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+--- Thread: News - Hands On: Third Time’s A Charm With Dragon’s Dogma On Switch (/thread-89774.html)
News - Hands On: Third Time’s A Charm With Dragon’s Dogma On Switch - xSicKxBot - 04-12-2019
Hands On: Third Time’s A Charm With Dragon’s Dogma On Switch
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<figure class="picture strip"><a title="Screenshot 2019 04 11 At 14.45.29" href="http://images.nintendolife.com/4871c55c34dd0/screenshot-2019-04-11-at-14-45-29.original.jpg"><img src="http://images.nintendolife.com/4871c55c34dd0/screenshot-2019-04-11-at-14-45-29.900x.jpg" alt="Screenshot 2019 04 11 At 14.45.29"></a></figure>
<p>I’ve got quite an odd relationship with <strong><a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/games/nintendo-switch/dragons_dogma_dark_arisen">Dragon’s Dogma</a></strong>. When it was originally released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 way, way back in 2012, I was fresh off the back of <strong><a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/games/nintendo-switch/dark_souls_remastered">Dark Souls</a></strong> and was hungry for a similar swords-and-sorcery experience. With its grim fantasy setting and frenetic third-person combat, Capcom’s brand-new IP seemed like the <em>perfect</em> successor to sate my thirst – but it proved to be a very different game in terms of mechanics and challenge, and while I didn’t fall as head-over-heels in love with it as I did with FromSoftware’s often punishing epic, it certainly left a mark.</p>
<p>So much so that when Capcom released <strong>Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen</strong> (the 2013 expansion to the original game) on the PlayStation 4 in 2017, I decided it was worth making a second trip to the wilds of Gransys to fight goblins, zombies and griffins. To give you some background, I rarely replay a game as convoluted as this; Dragon’s Dogma requires tens (if not hundreds) of hours of commitment from the player, and I simply don’t have many hours to spare these days. Yet here I am, already tens of hours into Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen on Switch, and I’m still not <em>entirely</em> sure how the game has sunk its hooks so deeply in me.</p>
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<p>I’m playing it for the third time, and, as before, I literally can’t think of anything else when I’m <em>not</em> playing it</p>
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<p>I’ll save my deeper impressions for the full review, but Dragon’s Dogma is exactly how you’d expect a video game from 2012 to look and feel. It has moments of true visual splendour which are counterbalanced by basic character models and obvious pop-in, while the repetitive nature of many of its quests can become bothersome, especially when you’re a good few hours in.</p>
<p>Despite its obvious shortcomings as a game, Dragon’s Dogma somehow manages to entertain in a way that few other action RPGs can – as is evidenced by the fact that I’m playing it for the third time, and, as before, I literally can’t think of anything else when I’m <em>not</em> playing it. Family mealtimes are now ruined by me absent-mindedly thinking about which of the nine vocations to switch to next so I can expand my character’s move-set, and in the evenings I gently encourage my wife to ‘have an early night’ so I can get back to my important work around the bustling city of Gran Soren.</p>
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<p>Of course, this addiction is made all the more worse with the Switch version because now I can play it <em>anywhere</em>. With the previous versions, the massive land of Gransys was tethered to my television, but now I can explore its lush forests, rocky mountains, sandy beaches and dank dungeons wherever and whenever I like; of course, there are other Switch ports which have liberated home console games in this manner (it still amazes me that <strong><a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/games/nintendo-switch/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim">Skyrim</a></strong> can be played on a portable system) but Dragon’s Dogma has special significance to me; this is a vast, sprawling world that I’ve already spent well over 100 hours exploring on other consoles, yet the fact that I can now take it with me anywhere I like means I’m finding stuff I’d missed the first (and second) times around.</p>
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<p>Given its age, it should come as no great shock to learn that Dragon’s Dogma runs like a dream on Switch</p>
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<p>Given its age, it should come as no great shock to learn that Dragon’s Dogma runs like a dream on Switch. In handheld mode the resolution drop doesn’t really impact things massively, and while there are moments of slowdown, they’re no worse than they were on the PlayStation 4 ‘update’. There’s been a slight change to the way in which Pawns – your AI helpers – work, no doubt necessitated by the fact that you don’t need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to exchange them between players. You can use your Nintendo ID Account to swap them instead, but it’s no longer possible to send them away with a gift and comment when you part company with them; a minor change, but one that feels significant to me, at least. I used to like the ‘human connection’ of sending a player’s helpful Pawn back to them with a thank-you note in tow.</p>
<p>But as I said, I’d best save some detail for the full review, which I imagine I’ll take great pleasure in writing. Dragon’s Dogma isn’t the perfect action RPG – far from it. It’s flawed in many ways and, when you break down its mechanics, is arguably out-done by many other examples of the genre. However, it has that special <em>something</em> – hence this being my third enthusiastic visit to Gransys – and being able to play it while sitting on the toilet is an early contender in my personal list of 2019 highlights (sorry for sharing).</p>
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