It may be Monday for some of you, but for others, it’s I-have-to-be-away-from-Dragon’s-Dogma day, and that’s never a good thing.
But you know what they say: sometimes a break is as good as a holiday, and during our break from possibly our favourite game of the year, we’ve had some time to sit back and reflect on everything we wish we had known before jumping in the deep end.
So, if you’re already playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 or getting ready to jump in for the first time, here are all the things we wish we had known before getting started. Enjoy.
Sometimes Inns Are Your Friends, But Sometimes Inns Are You Enemies
Okay, so this is more of a PSA than a tip, but it’s to be extremely careful with your saves. So Dragon’s Dogma 2 only has one save file, and there’s no way to start a new save.
The game works by autosaving often (as you can imagine) and allows you to save manually whenever you want.
Where saved files and this tip come into play is if your character dies. Upon death, you’ll have two options for restarting the game.
Option 1: You can load the game from the last save. This means you’re starting the game a few minutes before dying.
Option 2: Load from last inn rest. This option will take you back to the last time you physically paid to stay at an inn. And then autosave you for your efforts.
So picture this: you start playing the game and pay at the first inn you encounter to check it out. Then you play for, I dunno, 10, 20 hours without ever doing that again. One wrong selection, just one twitch of your thumb, and you can be back to where it all started like nothing ever mattered.
Real Heroes Know When To Run
Often, there will be a colossal, no goliath, baddie for you to fight between you and where you want to go.
However, I’ve seen many people forget that you don’t always need to fight everything just because they want to fight you.
Most of the enormous enemies in the game have had it up to here with cardio and will ignore you if you choose to run past them.
This is useful when you’re just trying to complete quests and level up, and if you want to go back and show that so and so’s who’s boss, mark them on your map and head back later. You’re welcome.
One Plus One Gives You A Brand New, Better One!
To say that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is filled, chock and block, stuffed with things to pick up is to put it mildly. This is a game with plenty of junk in its trunk, from apples to monster teeth and everything in between.
And while many of these items can be used on their own if you want to be lame and boring, combining these items is where the magic truly happens.
All you need to do to try this out for yourself is to make a habit of popping it into your inventory and hitting the combine option on items.
Before you know it, you’ll be a master alchemist and brewing the best items that health and stamina offer.
Plain old raw Apple for who?
Much Like You In The Real World, Your In-game Items Are Constantly Aging and Decaying
Dragon’s Dogma 2 makes full use of its day-night cycle. Not only will the time of day affect the type of monsters you’ll encounter and the loot that’s up for finding, but that progression will also play into some quests and your items.
In layman’s terms, the longer you play, the less fresh your fruits, vegetables, and meat will be. Let’s say, for example, you pick up an apple, and the progression will go from apple to ripe to rotten throughout a few cycles.
As you can imagine, things are okay when you first pick them up, perfect when they’re ripe and vile (and often dangerous) when rotten – so keep that in mind when being the little pack rat I know you are.
Never Ignore A Smoking Disc Or A Gold Bug – Noob
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is filled with rare collectables that you can find and take, called Seeker’s Tokens. These lightly smoking discs can be found anywhere and everywhere, but they’re not always the easiest to spot.
To ensure you get all of the 240 hidden throughout the game, make sure you’re always looking for those little smoking discs and Golden Trove Beetles while you’re at it.
Golden Trove Beetles are bugs that can be found just lazing about on the trunks of trees and, when found, will increase your inventory size by 0.15 if you or your main pawn consume them.
It’s Dangerous To Go Alone, So Bring Friends
Early in Dragon’s Dogma 2, you’ll get introduced to your first Pawn, your best friend, pal, homeboy, rotten soldier, and sweet cheese.
This Pawn will be your partner in crime, accompany you, and level up alongside you throughout the game. Still, they’re hardly the only friendships you can have.
Eventually, you’ll be able to fill out a party of four with other pawns you meet during your journey, but while your special Pawn will level up with you, any others you pick up will remain at the same level.
This means it’s a good idea to cycle out pawns constantly, and before you leave any town, make sure you recruit a complete party to help you in battle.
Much Like In Real Life, You Really Should Listen To Your Partner
One of the most enduring parts of the partners, or pawns that you can travel with in Dragon’s Dogma 2, is that they each have their unique personality traits.
Some are more stand-offish, and some have a taste for adventure, but all of them are great to listen to because not only does their perpetual chatter off some much-needed distraction while out adventuring, but every so often, they’ll get into some of the game’s rich lore or even drop hints about what you should be doing next.
You Can, And Should, Climb On All Big Enemies
Regardless of whether you’re a ranged character or have your trusty dagger, you can and should be climbing on all big enemies you fight – and not just because it’s one of the most fantastic things you can do in the game.
Every character can scale large enemies, making you less susceptible to enemy attacks (It’s not like they’re going to risk biting off their own tail, after all).
Being on their backs lets you repeatedly strike them without fear of turning into dinner before you can even register what’s happening.
However, you’ll want to keep both eyes firmly on your stamina bar because, much like in real life, you won’t be able to hold onto a rampaging cyclops’s back forever.
Encapsulating everything you should know about Dragon’s Dogma 2 in just one post would be impossible, which is where you come into it.
If we missed anything, post it in the comments, and let’s make this the ultimate guide for everything you should know before setting out on your adventure.
If you want to read our full review of Dragon’s Dogma 2, you can follow the link here.