As many anticipated games comes closer to their release date, the games are given more and more coverage and publicity. As a gamer, I too am interested in watching gameplay and general information about a game I've been looking forward to playing, but this method has proven to be a double-edged blade -for me atleast. The constant flow of Skyrim-information and Skyrim-clips and images is to blame for why I stopped playing Skyrim so soon. In short; the hype ruined the game for me. With this information in my mind, I stayed mindful of clips and information to avoid this same phenomenon happening to Dragon's Dogma. It didn't.
An Introduction:
The game sets the stage ablaze by kicking off with a rock tune as the title appears on the screen. This song, though cheesy, has grown on me and I hum along as I prepare for adventure. You take part, playing as the mysterious Arisen in a "Prologue" appearantly on your way towards the dragon. This serves as a quick and easy tutorial-mission, heavily foreshadows the game and introduces you to bits and pieces of the master plot of the game. The mission ends with a cliffhanger, and you continue to the "real" game. After you have played with the fantastic character creation-tool, you are introduced to the game which vaguely guides you onward.
Plot, story and immersion:
The plot of the game is that the Dragon has appeared and haunts the world. In the process of destroying Cassardis it stole your heart, making you the Arisen, and you must travel across the land to confront the Dragon and reclaim your heart. It is told through missions done, and you learn more about the role of the Arisen through characters in cities and by doing missions. The story is told pretty uniquely; always being kind of vague and when you discover the whole truth through the multiple endings, you may be bafled or impressed; I was impressed. The story of Gransys is never fully revealed; there are locations and places with mysterious names that make you feel like there has been some important event that took place there once ("Stones of Courage", "Bloodwater beach" etc). The fact that the lore is kept a mystery is something I like and find it to be immersive actually. I like games that treat you like you are apart of the game, and not like you are someone that is on vacation. The cities or places you visit have things going on aswell. They might not be bustling with life or parties, but there is enough going on to keep the immersive factors up. At Cassardis, people are occupied by mending the fallen houses and getting the city back on it's feet, while in Gran Soren the focus is on vending, urban life and poor vs rich. The game is highly immersive because of the little details and the mystical lore, and also a pretty great story that unfolds and it might even take some twists along the way.
Graphics:
The characters look good (IGN's reviewer said the characters look a bit odd, I might understand what she means, but I think they look regular/ordinary) and so does the great number of weapon and armor you will find along the storyline. It is only when the camera zooms in really close that you spot the poor textures, but they look very good from default view. Another thing: when I play a RPG'game where I put a lot of time creating a unique character, I want to have some occasions where I get to see my character in short cutscenes -this is something that I truly missed in Skyrim (I know "the Elder Scrolls-games aren't keen on using cutscenes). This game features some good cutscenes which gives you plenty of time to check-out your character from an omniscient viewpoint. When on the topic of cutscenes; your character seldom/never speaks in the game, something that sometimes can be pretty frustrating, but it also has its subtle charm, like "Fido" in GTA3. The creatures you fight look truly amazing, and the landscape, though some "jagged" or bulky edges, looks great. The animation is also fantastic. It is always fun to witness a giant cyclops staggering about with a pawn on the left leg and another pawn on the right hand. Fighting the giant monsters is a joy, and the grabbing-mechanics is something that truly makes this game unique, but more on that later.
This game looks good when it comes to graphics and animations. Climbing the monsters and watching them react to your scaling is fun, and watch out for that Cyclops' hand; If he gets you, you're bound to lose alot of health. The game has good graphics, great animations and the monsters are all animated uniquely, and in general a good-looking game.
Combat and gameplay mechanics:
The combat is a hack-and-slash action-rpg standard recipe. It works, and has responsive and decent controls. You control mages, warriors, striders and other mixed classes to fight the way you want to. Each can equip a series of skills and augments that gives you special abilities or boosts, and by pressing L1 or R1, you get access to that class' special abilities (strider -archery, fighter - shield etc). Physical damage is called "strength" while magic damage is called simply "magick" (OE/ME spelling). Layers of clothing give you defense and magick defense and there are a bunch of special types of damage you can get or inflict called elemental affinity and debilitation. Elemental defence or damage uses the elements (fire, ice, holy, dark, lightning etc) while debilitation damages your stats ("lowered strength") or your movement ("torpor") or your eyesight ("blinded"), and so on. Some weapons are forged with elemental features like Eden's Warden (fire elemental sword) and others are imbued with debilitative powers (weapons with chance to give enemies "torpor", "blinded" or "drenched!"-status). Vice versa every armor has stats that resist these debilitations and elements. You uncover the story by playing the main missions and there are plenty of side-missions (notice-board quests), and every week Capcom publishes new side-board missions for the community to play.
The combat feels great and each class has its own special powers and abilities. The fighter uses a shield and sword and supports the use of heavy-plated armor, while the strider and ranger uses daggers and bows/longbows, the attire is also more adventurous feel of it. There are also mages and sorcerers who uses staffs, staves and magic primary and secondary-abilities to support or attack foes. There are also cross-class vocations (assassin, mystic knight, magick archer) which allows you to further customize your combat strategy. Using magic(k) and abilities use stamina (running also depletes your stamina), and when you've spent the bar, your character has a brief cool-down period where he/she needs a rest. You can change vocation at certain places around the world and try other strategies. Also, you can learn other vocations' augmentations and allowing you to add them toward your other vocations -this way you can gain both "clout" and "vehemence" (both strength-adding augments) and boost your warrior character even further (warriors have the best strength-based weapons) creating a character that is capable of delivering massive damage.
Another important gameplay-mechanic is the grab function. The grab-mechanic activates when pressing R2 and can be used anytime in-game to pick up stones, crates, fallen enemies, and people or pawns. You can also use the "grab" to pin enemies to the ground waiting for your pawns to deal the finishing blow, or to climb bigger enemies. THIS is where the combat enters awesome-mode. The gamers familiar with "Shadows of the Colossus" knows the joys of climbing giant enemies, and in this game it is no different (except scale/size). As you ascend a giant creature your stamina will drain, and as the beast threshes and throws its body about the stamina-bar will deplete faster. You deal damage to the beasts' parts, and on some occasions even cut some parts off. The creature will react to your scaling and grab at you as you get closer to the head (if it has arms), or will ram into walls or drop to the floor (if you are on its back) to get rid of you. You can throw the creature off balance by climbing the creature together with your pawns. All creatures in-game (both climbable and ordinary enemies) have specific strategies that work especially on them. Fire elemental might not work as good on Hellhounds as it does on Snow Harpies, and some enemies might need a little more patience than others. Some enemies might be immune to physical attacks! If you are a warrior, you have no possibility to damage this creature (except if your weapon is imbued with magick). This is where the pawns come into action.
The pawns are this games big feature. When you start the main quest, you are introduced to Rook- a pawn of the pawn guild to help and aid you in your quest. Pawns are magical "humanoid creatures" that live in the Pawn Nexus where the Arisen can recruit them. The Arisen is the master of the pawns and they do as the Arisen commands. When you reach "the Encampment", you are introduced to the Pawn Nexus and you get to construct your very own main pawn. This is the aid that will follow you around the game, give you hints and tips, and fight by your side. You design its appearance the same way you did your very own Arisen, and you assign it a vocation and role (Scather, medicant, guardian) which tells him/her how to act. If you are not pleased with how your pawn turns out, you can sit down in the "knowledge chair" and talk to him/her. Here you can tell him/her how to act through a series of questions presented to you by the pawn.
The Pawn Nexus is one of the games best features. Here you are able to go through a Rift Stone, enter the Pawn Nexus, or the Rift, which will be filled with other players main pawns (if you are playing Online). These you can recruit, and hold a total of three pawns at any given time (including your main pawn). This means that other online-players will be able to borrow your pawn aswell. This is a great way for your pawn to go out on quests and learn information about the world and bring back to your world (your pawn is ubiquitous meaning he can be present in your game as well as in other players game at the same time). The knowledge gained is highly appreciated in your own world as it helps you fight creatures and bosses; your pawn will tell you how to defeat certain creatures or how to traverse the land. When the pawn comes back from its journey, the other player will have rated him/her (appearance, battle and helpfulness) aswell as leaving a little comment and giving you a gift. This makes taking care of your pawn, his/her equipment and armor a bit of importance. Though there is no achievement or trophy gained for getting a 5-star rating of your pawn, it is still great fun and gives you a sense of unity and accomplishment when your pawn returns with a 4-star rating and a comment saying : "Our best fighter!". You can get any pawn from the Rift, but if you want a higher-than-you levelled pawn, you must pay some Rift Crystals. Players you are friends with on PSN will exchange pawn for free regardless to the level. Rift crystals are earned through fighting enemies and are dropped every once in awhile. If you want top notch pawn right away, you can always buy the "Rift Crystal pack" of PSN and get lots of Rift Crystals from the start.
The pawns are very important, and you will not get far without them. You CAN choose to do the game with only your Main Pawn (with a heightened exp. gaining), but it is highly recommended to recruit two more pawns. I played the game three times through and always used a setup of one archer, one warrior, one fighter, and one support mage. The mage can give you or your pawns different elemental attacks thus meaning you can deal with the specters or phantasms. This way, you can acquire a mage or sorcerer to fight those enemies mentioned earlier that are immune to your steel greatsword. This pawn-inclution works really well and is a really interesting way of including online features. Another thing that would be great, would be to possess your pawn (while participating in another players game) and physically control him alongside the Arisen who recruited him, but this is still great online interaction-gameplay.
When it comes to RPG-elements, the game does not feature your ordinary stats and numbers. When you level up, you do not get to add points to Strength, dexterity, intelligence and so on. Each vocation has its added bonuses for levelling up e.g warriors get a bonus towards strength and Mages get a bonus towards magic(k) along with health boosts (these boosts can be found on wiki sites). You will level up in vocation and learn new core skills, unique abilities and augments(?). Core skills and abilities are not transferable through vocations, but augments can be carried over e.g earning "clout" as a warrior allows you to use this augment as Fighter aswell, and combining it with the augment "Vehemence" of Fighter grants you an additional strength boost. This way you can play around with every vocation and end up picking the best augemnts to boost your pawn the way you want, (and don't forget about your pawn). There aren't many choices you get to do. Don't get me wrong - you choose which quests to do and they all more or less play an important role towards the main quest, but there are not many talkative options during conversation. The best thing about leveling up is that you get closer to getting those pawns you want to "hire". An interesting option would be to be more in command of your pawns during combat. Playing as an Assassin, I gave my Warrior the ability "Blade Ladder" which is an ability where the warrior tilts his blade to the side and allows other pawns/Arisen to jump onto the blade and be catapulted upwards. I have never gotten my pawn to do this trick, and it is quite annoying as I could spend this slot on another ability. You earn affinity from people as you talk to them, do tasks for them or give them presents. Eventually they will get max affinity and this will unlock certain events for some NPC's, like more wares for vendors, discounts from travellers, abilities to create Herb Ale etc. Eventually you might end up living with this guy/girl in Cassardis. You can attack NPC's which will result in you getting thrown into jail and lose some affinity. Just don't kill important NPC's -the inn-keeper from Gran Soren died in my game during an escort mission, and he was gone from the game causing much frustrating because now I couldn't change vocation, learn skills, or manage stored equipment. Eventually, he reappeared (after 6-7 in-game days). Also fast-travel needs certain items ('port crystal' and 'Ferrystone'), but this doesn't affect me in a negative way; I feel this lack of fast-travel works to an immersive effect.
The game's difficulty starts of as being easy/medium, and when you encounter an area with harder enemies (you are usually told by your pawns), the game tends to get harder. On my first playthrough I had a hard time fighting off the Direwolves, Snow Harpies and Geo Saurians. After leveling up and aqcuiring better weapons, I became able to deal with them. Later in the game, when you encounter the Hellhounds, Succubi and Grim Goblins, the game turned pretty hard (on my first playthrough). I was surprised in the sudden change of difficulty, and pondered on if I attempted the last part of the game without being fully ready for it yet. On my second playthrough, I still had trouble with these foes actually, and on my third playthrough I had aquired enough gear and decent pawns that meant these enemies now were under control. A game is suppose to be hard, but after a couple of playthroughs it gets easier and easier. The core of the game might get easier, but the very popular ongoing online event becomes harder and harder as the game progresses. When it comes to replayability; the game does feature a New Game + and I am currently playing the game on my fourth playthrough (New Game +++), and still am enjoying it. I made platinum trophy just on my fourth playthrough aswell. I've spent around 150h + on the game. The game is great (in size), but I feel maybe they could've made it even bigger with more emphasis on each area e.g there is not a whole lot of action taking place on "Bloodwater Beach" and the area in general west of Cassardis. This is more of a explore-as-you-go (there is nothing associated with the main quest happening here, so there is no "need" to go there). Maybe add a city or a village to the far left of the map. With what area we have to roam, the game still offers a great world to explore and do missions in.
A great game with incredible combat mechanics, unique way of including online gaming through the pawn system and Online boss-events, and a free mix-and-match vocation RPG-system.
Sound and Music:
A quick note on the sound and music features of this game. The misuc is subtle and basically your typical rpg-fantasy epic music. There are a couple of signature tunes that loop at certain times of the day (in-game), fight music and boss anthems. The sounds feel right from the sheeting of a blade to the dropping of a wooden bucket. The pawns talk constantly -which some players find annoying (read: FORUM), but this can be adjusted, atleast on your own pawn, via the Knowledge chair. I find the talking interesting and you constantly learn new techniques to combat foes by listening to them. In a combat scenario it is important to pay attention to what they say and only sometimes (at important events?) the action is slowed down and zooms in on a pawn giving you an important piece of advice ("Tis weak to fire" , "I'll lure it down" , "I grant you Ices' Kiss" etc). if you listen to what they say, they will be helpful. But they also talk as you roam the land, and I must say that I sometimes get tired of hearing "This rock serves as a great wall ...." , "What is this?" (picks up a bucket), "What is that?" (picks up rock) and the likes. But mostly they give you additional addition of what this region is about ("The beasts of this area prove to be tougher", "Bandits prowl this area -be cautious!" ).
The voices available for the Arisen and pawns is also a bit cheap. Basically it is one voice with five different pitch levels, ranging from highest pitch to lowest pitch. The voices of the NPC's though are more varied than Skyrim and Oblivion put together. This statement might be a hyperbole, but there certaintly are alot of different voice actors. The music and sound-effects, none the less, is pretty great in Dragon's Dogma. I just love the sound of bottle being corked after being filled with water, oil or poison.
The bad:
-The game only features one save game(pr. profile?) so this means that you are limited to two saves (auto-saves are separate) - this can result in some annoying moments of mission progression. Save often and true!
-When progressing past certain events in the game, some missions get unavailable. This can be a bit of a pain.
-Some missions doesn't have the proper affect on characer-development that would be realistic. Spoiler :
When doing the duchess-mission, and choose to save the duchess from the duke, you get thrown into jail. Even though you now SHOULD be labeled as the duchess' lover, the duke seems to have forgotten the entire incident the next time you talk to him. Another problem - Spoiler :
When you early on accept a mission to follow the Night Champion to spy on his moves, you discover that the Night Champion is Ser Julien, but somehow, for the rest of the game, your pawns keep commenting on who the Night Champion might be.... the night champion is SER JULIEN!!!! We know that!!
-Some trophies can be difficult to understand (vague).
-Can be hard to get your pawn(s) to do what you want during combat. The pawn commands consit of four commands: 'Help!', 'Help!!', 'Go', and 'Come'. There could be some better options like 'Wait/Stay Here', 'use ability', 'pick up items/search'.
Final notes:
Dragon's Dogma is a great action-rpg game that has kept me occupied for a long time, and I think it will suit both hardcore rpg-players (the missing lore leaves a gap of mystery, immersion in world, etc.) and the more casual rpg-gamer. The pawn and grab-mechanics systems work like a charm and give the combat-scenarios more depth. It is a true joy to fight the towering beasts while your hand-picked pawns shout informative instructions to you. The warrior's two-handed weapon deals massive amounts of damage and the satisfying sound and effect of the sword hitting flesh is amazing- just as the ranged power of the longbow or the homing flames of the mage is equally fantastic. It is fun to climb in levels to unlock better pawns and awesome abilities to use with your character created using the great character editor.
Game name : Dragon's Dogma
Played on : PlayStation 3
Hours played : 150 +
Trophies achieved : All, platinum
Main story length : 50-60 hours (some side-board missions done)
Similiar Games : "Dark Souls" - unique multiplayer, innovative "co-op", no fast-travel (without the proper eqiupment)
"Shadows of the Colossuss" - similiar climbing mechanics, giant monsters with different strategies, no fast-travel.
"Kingdoms of Amalur: Reconing - similiar combat, maybe same main-story length, loot-system (random loot)