Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2016) (PC) (Capcom)
0Whereas some critics see the world of Dragon's Dogma as just another generic fantasy setting, I'm quite mesmerized by the whole thing and have been ever since the game first came out on PS3/X360 a couple of years ago. The Japanese approach to pseudo-Medieval environments will be familiar to anyone who has played the Dark Souls series, but the charming low fantasy adventures of Dragon's Dogma don't suffer from the suffocating bleakness of From Software's more esoteric ludography. I never played more than a few hours of the console version of Capcom's idiosyncratic open world RPG, but what little I saw was enough to make me want to explore the rolling hills, high mountains and deep dungeons surrounding the capital of Gran Soren. Now that a very respectable PC version has finally been released, this might be the perfect time to do so. Apart from its (admittedly subjective) aesthetic appeal, the game includes a very tactile and satisfying action RPG combat system, excellent monster design as well as an innovative system for recruiting AI-controlled party members (so-called "Pawns", who talk funny).