A solid RPG that delevers and attempts to make in roads in the genera.
Graphics wise Dragon's Dogma may or may not win you over on first impressions. It is neither a graphic power house like Final Fantasy 13 nor is it on same level as Dragon's Age origins was in its graphical appeal. It's somewhere in the middle yet at the same time close to where Demon's Souls was. It's hard to hard to really describe where it stands on the scale but in the bigger realm of things the graphics are solid. The world itself is vast and features a wide verity of locations but for the most part the main area that you'll progress in feels like on big massive map with its only real distinguishing features being the areas based around it.
On the gameplay side of things Dragon's Dogma core mechanics make it feel like your basic hack and slash game but with its own unique twist. After you've done the prologue you'll set up your character the way you want him to look and chose from the starting 3 basic classes you'll go about your marry way and along the way level up, earn experience points with which to buy new skills and so forth. At the same time you're not stuck with one class or another in fact once you reach a certain you can change your class to something different. In the process you'll get to create your very own pawn. Your pawn will be your only constant companion throughout your journey as the other 2 available party member slots will be filled with other pawns that you can recruit. Recruited pawns cannot level up in your game but instead level up with their arisen. These changes in stats with the pawns that you borrow do not get applied until after they have returned to their realm. Likewise other players may choose to use your pawn and the beauty of this system is that you won't know that someone else is using yours until you get a pop up after resting at an in saying that your pawn has returned from assisting another arisen. Think of it as a kind of unique twist that both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls use with their messaging system.
On the audio front Dragon's Dogma does a pretty good job. The pawns themselves are voiced and while the selection may seem limited for both genders in terms of their voice's they will talk while you're out on your journey. This does seem like a good idea however after a while it just gets old as they have a tendency to repeat the same lines over and over again with the only real change depending on the situation but even then it's the same lines over and over again with nothing real to spice it up. No clever banter between them or even an attempt to have any sort of conversation with their fellow pawns. More so disappointing is that your arisen never says a word at all. Aside from that the voice acting is solid and the music works within its framework.
As a whole Dragon's Dogma is a very unique RPG that does something new and different and is a first from a publisher mostly known for its Resident Evil and Street Fighter games.