Hey everybody, my name is Dave Jackson, and this is Tales from the Backlog, a video games podcast where I will bring in guests to talk about games that I’ve recently played.. My guest today is a friend of the show and Griffin riding enthusiast, Adam Rivera Today we’ll be talking about Dragon’s Dogma, an action RPG developed and published by Capcom in 2012, with an enhanced version subtitled “Dark arisen” released starting in 2013 But before that, what have you been playing lately? Ok, let’s get into today’s focus, Dragon’s Dogma. Dragon’s Dogma has a story, a very weird story, but those weird things are very spoilable, so we will withhold those details until after the spoiler wall. Our histories with the game- What interested us in this game? I remembered the press leading up to the game’s original release, and the emphasis on how you can climb on monsters to attack them, but I just never got around to playing it. Years later, when I got a Switch and really got back into gaming, I kept seeing it pop up on lists of Switch games to play, and sometimes I just want a dumb action rpg, so I picked it up on sale. A: I actually saw this game at E3, i like it was either 2011 or 2012. I didnt play it until a few years later when the Dark Arisen version launched on 360 then i fell in love with it. Unfortunately it doesnt love me back as ive lost 2 save files over the years: one on 360 and one on XB1. When did we play, on what platform- Switch, 2020 A: Xbox 360, 2014ish; Xbox One 2017, XSX 2021 Play time- about 35 hours A: Over 100, likely over 200, cant say exactly cuz of the lost save files. Basics of how the game works, key mechanics, what makes this game stand out? Atmosphere- Standard western fantasy world, castles and fortresses, fighting goblins and wizards and trolls and the like, you’ve seen all of these places before BUT this game is really uncanny, I think due to the fact that it is a Japanese game in a traditional western fantasy setting. Dialogue, characters, it’s all like 20% off. Pawn system -at any given time, you have 3 ai-controlled party members called pawns, who can be swapped out at will to suit your party composition of choice -one of these is your custom pawn, and 2 are rented from other players’ games, where the experience they got in your game will help other players Like your pawn has fought a bunch of wolves, so they’ll give the other player advice about wolves (Adam did you know that wolves hunt in packs?) When your pawn helps another player it’s an oddly great feeling, the closest I’ll get to having a proud dad moment Overall a bit half baked because this experience system could be so much more. Perhaps if they got a chance to do DD2? Like enhanced AI, things like that. Combat Basics of combat- light attack, heavy attack, abilities that use stamina Use an ability, use your regular attacks while stamina refills, repeat Most famous- climbing on enemies Governed by stamina, but you can climb and hold on to enemies. Use this to hit specific body parts- cutting off chimera tails and what not. Some enemies are so large that you need to climb and hit specific weak spots, a la shadow of the colossus. Bigger enemies have multiple health bars that you can melt through if you’re hitting weak spots, or you can just chip them down with normal attacks I guess. Overall very fun Leads to some very funny situations where you’re clinging to a griffin or something flying 1000 feet in the air and run out of stamina and fall to your death Other enemies- still fun to attack and send them all flying 100 feet away with a powerful swing (i played as a warrior) Effectiveness in combat is really dependent on level and gear, as opposed to skill, imo RPG systems Pretty basic warrior/rogue/mage setup, with the ability to dual class. I started out as a mage, but kept getting stomped by enemies, so I switched to a warrior type. When I was able to dual class, I leaned more heavily into warrior stuff. A: I bounce between the assassin (warrior/rouge) and Mystic Knight (Warrior Mage) Assassin is great offense options balancing range and melee, but the MK can cuff weapons so you dont have to rely on spotty pawns, and in general shields are so useful since dodging is restricted to dagger users. You can level up your vocations and get new skills A: you can also mix and match passive skills from other classes Open world- This is an open world game, but imo it doesn’t really have anything that makes a good open world good. There is almost nothing cool to find, at best you’ll find some items, at worst you’ll find overleveled enemies that will stomp you. Fast travel is limited to where you put down these stone items, and there are only a handful of them, so you need to make sure you strategically place them. A: you place down “Portcrystals” to travel to, in order to travel to them you need to use an item called a “ferrystone” The good part of the open world is the day/night system, where night time is DANGEROUS. It’s truly pitch black, and very stressful if you get caught far from a safe place at night. But why would you? There’s no reason to go poking around. Pretty much every cool location in the game is used for some story purpose. You should probably do the main quest for a while to fully unlock these places. A: The only cool things i found not on a quest is a couple healing ponds, and a couple spots where dragons spawn which are big for xp and gear upgrades. A: The more times you play through the easier it gets to travel, every cycle gives you new stones, and it also saves where ones already places. At this point on my 4th playthrough i basically have a stone everywhere i have to go for a quest. The dlc also added an unlimited use fast travel item. DLC? A huge dungeon called Bitterback Isle, meant for endgame characters. I did not do this. Adam, I’ll give you the floor to explain what this is and if it’s worth it What is it? Simply put its a huge dungeon. You explore rooms as you make your way to the bottom to fight the big boss. Suffers a little from copy and paste rooms, but