Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen

As unlikely as it was for Japan to produce two sleeper hit RPGs within a year of one another, there was much to compare Dragon’s Dogma to Dark Souls. They are both uncharacteristically influenced by Western dark fantasy and action oriented RPGs, both eschewed the genre in interesting ways, both featured unusual asynchronous online elements, and both boasted slightly obscure systems that did little to cool the enthusiasm of a fiercely loyal community. Now Dragon’s Dogma follows Dark Souls’ lead; rewarding the tenacity of its fans by releasing a substantial challenge in the form of a new dungeon that is not for the faint of heart (or the low of level).

The mode of transmission for Dark Arisen, however, is almost as strangely counter-intuitive as some of the game’s systems and seems a fairly foolhardy move on the part of Publisher Capcom, who have so often come under flack for their cavalier approach to DLC. The full game has been released again including the expansion content, which will not be available digitally, meaning owners of the original game will have to repurchase. According to Capcom this has been due to technical limitations (although that never stopped Bethesda from producing enormous pieces of DLC digitally). It’s hard to say whether the free eternal ferrystone (which makes fast travel so much easier), 100,000 rift crystals (which serve as a currency in Bitterblack Isle as well as a vital resource for hiring pawns from other players) and the Gransys Armor Pack, which have been offered to returning players will be enough of an apology. It certainly helps and the Queen’s armour is particularly excellent if, like me, you play as a female Arisen (what? you got something to say?). This all may be somewhat inconvenient, but it’s the perfect time for curious onlookers to try out the game as Dark Arisen is retailing at the very modest £20 mark.

The biggest addition to the game is a new super dungeon called Bitterblack Isle, accessible from Cassardis docks, where an enigmatic woman named Olra begs you to plumb the depths, whilst she slowly begins to regain her memory as to why she wants you to (after all, the mad whim of some crazy NPC has never stopped you embarking on a dangerous mission before, right?). Don’t take Bitterblack lightly, however, as it is rock hard. In fact it makes the Everfall, the utterly ingenious post game dungeon in the game proper, seem like a stroll on Bloodwater Beach. Bitterblack, a 15 hour dungeon crawl, has clearly been designed as a challenge for die-hard fans (the same impulse that saw Capcom recently add a speedrun and hard mode). The recommended level is 50, but I’d say that was pushing it and 70-80 seems more realistic. There are rewards to equal the challenge however: new skills for each class and 14 new augments that can be found in scrolls throughout the new dungeon, and over 100 new items, weapons and armour (some of which seem to be very powerful indeed). Most of these are cursed and will need to be purified by Olra.

Appropriately Death himself occasionally turns up in the form of a humungous grim reaper, much like the psychopathic Baron von Blubba from Bobble Bubble, and he can pretty much one-hit-kill your entire party! Dragon’s Dogma had a pretty dark atmosphere to begin with, but at times Bitterblack Isle conjures up a feeling of fear that can only be compared to Amnesia the Dark Descent and Dark Souls. Dark Souls is an apt comparison, as you’ll be adventuring into the depths of Bitterblack Isle in fits and starts. You can use Liftstones, a new item, to return to the entrance to heal up and have the few cursed items you’ve turned up in the dungeon’s depths appraised in the hopes that one of them might be a big arsed sword that you can use to make a bit of extra progress, before taking a deep breath and heading back into the depths.

My first encounter with a 10 foot tall hell hound drawn to me by the corpses I was producing (a terrifying new mechanic), sent me sprinting back down the passageway faster than my companions could say “’tis a troubling foe”. On more than a few occasions I almost dropped the controller. Other boss fights (of which there are many) are more grandiose. One standout encounter is a giant version of the Evil Eye you fight in the Everfall, which hovers forebodingly in the centre of a huge destroyed staircase, his many tentacles launching spells and bursting from the ground all around you, whilst it charges up its petrifying glare, filling the screen with noise and fury. Scraping through each fight by the skin of your teeth after careful preparation, and about thirty minutes of nail biting combat, will have you pumping the air in satisfaction, before you exit the room and face the next threat. Dragon’s Dogma, like Dark Souls, remains as satisfying as it can be frustrating.

Aside from Bitterblack Isle there are a raft of welcome minor and major improvements to the game’s systems, from hundreds of little rebalancing tweaks to full blown menu revisions. Travelling around Gransys has been made easier with the addition of a fast travel point in Cassardis, it’s now easier to move between the item menu and the equipment menu (though why there still needs to be two separate menus in the first place is a mystery), and most importantly you can now equip and improve items in your storage box without having to run back and fish them out, which is a huge improvement. The best new addition, however, has to be a Japanese language track. Not only can you now make the game feel even more Japanese, but you can shield yourself from hearing your pawns exclaiming “there may be aught of use” every five minutes.

The game still has its many ‘quirks’ however. For instance the reload checkpoint command frustratingly still often erases hours of progress to deposit you at the last inn you slept at and you still have little control over your AI companions, who jump around like unruly children, run under the legs of enraged ogres and stumble blithely over the edges of cliffs. As clunky as the game can be, however, all its faults can be forgiven when you’re hanging dramatically from one of the heads of a arch hydra, stabbing it in the eyes whilst it thrashes around trying to shake you off. With its bonkers physics engine Dragon’s Dogma is still often more fun than it has any right being, and it makes you wonder why it’s taken so long for anyone to embrace the climbing mechanic so wonderfully employed by Shadow of the Colossus, so many years ago.

Dark Arisen still isn’t perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction and proof positive that the development team is taking on board suggestions from the community, which bodes very well for that much hoped for sequel.