Now without further ado, let's jump onto the review. This review will be more talkative as I played Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and I will talk about my thoughts about what could have been done better and things I like and dislike.
Dragon's Dogma has only 7 episodes, once I learned about it (day of release), I pretty much knew to have little to no expectations, because seven 20-30 minute episodes cannot possibly make a good adaptation of Dragon's Dogma.
\\Spoiler alert//
Dragon's Dogma is an RPG game, a game that is about going from being absolute nobody to becoming an absolutely overpowered "God Gamer" in the entire universe. This journey is slow, but you grow, you get new OP gear that becomes useless 2 hours later when you find even more OP gear. You learn about the world, you meet and sometimes even befriend interesting characters. You cannot achieve something like this in 7 episodes. In order to get 7 or 8/10, DD would need at least 24 episodes so it can be decently explored and explained. But if Netflix wanted it to be real attempt in breaking into anime industry, something special, something beyond 8/10, Dragon's Dogma would require at least 60 episodes minimum and also way bigger budget and more experience.
Artstyle/Scenery: 6/10
Unknown and inexperienced studio was decided to be animating DD and it's inexperience or just lack of time or lack of budget is definitively seen through DD. There are scenes that look really amazing with some really good attention to detail, but there are also scenes, where Ethan and Hannah are just walking around wilderness that is just static, no movement at all, no animation of trees or grass moving. For 2020 it is not good standard to have static scenery.
Characters: 6/10
Ethan and Hannah are the only ones worth to talk about:
Ethan is an Arisen, he lost his wife, family and all his friends to the dragon. I think Ethan was decent protagonist until the "Rage Arisen" thing came (will talk about it in Story), there's not really much to talk about Ethan, he is "sidequest type" (person who has a main goal, but gets sidetracked whenever foes appears) and sadly he uses same equipment through story, I wish he got at least some legendary armor or weapon before the dragon fight, so it would as some sort of progression and not just go with "common", "un rare weapon" against dragon.
Hannah is okay, she is a pawn. Pawns don't aren't bound by human feelings. She can use magic to enhance her arrows or use "Fire Boon" on Ethan's weapon or other spells. Hannah is very smart and overall I like her character because she pretty much fulfills my expectations from pawn.
Other characters either appear in 1 episode and die or never appear again, so I think I don't need to mention anyone else.
Story: 6/10
Each episode represents a mortal sin: Pride, Greed, Envy, Lust and etc. I like that there are different tone conclusions to the episodes. Some episodes end on a darker tone even though Ethan had his best interest to help people, other episodes end on a lighter tone, where we find out that the character we thought died actually didn't die. Almost every episode has a boss from DD appearing, which is pretty good fanservice and overall it's not bad, really, but it's just average. DD really needed way more episodes to properly introduce itself and it's world. Instead we get mostly generic characters or when we find someone who can be interesting, he dies or disappears after the episode. In the end it is a bland world with Ethan and Hannah in it.
Now the rage Arisen: I probably know why it was implemented, it is because your "plebeian" character cannot become "RPG god gamer" in 7 episodes without downloading cheats, it wouldn't make sense, so they made him this alter ego to give him huge plot ability boost while his sanity fades away the more he gets devoured in his rage. I hate this mechanic and it ruined Ethan's character for me a lot.
If they just implemented Rift Crystals (pawn legion currency, you earn it after killing bosses and doing quests in DD game) and created a pawn legion merchant to give Ethan OP, I would appreciate it way better than "Rage" Arisen.
Sound: 7/10
Soundwise DD was fine, opening OP was good and that's all I need to say.
Summary: Dragon's Dogma earns 6,25/10, so it is 6/10. DD is not bad and it is worth trying. The main issue is lack of episodes and artstyle lack of attention to detail, you just cannot hope to accomplish a serious attempt at adaptation of an RPG game in 7 episodes.
I can recommend you to try it at least, you might like, I don't regret watching it.