each are huge and are usually modified in some way, like one has fires everywhere, or itll be pitch dark. The loop is that that you go through a few rooms, fight a boss, you find a path that leads you back to the surface where theres a merchant and an inn, and go back for the next leg. New stuff: A part of the draw along with increased difficulty is seeing new things. Theres stone gargoyles, giant skeletons with giant-er swords, big fat zombies, deranged abandoned pawns, all kinds of stuff. New things to fight also means new things to fight them with. Theres a ton of new gear and it had its own loot box-esque system. Fighting now comes with a twist because corpses matter! If you kill enough things it attracts what are called Carrion creatures and every single one of them is an asshole, theyre basically impromptu boss fights. Bosses: Some real unique stuff here compared to the rest of the game. Theres a giant D&D beholder made of stone, A dragon riding undead priest, and the final boss is a balrog-like demon that can wipe the party with a single move. The assholes: i was playing on hard mode my most recent playthrough but these guys have never not given me an issue. Theres a minotaur with a giant hammer and way too much hp and a giant 100 foot tall (this is accurate i wikiked it) cyclopes with unbreakable armor over most of their body. I saw 3 of these on my most recent run and thankfully theyre all optional. Then you have the carrion monsters i talked about before. They include a ‘roided out ogre, a zombie dragon, wargs, and literal Death. If one of these guys shows up you can always run but they give huge xp rewards. The story: It ties in real heavy with whats going on in the main game so i dunno if we want to do this later. Story- save for last because the game kind of saves this for last too The story begins as a dragon attacks your hometown. The dragon pulls out your heart, but you wake up anyway. You are dubbed “Arisen” and are tasked with facing the dragon to end the apocalypse that the dragon brings. You get your pawns as they live to serve the Arisen. There is almost zero plot development from the opening cutscene until the last quarter of the game, so we’ll leave it at that until the spoiler wall. Adam without spoilers what did you think of the story? A: it is weirdly paced. The first ⅔ of the quests are literally just setting the board for the last 3 or so. Its a short game just takes a long time due to the traveling over the world involved. The story really goes from 0-100 at like the 80% mark of the game in a super weird way. Final thoughts, Do we recommend? At what price point? This is a one-of-a-kind game. The combat system is still really fun 10 years later, the story is bonkers wild if you can get past the 20 hours where there is no story at all to speak of. It’s an open world RPG so you can expect a time commitment, but this is not Skyrim or The Witcher 3. You can often find this pretty cheap in sales, and I think it’s worth a play if you are interested. This game takes a few big swings and connects on enough of them to make it worth a play. Housekeeping - Thank you for listening! If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your platform of choice, leave us a rating and review if your platform allows it, and spread the good word! I also do a podcast called A Top 3 Podcast, where each week we pick a topic, pick our top 3s in that topic, and discuss. It’s a good time, so check that out if you want to hear us talk about other subjects. SPOILER WALL Story? After the dragon steals your heart Do some stuff for like 15 hours, fight a wizard, fight a few monsters that are threatening town, yada yada yada Scene later in the game, this is where things start to get really weird, where you meet the duchess in her room, because why not?, but you have to hide, and then the duke comes in and starts choking her?? You intervene and you’re accused of raping her and sent to prison. You break out of prison almost immediately and nobody ever questions it when you’re out walking around town, the Duke still gives you quests, etc. A: This is weird thing is probably because the tower scene is optional. You can just never go and it eventually gets locked out. Also you can not intervene and let her die. You eventually find out that the Duke is a former Arisen who is going mad Very cool set piece run up to the battle against the dragon. You face the dragon and it gives you a choice to fight it or sacrifice their loved one to replace the duke and rule the continent. For me this was the Princess but I’ve heard several anecdotes where older versions of the game would pick your “loved one” based on who you talked to the most, which for most players would be the blacksmith There are other romance options as well but I don’t think I even realized that was possible. After defeating the dragon, a giant pit opens up in the middle of the main city, which is like a final dungeon, you fall and can land on different platforms and you need to go through these combat challenges to collect wakestones Eventually you go to another realm where you face God (this is a Japanese RPG, after all), and have the choice to fight God (the Seneschal) or return and live a peaceful life. Easy fight though. If you fight and lose- become the next dragon If you fight and win, you take its place, and you go back down to the world….and you’re invisible and can’t do anything except run around all invisible You have the choice to kill yourself, which I guess is the good ending? You fall back down to earth and awaken as a pawn, with your main pawn now inhabiting your body? Your romantic partner runs over to “you” but your pawn is in that body now? WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING This dragon attack- arisen - fight the dragon thing is a cycle, doomed to repeat. The dragon attacks, trying to find an arisen to challenge them, in order to earn a chance to face god. And I guess the implication is that the dragon cycle is because so many have failed to defeat god? DLC?