An amazing gaming experience from start to finish!
Let me start off by saying that I had no hopes or interest in this project at all. When I learned that Capcom was behind it, I assumed the game would be all about high scores, time limits and combo points. I find none of those things enjoyable or immersive in my RPGs and had no desire to support the project because of that.
A couple months ago, mostly out of boredom, I decided to pick the game up at a bargain price (less than 20 bucks). From the moment I had access to the combat system, I found myself entirely engrossed in the journey. Below are some of the pros and cons of my 100+ hour experience with the game.
The story seems very bland and cliche... to begin with. A Dragon takes your heart and you're off on a journey to get it back, more or less. Along the way you'll meet up with an assortment of fully voiced characters that will offer you sidequests of the standard variety. Get a flower, clear a cave, blah blah blah.
The story itself really didn't impress me at all until they final couple hours. Then I began looking at the entire world in an entirely different way. A lot of people have concluded that the plot turns out to be overly convoluted but I found it to be fascinating and completely understandable... and it makes new game+ a vastly more enriching experience.
The world is big and beautiful. It's not Skyrim big and there's no fast travel (till new game+) but it's good size. The problem is the sheer amount of running the game requires you to do. FAR too much running. They should have included 3-4 quick travel points in your first playthrough and the game would have been MUCH better for it... but it's not that big of a deal.
The Pawn system is, simply put, revolutionary. A Pawn is an npc follower. They help you in combat and give advice along your journey. Your Pawn will level up with you and gain more powerful abilities, while also becoming more knowledgeable about the world around you and the quests you undertake.
You create your own Pawn and rent 2 other Pawns from the Dragon's Dogma community. You can then rate your fellow gamers' Pawns and give them a parting gift, if you so desire. This leads to a feeling of wanting your creation to be the very best it can be. You want your Pawn to look amazing to attract attention and have great combat skills to keep it. I could go on and on about this wonderful feature but I'll keep it short: It needs to be experienced.
The combat is nearly flawless. At times it feels like Dark Souls, while others it feels faster and more actiony - but not over the top. The combat just feels "right". It's a huge part of why players like myself love the game. All the classes are a heck of a lot of fun and becoming more powerful over time has rarely felt as rewarding.
The (small) issue with the leveling up mechanics is based around stat growth. You gain stats based on which class you are on leveling up. This means mages get more magicky and warriors get more fightery (those are scientific terms). This is, honestly, fine. I understand why they went this direction but it does pose an issue when you want to experiment with the various classes. Seriously, not a big deal at all... but some might, understandably, dislike it.
TLDR; Go get this game if you haven't already. It's, sincerely, amazing. Skyrim meets Dark Souls. Buy.