Game Review: Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (Switch)

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen changed my world. As a JRPG gamer, I had become accustomed to the Japanese teenager aesthetic and to brightly-colored, fantastical vistas (and hairstyles!). Dark Arisen was a sharp contrast, with its grim color palettes and customizable protagonist. Happily, its gameplay, combat, and soundtrack are outstanding. I enjoyed it so much that I did a New Game+ to more fully explore the optional dungeon that turned out to be the whole point of the game's title.

Briefly, Dark Arisen is the story of a person from the land of Gransys who becomes the "Arisen," a hero fated to fight the Great Dragon. Arisen can command pawns, which are basically AI that come in a range of familiar classes (e.g. Fighter, Mage). As the Arisen and his/her companions move closer to the goal of defeating the dragon, it becomes clear that both hero and villain are trapped in an unending cycle of death, destruction, and rebirth. Will you be the one to finally break the endless chain?

The gameplay in Dark Arisen is straightforward: players explore, gather items, go on quests, fight foes, craft, upgrade gear, etc. There are several main quests and about sixty bajillion side quests, which is both a gift and a curse for completionists. I always had about a dozen active quests at any given time. Fortunately, early on the Arisen is granted the Eternal Portal Stone, a teleport item that speeds things up considerably, since apparently Gransys has no horses.

Dark Arisen's combat system is amazing. Monsters look formidable and the stronger ones have stats and attack patterns that can obliterate the unprepared. For instance, I tried at least six times to defeat the Condemned Gorecyclops, which loomed two stories high and was covered in spiked armor. I kept coming back at increasingly higher levels, until finally I just spammed 100 Throwblasts (think old-timey hand grenade) at it and earned my sweet, sweet victory.

And this is the curious appeal of Dark Arisen: that despite its general bleakness, Gransys is an engaging and challenging world. The visuals are perfectly serviceable, the dungeons dark and full of terrors, and surprise wyverns can come barreling into your party when you're out for a stroll in the woods. Tweaking your party so you have the best possible combination for damage output, or ranged combat, or whatever works best for you is incredibly fun. The Arisen can also form special relationships with certain NPCs, while the rest of them hilariously repeat the same lines over and over again.

And last but not least of the game's charm is Bitterblack Isle, or BBI as it is known in gaming boards. BBI is an über dungeon that contains all the toughest enemies and bosses in the game. Spoiler alert, it was also created by an Arisen, I dunno, Matt or Greg or Jeff or whatever his name is, who so hated the Dragon/Arisen cycle that he became Bob, the Dark Arisen. Just kidding, he's called Daimon, because look at him:

He's much cuter in person (as in, when he turns back into a person)

Speaking of lewks, take a gander at my first playthrough heroine, who I accidentally turned lesbian and pedo because I had no idea that the NPC I speak to the most often and rescue/escort a bunch of times would become my beloved:

Selene (left), a goth lolita, inadvertently became my love interest after I kept giving her herbs that she turned into ale. Wow, our relationship sounds even worse now.

In conclusion, I poured over 100 hours into this game because it is fun, and I would gladly pick it up one more time. Once again, Fragrant Husband proved himself adept at gifting me a thing that will fully occupy me and therefore leave him free to play his PC games. Well played, sir, well played indeed!

TL;DR: An enjoyable and addictive RPG, highly recommended!

---

This post brought to you by Fragrant Husband because he bought me the game!