But for some ridiculous design choices and frustrating AI, it could have been one of the best rpgs of this generation.
The unique multiplayer deserves some explanation. In this game you control one character and you're accompanied by one pawn. You then need to pick up two pawns off of other random players while your pawn is on the market for everyone else. He or she earns you experience, points and equipment if he or she gets picked up. It has a bit of that crazy addictive MMO feel because you want to make your pawn the attractive option for other players with each new spell or piece of equipment. At first blush I called Capcom my usual derogatory names for not just making this game co-op. It screams for co-op, but the pawn system grows on you. Also I wish I could have more pawns because it's a lot of fun, but maybe that's part of the allure. Just having your one pawn makes you more invested and forces you to try everyone else. Legitimately unique and functional takes on multiplayer are few and far between (Dark/Demons Souls), Dragon's Dogma is certainly original and works moderately well.
My biggest problem is that the pawn AI is horrendous. I could list a hundred ridiculously stupid things that they've done, but I will only give one example. They stupidly walk and fight into exploding barrels, so you try to pick the barrels up and throw them out of the way only to have them sprint in front of the barrel as it's being thrown and get hurt… every freaking time. You have zero control over them beyond some obscure tendency system and three general commands, so every fight turns into a cluster, especially if there's more than one enemy. You consistently have an easier time fighting these massive monsters than a basic pack of wolves. There's no way to coordinate what's going on or even tank properly. You'll be screaming at the screen just begging them to cast cure at the right time or use an AoE attack. If they just gave you any control whatsoever over the pawns this game would be a hundred times better.
The second biggest problem is the lack of variety and the mission structure. The environments look great, but there's no diversity. You have forests… and dungeons… that's about it. As far as enemies go you fight humans, goblins, harpies, wolves, skeletons and lizardmen… that's about it. As far as bosses go… being generous there's really only eight of them. So while a fight with a cyclops is pretty epic, after two dozen of them it just becomes irritating. There should have been a lot more effort put into this because the repetition is obvious. Despite the redundancy, the game is difficult to understand and poorly explained. This is a game you can sink 50 hours into and have never learned some basic gameplay functions
The world is actually very small and there are surprisingly few areas, but it feels larger due to the absence of fast travel… which is baffling. The majority of the game is spent walking the same roads over and over, travelling for upwards of thirty minutes to reach a destination. There are essentially two cities in the game so you have to constantly come back to check the same places. Also you have to check between the cities after finishing every quest because other quests lock out or disappear so quickly. The brutal single save, auto-save feature makes you constantly paranoid you'll lose something. It seems like a big missed opportunity to not have a more structured and transparent system of dispensing quests with a little more focus on big game monster hunting a healthy variety of mythical creatures.
The third biggest problem can be described in two words; escort missions. Every gamer hates escort missions with good reason and this game has some of the worst designed escort missions you'll ever see. Given the fact that you're at the mercy of your brain-dead AI pawns, it makes sense that you similarly have no control over the escort target whatsoever. A "wait here" command would have made this game infinitely better. Instead the target stands right next to you in every fight, taking damage from every attack directed towards you and constantly blocking your attacks from hitting enemies. In a game that requires you to climb three stories monsters, the escort target stands right at their feet getting pulverized in seconds. Not to mention the fact that the escort target gets stuck on the smallest terrain then runs off on their own to find a way around straight into enemies.
The rest of my gripes with this game, and there's a lot of them, are small technical things like inventory management both during and after combat, or the weak system for comparing equipment, or the randomly respawnign chests, or the obscure method with which you pick up items in the world. There's a list of small tweaks that I'm sure most people would appreciate having fixed. Also I would be remiss if I didn't mention the absolutely ludicrous way everyone talks in the game. "Aughts" and "Naughts" and other foolish attempts at ye olde English tossed in constantly and inappropriately with modern colloquialisms. Nails on a chalkboard doesn't begin to describe it.
They did nail the combat. It's visceral and satisfying, there's a decent amount of variation and each class plays very differently. Upgrades and new abilities make a noticeable impact creating a ton of strategy. The boss fights are the highlight. They involve climbing up the massive monsters to hit weak spots or drag them down. It's a ton of fun. It also feels and looks amazing, much like Demon/Dark souls where you feel like you're actually fighting an epic monster that's legitimately trying to kill you as opposed to an animatronic dinosaur attacking at fixed intervals God of War style. Also the upgrades, equipment and rpg elements work extremely well and is deeply addictive.
Of course there's no story whatsoever but the world itself tells the story. Much like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls this game doesn't need a narrative. Generally I play video games for the stories but sometimes in a deep, one hundred hour, open world rpg I prefer this minimalist approach. At least it's not Kingdom's of Amalur backing a dump truck full of dog excrement on top of you and trying to ram all that nonsense into your mouth.
Basically this game is on the cusp of being something amazing. As an deep rpg with solid combat and some unique gameplay twists this game will probably suck you in for hours in spite of how much you'll dislike it. But with some significant tweaks it could honestly have been one of the best console rpgs of this generation, right up there with Dark/Demon's Souls. The ideas and bones are here. If Dragon's Dogma 2 comes out I will be right there day one praying Capcom learned from its mistakes.