When comparing Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen vs Fallout 4, the Slant community recommends Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen for most people. In the question“What are the best RPG games on Steam?” Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is ranked 12th while Fallout 4 is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is:
The combat in Dragon's Dogma is very fast and intense. You can string together combos with swords, axes, and daggers, launch/throw enemies, shoot arrows with a bow in quick succession, and even dodge/block enemy attacks. Even the spells look absolutely amazing and feel really powerful. For example, when you cast an ice spell called Gicel, massive spears of ice will weave forth to skewer enemies. It looks like something you'd only see bosses use in other video games, making it feel that much more empowering. The enemies also play a large part in making the gameplay feel great. It will start out simple with you fighting bandits and packs of wolves on your travels, which will gradually turn into you taking on massive mythical beasts such as manticores, gryphons, cyclops, and even dragons. While in other games you'd probably just beat on their ankles until they fold onto themselves, Dragon's Dogma has a really cool grappling system that allows you to grab onto enemies and even throw them (if they're light enough). For example, if a dragon makes the mistake of lowering its tail into your reach as it rains down fire and death from up above, you can just grab onto it and climb on the dragon's back. This turns into a very intense sequence of you trying to not fall off before you drive your sword into the dragon's neck. It's the type of mechanic that makes you feel like the heroes written about in storybooks, which immensely adds to the fun and immersion.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Awesome combat/hunting gameplay
The combat in Dragon's Dogma is very fast and intense. You can string together combos with swords, axes, and daggers, launch/throw enemies, shoot arrows with a bow in quick succession, and even dodge/block enemy attacks. Even the spells look absolutely amazing and feel really powerful.
For example, when you cast an ice spell called Gicel, massive spears of ice will weave forth to skewer enemies. It looks like something you'd only see bosses use in other video games, making it feel that much more empowering.
The enemies also play a large part in making the gameplay feel great. It will start out simple with you fighting bandits and packs of wolves on your travels, which will gradually turn into you taking on massive mythical beasts such as manticores, gryphons, cyclops, and even dragons. While in other games you'd probably just beat on their ankles until they fold onto themselves, Dragon's Dogma has a really cool grappling system that allows you to grab onto enemies and even throw them (if they're light enough).
For example, if a dragon makes the mistake of lowering its tail into your reach as it rains down fire and death from up above, you can just grab onto it and climb on the dragon's back. This turns into a very intense sequence of you trying to not fall off before you drive your sword into the dragon's neck.
It's the type of mechanic that makes you feel like the heroes written about in storybooks, which immensely adds to the fun and immersion.
Pro Interesting companion system
Throughout the game, you'll be accompanied by up to 3 NPCs called "Pawns." One of them will be a Pawn you created, and the other two will usually be summoned from other player's worlds. What's interesting about this is that Pawns will grow alongside players, but not just in terms of stats and levels.
For example, if you fight monsters with the Pawns, they'll gradually gain knowledge about the monsters. Once they have enough knowledge, they'll be able to give you various hints through in-game dialogue about a monster's weaknesses, patterns, habitats, and so forth. You can also hire other player's Pawns that already have acquired all the knowledge, making the learning process much easier for you.
Pawns also mimic their creator's behavior, so if you prefer to smash everything in sight, your Pawn might just do the same when visiting another player's world. It's a really cool companion system that gives the game a multiplayer feel without any actual multiplayer.
Pro Character size/weight affects gameplay
A lot of video games focus just on the stats, classes, and weapons as the key difference, but Dragon's Dogma throws in height and weight into the mix.
For example, a tall and bulky character jumps higher, carries more equipment, and has a longer reach with their weapon. The downside is that the character is slow and is easier to hit because of the size. On the other hand, a short and light character is quicker, can pass through a large monster's legs, and enter narrow passages such as Goblin holes. Unfortunately, they usually have a poor reach and can be knocked down pretty easily while not being able to carry that much equipment either.
Practically no other video game in the market uses a similar mechanic, making Dragon's Dogma feel really unique and fun.
Pro Solid gunplay with an interesting twist
The gunplay plays so well it almost feels like a pure FPS. You can shoot from the hip, aim down the sights/scope, or even just run and gun. However, what makes Fallout 4 stand out is VATS (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). When you activate VATS, the time slows down to a crawl, allowing you to mark body parts of enemies. When you execute it your character will automatically shoot the marked body parts. This is very useful for getting out of tight spots, allowing you to instantly clear groups of enemies or kill a really tough enemy charging at you. It also has the benefit of making you feel like an expert gunman, even if your aim isn't that great.
Pro Addictive to collect loot
You can pick up most of the stuff you see laying around in Fallout 4. Every item, including weapons and armors, can be broken down into reusable crafting materials. This makes it hard to stop yourself from going around and collecting everything in sight because everything has a purpose.
You can also find unique versions of equipment on the corpses of legendary enemies. Each of these items has an additional effect such as speed boost or extra damage. This may cause you to constantly pick fights you'll probably lose, but it's worth it once you get your hands on that extremely good piece of equipment.
