One among the most hanging photographs in the Dragon’s Dogma 2 launch date trailer is a shot of a large, eerily grinning feathered monster with fiery purple eyes, ominously approaching the Arisen. To me, it caught out as a uniquely non-confrontational encounter with a large and imposing monster, which isn’t one thing you see fairly often in the world of Dragon’s Dogma.
Seems, this monster is Capcom’s tackle the legendary Sphinx, a monster that didn’t seem in the first recreation, however does the truth is make an look in Dragon’s Dogma On-line, a recreation that by no means made it to Western shores. However even if you happen to did face off in opposition to the Sphinx in Dragon’s Dogma On-line, don’t count on the encounter to go precisely the similar approach, as a result of the Sphinx has a really particular position in Dragon’s Dogma 2, assuming you’re capable of finding it in the first place.
The Sphinx is a monster that’s well-hidden in the world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 and lives in isolation. Sport Director Hideaki Itsuno himself believes that many gamers will beat the recreation with out ever even encountering it. For people who do uncover the Sphinx’s hideout nevertheless, they’ll discover an encounter that’s very completely different out of your commonplace boss combat.
Behind the Sphinx are 5 treasure chests, every one tied to a selected riddle that it’s essential to resolve earlier than with the ability to declare the contents of it. In my demo, I solely bought an opportunity to try to resolve one: The Riddle of Eyes. In fact, these should not simply easy query and reply response-type riddles. As Itsuno-san places it, that is an motion recreation, so the riddles should be solved via motion as nicely.
The Riddle of Eyes was easy: “Our eyes are our allies, but oft do they betray, for eyes inform lies, so I counsel, and thence do lead astray.” You’re then instructed to enterprise forth right into a cave and convey again the merchandise which is of biggest worth. As you discover the harmful cave, full of goblins, entice doorways, and even a lumbering ogre awaiting you if you happen to fall into a type of entice doorways, you’ll discover many treasure chests – some well-hidden, others in plain sight – all with objects of assorted value. Your objective is to seek out the merchandise that satisfies the situations of the riddle, and convey it again to the Sphinx.
The massive catch is that you just solely get one shot at every riddle. If you happen to carry again an merchandise to the Sphinx and it isn’t the one she’s searching for, you’ll lock your self out of that riddle’s reward. So you might want to actually make positive that you just’re not being fooled by the difficult phrases of the Sphinx.
In fact, if you happen to’re not one for riddles, there’s one other – extra simple – approach to take care of the Sphinx. You possibly can merely select violence. That mentioned, the Sphinx isn’t precisely the form of monster that you just’ll beat simply by haphazardly attacking it.
“Saying an excessive amount of right here will destroy the enjoyable, so we’ll simply say that it’s attainable to combat it. You may combat it relying in your selections,” mentioned Itsuno-san. “Defeating the Sphinx is a riddle in itself. We wished to make the very query of whether or not it could possibly be defeated and even fought right into a thriller, and we might like that to be part of the enjoyable gamers have coping with the Sphinx and its riddles. Gamers might want to discover the Sphinx in the first place, if they’ll. The journey to discovering it would really be the greatest thriller of all.”
It looks as if a secret nicely value uncovering, not simply due to the rewards that you just stand to earn, but in addition simply because the riddles themselves are enjoyable to resolve. It’s an incredible mix of dungeon exploration and puzzle fixing, as every treasure chest I encountered made me query whether or not its placement, its contents, or its look happy the situations of the riddle.
The Sphinx is only one instance of a missable piece of considerable content material that gamers don’t want to seek out with a view to beat the recreation, however will likely be handsomely rewarded in the event that they do.
“That is the key to this all. If there are elements of the recreation that you do not have to find, we have made it attainable to beat the recreation with out discovering them,” mentioned Itsuno-san. “I feel the recreation will offer you a variety of experiences that you’re going to wish to inform your mates about. They could be monsters, your interactions with monsters, or the instances you escaped from monsters with out even preventing them. The sport is made so that it will create that form of drama and people sorts of experiences, and we hope that gamers get to get pleasure from that.”
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You’ll find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit