Now Playing - Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale. After my last outing with Resident Evil: Revelations, I took a little break from single players games as I went back to my usual routine of multiplayer games. It did not take long before I suddenly had the immense itch to play a role-playing game (RPG), specifically one set in the medieval times. Together with my commitment to try and play more Japanese games, I stumbled upon the perfect candidate in Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. Seeing as to how I already had the game in my library, it was only a matter of installing it and booting it up to give this critically acclaimed adventure its turn.

Now before I go into my initial impressions of Dragon's Dogma, here is a quick look at the video settings that I have applied for the game. Currently, my system is running a Core i5-8250 CPU coupled with an Nvidia MX150 and 8GB of RAM. While completely optional, I have the game installed on a solid state drive which helps improve the load times by a bit.

As far as PC ports go, Capcom has done a fairly decent job of porting Dragon's Dogma especially on the technical side of things. Moreover since this is the remastered version, you would also notice some visual improvements over its initial console release. A very welcome addition, to say the least.

Initially, the biggest issue for me was finding any good articles pertaining to graphical settings when played on Nvidia's MX150/GT1030 GPU. Fortunately after a good bit of tweaking and adjustment, I came across the perfect settings which offer a smooth, stable 60 frames per second experience. So if you happen to use a system with the aforementioned graphics cards, these settings would be perfect for you too. On a side note, one setting which absolutely crashes the frame rate is distance scaling. The difference between Low to High is negligible but, the performance impact is massive. Definitely the setting you should reduce first if you are looking for those extra frames. 

Now, back to the game where I have so far just spent a little over 6 hours playing. Initial impressions are certainly startling as you are bombarded with heaps of information upon information within the first few hours of your game time. Moreover, the game really only teaches you these systems once and on a very superficial basis. Even for those with extensive RPG experience, Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen's systems and mechanics will take some time to get accustomed to. Still early in the game, there is much that I have to learn and I am certainly looking forward to what the world of Dragon's Dogma has to offer.

The role-playing elements may seem more than a little complicated for me but, there was plenty of aspects that I already found myself loving very early on into the game. For starters, the graphical presentation and art style of this now 7 year old game has held up incredibly well against the test of time. Secondly, the combat is, for the lack of better words, incredibly satisfying. Regardless of the class that you play, Dragon's Dogma is always going to provide you with a robust combat system while never feeling overwhelming in terms of difficulty.

Lastly, and a personal point for me, is the character customization. Players are allowed to customize their main character and companion from top to bottom. I must have spent easily an hour customizing both my main character and pawn. And that is only the tip of the iceberg! Once you are done with your base character, you can then move on to customizing their gear and weapons. 

And boy, is there a lot of room for customization! I may only be a short ways through the game but, you immediately unlock a wealth of customization options upon entering the main city. Just observe the marked difference between my character in these screenshots. The good news is, it only gets better from here on forth. If ever there was a game that I needed to scratch my role playing itch, this certainly had the potential to be it. Speaking of potential, I have yet to point out one last hidden gem of this game specifically for PC players.

That gem that I speak of? That would be modding. It may not be the most modding friendly game but, the PC community has already made a huge list of essential mods and improvements for the game since its release on Steam 2 years back. These mods cover everything from your PC-centric quintessential graphical mods all the way to the more complex stuff like balance and save modifications. 

All modded up and with my ideal graphical settings dialed in, I look forward to jumping back into the world of Dragon's Dogma once more. Hopefully this does not become too much of a time vortex! If you would like to see more Dragon's Dogma content, do make sure to let me know in the comments section below.  Until the next time, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead.