A great RPG that shows that Capcom doesn't give a damn about story telling anymore.
Dragon's Dogma is an RPG game brought to us by Capcom, and I've never been a fan of Capcom's writing, as in somewhere in the main building, there's a book of dialogue cliches with a heavily weathered spine, and they were making an RPG, which is a heavily story based genre. Needless to say, I was dubious, but it should be said that I liked Dragon's Dogma one HELL of a lot more than I thought I would. The gameplay is really fun, and it's really fun to explore all of the different moves that you can learn in each class.
The way the game works is in basic RPG fashion. You can pick a class near the beginning of the game, and it's the basic fighter, rogue, mage setup. After you reach the main city in the game, you can pick the mixed classes, or heavy classes, like the mystic knight, or the sorcerer, respectively. I chose to go with the mystic knight, and they are a heavily defensive class, with a lot of shield magic, and trap setups. It's interesting to see all of the different moves each class learns. The sorcerer can learn a meteor storm, and the fighter can learn this vicious skewer move that impailes enemies. All of the class have advantages and disadvantages, and it's just picking which one you like best.
You also get 3 sidekicks called pawns in this game. You get to make one, and this is your main pawn. The other two are the main pawns of other players from around the world, so a good chunk of the game is determening the best combo of pawns to accompany you throughout the game. I chose to have my main pawn be a healer, and to have a sorcerer, and an assassin as my other two pawns. Very little could touch me short of the armies of hell, and most of the difficulty fell out of it with a sickening thud.
Another interesting gameplay mechanic also involves the pawns, in that your main pawn can be selected by other people around the world as their secondary pawn, and when they're finished using your pawn, they send them back with a gift based on how good they did. So it pays off to make sure that your pawn has the best equipment that you can find, and... you're pimping... This thought is almost unavoidable. It really didn't help that I made my character is big and hulking as he could possibly be, then I made my main pawn a skinny little timid girl. Sometimes, I feel like I'm selling her to a BDSM fetishist for healing potions... and that's not a good thing. Making me think about what kind of job she's doing to earn me that extra life...*shivers*
Anyway, outside of the sexual inuendo, the gameplay is the strong point of this game. I wish the same could be said about the story. I said I never was a big fan of Capcom's writing, and this is no exception. What do you think of when you hear "RPG"? Dragons? Knights? Magic? Some evil cult behind it all? This game is all of that, and no more than that. It's very generic, up until about the halfway or three quarters mark. When the evil cultist gets killed, the story takes a turn on the corner of 4th and bananas. Then the story kinda stops even attempting to make any god damned sence what so ever. It's like they made the story for a stable, but generic RPG, but then decided it was too short, so they started making s#!t up as they went, and that's never a good thing.
The absolute biggest f@%k up to me is the ending. There are 5 endings, but 4 are just non-standard game overs, while there's only one real ending, and it makes absolutely NO f@%king sence what so ever. I was playing through this game thinking that maybe it was deserving of an 8, maybe even higher, but the ending knocked it down to a 7. The ending is also incredibly weird, considering that my pawn is a timid little girl, and my character is a big, hulking brute. I won't spoil, but trust me, it doesn't make any sence. If someone wants to try to explain it to me, then please do, because I'm clueless...
This game is definitaly an oddball. It sounds strange to say I'd recommend this game, because they really screw up a lot in critical areas, so I've got to slap a big old asterisk on this recommendation. If you like RPG's for the story, but aren't into the typical fighter, rogue, mage setup, then this isn't your game, but if you like the gameplay of western RPG's, then this is probably some of the best from the genre, and it's worth checking out. As for me, well, I enjoyed it, but I'll probably never touch it again... A good game, but it leaves some things to be desired.