Death Killed Me In Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen

I recently got to venture through a bit of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen and the first enemy I ran into was Death. The demo was scripted so Death “welcomes” players to Bitterblack Isle with a pink haze.

Any characters including pawns caught in this incantation fall asleep. Death finishes off the slumbering warriors with a swift scythe swipe that kills anything it touches in a single hit. Since the sleep spell immobilizes you, you’re a sitting duck. My pawns and character died immediately after my encounter with Death. Fortunately, I had a Wakestone so I was able to continue playing.

Death is a persistent enemy in Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. Similar to Deathgaze from Final Fantasy VI, Death has a single life bar that you gradually chip away at. After taking a certain amount of damage or wiping out your pawns Death teleports away until the next fight.

The demo also introduced the Garm who show up after you defeat enemies. Capcom added the Garm to give players a feeling that they’re never safe since the wolf-like Garm have a higher chance of showing up when you defeat more enemies. Like Death, the Garm show up randomly in Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, but were scripted for the hands-on demo.

Despite his tricks, Death may not even have been the hardest monster to fight, since the demo also had the Prisoner Cyclops. This monster is huge and, similar to Shadow of the Colossus, you have the climb up it.

The problem is that the Prisoner Cyclops has spiked armor so you take damage when you use the grab command. When the fight begins, the Prisoner Cyclops is chained against the wall. While you don’t have to worry about it attacking, mages in the room bombard you with a volley of magical attacks. The key to this fight is defeating the mages first and then moving on the Cyclops which breaks free and tries to stomp on you for ticking it off. And that’s how the Cyclops finished my adventurer off.

Adding enemies that come up randomly and when you think you’re safe after clearing a room of goblins are interesting additions to Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. The expanded version of the game comes out in North America on April 23 and Europe on April 26.