Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen review

[chopemon]

Done all but one achievement now, just need to complete it for the second time.

Been munching through Bitter Black and I'm beginning to get a bit frustrated as they are just giving all the enemies a billion health points rather than add anything new. I have the best/second best (depending on which forum thread you read) daggers and best magick bow in the game yet my attacks barely touch some of the bosses so I just keep hitting them tediously. Constantly consuming health items as well. I just looked into farming end game items to try and get some nice new armour but the drop rate is low. Much preferred the Dark Souls where each weapon and piece of armour is mostly in a fixed place and you can just go and get it.

I wiped a few times on the

->Open Spoiler<-

necromancer and dragon

boss fight. Going to try to find some decent armour from vendors then load up on wakestones (I have 52) and healing items then brute force it.

Enjoyed my 80 hours with the game but I'm looking forward to putting a bow on it.

[MisterBubbles]

Ive just tried to get back into the original, and again finding the main problem with this game, the map is utterly hopeless and useless, with loads of branching path and ways to get lost and just a stupid pointless compass and waypoint system, into the map every two minutes as even traversing a basic dungeon turns into an object of guess the way or yes open that map cause the waypoint is useless. Dead Space had a brilliant system if you get lost, not here, walk around for ages till its dark then get mugged by a horde of goblins or worse. Its back on the shelf where it should be with that other frustration FF13.

[Daragon]

Picked up Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen myself on the Xbox360 this week, avoided the first release of the game like the plague. Played the first 30 minutes so far not too bad, combat plays like a old school scrolling beat'em up. Much faster than Dark Souls, but rmoxon is right first battle felt like you were were just mashing button.

Like the air combat however, different plays more like an arcade game, combat is very different to Demon & Dark Souls. Better than what I was expecting so far need to play more.

What game is this out of interest? Certainly doesn't sound like dragons dogma.

[chopemon]

Just completed Dark Arisen then finished the end game stuff and got my full 1000 points. I really love this game.

Bitterblack became frustrating with its billion health point enemies with 1 hit kill attacks and randomly spawning super enemies. It seems that even at level 80 I needed to grind out the end of the main game to get the right loot to drop to put me on level footing with the enemies. I also missed the big open fields and great views of Gransys.

Looking forward to seeing where the franchise goes.

[S3M]

What game is this out of interest? Certainly doesn't sound like dragons dogma.

Nope it's Dragon's Dogma, I'm playing as a warrior and aside from the stupidly large stamina bar. Sword combat is pretty much the same as Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons, indeed this plays alot like a third title in the series. You can't normally do running jump attacks in serious RPG's with loaded with Armour but you can in this.

Enjoyed what I played but this game is getting very repetitive now, only seem to fight the same enemies n the world map and the map design is all very bland green fields and forest. A number of the Escort quests are boring long treks from one end of the map to the other.

[Uli]

yep Bitterblack Isle is ridiculously hard. i am playing easy difficulty with level 45 characters but still don't stand a chance against this stupidly high health bar enemies. also fighting monsters relies more and more on having the single right weapon or magic equipped. and only 6 slots for weapons abilities are a bad joke.

however, seeing how Capcom releases new equipment DLC every week this design makes totally sense now. i wish nobody would buy it.

[Uli]

anybody managed to kill the Gazer as Magic Archer? my bow doesn't seem to do any damage no matter which attack i use.

[Garny]

Is that the big eye thing? if so i just climb inside the mouth and stab the eye.

[chopemon]

I beat it as a magick archer but at about level 80. Shoot the tentacles on it and slash the ones on the ground. Eventually it will drop on to the ground and then you wail on the eye. I recommend taking a sorcerer for Bitterblack (I was a magick archer, mage (healing) main pawn, Fuse's level 106 warrior and a sorcerer) as in lengthy fights the sorcerer will normally use the whirlwind spell which will hit all of the points on a boss that are needed to put it in the vulnerable state.

[fuse]

If you've got it, 'Dire Gouge' is particularly handy in that fight. I was an assassin myself, and soon as there was a good window of opportunity I just ran and dived at the eyeball, and then just clung on for dear life as I stabbed it. If he starts to cast the spell involved the tentacles at the bottom, that instantly becomes your number one priority though.

[Charlie]

I enjoyed Dragon's Dogma loads, but found Dark Arisen very disappointing. The new area was too short, too difficult (I only just managed to beat it at level 76) and not very interesting or rewarding to explore. A poor show.

[Uli]

thanks for the advice guys. i am at level 50 but the Gazer is still to painfull and long lasting for me. my magic bow doesn't do any damage and my companions are just good at dying. even when i manager to climb onto the eye and deliver a few serious hits, eventually i fall off. i guess i will have to come back as a fully levelled Archer or Strider to finish this poorly designed dungeon called Bitterblack Isle.

meanwhile i managed to kill the dragon and i wonder what's left to do in this so called postgame. is it worthwhile to do the remaining quests in the Everfall?

[vanpeebles]

I have the game set to easy and I killed the gazer with my level being mid 45ish. The trick I found was to jump on then crawl to the side of the mouth then move across onto the eye horizontally rather than try to crawl over all the teeth. I've been going back and forth the start of Bitterblack just levelling and looting.

[Uli]

been playing on easy all time and never felt i was too easy.

is there a way to use the rift stones on Bitterblack Isle to teleport throught the dungeon?

[Tobal]

not had any proto way stones to lay down to find out, but has you progress you can open up shortcuts from the start point.