Dragon's Dogma | A Complete History and Retrospective

in another place in another life another child of man blazes your path these words guide us into a new adventure in a new land but a trail that has been blazed before we are not the first we're taking part in the endless chain a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth in the duchy of gransis becoming the arisen and seeking out our destiny dragon's dogma presents an incredibly interesting and ambitious package one comprised of fulfilling gameplay a world that is rife with life and heart and a story that dares to surprise and intrigue dragon's dogma was a game well ahead of its time and criminally under-appreciated in the modern age today i'd like to try and dig deep into why that is i'm going to be taking a look at dragon's dogma's gameplay story lore mechanics and everything in between i'm going to be as comprehensive as i possibly can while talking about this game to try and cover everything so that by the end of it you'll fully understand the package that dragon's dogma presents i'd like to give a huge shout out to the dragons dogma wiki they've created something pretty extensive and chock full of information that really helped me out when doing the large amount of research for this video if you enjoy the video consider supporting the channel over on patreon if you want to support the channel for free give this video a like and subscribe as it really helps me out spoilers for everything dragon's dogma hey dad it's me your favorite son and today i want to talk about dragon's dogma dragon's dogma was directed by hideyaki itsuno famous for directing the devil may cry games post first entry itsuno had the idea for the game all the way back in the year 2000. he wanted to make a new ip but was eventually pulled on to work on devil may cry 2 and his business on that series didn't stop until 2008 when the fourth devil may cry game was released he decided he finally wanted to work on the game he'd been thinking about for eight years and capcom let him the original concept for the game focused around the pawn system he wanted the main character to form a party of pawns that would follow him around but were based on other creations that players had made itsuno thought that browsing bbs or bulletin board systems or as their more commonly known forums was incredibly fun the idea of posting to a forum and not having to wait for a message back or having to time phone calls with a person was incredibly fun he wanted to take this idea and transplant it into a multiplayer component for a game because characters could use each other's pawns and send them items this replicated the enticing part of that system in his mind to this end the game was originally called bbs rpg outside of the pawn system originally called cmcs or custom mercenary characters the open world and the action rpg elements were just as important these ideas were all pretty difficult for itsuno to relay to capcom and the other developers when pitching the idea and some people didn't even fully understand it until the retail version was finished itsudo wanted to borrow from other successful rpgs at the time like oblivion fallout 3 and fable 2. he specifically wanted to take the freedom simple action and high realism from those entries with these high level ideas itsuno was way ahead of the game in terms of action rpgs because of this there were plenty of challenges throughout development the first was the character creation itsuno wanted players to have the freedom to choose how their character looked and build them from the ground up but scaling the creation system meant more work for animators they worked and researched for three months and eventually figured out a way to share motion data across the character models cutting the normal workload to a third the online capabilities the game required were also a large hurdle capcom didn't want to have to manage dedicated servers for the game so they ended up using the leaderboard systems from the 360 and ps3 the ultimate focus of development was giving players as much freedom as they could without creating more work for the team because the idea was so ambitious the team did not only face challenges but the game had to be downsized as well to fit the production budget the map in-game entirely was originally twice as big as the finished product gransis was originally an island that became a peninsula in the final version some extra areas were also cut like an end game level set on the moon dwarves and elves seemed to be a part of the original game and a feather glider was included to be able to move around the island the game's systems and mechanics are incredibly interesting and a whole story in and of themselves but the writing and the story is nothing to be scoffed at the main scenario writer on the game was haruro murata but bingo morihashi also worked on the scenario having previously worked with itsuno on the devil may cry series the team made multiple trips to europe to research architecture and scenery itsuno listed the main inspirations for the game's concepts as lord of the rings dungeons and dragons and the never-ending story the team wanted to stick with the fantasy setting replicating classic fantasy worlds and narratives they kept this thread by using old english words in the dialogue and writing spells that normally would be named fire or ice use old english words like haldiam and ingle tatayoshi makino composed the soundtrack for dragon's dogma he was pulled in multiple directions while working on the music for the game itsuno wanted the game to incorporate jazz producer hiroyuki kobayashi wanted a hard rock sound and makino himself wanted to use full orchestras this resulted in the game having an incredibly unique sound overall makino first and foremost wanted the tracks to blend into the world of dragon's dogma and never be too far in the foreground after two years of production the game was nearing completion and they were ready to announce it in 2010 at the tokyo game show the announcement had to be pushed back to 2011 because a lot of the monster designs lacked impact and needed to be revamped eventually the game was released in may 2012 for the playstation 3 and xbox 360. a few notes before i properly get into the game first i played dragon's dogma dark arisen on the playstation 5 using the backwards compatibility feature on that system dark arisen was a re-release of dragon's dogma with an entirely new expansion in the form of bitter black isle it was originally released in april 2013 for the playstation 3 and xbox 360 and was later ported to the playstation 4 and xbox one in october 2017. the dark arisen release just adds extra content and is otherwise identical to the original game it does change some combat skills slightly like nerfs to the assassin classes combat skills and makes traveling a little easier but it's nothing monumental and we'll get into all that the second note i have before we begin this review is about the nature of dragon's dogma it's actually a surprisingly large game with lots of incredibly small details that are very easy to miss it's probably inevitable that i missed something while talking about this game so if that's the case i apologize and i'll add it to the pinned comment below the third and final note i have is that i'll be talking about the lore of dragon's dogma pretty early on before we get too deep into things i'd like to give a good background on the world as it'll make understanding the game a little easier there are certain things that we don't really understand about gransis and the world of dragon's dogma until halfway through or near the end of the game certain things will be obscured purposefully so i can talk about them as i reach their part of the story this is again purposeful so if you think i missed something or got something wrong hold your horses until we get to the end because it may be amended and fully explained dragon's dogma begins with words in another life in another place another child of man blazes your path and we're given control we are quickly thrust into learning the basics of combat and controlling a party playing as a character named savann we're traveling through a dungeon assailed by a dragon and eventually have to battle a chimera or clambering on its back slashing at its legs and when it goes down we trudge on savon and his party face the nearby door as it opens and countless lifetimes come to pass french words grace our screen that i'm not near proficient enough to pronounce they translate to the delightful and ever-precious nature of a useless occupation from a poem by french symbolist anri de renier the same quote is used on maurice ravel's 1911 composition valson noble esonte montal now it seems useless but is incredibly poignant in explaining everything that we will experience a massive rift opens in the sky and we see a dragon harpies flying all around it as its massive body is birthed from the crack in the sky we're then able to create our character the world is our oyster and our new abomination is to be the pearl inside i chose not to use my godlike power of creating a new man for evil but for good and i created sun or as those with parental controls enabled we'll know him sammy our brand new character is enjoying the start of his morning in cassadis when the dragon we just saw flies across the town he causes some structural damage to the docks and lands on the beach our hero decides