The best skill I’ve learned since becoming a father has been the ability to nap in any place, at any time. That and finding new ways to love selflessly, of course. But it’s theꦆ only time in my life I’ve felt like I ‘levelled up’. I didn’t work at this skill to achieve it, I didn’t put in hours of practice like I have for playing the guitar, building models, or playing games. I just woke up one day (or rather, realised it was morning while I was still awake and soothing my daughter♏) and I could nap.
I’ve never been a napper, but now I’m a champion at the sport. If there was a napolympics, I would win gold for Team GB. If there was a World Cup, I’d lift the Snooze Rimet. I can nap on the sofa (standard fare), I can nap in the car (trickier), and I can even nap on a busy, uncomfor♎table t🦹rain (an Olympian-level feat on Merseyrail). Oh yeah, video games.
You can fast travel in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon’s Dogma 2. It takes the same form as Skyrim and many fantasy RPGs before it, wherein you take a cart between major cities. However, instead of just arriving at your destination via loading screen, you’re presented with two options as you ride. Enjoy the journey, or take the opportuniꦯty to g🍃rab forty winks.
It’s nice to take in the stunning vistas once or twice, but the journeys are long. You’re travelling halfway across a country, it’s a long trip. So it’s only natural that you put your mane down and grab some much-needed sleep. It’s when you enter dreamland, however, that Dragon’s Dogma 2 pulls a trick right out of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age: Origins’ playbook.
You fall to sleep, gently. The screen fades to black. Hey, you. You’re finally awake. I’m kidding. But your peaceful slumber is interrupted, by goblins or harpies or other such villains trying to tear your tail off and eat your liver. My naps are 🐷usually interrupted by ticket inspectors or potholes, so I can only imagine hoꦚw frustrating it is to be awoken by a goblin arrow whistling past your ear. My Beastren grabs his sword, sighs, wipes the sleep from his eyes, and gets abutchering.
This instantly reminded me of travelling in Dragon Age: Origins. After picking your destination, you see a loading screen (this was 2009, remember) and then encounter a horde of enemies in a field, somewhere on the way to yourꦅ destination. These scenarios are repetitive and reused, you’ll see the same locations again and again, but it doesn’t matter. It makes the world of Thedas feel lived-in, it makes the passage feel dangerous, and it sells you on the core premise of the game: that Darkspawn are invading, and are an immediate threat.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 evolves thi🌳s premise for 2024. Instead of using random sets built for the sole purpose of housing Darkspawn ambushes, it drops your foes somewhere along your route. Presumably, if you had stayed awake to enjoy the scenery, the ambush would have occurred at the same point.
It’s a simple addition to fast travel that sells the dangers of the world, whether that’s Ferelden or Vermund. Why would travelling by ox-drawn ꦺcart be a safe mode of transport when you run into goblins every couple of steps you take on foot? These simple attacks, drawn from Dragon Age and updated for 2024, immediately pull you into the world, no matter how few hours you’ve spent there. I’ve only played for about a dozen so far, but I’m already invested in the story, deeply involved in the world, and ready to bop a dragon for eating my still-beating heart.
