Dragon’s Dogma, developed and published by Capcom, is a
brand new ‘Action RPG’ developed by the minds behind Devil May Cry, Resident
Evil and Breath of Fire. As before, I’m going to leave story details out for
your own enjoyment, and review from a gameplay and first-person standpoint.
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| Introduction Scene |
At first I was very excited for Dragon’s Dogma; the gameplay
they showed at previous events looked outstanding and resonated deep with my
love for Shadow of the Colossus. Many people claimed it was the HD-Monster
Hunter people were looking for. Others also claimed it was a risk from Capcom
to bring a new form of Action RPG to the market; a mix of east and west RPGs to
create a blend of something ever-so-unique. Popping the CD into the tray, I
watched the intro play out, calm-soothing music played, and everything felt
just so right-... guitars burst into the forefront accompanied by a vocalist,
screaming English lyrics and pounding away onto their instruments. Rather taken
aback I quickly starting the game; that certainly wasn’t expected from a
fantasy RPG, routed firmly in the medieval time-period. It reminded me of an
incredibly cheesy anime-intro, though each time I play Dragon’s Dogma I always
pause on the Main Menu to listen, it seems to have grown on me.
A quick tutorial level begins the game followed by a deep
Character Customisation, filled to the brim with both pretty and bizarre
options, an example being eyes similar to Brock’s from Pokémon and much more. The player
starts life in a small fishing port known as Cassardis, in the world of
Gransys, which is soon devastated by the attack of a recently appeared Dragon. A chest ripping and heart-chomping moment later, the character awakes as an
Arisen, destined to fell the Dragon in order to re-claim their heart, and thus
begins Dragon’s Dogma. Tasked with this mammoth quest, the player must journey
the world, meet pawns and NPCs-alike and fell beasts of various sizes in order
to become the one-true-hero that Gransys deserves. However, not everyone is so keen to see this
task complete, and you’ll meet many-a-twist, turn, and adversary along the way,
however, don’t expect a narrative thick with plot-points and a plethora of
characters. The story is fairly light and although the narrative keeps up pace (through
a variety of related side-quests and main quests) some quests can be missed and
locked out due to missing out on an earlier event; this is a frustrating pain as a
player, especially when narrative lore, as well as the
ever-so-beautiful-yet-materialistic Achievements are missed.
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| A closer look at my Character |
The world of Gransys is rather small in size, especially
when compared with that of Skyrim or Cyrodiil. But part of the reason for this
is you will be hoofing it on foot through the whole world. While there is a
fast-travel to capital option available when it becomes affordable, the game
possesses no mounts and no form of vehicle travel. Initially this was an issue
and I felt that my time was wasted running so far a-field for a quest, perhaps
this is a habit from years of being spoilt in RPGs; fast travel and mounts
being a staple and must-have of games with an open world. After sometime I
began to appreciate the world of Gransys, and I could tell where I was just by
looking at my surroundings, ultimately the world felt small yet still unique
and varied, if fast-travel had been thrown into the option I wouldn’t have
taken the time to appreciate the world for what it is.
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| Viewing a Hill-Figure |
Aforementioned was the Pawns; a rather intriguing system and
one that is fairly unique to this game. Pawns are NPCs from a world known as
the Rift, they look like humans yet possess no emotions and only comment on
your progress; quite a interesting lore comparison to the artificial
intelligence of the system.
In the same manner as
creating your own character, you are tasked with creating a companion. This
companion will journey with you through the game and level-up alongside you.
Though most interestingly is the ability for other players to rent your Pawn
online for Rift-Crystals, a form of currency, in order to be one of their four
man group. Creating a balanced party is important in Dragon’s Dogma so quite a
large part of my time was spent looking through other player’s pawn’s stats and
abilities in order to choose the right one. I oft went with a party of females,
just for the eye-candy. Impressively is the ability for pawns to
learn of enemie's weaknesses, and learn of areas and dungeons when used in
another world. They then navigate on their own, letting you know of chests,
levers and various routes within specific areas.
Though this system is highly useful, problems arise when
monsters enter the equation. Pawns have an excessive amount of things to shout
in mid-combat which often could mean two or three pawns shouting over-the-top
of each other at any one time, cluttering the audio spectrum, and sometimes
even interrupting themselves, it was an irritating decision and I wish the
audio option for muting just Pawn’s Voices were possible, especially when everyone seems to choose the same voice for their companion. I often
never rented pawns that had additional elemental buffs other than Fire
Boon/Affinity, due to its over-powered nature to 90% of the enemies
in the game, not only this, but if a pawn possessed for example, Fire and
Ice, a pawn would sometimes choose to buff me with Ice for a fight; against a
enemy weak to fire, and then buff the rest of the party with fire. This was
frustrating and I would often end up having to remove them from the party due
to the damage reduction I would receive on my attacks.
A player can also send
you feedback based upon your Companion’s Appearance, Battle Prowess and
Helpfulness in a manner of 5 star ratings, accompanied with a gift from their
inventory. This was always a nice gesture though sometimes I couldn’t help but
feel people rated default in order to save-time navigating menus.
Although the Pawn system is surprisingly fun, and it’s
always nice to think about a companion as more than a piece of AI; dressing
them up, giving them the correct abilities, and so on, I
couldn’t help but feel a system similar to Final Fantasy XII’s Gambit, or more
Artificial Intelligence work could have benefited the Pawns. My inability
to use items on Pawns, or for them to use them regularly, and the mistakes in
combat made it a frustrating manner of eliminating the possibility from
ever occurring, which meant often choosing pawns with specific ability sets.