to bear arms against the enormous beast even though he doesn't have the skill or gear to take on such a foe he accepts the challenge we get a short segment where we hack at the beast's legs but we can't do nearly any damage to the thing he thrusts his sword at the dragon and it impales itself into his hand which shocks the thing the dragon approaches our hero and speaks some foreign tongue that we can't understand [Applause] [Music] he touches his chest wounding him and pulling out his heart consuming it the hero is seen to by kina a village woman who lives in cassadis when the hero awakes his chest is scarred and he hears the voice of the dragon in his head speaking a language he can start to understand when we awake we're given full control and i was allowed to choose my vocation there are many vocations in dragon's dogma but at the beginning we're given access to the three basic ones fighter strider and mage fighter is your basic warrior class primary weapon is a sword and the secondary weapon is a shield strider is a combination of ranged and up close primary weapons are daggers and secondary weapons are bows the mage is your basic spellcaster the primary weapon and only weapon being a staff i'll get more deep into classes later when i go over the entire combat system and all of its neat little intricacies i went to leave the house and head out on my journey but i could overhear kina and adaro talking our hero has no heartbeat and adaro thinks that it's a curse from the dragon kina is worried for us as we leave and when we try to head out of town something strange happens a rift is summoned from the air and a man drops through adaro tells us he's a pawn pawns are not human they appear from somewhere else not of this world they have no will power and only follow a leader and for some reason this one is following us adaro recommends that we head to the encampment north of cassadis men are gathering there to face the dragon and we might be able to learn of the pond's nature before i left i decided to check on the people of the town this is my home after all and it only made sense to make sure they were all right marin is looking for his brother cortes and he wanted me to find him he hasn't seen him since the dragon came and i eventually found elvar in a building on the far side of town he said that cortez was dead sacrificing himself to save his fellow man elvar feels ashamed that he let the man die marin is proud to hear of what his brother did and doesn't blame elvar for his death in the chapel the man of the faith clement is looking for his book of scriptures but it's been stolen outside lou confessed to stealing it but he dropped it when the dragon came i found it on a rooftop in the middle of town and returned it to the priest with these duties complete i gathered some provisions and headed to the encampment with rook my new pawn he was a mage so he was helpful in battle especially when we encountered a pack of goblins on the way it was a short journey but one we were grateful to make alive when i arrived at the encampment i encountered my first rift stone a foreign voice speaks to our hero from beyond the pawn legion they have awaited him the arisen the only one that can guide the legion of pawns the legion requests that we complete a trial that will show that we have the tireless spirit of self-improvement the metal to lead the pawns at just this time an ogre attacks the encampment and we have to defend against it it's a pretty easy foe to best as the guards have already done most of the work when we return to the encampment the voice speaks again and we're allowed to create our own pawn for the journey ahead one that is bound to me alone i created tinus a strong bulwark of a woman that could protect my meager stature the pawns swear allegiance to the arisen and were introduced to the system in full before i get into pawns i should probably go ahead and talk about combat in general combat and dragon's dogma is deceptively simple it's a system that seems pretty skin-deep for the first few hours of playtime but upon further examination takes some time to master we have our basic heavy and light attacks controlled by triangle and square respectively these are the bread and butter of our combat stronger attacks at your disposal are abilities that can be accessed by holding r1 or l1 and the example of the fighter vocation the one i used most of my first playthrough r1 controls sword abilities and l1 controls shield abilities for the most part r1 controls primary weapon abilities and l1 controls secondary weapon abilities upon holding either bumper we can then access three equipped abilities these abilities are gained whenever we level up our vocation certain trainers around the world will let us spend discipline points to learn new abilities and equip said abilities in the case of the fighter i used skills like blink strike which causes the arisen to rush at a target tusk toss which launches the target in the air and legion's bite which is a powerful flurry of strikes these are only a few of the main abilities that i used with the fighter and each vocation has their own set each ability also has an upgraded version of it which can change its reach power or even add strikes to the attack i also had three shield skills multiple augments which are passive abilities that can be equipped and a few core skills which are more passive skills that don't have to be equipped each of the main abilities cost stamina to use notated by the bar in the bottom left corner of the screen under our health stamina is an incredibly important currency in the heat of battle our bar will slowly increase over time but it's used up in a myriad of ways using abilities will decrease it running instead of walking will decrease it and climbing on enemies or holding them will decrease it one of the largest components of the combat system that dragon's dogma presents is being able to climb on enemies multiple times in our journey we'll face monsters and beasts that are much larger than us because of this we have to even the odds and hit them where it hurts most bosses have weak spots and being able to access those weak spots especially as a melee class is an incredibly important endeavor these might be the eye of a cyclops or the gems on the gollum's body punishing these weak spots is vital to getting the boss down to a level where your party can attack and deal big damage you aren't the only one responsible for this though as you have ideally three other party members in your employ once we create and gain access to our own pawn we can enlist two other pawns to join our party as well forming a four person team these pawns are taken from the rift and are the creations of other characters that have played the game we're normally recommended pawns that have a similar level to us at the time but we can also hire pawns that are much higher level than us for a cost this is done by spending rift crystals but i'll get into those later pawns are ai controlled and generally do their own thing in battle but can be ordered with the d-pad to do specific things stay behind or attack for example pawns all act differently in battle though this is based off of their personality upon creation and their learned experience when creating a pawn we have to answer multiple questions about what we require in a companion these questions will determine their inclination and how their behavior tends to be in general there are nine inclinations each with a slider showing how inclined upon is to make a decision scather determines how likely a pawn is to battle a large foe first this can be increased by battling strong enemies and will decrease if large enemies are avoided often the medicant inclination will see upon prioritizing healing and pre-battle preparations this will increase when giving the pawn certain commands and will decrease when the pawn is at low health for a long time these inclinations do two incredibly important things first of all it makes pawns unique to each other not only can they be different upon creation but based on your adventures and the way that you and your party behave in combat their personality will change over time not only does it make them unique but it makes them change with the adventure with gameplay creating a specific companion for you and one that's affected by your play style this is so incredibly genius and works so well in the game itself this ultimately creates a pawn that you are attached to a companion that you don't want to lose and that's tenus not only does their inclination change over time but their knowledge changes over time fighting the same beast repeatedly will cause the pawn to know how the foe behaves and understand their weak spots pawns will talk in battle and if they know how to fell a beast they will speak up and tell us how to defeat it easily they will also gain knowledge of quests and areas around grant's if they've been to a certain area before in our game when another player uses them in theirs they'll lead the way to get to the destination the same with a quest if they've done the quest before they'll know how to complete it faster and help out the arisen using their knowledge the more knowledgeable your pawn is the more other players are going to want to use them which gives you more rewards in the end and increases your pawns level making them stronger if you'd like to change the way your pawn behaves you can sit down with them at a