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Rid the skies of dragons, griffins and more in Capcom’s ‘Dragon’s Dogma’

Although the game Dragon’s Dogma hasn’t been getting much attention in the U.S. just yet, odds are with the talent working on the game it soon will. Coming from the creators of Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry 4, Dragon’s Dogma is an action RPG set in an open-world landscape where exploration is just as important as combat. Although some of the details of the game are still obscure, the action elements will frequently have you battle flying creatures, including griffins, which you can see in the trailer below.

Following an attack on the village of Casadeis, a dragon approaches the game’s protagonist and rips his heart out after claiming that he is the “chosen one.” Through an unknown miracle, the protagonist is resurrected and comes to be known as the “enlightened one.” He then sets out on a quest to retrieve his heart and kill the dragon that stole it.

The game does not yet have an American release date, but it is scheduled for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in early 2012.

[Warning: The following trailer may not be suitable for all ages]

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Ryan Fleming
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…
How to increase maximum carry weight in Dragon’s Dogma 2
The Arisen next to a bug in Dragon's Dogma 2.

One lesson you will learn very quickly in Dragon's Dogma 2 is that your Arisen isn't built to carry as many materials as you want it to. On a single trek through the world, you will be snagging fruits, herbs, monster parts, ore, weapons, and more. All that weight adds up fast, and you only need to go over half your weight limit before seeing negative effects. Sure, your pawns can shoulder some of that burden, but even then, you will need to start leaving things behind. There are no backpacks or stats you can increase to increase your carrying capacity, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. You just need to look in a different place.
How to increase your maximum weight

There are two ways to increase your weight limit in Dragon's Dogma 2, but only one of them is permanent. That is to find and use special Golden Trove Beatles hidden in the world. These are big, gold glowing beetle-looking critters, usually clinging to trees or walls that you can grab like anything else. Once you find one, open your inventory and use it to permanently increase your weight by .015kg. That's a rather small increment, but there are dozens, if not over a hundred, of these bugs to find.

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The best vocations in Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon's Dogma 2 key art featuring a knight with a fiery hole in their chest.

Your Vocation defines your role in combat in Dragon's Dogma 2. Everything from your skills to what weapons and armor you can use is tied to this class. You will pick from just a handful at the beginning of the game, but can easily change Vocations later on, as well as unlock more than twice as many new options than what you start with. It can take a while to really get a feel for a Vocation and how it performs in combat, as well as to look through all of its skills and augments, before knowing if it's worth sticking with to level up. Personal preference will play a part to some degree, but these Vocations have the most potential to make you the strongest Arisen in history.
The best vocations in Dragon's Dogma 2

You can pick from 4 Vocations at the start of Dragon's Dogma 2, but will end up with a total of 10 by the end of the game if you unlock them all. New Vocations are unlocked by completing quests, but they are almost unmissable. Four Vocations -- the Magick Archer, Mystic Spearhand, Trickster, and Warfarer -- can only be used by your character and not any Pawns.
Warfarer
There's very little downside to being a jack-of-all-trades in Dragon's Dogma 2, which is exactly what the Warfarer is. This is the only Vocation that can use any weapon in the game AND learn any skill from other Vocations. This is the only Vocation that really lets you build whatever class you want and gives you the ability to adapt to any situation you find yourself in. The main downside to this class is it has the lowest base stats, but that is a small price to pay for how versatile you can be.
Mystic Spearhand
Hybrid Vocations are all quite powerful, but we put the Mystic Spearhand at the top of the heap. This class turns you into a fighter that can take advantage of magic to output crazy damage. The two almost overpowered abilities you get here are the ability to slow enemies for a short time and to create a magical mimic that doubles all your actions. It is great for both crowd control and large single targets, but takes a while to unlock and lacks some range.
Warrior
If you're going to be a straight-up melee fighter, you might as well hit with the biggest weapon you can, right? The Warrior swings swords large enough to make Guts blush and is a full-on tank. You won't be doing anything fancy with this vocation beyond charging up and swinging as hard as possible. The obvious drawback is any flying or ranged enemy will counter you, so bring some Pawns in those classes to cover your bases.
Sorcerer
For those who fancy themselves a pure mage, stick to the Sorcerer over the actual Mage vocation. While the Mage is more focused on healing, it is the Sorcerer who gets the best offensive spells you will want to be casting. If you have a second Sorcerer with you, you can even sync up and decrease your casting time. If not, you will need some tanks to take aggro while you deal with some slightly long casting times and low total health.
Thief
As far as the starting Vocations go, the Thief is the one we find the most fun and viable for the entire game. This is a light and speedy build focused on critical hits and being able to climb and hang on to large beasts. Once on, you have a number of great skills to stagger and knock down an enemy so the rest of your squad to gang up on it. Just don't get hit because you're one of the squishier Vocations.

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Capcom responds to negative reception of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s PC port
A beastren in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Dragon's Dogma 2 launched today, and while it had a warm critical reception, players are having a lot of problems with its PC port in particular. Currently, it has an overwhelmingly negative user score on Steam, with over 13,000 reviews as of the writing. Capcom has addressed common criticism of the game in the hopes of quelling the frustration of PC players.

Players are a bit peeved at the inclusion of microtransactions in all versions of the game, as well as the fact that it uses Denuvo anti-cheat software that's known to impact game performance. I already found the game to be poorly optimized on Xbox Series X/S, but the issues get even worse on PC. For a game that already has demanding minimum required PC specs, performance still isn't good for a lot of players, with frame rate drops, crashes, and freezing happening often. Players have had to find odd ways to improve the frame rate by doing things like murdering NPCs.

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