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| Myself and Pawns looking down on Gran Soren |
Moving onto Combat, probably the biggest selling point of
Dragon’s Dogma, imagine Monster Hunter, but faster, with less large enemy
variety, but chuck in a climbing element akin to Shadow of the Colossus, and that’s what Dragon’s Dogma
represents. I can’t help but feel like I’m playing a similar version of Monster
Hunter, what with the same composer working on the game, as well as it being
developed by Capcom. The combat is always exhilarating and fun, regardless of
how many times I take down the same enemy. Gripping onto the enemy as it throws
me around or flies through the air, thrusting my daggers into its throat, it is a
lot of fun, fun which doesn’t let up or become tiresome. The
relief and power you feel when toppling a larger foe, the music breaking into a
much more forward, fast composition, accompanying your every strike and arrow
fired feels fantastic, and it’s only ever-furthered with the wide range of
abilities and vocation system on offer. Dragon’s Dogma is a hard game, while
not on the same difficulty as the Souls series, it is still good practice to save
regularly after each major battle. The first time fighting an enemy can be
challenging and daunting, but after a while, much like Dark Souls; you’ll come
to grips with the enemy you are fighting and will be able to dodge, swipe and
cleave your way to victory.
The vocation system is essentially a class system. The game
contains 9 vocations, three which are base; Fighter, Strider and Mage, three
which are advanced forms of base; Warrior, Ranger and Sorcerer, and finally
three hybrid classes; Mystic Knight, Assassin, and Magic Archer. Each class
offers their own form of Weapon Skills, Core Skills and Augments. Weapon Skills
use Stamina in combat, and provide a wide-range of attacks, be it a flurry of
Dagger Strikes, or firing ten magic-imbued arrows at once. Core Skills add further
techniques to your standard Light and Heavy Attack, allowing the stringing and
delay of buttons to further add a variety of combos that don’t drain Stamina.
Finally, Augments are passive abilities that edit the way your class operates,
from allowing further flying arrows, to perfect blocks or curative increases.
This vocation system, coupled with the combat system, and pawn system (pawns
can also access all vocations except hybrids), allows for a fresh feeling of
combat right through the beginning, to post game, and new game+; it’s amazing
how a simple class change can change the way the game feels, with many vocations
possessing unique aspects, such as Magic Archers with their ability to lock-on
arrows within a targeting reticule for all attacks.
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| Griffon Combat |
Much of the game is spent slaying monsters and opening
chests to look for materials, these materials are then applied to weapons and
armour in order to enhance their star rating. These upgrades sadly don’t change
anything about the weapon visually, but it was always great fun scouring the
land for herbs and beasts in order to boost them stats further. Rumours
surfaced that the initial crafting system was meant to be similar to Monster Hunter, where weapons and armour are forged from hides and bones, though due to
time-constraints with the project this had to be changed, this is just a rumour
however, though I can say that a Monster Hunter style version of crafting would
have benefited this game due to the sheer number of materials there are.
Dragon’s Dogma presents a great soundtrack that spans a few
genres, ranging from epic guitar solos through to orchestral grandeur scores. While
the yelling from pawns can be rather off-putting it can still be useful, and
the ability to turn down sound effects, music volume and voices does come in
handy. Another feature in Dragon’s Dogma is the ability to Photo Share with
Facebook. The pictures in this review are taken from my version of the game,
and while slow to use, I used it often in order to capture my journey across
Gransys and share it with my friends, even encouraging a few to purchase; this
is no doubt the idea behind the Photo Share function, more games should have this.
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| Hydra Battle |
The game provides players with a Post Game area , one that
ties nicely to the lore of the world and overarching story. This post game
dungeon is full of chests and new beasts for the Arisen to slay, in order to
achieve a wide variety of new weapons and armour; my first foray into the
dungeon and the first boss was met with a crippling defeat as I failed to even
damage the beast. Further levelling and strategy were required to fell the
beast and I finally had a use for the Holy elemental buff. I foresee myself
spending many, many more hours in this dungeon, and I greatly look forward to
the range of new foes and bosses that I will encounter. Along with the Post
Game function, previously mentioned was the New Game+ function, the enemies in
New Game+ do not scale with the character, and I believe it is a mode meant for Achievement Mopping, as all equipment, inventory and counters carry across. While it is a shame
that no scaling is present, the Post-Game area should suffice for all your
Monster-Felling needs.
Throughout my whole journey in Gransys; I didn’t once encounter
a technical or graphical problem greater than the popping-in of NPCs, which was
0.5 seconds at best. Installing the game to the HDD really does seem to solve
problems and I have yet to see game-breaking glitches that were hinted at in
other reviews; though it is entirely possible that they have been hastily
patched. Another thing that is due for good mention is the lighting at night
time, while providing a realistic feel to the atmosphere, the sky-box and
lightning engine do look poor at night; with large circular dark ringed textures
covering the sky, though this is more of a personal complaint than a game-afflicting bug.
Gransys is a great world and one that I look forward to
returning to. It’s clear from the reception that this game has taken a risk,
and come out the other end mostly unscathed, sales seem positive, and it’s
entirely possible that Capcom can meet this reception by producing a sequel.
There are many things that the game could improve on, be it crafting, pawns or online play, but I believe Dragon’s
Dogma was well worth it, and if you’ll excuse me, I think Its time I
loot-grind further in the post-game area.
Thank you for the time taken to read this review. This is my second review and I'll appreciate any feedback on offer, as usual. Perhaps my review can offer insight into places where other reviews didn't.
Thanks again.
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