knowledge chair which is found about halfway through the game we can give them a talking too and try to slightly adjust their inclinations or how often they give advice in battle if a pawn dies in battle they return to the rift and we can use a rift stone to summon them again they also do not age so they're effectively immortal it seems like a lot of information but a lot of this isn't even found truly until diving deep into the system the whole game itself just works and these little intricacies are a post surprise found after playing the game for a bit there are all these little epiphany moments where you find out how the system works and when you do its genius just shines right through there are so many moving parts here that i haven't even talked about yet but we'll get to them in time these are just the basics and the true genius of the system which is how it ties into the narrative itself will be revealed in time there is one downside to the pawns in general that many fans of the game have pointed out the two extra pawns that fill your team the ones comprised of other players pawns you're not as attached to this is because they're swapped out often for other stronger pawns as you level up and progress through the story they feel more like an extra ability or equipment rather than a part of your team which isn't that great but almost makes you feel more attached to the pawn you've created in the end it's something that could be extrapolated upon without you having to create three pawns yourself which would be time consuming after i gathered my team sir byrne wanted to train us we participated in three tests carrying boxes attacking targets and attacking more targets this is designed to see if the pawns you've chosen comprise a balanced team and get you ready for the rest of the game it's a good idea to have a good mix of range and melee and a good mix of magic and physical after this a hydra attacks the encampment and were forced to battle it the hydra's weak spot is obviously its heads the best way to deal with it is to climb up one of its necks and slice a head off dealing a large amount of damage luckily the hydra flees after we take one of its heads and we don't have to battle the thing entirely mercedes the head of the enlistment corps at the encampment is shocked at what we can do she believes our power is coming from the fact that we're the arisen a character of myth and legend not so far in the past mercedes is from hearthstone sent to aid the people of gransis the duchy where our story takes place after the attack by the dragon she wants to take the hydra's head to the capital of gransis grand soren and give it to the duke as trophy and proof of our handiwork before that i headed back to cassidus to check in on the people of my home before i set out on my large journey because grand sorin is a long ways off a traitor named madeleine is trying to make her way to that very city but wanted me to escort her to the encampment when we arrived i gave her a thousand gold so she could get to grand sorin and opened up her shop then we headed out to make our way to the capitol here we have to guard the cart and ox from the ambushing enemies along the path to grand sorin it's quite a long ways and this whole quest really makes you feel the distance and the travel between cities at first it doesn't just feel like you're running from one place to the next it feels like a journey there's this sense that there are miles between a place and it takes time and effort to get there that will change later when we get access to the fast travel system but for now we're gonna have to walk we have to guard the cart from goblins and harpies goblins are the fodder of the game the basic enemies that will eventually be slicing down with one fell swoop the harpies are flying beasts that my pawns have to bring down to the ground before i can finish them off when you're playing as a melee class and something is flying in the air it makes you realize the teamwork that's required for the combat system to be pulled off you have to wait for your pawns to knock the birds from the sky before you can go to town your party is a well-oiled machine that requires every part to run correctly it's a fine balance eventually we reach the capital city with the hydra's head in tow mercedes tells us to take our time in the city and explore the place we're met first by mason he tells us to start our exploration by heading to the pawns guild one of my favorite moments in this game is the first time you get to grand sorin it's a pretty big city with four main districts only three of which we have access to at this point in the game but none of the shops are listed on the map we have to actually venture to each place before they're marked we have to naturally explore the city and find things ourselves which makes us much more familiar with it in the end the urban quarter is where most of the main shops are caxton has weapons and armor for purchase and he can also strengthen our current weapons and armor for a price and some specific materials the ale house will provide drinks and a notice board where we can take on extra quests that are simple but for some additional experience and gold we can rest at the end to skip time or regain health and stamina the innkeeper will also let us learn new skills change our current ones or access our storage box the apothecary here will also sell us healing herbs or the components required to make our own tinctures the craftsman quarter is the main location of the pond guild the ponds are a separate people and tend to segregate themselves from humans the noble quarter is at the top of grand soren it's home to the cathedral and a few homes of the city's richest it also holds the gate to the final area of the city the castle grounds we won't be able to access this for a bit but this is the seat of the duke of the city edmond dragonsbane there are also the smaller areas of the venery aqueduct and the slums one very interesting business is the black cat a black market dealer that has all sorts of interesting items and trinkets for sale you can also forge items here though which is an absolute game changer for certain quests we'll get into this a little more later with some side quests but for now just know that we can pay mount bonk to create a copy of an item for us this copy won't have the same properties we can't create infinite potions here or anything but we can do some nifty things with it i headed down to the ponds guild to meet barnaby the pawn that tends to the guild's affairs he welcomed me to the city and i just couldn't help that i was already missing home i decided to make my way back to cassadis and check in on the folk there apparently kino went looking for a way to cure my dragon's curse and journeyed into the witchwood to find it she needs to be rescued because the witchwood is no place for someone like her she's at the entrance to the witchwood and asks us to take her into the forest to find the witch and cure the arizon's curse the witchwood is a deep dark place it's covered in fog and the only way to clear it is to destroy the idols hidden around the place this only clears it for a period of time though because after a couple days it will come back no one knows where or why the fog started whether it was conjured by the witch who lives in the center or some other sinister curse making our way through the forest we find the witch's home at the center a house constructed on the top of a giant tree we find celine inside the witch was her grandmother but she's gone now dead she has some interesting things to say that the worm speak that the dragons use cloaks the truth her grandmother did not tell her of the dragon because she didn't want her to be branded a heretic by the faith kina returns back to chief adaro her father safe and sound but none the wiser on anything relating to the dragon pablos the owner of the inn wanted me to help him with a thief in town he set up a sting we waited for nightfall and i grabbed the thief carrying him back to the inn he's part of a group of bandits called the iron hammer who have set up in the south the folks of cassidus seemed like they were okay on their own for now so i headed back to grand sorin to continue my journeys the trek from cassadis all the way to grand sorin is a long one and making this journey again and again can be arduous luckily dragon's dogma does have a fast travel system it's not as easy to use as other systems though we have to put in some work to set it up there are two items required to travel a port crystal and a fairy stone port crystals are the beacons that we can travel to and they're pretty rare the first time through the game there are only five in the base game so they have to be placed strategically once we play support crystal we can use a fairy stone to travel to that crystal instantly fairy stones are in short supply though and can be pretty expensive luckily the dark arisen version of the game created an item called the eternal fairy stone that we automatically get when arriving to grand sorin it's stored in our item box and can be used right away i didn't understand any of this until i already had about 10 to 15 hours in so i did my fair share of running around before i got my network of port crystals set up port crystals aren't easy to find though still and like i said you can only get a maximum of 5 on your first playthrough back to the main quest barnaby needs help with