Dark Arisen: Worth it?

[Raine_sage]

So for all it's quirks I wound up loving Dragon's Dogma. And I was thrilled when I heard it was getting some substantial dlc. I was less thrilled when I found out that it was less DLC and more buying the same game again with new content, at the same price.

Obviously this requires a little more thought than just buying a 15 buck expansion pack. If I did decide to get it I'd likely trade in my current copy of the game to make the transaction easier on my wallet. But I can't find much info about what they actually added to dark arisen. Or rather I can but it all starts getting very spoiler-y and I want to try and keep it at least somewhat fresh. I like encountering new content organically.


So I have three basic questions I'm hoping someone who's played Dark Arisen can answer for me without giving too much away.

1. Does it mesh with the tone of the vanilla game? Like, part of what I love about DD is how it feels like playing someone's very gloomy dream. The world is sparse, monster's everywhere, npcs sort of drift in and out of focus as needed, people sound kind of dazed when they're talking. Is there anything in the expansion that breaks from this atmosphere?

2. Is there anything that makes the combat less fun? Pretty simple question, but I appreciate a detailed answer considering how dense the combat is in this game. I know they tightened up the fast travel system which I don't mind really.

3. Just how much extra content is there in terms of new areas/quests. I know they added new monsters/weapons/perks but I'm mostly talking about things that would extend the play time. How many extra hours would you say there are?

Thanks to anyone who can answer one or all of the above for me.

 

[Little Gray]

1. There is only two npcs in the entire extra content. One stays at the very start and the other kind of moves with you as you progress.

2. Some of the new enemies have a ton of health and are rather annoying to fight due to how often they can spawn. So it can make the combat more annoying since it just turns it into a battle attrition. The combat isnt really any more dense then in the rest of the game. I think there was only one or two instances where you were fighting 10+ enemies all of which can two shot you.

They did not tighten up the fast travel all that much. They added another permanent fast travel point at cassandris and added more port crystals as drops plus the ability to buy them on the first play through. There is also the unlimited use ferrystone if you import your save from the original.

3. There is only one new area and it is completely separate from the rest of the world. It is a single quest line and you can easily finish it off in a few hours if you are the appropriate level. After you kill the areas final boss it changes what base enemies spawn where and puts a boss type monster in every single room. All in all I would say you are looking at ten hours tops not counting if you want to hunt for new weapons or stuff like that.


All in all while I did enjoy it I think it was extremely poorly done. It was not made to fit into the regular game but made more for people who were 100+ and had done everything else. They really ramped up the difficulty but also the experience you get from the new content. The bigger mini bosses give almost as much experience as the offline ur-dragon when you kill them.