What's better: Gliding powers or Dragon's Dogma 2's Unmaking Arrow?

Last time, you decided that shopkeepers annoyed when you don't buy anything is better than security cameras following your every move. So rather than an implied surveillance which doesn't actually have consequences, you wish to be actively scolded for things you've not done. Alright reader dear, I'm noting that in your psychological profile. Onwards! This week I ask you to choose between soaring through the sky or making something else soar. What's better: gliding powers or Dragon's Dogma 2's Unmaking Arrow?

Gliding powers

It's a common icebreaker: would you rather have the superpower of invisibility or flight? And it's flight, obviously it's flight, and if someone says invisibility you should immediately turn and walk away from them at whichever industry networking event has pushed this question into your mouths, but inside video games? Stuff flying; the power I crave is gliding.

Flight is a more powerful power, obviously, but it's never as fun. Partially I think many games struggle to make superflight feel interesting (I hereby promise to return to one notable exception at a future date), but I think part of what I like is that gliding feels more grounded. If I'm flying about, that's full-on wizard nonsense, whereas gliding, ah, you know, parachutes are real? Wingsuits exist? Batman is just a guy, yeah? So the fact that I'm slowly falling as I whoosh about means this game is practically a documentary and sure, couldn't I do that at home myself with a bedsheet if I dared?

I've recently returned to Ghostwire: Tokyo and revel in leaping and gliding over Tokyo as a superpowered parkourist. The speed and convenience. The constant little challenges of picking the right rooftop and angle to launch yourself from to reach a distant point before your glide gives out. The feeling of terrible power as you get the drop on ghosts. I've gone back and collected all the collectibles because it's just a joy to glide about. The same goes for the Batman: Arkham games and their escalation of scale making gliding even wackier across the series as you come to swoop across Gotham. Or at the extreme end of the scale, I am glad that Saints Row 4's ridiculous superglide is still a glide, still sending you drifting downwards, not outright flying.

Beyond the fact that it's just great to swoop through the air, a glide is limited, which creates space for interesting challenge and satisfying solutions. Even in games where you don't have a time limit on your gliding power, you're still slowly falling, still destined to return to ground. But can you find a way to reach this point in time? Can you dodge obstacles to preserve your momentum and go farther? Just how far can you manage to go? It's playful, and success feels even richer when you might fail.

Dragon's Dogma 2's Unmaking Arrow

While we have previously judged resources too good to use (you decided it wasn't better than a pre-boss supply cache), this one is extra special: a resource not just too good to use, it's so good that the game outright calls no take-backies. The Unmaking Arrow in Capcom's open-world fantasy RPG is so much more than a rare potion or limited crafting material.

"The ultimate arrow, said to kill instantly," the item description says. Okay but what does that mean? Does it actually? And what exactly can it kill? It must be powerful because the entire game has only two(?) to find, right? An extra element of hype is provided by the fact that Dragon's Dogma 2—a game which believes so strongly in discovering consequences by yourself that you can accidentally kill entire towns—breaks the fourth wall to provide a warning in the item description that "once fired, the game will automatically save, so choose your moment with due care." Oh so it must be great? Even without firing it, just sitting passively in your inventory, the Unmaking Arrow inspires drama, tension, dreams, and delusions.

Surely it can't do what you think it says it might do. Or if it does, surely it has limitations. You could find out by watching YouTube videos, I suppose, but that would be spoiling your own fun. No, sit on this one and sweat. You want to know what it does. In fact, you've grown so consumed by the possibility that it might actually work like your wildest dream that you need to find out. Yes, you've decided. You've died to this boss a few times and you're getting sick of it and yeah, you know what, you are hyping yourself up to fire the Unmaking Arrow. Yeah! Let's do it! Yeah, yeah, you're gonna do it! Yeah! Only: now you better not miss. Oh god, what if you miss?

But if you do hit? I'll kindly spoiler tag for people still exploring this big game but god yes, it is everything you dreamed of. You can even one-shot the final boss.

But which is better?

I'm going to abstain because I know my love of gliding is such that I'll struggle to consider the Unmaking Arrow objectively in abstract. But which do you think is better, reader dear?

Pick your winner, vote in the poll below, and make your case in the comments to convince others. We'll reconvene next week to see which thing stands triumphant—and continue the great contest.