Pro Interesting settlement management
In Fallout 4 you can set up thriving communities in various locations. You'll have to provide the settlers with housing, bedding, water, food, and protection. Over time you'll be able to establish trade routes between the settlements and expand into an empire spanning the entire territory of Fallout 4. This really gives it the feeling like you're trying to rebuild society, which is a welcome change in a post-apocalyptic game.
Pro Great selection of mods
You can can find all sorts of mods at the Bethesda website, giving you the freedom to change the parts of the game you don't like. This includes interface adjustments, graphical improvements, additional quests, and many other things.
Pro Huge world with loads of content
The world of Fallout 4 is massive so there's quite a lot to do. Many areas to explore, tons of quests to complete, and lots of collectibles to find. There's easily enough content to keep you playing for over a hundred hours.
Pro Addicting building mechanic
One of the more interesting parts of managing your settlement is the house building aspect. There are various preset houses you can put down quickly, but you can make large structures entirely from scratch, starting with the foundation and ending with the roof of a 10 story building. While there are some constraints such as limited building area, you can really let your imagination loose, allowing you to spend countless hours on it.
Pro Great storyline
The main story has a very personal theme of family and revenge, featuring a main character looking for their lost son in a post-apocalyptic version of Boston. The side-quests also provide a decent backdrop, expanding on some of the plot elements of the main story. There are many twists and mysteries, but the narrative remains coherent throughout the story, creating a very enjoyable experience.
Pro Companions can help make the game a little easier
There are a bunch of companions to find in the game, starting with Dogmeat, the dog. Each companion has their own skills that can help you. For example, Dogmeat can dig up hidden items and bring them to you. They can also distract the enemy, causing the combat to be a little easier since all the attention won't be on just you. The only real downside is that you can only use one companion at a time, but you can easily swap them out. Using a companion is not mandatory either, so if you prefer the added challenge you can travel without a companion.
Pro Diverse enemy types keep the gameplay exciting
There a lot of different enemies found in the game such as super mutants, feral ghouls, robots, mutated wildlife, and many others. All of them have their unique behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses.
For example, robots often use heavy weaponry such as rocket launchers and lasers, making it really hard to deal with them. Fortunately enough, they're very vulnerable to EMP grenades and can also be hacked.
Another example are the feral ghouls that will almost always charge at you. They can surround you really fast, clawing away at your health and affecting you with radiation, but they lack any intelligence. So if you plant mines infront of you and attract them with gunshots, they'll lose their legs in the minefield, leaving them at your mercy.
The various enemy types and methods you can fight them with keeps the gameplay fresh for a long time.
Pro You can adjust equipment to suit your playstyle
In Fallout 4 you have a lot of options when modifying your equipment, giving you a chance to make equipment that matches your playstyle.
You can take an assault rifle and change most of its parts. Each part you can change has an upside and a downside to it. For example, adding a long range scope would make the rifle useless in close quarters, but it would be great for pick off targets from afar.
You can also tailor your armors for various situations. You can lower the weight or add pockets to make carrying loot easier. Or you can add additional linings or padding to gain increased protection against various hazards such as radiation.
Pro Deep perk/skill system
Fallout 4 has a great selection of perks centered on surviving in the wasteland. You'll gain a point each time you level up, allowing you to select one of the perks. The perks can give you an increase to your sneaking ability, improve your lockpicking skills, or even add unique effects such as causing bullets fired by enemies to ricochet back and killing them. There's easily enough variation to make multiple playthroughs feel fresh and exciting. To make it even better, if you don't like multiple playthroughs, you can just unlock every single perk on a single character, albeit with a much longer playtime.
Cons
Con Limited fast travel options can be tedious
Dragon's Dogma has a very large but sparsely populated world, which means that a lot of time is spent traveling between quest objectives. There are no horses, forcing you to simply walk everywhere and the only method of getting somewhere quickly is through very costly teleports available only much later in the game. If you dislike having insane amounts of downtime, Dragon's Dogma might not be for you.!!!
Con Aught!
They say "aught" a lot.
Con Forgettable story
The story starts out interesting but loses its steam shortly after. Hardly anything happens during the middle part of the story, the side characters feel bland, there are lots of plot holes, and the narrative starts feeling like a mess. Even the conclusion is somewhat confusing, trying too hard to be profound. If you're looking for a very good story-driven experience, you won't find that here.
Con Pipboy UI feels unpleasant to use
When you open your Pipboy (a personal computer that manages your quests, inventory, character data, etc) the screen containing the useful information only covers about a fourth of the entire screen. As a result some of the elements are too crammed, requiring a lot of scrolling. This can be really annoying if you're trying to find something in a list of 100 items.
Con Occasional bugs
There are bugs in the game that users will run into. While most are not game breaking, it can detract from the experience.
Con The dialogue choices are confusing
Most of the dialogue choices will only show a few words that don't actually reflect what your character is gonna say. This creates a disconnect between you and your character, making it seem like you don't control what your character is gonna say at any point.