The Dragon’s Dogma 2 character creator is great, right? WRONG. It’s an evil mimic disguised in the beauty of the RE Engine. I’m not talking about the micro-transactions. You can buy nearly 100 reconfigurations with in-game currency, get over it. No, it’s the armor!
After 50+ hours of gameplay, I discovered that Dragon’s Dogma 2 does not want my beautiful buff woman to look good in armor. Maybe you've noticed — no armor fits the same. Sorcerer and Mage gear form with muscles and accentuate the best parts of my character. However, heavier armors in the Fighter or Warrior vocation make me look like Smough from Dark Souls or Snorlax from Pokémon (same character, really).
What the heck is going on? Well, as I dove back into the Dragon's Dogma 2 character creator, I grew embittered by the dilemma I found myself in.
What happens to the Dragon's Dogma 2 armor?
For those that don’t know, the Dragon’s Dogma 2 armor warps to fit your character’s body type. It’s not just height and build, it warps every single part that touches your body. I had no idea this was the case until I started questioning why the armor looked so terrible.
Who doesn’t love a buff woman? I made my character have the biceps and thighs of a queen. However, you can’t make your character look Arnold-Schwarzenegger-buff, so she looked more fit than anything else. When I created my character, I cranked up her overall muscle strength to 100, and I went a little more modest with her overall muscles, 50 to 80 range (the slider is on a -100 to 100 scale)
But regardless of how thin or large you make your muscles, heavier armors exaggerate your size. Throw on a Fighter or Warrior armor set and then hop on over to your local barber to see what I’m talking about. Matter of fact, throw a cape on as well, so you can see the crap I’ve had to deal with.
What caught my attention first were the gloves. When your gloves feature ends that curve outward, the ends of the cuff are as large as the waist. It looks so goofy that I refused to purchase armor like that, despite having better stats. Capes were another big issue — I have never once looked good in a cape. Every cape I wore was bulky and protruded further from my neck and shoulders than necessary.
When I hopped into the character creator, I adjusted the size of my arms to see if there was any change, and wow. There’s such a massive difference depending on the size of your muscles. I’m talking pebble to boulder difference. I shrunk my muscles down to a 0, and the armor looked natural and great on me. Capes even looked more form-fitting.
But I shook when I saw what lay underneath the armor. My biceps were larger than hers. I don’t fight griffons and drakes, so I should not look more built than my fantasy character. The armor was so fitting, but my character looked like they just got diagnosed with a protein deficiency.
What the heck do I do?
Do I stay true to how I want my character’s physique to look, or do I conform to how I want her to look in armor? You would think armor, since that’s all I’d be seeing — well, that’s not true. Lighter and medium armors conform to her body type, while others expose parts of the body to highlight how jacked she is.
I hate that I have to even choose between these two looks. The armor should conform to the actual body type, but it’s like there’s a barrier between the body and where the armor starts to form, twisting a malevolent visage of ridicule.
I haven’t adjusted my character yet, and I’m not sure I will anytime soon. I’ll just avoid armor that makes me look like a balloon. Unfortunately, this happens with most heavy armor. So using the Fighter or Warrior vocation is just a bad trip. Some armors are universal, but they tend to be weaker than armor specific to vocations. It looks like I’m going to prioritize what I do in every Souls game — fashion over stats.
Capcom, please fix this.