something at the pawns guild he introduces us to the everfall a huge structure that lies beneath grand soren it's a winding path downwards and he needs us to travel inside and explore its depths the pawns are the keepers of the everfall it's special to them but some presence has been felt inside since the dragon's coming and barnaby wants us to find out what it is i journeyed down into the thing with tinus and my other companions alongside me at the bottom while investigating the flame servant's throne tendrils begin to appear and pop out of the ground all around us the tendrils will just keep reappearing as we destroy them so we have to make a run for it barnaby says that the light at the bottom is new and the pawns know very little about the truth behind the everfa he vows to keep a lookout for anything that changes in the deep dark ruins beneath there's a man nearby whose son has fallen ill he's been sick for quite a while and finally passed away that morning he begs us to find him a wake stone hoping that it will be able to bring his son back to life wakestones aren't just used for this quest though they're magical items that can revive us in battle they are few and far between we can find shards of them throughout the world and assemble three into a whole one he gives us two shards and tasks us with finding the third we can either buy this at the store or find it down in the everfall using the wakestone we can bring the smith's son back to life and he is eternally grateful sir duncan a knight in the duke's employ approaches us in the streets because of our actions in slaying the hydra we get a worm hunting license this is an honor only given to the finest warriors that the duke sees as fit to hunt the dragon this license gives us a 5 discount at all of the shops in town with this license we can see sir maximilian captain of the hunt to get some new tasks to help gransis rid themselves of the great dragon before i did that i went to see fornivale fornival is a private merchant that resides in the noble quarter of grand sorin he owns property in town and is a generally wealthy man he wants to sell one of the homes that he owns but he has to evict the current tenants first with the recent tragedies he doesn't think they'll take kindly to the news and thinks it'll go over better coming from the arisen we have to talk to each member of the family and convince them to leave their home the son pip doesn't want to leave and we have to chase him around town the wife sarah has to think on the decision and needs a full in-game day to reflect on the news jasper the husband needs gold to look for another place to live so we have to pay him thirty thousand if we do all of this fornival will pay us for our efforts but we can also choose to cancel the eviction this will see fornival wanting us to buy the land for 80 000 gold the only real difference here is that the land will stay in possession of jasper and his family and they'll give us a few gifts for letting them keep their house this whole quest is kind of terrible because we're forcing these people to leave their homes for some wealthy merchant that wants to make a profit we're supposed to be slaying dragons yet we're dealing in evictions the npcs even say this noting that they wouldn't think the arizona would do something like this and i was taught that arizona were friends of the week the next task i decided to take on was helping out mason we met him as we originally entered grand sorin he saw some peculiar man coming out of the castle at night and wants us to see what he's up to we have to trail the man about town not getting too close eventually we trace him down to the venery where he enters none other than madeleine's new shop she's providing the mystery man with some sort of information for payment but we're not sure what it is maximilian has four different tasks directly from the duke our next step in the main quest these are all matters having to deal with the dragon itself and the things surrounding it the first of these tasks is the cipher this is one of the most interesting quests in the game and is really where the lore starts to open up before we get into this i think it's time we take a brief look at the lore of dragon's dogma itself the bulk of our story takes place in gransis that much is clear but gransis as a whole used to be part of a larger country called the leo grand peninsula for some unknown reason the peninsula was split into two duchies lior and gransis two countries are giving aid to grantsus in the time of the great dragon hearthstone and voldoa voldoa and lior both lie in the west of gransis the capital of gransis as we know is grand sorin its duke is named edmund dragonsbane he has called this because he was the last man to defeat a dragon the tales say that he slayed the dragon in the west of gransis and now most of that land lie in waste and ruin whether this was from the dragon's death or because of the dragon's rampage we're not sure cassidus lies to the south the place of our hero the arisen it's a small and humble fishing village that became protectorate under grand sorin with the chief adaro there are all sorts of interesting ruins and monuments covering the land the place itself seems mostly desolate though the current dragon that is plaguing the land is referred to as the third dragon during the time of the first and the second many settlements and places are thought to have been destroyed the religion of gransis is called the faith and the deity they worship is called the maker there's a small cathedral in grand soren and an even smaller chapel in cassidus they both answer to the grand cathedral in aldering on the mainland most of grant's answers to the mainland and that's the same for the duchies around it including lior they swear fealty to some sort of higher political or religious power in the end i'm sure you're wondering there were three dragons who killed the first the legends say that the only other person to slay a dragon was that of god king leonard he is said to have slain the dragon and become the great unifier uniting the continent and bringing peace upon the land but where do the dragons come from what is the truth of the arisen and what is the real nature of the pawns these are of course the most interesting questions that we have while playing the game and those will all be answered in due time one thing that lends a lot to the world of dragon's dogma is its music just as the original composer intended it can sometimes blend into the background making it a part of the world itself the main title is a beautiful song an angelic voice shining through the dark with subtle and interesting instruments behind it [Music] the character creation song is low and tribal thumping and beating rhythmic and addicting [Music] most of the songs are incredibly subtle as they were meant to be but some of the battle tracks like the end of a life and death struggle are incredibly powerful [Music] it's biblical in scope a grandiose track that feels like it's being shouted from the heavens above maximilian gives us an ancient tablet that seems to be written in wormspeak the language of the dragons but no one can read it we ask around town and everyone seems to be perplexed as to the true meaning what do i know of your writings less than i know a modern script then i never even learned me letters eventually a courier will tell us that he thinks the text is referencing hill figure null due to the markings on the ground there this place is just north of grand soren and when we arrive there a strange man is sitting atop one of the rocks outside him who knows that i know what he seeks to know knows it well while he who knows not knows not what i know or no not the arizon's chest glows and a man appears in front of him this is the dragon forged a previous arisen from long ago he tells us that the slate has no meaning at all at least not literally it was meant to bring us to him and that only we can see his true form this other man is named the fool and was the dragon-forged pawn when he was arisen there is quite a bit of speculation on what the true nature of the dragon forged is because we don't learn a lot about him during the course of the game it seems he did battle with the dragon and broke his spear and was then forced to use his fists to fight the beast this would explain his burnt arms there are many theories about the dragonforge that i'll cover later but for now we head back to maximilian for another task there's a research team looking for information on the dragon just west of the mountain way castle when we arrive there we find hazlitt who says his partner brother jean went into the water god's altar a cave beneath the waterfall and never came out we venture inside and have to find him many beasts call this cave home mostly saurians lizard-like water creatures that hold spears and shields most of the altar is flooded with pools of water befitting the name of the thing we find brother jean's body inside the main chamber and tell hazlitt of his passing he wants us to finish his research though and find what he was looking for to do this we need access to one of the chambers and for that we need a key the key is unfortunately on the ogre's body inside so we have to defeat him this was the first large boss i remember being very hesitant to take down the monsters can be just so imposing and massive a destructive force hulking around in the dark almost seems impossible to