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Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2013/2016, PS3/PS4)
I expected this game to be a bore to play like Skyrim. However its open world that does not take weeks or months to explore in its entirety, the presence of various dungeons, a well executed action combat system and a palatable number of sidequests showed me that Dragon's Dogma was anything but another generic medieval fantasy RPG. There's a lot of fine detail that make this game stand out: the separate cloth and armor slots allow for customization beyond what other RPGs have to offer and the sort of oppressive atmosphere of Gransys at night you otherwise only find in good horror games. I loved how threatening it felt to explore the world of Dragon's Dogma during the pitch black of Gransys' nights. That's not mentioning the unique pawn system that beats any other NPC companion system in the industry and the extra dungeon supplied by Dark Arisen. Dragon's Dogma is easily one of the best games I played in 2024.
Dragon's Dogma II (PS5, 2024)
Dragon's Dogma, but soulless. What were they thinking? The reduced number of equipment slot throws out the great character customization offered by the first game. Classes were changed for the worse. I used everything the warrior class had to offer in Dark Arisen (various combos, skills and jump attacks), in this game all I did was mindlessly spam skills and the occasional charge attack. Ranged classes were split into separate classes locked to melee and ranged weapons that all feel lacking. Thew new world map is so huge that exploring it gets old before you've finished the story. Enemies provide so many experience points that I ended up constantly overleveled from just a few hours in. I'm not sure this game ever felt like it was challenging me which is a huge step down from Dark Arisen's level of difficulty. Dragon's Dogma II is also blatantly unfinished. Especially the story suddenly nosediving towards the ending at what felt like the halfway point is inexcusable. Management at Capcom must have told the team to wrap it up early to release a game in time for the annual report.
At least the iconic pawn system makes a comeback (although pawns no longer learning to deal with enemies is a huge let down). All in all Dragon's Dogma II was the disappointment it is widely known as. Granted, exploring was a fun adventure most of the time, but the massive world still overstays its welcome. The lack of proper dungeons hurts the game a lot too. The graphics are fairly impressive and characters can look unbelievably good, but the only memorable music is the theme song. Overally Dragon's Dogma II ended up being a mostly generic adventure RPG that fails to understand what made its predecessor stand out from the crowd of medieval fantasy RPGs. It's not a bad game, but it also doesn't impress in the same way the first game did.
The Legend of Dragoon (PSX, 1999)
I really liked this game back in the day. Mostly because it features dragon warriors and has very flashy skill animations. Unfortunately there's not that much more to this wanabe Final Fantasy killer. Its combat system is a gimmick. Unless transformed characters can only perform a single skill (out of a set of 4-7 per character) that is decided by the player in the menu outside of batte, use items (and with limited inventory space there's only so many damaging items you can stockpile). What sets The Legend of Dragoon's combat system apart from its RPG peers is a quick time event that determines how much damage your normal skills deal. Doing well in those events awards experience points to level up skills, making the system more fun and addicting than it has any right to be. Ultimately there's very little strategy to most battles since your options are so limited. As cool as the special skill animations might be, they also take forever to play through. And there's no skip button. This is especially bad when you're fighting a boss whose attacks are also all linked to special animations. Some boss battles I found myself scrolling on my phone because there was no end to the stream of animations. A developer would have to try really hard to implement a combat system with worse pacing.
At least The Legend of Dragoon's story is passable. It really picks up in chapter 3, but unfortunately also falls off a steep cliff in chapter 4. Most characters have their own well-written character arcs that each find their conclusions somewhere in the game. Sadly the protagonist's arc is not quite as developed as those of his companions.
All things said The Legend of Dragoon is not a terrible game. The prerendered backgrounds look really neat in a couple of locations and the soundtrack has some very memorable tracks. I also liked that a red icon warns players of incoming random encounters. Other RPGs sometimes really frustrate me when they force me into random encounters while I'm focussed on exploring or solving a puzzle. I found knowing when to expect battles helps a lot. Interestingly they seem to have lowered the difficulty with each new release of this game so playing it in japanese recently turned out to be an unexpected challenge in comparison to what I was used to from playing the PAL release over 20 years ago. I feel this would be a game definitely worth checking out if only the combat animations weren't such an insult to the player's time.