Overwhelming urge to revisit an old game in my library

I have a pleather of games in my library at are unplayed for PS4, but I have an overwhelming urge to revisit an old game in my library. I think all the Elden Ring talk has not motivated me to play Elden ring yet, but rather to play a game on my PS3 - Dragon Dogma.

I played the original game three or four times through, but I only scratched the surface of the Dark Arisen content. I really want to play through that content because I truly found the combat and creation in Dragon Dogma really compelling. The setting, story and just the way the game worked really clicked with me. It has been awhile since I wanted to play any games; therefore, experiencing the urge to play a PS3 game is a bit strange.

I never had been a person swayed by nostalgia for past games, but lately I think I view PS3 as cozy comfort food games.

I'm having a similar feeling where all the talk about Elden Ring is making me want to play Onimusha, except for the last 5-10 years i've been more inclined to play older games anyway (currently playing Unreal 1998).

I never played the Dark Arisen content, i absolutely adore Dragon's Dogma but getting to the end of the main game is enough for me, i have a friend who loves it though so it's probably good.

I can't imagine playing the original Dragon's Dogma more than once. The best part is the title screen track and it's downhill from there.

They put Dark Arisen on PC a few years back though. If that's an option, it could improve the PS3 sensation. If not, hey, PS3 games are still dope. I play em all the time. Turns out they made a whole lotta games in the past. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a PS3 game.

This seems appropriate because Dragon's Dogma is absolutely a We Have Elden Ring At Home situation.

@daavpuke said:

The second or third play throughs are great! Those play throughs are when you get more "ports" and "port crystals" meaning you can fast travel to more spots. Moreover, just from a prqactial standpoint your second play through is so much better because as a player you understand the combat, armor system, magic, and other systems better...you do not want a shopkeeper to accienely beocme your beloved- i.e.. the Arisen's romantic interest! Almost every character can become the Arisen's beloved, to get kidnapped by the Dragon , in the game. Thus, a second more considered play-through is alway key.

I really wanted to love this game, but the fact that my magic archer character didn't do enough damage because I didn't spend enough time grinding the straight mage class to up my magic damage stat really put me off the whole thing.

That, plus the way enemy damage and health work really makes all the RPG number systems seem like total amateur bullshit once you know how the game math functions under the hood.

Those pawns are pretty great though. Goblins ill like fire!

I loved the pawn system mostly because it allows the player to make a whole other character. And, I loved searching for pawns that other players has made...that system that allowed for sharing you pawn was great. I always tried to leave the pawn I took with better equipment than I found them with and I always gave a good gift to well-setup pawns.

@cikame: oh man, I’ve only beaten onimusha 1 but it blew my mind back in the day. Messed around with O2 a little the other day and was kinda amazed how great it looked still. Definitely looking to go back and play O2-4.

Dragon's Dogma is one of the best games ever made, and the Dark Arisen content adds a necessary amount of post-game challenge. I highly recommend it.

The systems of dragons dogma feel so fun to use but I think everything the game asks you to do with them kind of sucks. The story is a mess, the quests are all bad, the open world is all over the place in quality.

But I played a ton of it just because it just feels good to fight things.

I occasionally feel like playing 360/PS3 era games, since that's the last time AAA games were routinely 8-12 hours without open world bloat. They generally hold up, especially if there's been a remaster. That's when games started to feel modern in terms of controls and design.

...I mean, I get what you're saying. But for the sake of the joke format, I was under the impression that the "at home" version of a thing has to come out after "better" product. ...not almost ten years beforehand where Elden was barely a sperm in one of Miyazaki's balls in 2012.

@facelessvixen: I.. don’t think so? X at home is just X is the jank version of the thing you want.

But hey maybe, I confess that I didn’t think too hard about the joke.

I can agree with most of that on some level, but yeah I just enjoyed the hell out of it. The art and architecture just inspires me, I love the way the monster look, and I love the detail in the villages, town, and ruins. I love the dungeons, mines, crypts, and catacombs. I even love that some of the ruins are really a platformer that if you know the path leads so decent loot.

The story is forgotten 10 min into the start and doesn’t show up much until the end. Most of the NPSs are on to simple of a set route to prove interesting to interact with more than once. Most of the quests are fetch quests of the simplest kind. The Pawns talk too much unless you set them to be "mostly quiet". If you grind early you will find nothing is all that hard to beat, so the game can be a bit too easy depending on how you play. The lack of port crystals in your fist play through means you walk 90% of you first game...on foot with you pawns running after you like puppies. The same mobs of goblins, wolves, skeletons, wild men, etc. are a nuisance in the late game. That is why I recommend play the whole game two or three times, because once you have port crystals you can just warp around missing most of the mobs.

With that said, every Hydra, Dragon, Golam, Gryphon, Cyclops, Cockatrice, and Chimera is fun to tackle because you can crawl on them and they toss you around a bit more. I am a nut for crafting and potion-making; so the collecting and processing of herbs satisfies me a lot even after a few playthroughs. Crafting the perfect 'armored thong' really opens up the fashion possibilities. If nothing else the clothing in Dragons Dogma is second to none, because you can make extremely good armor out of hundreds of wardrobe choices. You don't see two pawns dressed the same way because if you are willing to craft you can make most of the clothing powerful.

If you want to talk about real crazy old-game urges, let me regale you with my story of how I go back to play the original PS3 Dragon's Dogma demo every few years ... I own the full game but have not touched it, mainly because I know it's going to be a huge time commitment and I just wanna grab onto that griffin and chimera and hack away at them for 15 minutes.

The last time I played it I made some progress in Dragon's Dogma until I didn't. I don't know what it was but I just didn't find the world interesting at all which feels like certain death in the fantasy genre. I also made the mistake of speccing out of my comfort zone to shake things up and got bored with that play style on top of being lost.

If the topic is about high fantasy RPGs we want an excuse to replay then that would be Divinity: Original Sin 2 for me. Now THAT'S what I call high fantasy lore...volume 2. Even though I just played it in 2019 I desperately want a reason to play it again. Unfortunately I'm now all too aware of how long the game is and my backlog is a real nightmare right now. I can't even decide how I'd play it the 2nd time and I'm not accepting suggestions. I can't think of anything in that vein within the PS3 and older timeline that I'd want to replay more than that at the moment.

Same thing happened to me as well. Though I've played Elden Ring for a while now, I've grown an urge to play Divinity: Original Sin 2 so bad