slay and dragon's dogma doesn't pull its punches i wouldn't say it's a hard game overall but it's definitely a game where you need to be prepared for every battle that you go into if you aren't you'll be wiped away in a second taking down the ogre by targeting his head and legs gives us a key and allows us to access the hidden chambers of the altar when we find the five plates inside and return them to hazlitt our quest is complete after this i decided to help fornivel again he required that i lead his daughter simone around the town simone is a high maintenance type of person she wants to be followed closely but not too close every request that she asks for must be delivered quickly and you must provide all the right answers to her questions you have to walk her around town and complete multiple tasks if these tasks are not performed to the t then you won't get the best reward for the quest if you do stand up to her liking then you can get the gold idol the gold idol is a very important item because it gives you a 30 percent discount at all stores in town it's a symbol of a high artisan and is used to gain access to specific vendors throughout the town we can give this idol away to caxton or madeleine and they will provide us with better wares we can also gain a forgery of the item by using the services of the black cat this will allow us to give them the real idol and keep the fake one to still receive the discount at stores another of maximilian's requests is that we look into the local cult called salvation they're worshiping the dragon itself and praying for its coming they believe that they will be purged by the dragon and that death through it is the only way to become pure we chase them down in the catacombs and eventually come face to face with elysian the leader of salvation the man that mason was looking for we fight off his undead creatures and were given the fate of the cult in our hands mason wants us to kill him and put an end to his tirade but we have a choice if we kill this man mason will like us and his affinity will go up if we don't mason denies us and all quests with him end affinity in this game can be pretty important managing your relationships with the folks of gransys can make or break your trade and your ability to complete their quests if people don't like you they won't give you their tasks to complete they may also cut you off from their wares or sell things at a larger price i decided to kill the cult leader as his goal was to bring about the downfall of all mankind and that seemed pretty bad eventually it was time to heed the duke's call he wants a council with the arisen and i answered inside the duke's call the court jester approached me and decided to place a hat on my head we have to wear this crown in front of the royal audience regardless the duke honors us and sets us to the royal tasks now these tasks are much more befitting of an arisen on our way out of the castle we encounter lady elenor she is the duke's wife but seems to have a sort of affection for the arisen she takes our crown and were set on our way before leaving the duke's mance aldus stops us the chamberlain of the duke's court he sees to the royal orders and will be giving us our quests and duties from here on out before we begin to complete these orders there are some other tasks that we must see to there's a boy named tomlin who requires use of us in cassidus his father has gone missing after he was the duke's gardener in grand soren flavian tells us that the gardener is in the dungeons at the order of the duke supposedly he was in league with bandits we can find him in the dungeons but to get him out we need two skeleton keys one of them can be bought from mount bonk at the black cat but the other has to be crafted dragon's dogma has a pretty simple crafting system we can combine items to create other ones it's about as simple as it gets mostly this is used to create potions from other herbs that we find out in the wild we can also combine certain items to create skeleton keys that will unlock dungeon doors in the duke's mance once we get two keys we can get the gardener out and use one of the other cells that happens to have a secret exit and descend down into its depths it eventually leads outside into the slums where the sun and his father are reunited we'll eventually learn that some men are gathered in the witchwood trying to hunt down celine in her hut it's time to save the witch and we have to head back to the witchwood itself once we arrive we see the guard at celine's door but a golem appears and we have to do battle this is a pretty difficult fight the first time through the golem has many different weak spots all across its body glowing stones illiterate skin and we have to target them at certain points he'll go into a frenzy and chase us down with a flurry of attacks he goes down and another path in the witchwood opens we find celine at the end of this path and we learn something interesting celine is a pawn and her arisen was sophia the person she used to refer to as gran the original witch sophia says that celine has begun to take on her appearance as all pawns will eventually do this process is called the bestowal of spirit the only thing that's clear here is that sophia was in arizona at one point and celine was her pawn but celine wants to become human and sophia grants her this this entire side quest begs an interesting question about pawns and their ability to become a true individual do they always yearn to be a sole actor or are they always willing to swear their fealty to their arisen regardless celine returns to kassadis and uses the arizon's home as her new house heading back here later will see us finding a strange plate with odd writings by sophia's grave i took it back to the dragon forge to see if he knew what it meant the tablet itself is the arizon's bond and it shows itself to each arisen the tablet will then take on a form suited to us ours takes on that of a ring and we can give this item to anyone we choose whose affinity for us will then be raised to its maximum i gave it to celine because i wasn't really sure what it was meant for at this point in the game and ended up regretting it later it seems someone else has taken to the arisen though because mirabelle stopped me when walking through the castle gardens she says that elenor the duke's wife wanted me to meet her in her tower at night when i met her she wanted to express her love to me unfortunately the jester sold us out and the duke found us he's about to take his wrath out on elenor and we have a choice we can reveal ourselves and stop him from killing her which will in turn reveal that we were in the ladies bed chambers or let him kill her and keep secret we still get found out either way but i chose to save the woman from the duke i was thrown in jail for my crimes but luckily elenor helped me escape the duke doesn't seem to remember this the next time we speak to him though so finally i decided to take on some royal tasks from aldus work that the duke himself wants taken care of i should note here that there are not very many main quests in dragon's dogma most of the quests in the game can be skipped or missed very easily this is a fantastic change to rpg form because it makes subsequent playthroughs that much more enjoyable and really forces you to investigate everything in the game for example the eleanor quest we just completed is missable celine's quests are miscible fornival's eviction quest miscible the quest to save the man from the dungeons all miscible this makes the world feel real and larger it also makes the main quest feel like it has consequences on the rest of the world this world does not wait for you it moves on without any regard it's also always a good sign when developers aren't afraid to let people miss things the first time around in their game one of my biggest pet peeves with rpgs is railroading the player into completing everything instead of letting them naturally find it on their own all this alerts us that fornivell is to be put on trial for being a traitor you can help prove him innocent by gathering evidence or you can let him be i chose to let him be put to death because he really seemed like an all-around bad guy in general there's another quest to fell the griffin that's been plaguing the roads for weeks there's a party of warriors outside the front gates and we have to help them take down the thing we guided their cart through the mountains and baited the beast with a goblin's body the griffin can be pretty tough at this point in the game depending on how many side quests you've taken on and what gear you have his head is his weak spot but if you're a melee vocation like me then you'll have to rely on your pawns to get him to the ground because he likes to fly a lot if we don't defeat the griffin here which i didn't my first time he'll fly off north of grand soren and we have to track him down he flies all the way to the blue moon tower which is quite the trek if you haven't placed any port crystals yet luckily i had one at hill figure knoll so it wasn't too far when we got there we began our ascent of the tower defeating undead and harpies along the way eventually encountering the griffin at the top before we get into this i have to talk about the side quest a troublesome tone back in grand soren a man named stefan will approach us and ask us to find a book of magics written by salome we can find this far to the south of gransis by the witchwood some bandits have taken it and we can steal it from them or persuade them to give it to us when taking the book back to stefan though we can keep the original and make a forgery the really interesting part though is that when we complete this quest for stefan he'll show up in the griffin battle later in the game as a mage he'll help us defeat the beast but how useful he is depends on whether we gave him a real or forged tome i gave him the real one and he helped out a lot the tone providing him a much needed boost to spells but if we give him the forged one he'll be a wet blanket our next quest is to track down a stolen item from the duke's treasury the worm king's ring i have to say one of the main things this game does great is voice acting and dialogue first up the dialogue is written so incredibly well i am a huge fantasy nerd and have been reading fantasy books since i was very young one thing fantasy movies and games get wrong a lot is their dialogue it always sounds so bland and hollow but the dialogue in dragon's dogma is top tier these characters genuinely feel like they're in a fantasy world and they speak like they're from gransis not a recording studio i hotel or castle worker was in league with bandits but the girl caught wind with and he confessed to all not long after sir i know it is not a matter fit to thrust upon a passing stranger but a wise choice i work you'll be eager to hear what i have to say i have long searched for a certain tone speaking of that the voice acting in this game is also great most everyone has great performances that make characters believable and interesting not only that but the sound design for the voices is amazing every voice sounds like it's actually in a city or in a shop or outside one of my biggest pet peeves with modern voice acting is that it sounds like the characters are inside your face not in the building in the game world it's an incredible touch that's fantastic and well done we tracked down the man that stole the worm king's ring realizing it to be salome the same man who wrote the grimoire of forbidden knowledge we just spoke about after your first encounter he retreats to blue moon tower where we have a battle with him on the roof he doesn't let us attack melee at all as he just teleports away we have to defeat his minions and then go for him he falls off the roof his quest for power ended and we can take the ring back to the duke the duke wants us to help out mercedes as she needs to deal with the unrest between the soldiers at the stone of the north otherwise known as wind bluff tower we help her confront julian the same man that was sneaking around grand soren getting information from madeleine he's been involved with the cult salvation and his ultimate goal is to undermine grant's by preventing them from slaying the dragon again he's originally from voldoa a place that breeds strong warriors and knights he doesn't want a soldier from gransis to fell the worm because it would create a political power too strong for voldoa to agree with the fight between mercedes and julian has become personal though and we have two options here we can let mercedes fight him alone which is what she wants or help her out and defeat julian she'll be upset with us if we help her and if we don't we'll gain more affinity from her i chose to let her work this out on her own but she lost the battle to julian she's ashamed she could not best the man and decides to return back to her home of hearthstone we're told by aldis to head to the way castle but on the way there a messenger tells us a beast is attacking grand soren when we arrive a large cockatrice has started to lay waste to the city's supplies we have to defeat it and try to protect the supplies as much as possible the biggest weapon of the cockatrice is its petrification breath if we are petrified unlike other status effects like blind and freeze we cannot be freed from it outside of using a potion if we let it go it will eventually kill us and is easily one of the most deadly effects in the game aldis rewards us for our efforts and the duke wants us to set out on an expedition he gives us some financial rewards for all of our efforts and we're about to enter into the final quests of the game this is where the story of dragon's dogma really starts to shine the duke finally gives us orders to head to the great wall and see what the salvation cult is up to there it's quite a long journey especially if we haven't been through this way yet and need to play support crystal on the way we'll face many ogres and chimeras when we arrive we're faced with a couple of armored cyclops here and harpies these guys can be pretty tough especially armored to the teeth like they are their armor can mostly be destroyed and knocked off but with it on it can be difficult to deal a stunning blow on them i want to point out here that i lost a bunch of footage here on my original playthrough of the game so if you see me being overpowered at all it's because i'm using footage from one of my other playthroughs making our way through the castle we also have to fight another chimera at this point in the game these things are dealt with pretty simply it's best to take out the snakehead first so it doesn't poison us and when the thing is down just slash at it repeatedly until it dies at the top of the tower we see elysian the madman behind salvation he wants to bring the dragon to this world and with it what he thinks is their salvation he turns his two pupils into whites and we have to fight them they're pretty easy and weak to unholy so they go down quick elysian tells us that we're far too late because the dragon itself is upon us more specifically upon elysion himself as he's crushed under its great talons the rantings of an up jump zealot make for tedious listening his ilk serves no role in what is to come only my death will staunch the flood of destruction we're face to face again with the beast himself and he says the cult has nothing to do with the real truth gregory the great dragon challenges us once finally he says that we have to come face him at the tainted mountain and that until then he'll keep the heart that he stole from us the great wall begins to crumble underneath as the dragon takes flight and we have our final task at hand before we head for the beast though we can return to the dragonforged who will give us some gear for our battle ahead when we head through the great wall we see a familiar sight we're walking the same path that we did during the tutorial playing a previous arisen named savan we have to fight the same gore chimera that he and his party did which is much simpler when you understand all of the mechanics through the gate the arizona walks and is finally face to face with the dragon himself the beast that's been built up for the entire game what is your purpose here arisen if you sought to live you had not but run and hide yourself away but then tell me child of man what does it mean to live in truth before we fight him he gives us a choice he's kidnapped our beloved and in my first playthrough this was actually madeleine but on my second playthrough the speed runny version it was elenor who the dragon chooses to capture is based on their affinity for you normally it's the person that you give the ring to that you get from the dragon forged i gave the ring to celine on my first playthrough but my beloved was still madeleine it's certainly a really interesting mechanic and basically takes into account what you did throughout the game and takes the person that you probably interacted with the most regardless the dragon says that we have a choice here the choice all arisen are given either we can fight him and risk destroying ourselves to get him to leave this land or we can sacrifice our beloved and he will still leave the land in a temporary peace if you give him your beloved we'll see a scene of the arisen now the duke sat on his throne living his life in torment what we should actually do though is save our beloved and fight the dragon because that's what we were meant to do and he will not take another life the arizona has to make this right so we begin our final battle the dragon chases us through the tower we get a short sequence where we can attack his head and eventually fight him in a large room the goal here is to climb his body and attack the scar on his chest to open his heart once we do this though he flees we have to chase him down across multiple towers dodging his flaming attacks and his pounces on the brick and mortar battleground eventually we can shoot him down with a ballista and with the short opening the arizona uses it to jump onto grigory's back he takes flight across the sea to an unknown island while we climb him and try to attack his heart eventually we're thrown off and as our chests pass the dragon falls to the ground this is where the real battle begins and the party has to do away with the dragon for good he's a pretty tough opponent he can do a ton of damage and rip through our health we again have to attack his chest and this is usually done by climbing all over him as much as i've praised dragon's dogma my largest complaint with the game is the overall jank the climbing system is one of my favorite parts about the game and it's probably one of the coolest things i've ever seen in an rpg but it can be pretty funky sometimes often you won't be on the monster's skin but inside of them all