wasn't one of those Dogma cultists before, but the PC release has made me into one. I hold my hands up to them - they're right. It is one of the best games that nobody played, and this PC port is finally the right way to play it. Hopefully it finally finds a broader audience," Alex Donaldson of RPG Site notes.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is a Japanese RPG that's leaning a bit on western-style games. On that note, it seems to be an appealing combination, as it has just arisen on Steam and has been well received by plenty of gamers.
