Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen turned 10 years old this week, and to celebrate, Kate has recalled her first time playing it, and her love for Grocco …
On the surface, Dragon’s Dogma looks like any other 2010’s RPG. It has dragons, it has swords, it has side missions. You’ve played Skyrim. You’ve played Dark Souls. You know what to expect.
In fact, right from the beginning of Dragon’s Dogma, you’re a knight tasked with killing a dragon. So far, so RPG, right? But it’s just the prelude, because it’s you actually a random villager who gets their heart stolen by a dragon after the prelude is over. Who was that knight? You do not have to worry about it! You are now Selected Undead Dovahkiin Occurs because anyone who can survive getting their heart torn out of a scaly monster shall be important. What is your role as Arisen? DO NOT DO. CONCERN. ABOUT. THAT.
You are quickly shunted out into the desert, in the company of your farmer – a kind of human, a kind of AI sidekick who will help you fight the various enemies and creatures that threaten your life outside of your safety. village. You get to design this peasant from scratch, from their hair color to the pitch of their voice, which is surprisingly unusual in video games.
It’s the deposit system that people tend to love the most about Dragon’s Dogma, and I tend to agree. On the surface, having an NPC with you on your journey seems like a tiring escort mission combined with almost useless AI combat assistance, but whatever your pawns end up being – you can have up to three at any one time, created by you or borrowed from other players – is a mix between your steadfast companions, your best friends on the roadtrip and your sweet, idiotic kids. You can dress them up, tell them how to behave in battle, equip them with good equipment and send them out into the world to be hired by other players. They will even give you hints while you are on quests or fighting monsters, based on their own experiences.
To be honest, Dragon’s Dogma really pulls the first few hours, and I do not blame people for not getting past that hump. Your farmers will not shut up about really basic things, they will give you tips about low level enemies over and over again, and over again, and constantly saying things like “Wolves hunt in packs!” and “They are armed, master!” with all the helpfulness that a GPS tells you to make a U-turn as fast as possible. There is not much in the way of a tutorial and the combat system does not open properly until quite far inside.
Your farmers will not shut up about really basic things … with all the helpfulness that a GPS tells you to make a U-turn as fast as possible
But once you get a couple of talented pawns, a grip on the battle, and a few thousand XP in your pocket, Dragon’s Dogma becomes a much more exciting experience. It goes from a “stab the man until he dies” game to a test of how many completely overpowered spells and attacks you can use one after the other, spamming massive damage moves until the griffin you fight against explodes .
I’m not sure why I kept going past the nonsensical start of Dragon’s Dogma to get to the delicious meat inside, for my patience is usually quite limited with something like that – but I’m glad I did. , for it is much more than it looks on paper. It’s also more than it looks in general. It looks like old. The quirky Skyrimmy NPC business is in full swing, with everyone zooming in when talking to you, and their faces all looking smooth like a peeled potato. All the best farmers you can download are dressed as clowns, with names like “CRUNKUS THE BUM-SLAYER”, which makes it a little embarrassing to add them to your party. And have I mentioned that they never shut up?
But somehow all the delicate parts come together to create an incredibly fun whole. Raise them right and your pawns will be far more powerful than your main character and you will be content to just stand back and watch as they cut a whole horde of zombies into undead bands. And then, like puppies who are eager to please, they will shout a lot of things like “I have this one!” and “let me take him!” – there is no other system of cooperation like that, partly because your farmers are infinite entertaining.
They routinely open chests that you were about to open, or run over to smash a box that you were in the middle of smashing, under the guise of being helpful
Farmers are actually the perfect solution to the co-op problem. You do not have to have a group of willing friends or perfectly synchronized schedules; you also do not have to care for a bunch of useless AI mates with a death wish.
With just a little practice, your farmers become incredibly skilled, and they are a unique blend of personal bodyguards, D&D entourage, and Data from Star Trek that chimes in with their thoughts when emotion takes them. Sometimes it’s helpful. Sometimes they will just shout OGRES when there is no such threat nearby. They routinely open chests that you were about to open, or run over to smash a box that you were in the middle of smashing, under the guise of being helpful. I love them.
My party consists of: Jortsmy main character, a bad rascal / ranger who always wears a cloak and tiara because those are the outfits that came with the DLC and they are much more powerful than anything else in the game; Geralta heavily armored boy I downloaded, whose main ability is to die every few seconds; Alice, my healer, who is very much for the fashion chain “chainmail bikini”; and… Grocco.
Dear Grocco. He’s the farmer I created at the beginning of the game, and like the one surviving bird that you take to the Elite Four in the Pokémon games because you’re really attached to him, Grocco has been with me all this time. I’m strangely sentimental about Grocco. He has a helium-high voice, which means that his warnings to “beware, master” are made even better by the fact that he sounds like a chipmunk. So is he tiny.
Grocco began life as a bit of a responsibility, like being forced to take a small child camping with you. He kept rushing into fights he was ill-prepared for, dying repeatedly, forcing me to carry his stupid unconscious body with me to safety. But by the end of the game, he was braver, stronger, and MUCH smarter than me, and he constantly came up with clever tips like “it’s not a defeat to run from battle, champion. It’s survival.”
Every now and then, we sit down at the “Knowledge Chair”, which is how the game handles your farmer’s combat settings. It’s a touching human way of doing it, because it means sitting in front of dear Grocco while he asks me if he’s doing a good job in battle and if I want him to talk less. No, Grocco. Never change.
I do not want to spoil the really cool parts of the story that happen later, because I think Dragon’s Dogma holds up well enough that you should play it, but it’s safe to say it’s going places, and if you’re one of those people who saved your dog instead of humanity at the end of Fable 2, you’ll probably love this one too. Do not be afraid to seek help from the Internet on how to get through the difficult pieces or how the confusing fixtures and class systems work; and do not be ashamed to hire some troubled peasants from Rift. Lean into the game’s strange, serious fools. Learn to love your Grocco.
Are you a Dragon’s Dogma fan? Tell me about your farmer!