of a sudden or you'll randomly be flung off or the camera will glitch out this makes sense overall and probably has to do with the fact that this game is just so ambitious and was really trying to do a lot for the time after we defeat the dragon the sky turns black and ash begins to fall around us in my death you've won a future for this world but what that future spells for you for all men is a truth you'll find staring back from this world's utmost death suddenly we see catastrophe in grand soren the urban quarter of the city has begun to crumble and a large gaping hole has formed where it once was the arizon's heart has been returned to his chest he's won his life back at the same moment we see the dragon forged crumble to ash and the duke grow old within an instant grigory 2 is gone for good being reduced to ash and withering away the arisen is reunited with his beloved and the credits roll as the party begins their journey back to grand soren the game would have you believe that this is the end but that is so incredibly far from the truth it's such a misdirect but i'm sure there are so many people that never saw the end of the game because of this and so many fake outs throughout the rest of the story and it's kind of genius this game was never about slaying the dragon and saving the world it was about what comes after the hero awakes back in cassidus with his beloved in his home when he heads back to grand sorin the place looks dismal and apparently the duke is waiting for us in the castle you met with the dragon and don't think for a minute i don't know what you did then i i of all men when we arrive he's angry he thinks that we took a deal with the dragon to kill him he's gone completely mad his mind taken over by corruption and evil he bars the door and tries to kill us we have no choice here but to defend ourselves so i killed the duke the guards storm in and he frames us turning the guard in the city against the arisen we have to fight our way out of the castle even sir maximilian falling for the lies against our name we're chased through the city and we arrive at the pit in the ground just as the guards chase me to the edge harpies poured out from the hole filling the sky with monsters from beneath and grigory's words are echoed out there's a truth you'll find staring back from this world's utmost the arisen takes the plunge and jumps into the hole into the everfall we land on a ledge of this place and meet with a pawn who gives us our final quest in this realm to find 20 wake stones throughout this place and complete her master's journey this is the true end of the game and there are quite a few things to go over before we get into the finale this hole that's opened up in the capital city is the ever fall the thing that's been sitting under grand sore in this whole time except it's not just that it's a connection to many other worlds when falling down the hole it repeats itself over and over again reaching the bottom is impossible because we'll just arrive above grand soren again like the rift that the pawns use to travel between worlds it connects worlds as well when falling down the hole we can grab onto one of the ledges and enter a chamber each chamber may have just some fodder enemies to fight or it may be home to some furious bosses like the gore chimera or the evil eye this whole section of the game is what's referred to as post game because if you want you never have to turn in the wake stones or finish the story you can just keep killing bosses and play endlessly or you can farm gear experience whatever you need to grow stronger some of the bosses are simple and give you a few wake stones for killing them others are incredibly difficult and may give better rewards one of the hardest bosses in the game is the ur dragon the air dragon seems to be an undead version of a great dragon and the chamber in which we fight him could be some alternate dimension not of this world he's incredibly difficult and cannot be taken down in just one battle we can fight him and deal a certain amount of damage to him but he'll eventually flee other players and pawns that decide to fight the ur dragon online will contribute to taking health away from the great beast eventually someone will kill it and you'll get rewards based on how much damage you did there are quite a lot of other things to do at this point as well mainly the entire expansion island bitter black isle added in the dark arisen expansion but i'll cover that after i talk about the end of the game when we gain our 20 wake stones we can deliver them to the pawn and they are cast down into the everfall creating a portal to some place we jump into the portal and are transported to the seneschals chamber well i'll not waste time on rhetoric defeat me and take my place as keeper of this world [Music] you saw it awaiting you at the end of your descent i the same world you've traveled to arrive at this place a world you may well now inherit it is a simple proposition no different than any you faced we need to defeat him so we can become the keeper of this world the seneschal is basically god or the maker and we have to battle him he's not a very difficult fight but in the middle he shows us the true strength of his powers he makes a version of us right in front of the arisen and then kills it he holds the power to create and snuff out life in an instant when he's destroyed his face is that of ours the chamber begins to change around us and the seneschal gives us a choice we can choose the quiet emptiness of a false life by turning back returning to cassidus and living forever with kinah and adara or in the words of honoree de reniere the delightful and ever novel pleasure of a useless occupation i choose to fight to take up the ultimate challenge of the arisen on the way we have to slaughter shades of everyone we've met throughout the story mercedes julian the duke elenor madeleine everyone when we reach the end the seneschal reveals his true form he is savon the arisen that we played at the beginning of the game and he summons his pawn to fight against ours arisen forgive me all i've done was to test your will it is the fate of all arisen you and i swept up in the current same as the rest each tempers the volition of the next and the endless cycle continues after we defeat him he reveals that all of this was just a test for the arisen it wasn't ever about saving the world it was about choosing a new seneschal about finding one strong enough and with the proper will to become the new maker this is the path of every arisen the endless chain each arisen tests the next and so forth savon pulls the god's bane out of his chest a sword meant to put an end to the arisen he wants us to strike him down to put an end to him so we can become the next seneschal when we kill savann he is thankful he is given the gift that all seneschals that find fitting replacements receive to be free of the cruel unending ring that they take part in to leave this cycle of death and rebirth as the seneschal we have one last quest to live as the maker we can sit in the chamber and walk around its infinite and vast nothingness or we can wander around cassidus invisible to the rest of the people and watch over the world that we control this is not our true fate though as i grew tired of this place quickly this part of the game is also what i was talking about before a switch out that could possibly prevent somebody from truly experiencing the end of the game it doesn't force you it doesn't tell you exactly what to do dragon's dogma has you figure it out for yourself making it that much more rewarding it believes in you it knows that you can figure it out on your own in the end the true path is to use the god's bane on yourself at the seat of the seneschal effectively taking your own life the arisen falls through the clouds and descends to earth but our pawn tenus laments this her master's life is over but in this instant something strange happens [Music] all of her forms begin leaking in from other worlds all becoming one the arisen washes up on the shores of cassidus but with the voice of their pawn our beloved finds us on the beach and she says that the world is a different place but they'll manage our pawn looks off into the sea and bids the true arisen a goodbye as the game truly ends so this ending can be a bit confusing as to how this whole world works and definitely requires some research or at the very least multiple playthroughs to understand that's kind of the point though we're encouraged to go back in new game plus and have another go around at this cycle this endless chain that's constantly being pulled and churning but if you're curious i'll explain it here for anyone wondering because it builds the world up so much in these final scenes and is some of the best lore i've seen in a video game so basically pawns take on the form of their arisen this relationship is clear especially when seeing sophia say it in the earlier quest with celine and the dragonforged's pawn looking just like him there is some sort of relationship here some bond that is not 100 clear on top of that we find out that the whole reason the arisen goes against the dragon is a test to become seneschal that test begins when the arizon's heart is taken and the dragon threatens the land the arizona then has to face up to the dragon's challenge the arizona is then faced with the dragon's choice though we can sacrifice what is most important to us and