this is one of those pickle reviews. on one hand, this game charmed me so immensely, i feel nothing but pure joy & delight when i think about or play it; on the other, there's lots of things about it i don't like & would love to see changed ( particularly in the sequel, which i'm dying to play ). but ultimately, dragon's dogma is a game i love, and therefore gets a showstopper score.

as far as it goes, i find the worldbuilding solid but bizarre, and kind of dumb. i suppose. i like that it commits so heavily to its concepts, even if the final execution of those concepts ( "what does it mean to have free will" ) is ... odd? this is kind of why i say this is a "pickle review"; it's just challenging for me to really explain what it is about this story that i don't like. i think what it is, is that i like the question being asked, but i'm not sure i like the game's idea of an answer -- and as well, i don't know if i like that it seems to pose the final resolution as a hopeful one, rather than a terrifying one.

because it IS terrifying. the plot orbits around the reveal that the pawns, arisen, and dragons are all linked together in a fateful cycle of suffering, whose apex involves a chance at godhood -- nay, an obligation of godhood -- all because these people are born with innately stronger wills than others. the final scene ( spoilers!!!! ) is your pawn, a being with no will, taking over your arisen's body, after they kill themselves because the idea of spending eternity invisible & more or less alone is too great for them to bear. this is implied to be the fate of all pawns whose masters survive to the end of their journey: the pawn gains feeling & emotion at the expense of the arisen losing themselves.
the concept is just chilling to me. isn't it scary to know that you'll be taken over at some point by someone else? isn't it scary to think you won't exist as yourself, you'll be something you're just ... not? i think as someone who has a nebulous concept of their own self, it's more scary to me than not because it's like ... if i see too much of myself in someone, i feel like i can't "be" those aspects of myself anymore, in an odd way, like i'm losing posession of my own feelings & thoughts.
like in some ways, there's a kind of romantic beauty in the relationship between the arisen & the pawn, but there's also just something so disturbing about it too. ( although not explicitly explored, i think the duke character is meant to be an arisen who really scorned this whole system, but couldn't meaningfully change it. )

but barring the existential horror, this whole ending sequence is the greatest. a game that waxes poetic about choice, makes YOU choose to die here at the end, as it's your ( arisen's ) only real means of having choice, to escape this unending cycle of suffering. because otherwise, you really are just stuck for the rest of time quietly wandering the world, literally invisible, until you have the thought, "... wait. i can stop this." perhaps some may see it as trite, but i LOVE when a game makes the player do shit like this; it's an interactive medium! interaction is key to enjoyment!! especially in situations like this where you actually have to think about what to do next. the game has given you all the tools & information you need -- it's up to you what conclusion you come to with them.
... so maybe in that way, the ending really is hopeful. are you severing the threads of fate that dictate the cruel nature of the arisen & pawns? ... kind of seems like no, since they made a sequel about the whole thing again. but i guess we'll see once i play it.

the ending isn't the only part of dragon's dogma that really utilizes the medium. i think the way the world is designed is really intelligent, and works exceptionally well as an open-world adventure game. for one, the map is decently small; for a game that puts a lot of emphasis on planning your routes & not relying on fast travel, having the world be both interesting to explore & scoped so that it doesn't feel terribly daunting is great. you get used to the world & learn shortcuts naturally, to bypass enemies or cut down travel time in hopes of avoiding the night.
minor nitpick i have with this system though: the threat of night is a real one ( enemies spawn much more relentlessly & the darkness is totally impenetrable, even with a lantern ) but i feel like there's only so much you can do about it. some destinations are just too far away to make in a single day, and the only places to rest are the two towns -- not even the forts let you reliably sleep. in that way, i almost wish there was a camping system or whatever, where you could like choose to hunker down somewhere with a gamble of safety. something to still incentivise you to visit the inns, but also allow you to work around longer trips without just having to stomach grueling enemy encounters & difficult navigation.
and kind of in that vein, i feel like the world would benefit from a larger pool of enemy spawns. not necessarily enemy types -- although i wouldn't oppose that -- but more just like ... you wouldn't quite know what will spawn in what area, or how many will spawn, just to keep things slightly fresher as you make repeated trips in between gran soren & the broader country. the number one thing i disliked about wandering around in this world was how tedious it was, specifically because of the predictable & very annoying enemy placements. perhaps another solution would be to have their respawn rate be lessened, so that you have a few more days of peace to travel to places, rather than everyone coming back after 24 in-game hours or whatever.

and speaking of travel, somewhat tangentially: this is the only game that has a weight system that doesn't just piss me off & feel trivial. your character's size impacts their weight & how much they can carry. how much you carry determines how fast you run, how efficiently you climb, how long you can fight before getting winded. all of these things determine how smoothly your travels go, and as i mentioned above, you can only really manage your weight in inns / towns, so you need to be smart about how you pack. you need to gather materials, though, because upgrading gear & getting money to do so is critical to survival, particularly in the dlc. it just feels like everything meshes well together & feels really thoughtfully made ... it's a system that wants to balance being fun with being realistic, and i honestly feel like it does a decently good job. i just ... again ... i just want like, little camps or checkpoints or something out there ... anything to elevate this travel system to its absolute highest potential.

