The news broke today that Dragon’s Dogma, the JRPG from Capcom is getting an anime in September and I am IN:

https://www.ign.com/articles/dragons-dogma-netflix-anime-release-date

Dragon’s Dogma in both its original form and the Dark Arisen DLC with which it was packaged was my favorite video game that no one heard of. It’s so much my favorite that I’ve bought it on multiple platforms and for more than a few friends.

Its game mechanics made me fall in love with it.

As a Gaymer I really like a romance where I can see myself in the game. In DD you can give gifts to NPCs to earn their favor and eventually, if it’s working, they’ll start to behave a little more sweetly toward you and a glow pink when they talk to you, indicating romance is on. There are male and female options. At some point you find a ring called the Arisen’s Bond that if you give it to them, seals the deal. There’s no romance cut scene…yet. There’s no cinematic. It doesn’t seem to have a large impact in the game until it does, and the impact is huge.

Dragon’s Dogma has at its core a moral question on par with the big choices that you usually have to make in a Bioware RPG, and damn does it hit you hard. The romance is central to that and I loved that my Arisen could romance Reynard the peddler, though even then I had to make a hard choice. If I fulfilled Reynard’s side quest he’d leave the game forever. Did I give him what he’d always wanted or hold back so I could keep him?

Beyond the morality is a complex number of rich game mechanics.

For example, items. There’s crafting and it’s complex. You can combine items in multiple ways to make new, unique curatives and some objects. Food rots. And sometimes rotten meat gets you a different result than a pristine steak. This makes food as a curative more interesting than in most games where it just hangs out in your inventory. There’s also a dizzying array of armor and clothing options that can be upgraded, sold, bought, or found. Same for all class weapons. PS. Rotten pumpkins are heavy and useless.

Statuses that remind me of classic Final Fantasy. You can get wet. This puts out your lantern. It douses you if you’re on fire. Multiple states like this exist in the game and there are items to counteract the effects. The list is pretty robust. Possession was especially fun to deal with.

Darkness is a real threat. This is the first game I played without any real magical light. The first time I wandered at night and ran out of lamp oil, I nearly died, running face first into lurking hobgoblins and a cliff I almost walked off. After nearly dying and lacking fast travel at the time, I had to wait for dawn.

The Class System. You can change your class and equipped skills pretty much anytime after you reach the main city, Gran Soren. This gives a novel approach to developing your skills. Need more stamina for your Strider (a rogue/ranger combo)? Then just spend some time as a warrior. The spells available to the sorcerer and mage classes feel epic, especially bolide, where you summon meteors that hit for devastating effect. Lately I’m really into the Mystic Archer class. It’s got a lot of boom for dealing with the tough bosses in the DLC.

Speaking of bosses, the big monsters are BIG. Cyclops and chimeras dwarf you. They feel like the giants they are, creating a scale that gives my dungeons and dragons miniatures a size complex. One of my few complaints is the lack of true variety in the monsters, though the Dark Arisen DLC has a ton of fresh horrors.

The Pawns don’t have souls but maybe want one? This is probably the game’s most interesting aspect. You don’t just create one character, you create two, your Arisen (and to understand that term you have to play through the game’s intense opening scenes), and your Pawn. You fill out your party with two more Pawns which were created by other players and which you summon/recruit through a portal. When you dismiss a Pawn (usually because it’s time to get some higher level help) you can send them home with a gift and a performance review. Other players will sometimes use your Pawn and send them back with a gift and more experience. As Pawns level they get smarter and learn better tactics. You can outfit your main Pawn as you see fit and change their class just like you can your own.

In short, Dragon’s Dogma was a gem of a game I still play from time to time. I feel it was overlooked and often recommend it to people. I’m hoping the Netflix show prompts enough interest to get us a true sequel (there was an MMO in Japan but I prefer a single player RPG to get lost in and they never brought it to the states).