the dragon will leave for a period of time and we will also be forever young and immortal until the dragon is defeated by whatever next arizona decides to this is exactly what happened to the dragon forged and the duke the duke sacrificed his wife lenore and he was given youth and immortality until we killed grigory he convinced the populace that he did slay the dragon though and thought that we did the same thing when we came back to see him the dragon forged did not have a beloved so he sacrificed his kingdom and was given eternal knowledge if we choose to fight the dragon and face the seneschal we have another choice to turn back to gransis and live in peace or fight the previous arisen and win or lose if we lose this duel we become a dragon challenging the next arisen down the line this is the fate of every arisen who has lost against the seneschal proving that grigory wasn't arisen at some point before and lost to savan if we win we become the seneschal and the previous one is allowed to be free of the endless chain it's not clear how many times all of this has happened though how many dragons have come before it seems like only three but because there are many worlds or other players games and the rift connects those as does the ever fall how many dragons are there truly this is all pretty clear up to this point and we have lore proof to make out most of this what isn't really clear is what happens to the arisen or at least i couldn't make it out very well it's for sure that the arizona has died and it seems that the pawn has taken on the arizon's form looking just like him but what's unclear is whether the chain is truly broken you see everyone is forced to relive this same thing over and over arisens are forced back into the chain if they take the dragon's deal or if they die to the seneschal the people of gransis are forced to relive this over and over constantly tormented by a dragon no matter what happens but did the arisen killing himself break the chain this is where it's left up to interpretation you could see the arizona ending his life with the gods bane as breaking the chain as there's no seneschal left to make any more dragons and therefore no need for another arisen to be chosen but if you play the game a second time through on new game plus the seneschal that you face will be your previous arisen if you play in offline mode and in online mode it'll be a random player and pawn possibly showing that each new game is a retread of the true cycle of death and rebirth over and over i like to think the arisen truly broke the endless chain and that the people of gransis can live true and free lives now regardless of what really happened the overall story is fantastic it subverts all expectations entirely the game starts out and seems like some sort of classic hero's journey but only at the end do you realize it is nothing but it's a cycle of endless rebirth that we're forced to participate in it's a dogma that's spat to us that we're obligated to take part in we have no choice and this role is thrust upon us even though it's made out to seem like the choice is ours the only true choice the arisen ever had was using the gods bane and breaking the chain it's a genius concept that works on so many levels and not only does it subvert expectations it creates an interesting lore behind it all a world that feels like it has thousands of other stories to tell playing the game again on new game plus can be an incredibly rewarding experience in and of itself not only is it fun from a gameplay standpoint to try and unlock more items complete further challenges and discover quests that you may have missed the first time around it has lore implications as well repeating the story is baked into the game's very story itself it's ridiculously genius and ahead of its time so much of the story can be missed and it's only those that put the time and effort into the story that will find the true secret behind it all this isn't the end of dragon's dogma though because when playing the dark arisen version of the game we can access another expansion on bitter black isle there's a whole new area to explore tons of new enemies skills equipment and even some new systems to toy with ulra has lost her memory and is trying to find out what happened to her on this island she's been trapped and there's a dice at the center of the entrance that will periodically be filled with a tail involving ulra herself she can purify items for us that we find in the aisle which can be anything from scrolls of use equipment or entirely new secret skills that can be unlocked barrock can be found inside the island and can sell us items or rarify them which is a way to take items past the dragon forged state of upgrading taking them further than level 3. the further we travel down into the isle the more difficult the enemies get and they get pretty difficult it adds a whole other layer to the game and a ton of content to explore and challenge yourself with the monument of remembrance when complete tells the whole story of the temple's creation for some reason arisen are drawn to this place inside we can find a man named damon or rather beast he has been changed out of his hatred for the destiny imposed on him he began as an arisen like us but has changed into that the maw that stands in this place now was created out of his feeding off the arisen that are drawn here it's not clear but this place seems to exist outside of grant's and possibly even outside of the worlds that we've experienced some of the bosses in this section are incredibly well designed as well difficult and challenging they clearly exhibit that imposing elegance i was talking about before dragon's dogma is an amazing game it's a game changer a genre definer its legacy will be talked about forever i say these things and i mean them this game is one of a kind the fact that something like this got made still baffles me its story is hidden deep underneath the surface at first it seems boring and uninspired but only after hours and hours of gameplay do you realize that something else is there that you're being tricked there's way more than meets the eye and it sets itself high above the normal trappings of a fantasy land the pawns the dragon forged the arisen the seneschal dragon's bane the ever fall all of these concepts are so incredibly interesting and out of all of the questions we have about them only half are answered by the end and the more that you think about it the more questions pop up in your mind its gameplay is incredibly impressive for its time and actually is still pretty impressive for today it's really fun and incredibly addicting even as i'm writing this script i'm still playing it i just keep going back and it's one of those experiences that i see myself reliving time and time again it's so well made and everything in it was a passion project for mitsuno himself you can tell that things were well planned and thought out ahead of time it's a wonder that this game exists and i wish we could see what the original version was supposed to look like almost double this one's size the music is fantastic the acting is great the visuals are well done and the design of everything is inspired dragon's dogma received pretty high praise most calling it a flawed masterpiece some saying that it was frustrating but inspired most publications gave it around an 8 or a 9 out of 10. i actually found quite a few reviews of this game where it was clear the reviewers had not finished the thing it's pretty funny because dragon's dogma would be perfect for this one where the crux and complete change of the thing is only in the last few hours it was incredibly popular in japan selling 302 000 units in its first few weeks it sold 92 000 copies in the first few days in the us the game brought in record-breaking earnings for capcom in 2012. the game was a bit of a sleeper hit though and would really become a cult classic over the next 10 years hideaki tsuno expressed interest in a sequel soon after and for years fans had been clamoring for more and then in 2022 itsuno finally announced that production had begun on dragon's dogma 2. but we'll talk about that another time bye dad hey dad thanks for watching this video i really appreciate it as always i wanted to give a quick shout out to everyone that supports me uh in general but everybody that supports me over on patreon as well you are all fantastic and supportive dads and it means a lot that you support me like this thank you to everyone that supports me on patreon i greatly appreciate it i also just wanted to put a quick note here to say that i released uh this dragon's dogma video in the middle of the yakuza series and i'm gonna keep doing the yakuza series i promise um but those games are very long and there's a lot of them so i figured i would break them up every once in a while with a couple one-off retrospective entries but we will continue next time with yakuza 5. so i'll see you then dad

Channel: YourFavoriteSon

Views: 397,536

Keywords: Dragons Dogma, dragons dogma dark arisen, dragons dogma 2, dragons dogma review, dragons dogma gameplay, dragons dogma lore, dark arisen, dragons dogma, dragons dogma 2022, dragons dogma retrospective, dragons dogma ost, dragons dogma dark arisen review, dragons dogma dark arisen gameplay, dragons dogma 2 reveal, dragons dogma 2 reaction

Id: 8HIqdYsD3l4

Length: 84min 14sec (5054 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022