as far as combat goes ... i like it! i played with just my arisen & my main pawn for the entire game & majority of the dlc, and i thought it was interesting & fun. in such a scenario, i think more fine-tuning of the pawn commands would be nice, just because my mage pawn often spent a great deal of time casting buffs or heals when i needed them to cast ranged attacks, as i was running a purely melee class; it would have solved a lot of problems if i could just toggle a command that said, like, "offensive skills only!" or something, just so i actually could make use of my ranged attacker & actually do something about the flying enemies besides just waiting for them to come get me ...
even with a full party of pawns though, i did notice that they weren't always reliable. even smashing the "help!" command wouldn't get them to come knock me out of a grapple ... AND SPEAKING OF THE GRAPPLES ...

LEGITIMATELY the WORST thing about this game is the QTE grab attacks from monsters. you need to mash SO hard to get out, for SO long. it's so clear that you need your pawns to back you up here & knock you down, because the length of these attacks is sincerely painful. it was so physically painful for me that i opted to just take the damage & menu to heal while waiting to be let down. ( again, because my pawn was so focused on healing & buffing that they wouldn' cast enough offensive spells to help me!!! ) i am absolutely praying that the sequel removes these, frankly entirely, but even just lessening their frequency or the duration of the attacks would be so merciful. the QTEs genuinely almost made me drop the game, i was so anxious that the rest of the game would just be these grapples & it'd be too painful to play.
fortunately i was able to make it through, but ... ugh ...

anyway, i kind of need to wrap this up. i'll try to be brief with my remaining points:

• the pawns are awesome, they're really cute & so much of my enjoyment of the game came from being able to make two whole characters to hang out together, one of which i could design a personality for & have fun seeing what sorts of things they'd say or do based on it. i also think making the pawns "lack" humanity is a clever gimmick to handwave away some of the video-gamey aspects of their dialogue ( like the repetition, the dryness, the odd timing, etc. ) and i appreciate all the in-universe excuses for why they can't die. in general, they embody the same intelligent design that i talked about earlier, and despite my complex feelings towards the actual meat of the worldbuilding & story, i really feel like they helped to immerse me in this world.
• i really love that the final fight of the game requires you to use the grapple system AND buddy system to win. i was pogging so fucking hard during that whole stupid sequence. it was just so well realized!!! even if the monologue i was being delivered was kind of silly!!! it was all very relevant and ... well ... immersive!!
• the character creator is one of the greatest of all time. no question. NO other game dares to let you change the heights of your characters because ~it'll complicate cutscenes~, but this game went for it & i never saw an issue with my super big arisen. you can also make FAT characters!! and OLD characters!!!! it's just beautiful! i already know the DD2 character creator is even better, since they released a stand-alone client for it & i've spent hours noodling around in it already. it just makes me so happy, they did such a fantastic job here ...
• the skills, augments, and job system are cool. i felt a liiiittle too nervous to actually make use of the class swapping, just because your stat growth is determined by your class & i didn't want to be too poorly optimized just so i could get some cool augments ... but i think i could have experimented more without much punishment. i think for sure i'll be doing this in the sequel, just to create more vibrant & interesting builds. i almost wish the classes had more levels than just 9? but i also think the small cap is there so you don't get overwhelmed swapping between jobs. so idk! like i said, it's cool.
• and last but not least ... this game has a disappointing racism problem. it's subtle, but it is there. i can think of 3 named black & dark-skinned characters who play some import in the story: one of them is a skeevey man who is curious about cults, ends up recruiting you to help him put a stop to one ( good sign ), and then if you refuse to kill a man begging for his life, he leaves you & exits the story entirely ( bad sign ); another is a merchant who sells ill-gotten goods in a hidden corner of town; and another is, honestly, not that bad, but her design is stupidly sexist ( and the description of her armor is also stupidly sexist ) so she feels like a really sad, wasted opportunity lol. like they're not the worst ... but they still kind of make me grimace & cringe. i never buy the excuse that "the story is set in medieval europe!! there's no racial diversity!!" like this is not only fiction but also fantasy ... just put in some effort man!
• ( actual last point, tangential to the last, is that there's also in-universe sexism, which is maybe lightly touched on but is otherwise kind of just flavor for the world. which sucks. i am particularly disgusted by the duke's wife, who looks & acts QUITE young, and whose like only role in the story is to be beaten by the duke or to be your fawning loving new wife. anyway. )
• ( actual ACTUAL last point that is also tangential, but the beloved system is absolutely insane. i really need to shut the hell up already but i just have to record how absolutely twisted it is, where a random npc you talk to all the time can end up as Your Lover, but the game lets you design TWO characters?? who go on a crazy quest together & spend all their time together?! if i have to choose a mandatory romantic partner, like, i want it to be the guy i designed!!! it's so funny it's awesome okay i'm done. I'M DONE )

WHEW! so that's dragon's dogma. i could go on about the dlc, but i don't really feel like i need to. i really loved this game, and despite its many, many flaws, i respect a lot of the design decisions & had so much fun playing it, that it feels nothing short of perfect to me.