If there is such a thing as fun Hollywood blockbusters in gaming, this game would be one of them.
PC and PS3 versions reviewed.
Dragon's Dogma is a third person action RPG published and developed by Capcom for the Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. The game can be considered both a blend of Western and Japanese RPG's, and I found the result quite exciting.
GAMEPLAY
Outside of the Monster Hunter series we’ve never really had
climbing mechanics like this in gaming since Shadow of the Colossus. While
sometimes a little unpolished, the mechanics add a lot to the game and make it
stand out amongst other RPG’s.
The range of classes and abilities is certainly wealthy and all
seem quite fun. While you can have your traditional warriors, archers and
mages, you can really mix things up with magic archers, mystic knights and
more. My personal favourite class was the assassin, as it allowed you to
quickly switch between close combat and picking enemies off from afar, not to
mention how fluid it often felt too. People also go on about sorcerer’s being
able to cast huge, visually appealing spells which can decimate the enemy.
I know some classes have the ability to, but more ways to
dodge or block would certainly improve the game, as some enemies have moves
that look like you should be able to counter them yet all you can do is look on
in horror as they hit you with a combo.
While the combat against smaller enemies is fine, the game
really shines at the boss battles. With loads of different enemies to encounter
such as a multitude of dragons, cockatrices, chimeras, hydras and more, each
with their own set of tactical strengths and physical weaknesses. One such
example is how these bosses aren’t always stupid, sometimes if a dragon or a
griffon realises they’re losing they will try their best to fly off, so you’ll
need to be sure to take out their wings.
There’s a nice variety of weapons and armour to be found,
most of which you’ll find after defeating certain big bosses. I’m not one to
always enjoy crafting systems, but perhaps a basic style system would have been
nice in this game, even if it was just to adjust the colour of armour and
weapons. There is a bare bones alchemy system, throwing a few herbs together can
result in a variety of potions upping your strength or regaining your stamina.
Of course the game's main selling point is the pawn system, and while it's fun, it isn't really anything new, as it doesn't really differ from any other companion systems. The biggest catch is how the whole thing works online, with you and your friends being able to use each others pawns to help you out and gain them experience. The system works to an extent offline too, but instead you'll just find ready made pawns to join you, and you can't send them away with gifts and critiques. Mixing and matching your party to find the best team for you can certainly lead to satisfying results though.
The night mechanic is certainly worth mentioning, as most
games usually just dull the lights for a few minutes before the sun comes back
out. In Dragon’s Dogma, you’ll want to get back before dark, as far more
enemies will come after you in the night, pretty much nowhere outside of city
walls or guarded camps can be considered safe.
The jail system is possibly the worst I’ve ever seen in a
game, they might as well have just not bothered adding it in. Scrawny low level
guards pursue you if you hit someone, and if they get close enough they will
arrest you, with no way to attempt to fight them off, despite you and your
pawns clearly being superior to one guard. The only way to escape arrest is by
teleporting out the capital with a ferry stone, or you could bribe the guards
once in jail, which doesn’t really make sense, why not just deal with that
outside, I fear to think of where your character hides the money in jail.
STORY
A dragon flies into protagonist village and tears things up,
steals your character’s heart and tells you that you need to go after him in
order to get it back. Along your way you’ll meet a cast of interesting monsters
and overly boring characters.
The story sounds somewhat terrible and generic, and it is,
up until around the final 15% where it actually gets really quite good. Despite
the story improving towards the end that it doesn’t make up for the lacklustre
characters, and when I say lacklustre characters I might be letting the game
off lightly as, outside of Grigori, all the characters really are poor, I’d
hardly even call them generic or anything, they’re purpose is pretty much just
to give you quests. If you sat down to talk about the game after you’d finished
it, I imagine most people wouldn’t be able to name many characters.
It also would have been nice to learn more about the world
but there is little lore in-game, which is a shame because the few titbits of
information we do get really tease a potentially interesting world.
Grigori and some of the other enemies look fantastic, but
many human characters and certain textures are certainly lacking for today’s
hardware. The game looks like something that would’ve come out in the early
days of the PS3, not in 2012.
The framerate does occasionally drop, usually when a lot is
going on, such as during big battles or even when casting some spells. The game
does also crash sometimes too, which can certainly lead to frustration as
you’ll have to go from wherever the game was last saved.
SOUND
A strong soundtrack certainly helps push this game forward,
as most encounters with big enemies will certainly lead to you being more
pumped up with the dramatic soundtrack blaring away in the background. The
songs that play outside of combat are nice too; tracks in the city certainly
make it sound like a safe place. Something I really liked about the soundtrack
was how orchestral and raw it sounded, rather than it all being recorded on a
computer somewhere.
While all the voice acting was decent, Grigori's voice actor deserves a special mention as he always stole the show whenever he appeared, thanks to both the character design and the voice work.
VALUE FOR MONEY
The main story should take around 20 hours if you do all of
the quests, and the rest of the game’s content, such as side quests and
exploration, should take you around another 10 to 20 hours. NG+ is also worth
playing, not just because the game is fun and worth playing again, but because
when replaying the game you can see how clever the story really is.
I really wanted to give this game a higher score, but it
does have some issues. Framerate can occasionally drop and the game does crash
sometimes. These problems along with a largely poor story means I can’t push its
rating that bit higher. What’s here is excellent fun though and definitely
worth picking up if you enjoy RPG’s or action games, in fact I’d recommend
anyone could enjoy it, albeit with ignoring some of its less polished edges.
It’s quite simple for whom to recommend this expansion too,
if you'd like a big challenge, or are a fan of challenging games like Dark Souls,
you’ll probably enjoy the content of this expansion. If you were content with
the difficulty of the base game towards the end and aren’t a fan of very
challenging games, then this expansion is probably not for you. I’ve heard
people deny that this is like Dark Souls; my answer to them would be to look at
the final boss, so much about it seems Dark Souls.
I personally enjoyed some of the battles in the expansion,
but many of the bosses had the ability to one shot you or your pawns, and I
really don’t enjoy things like that in games, they feel like cheap tricks to
create a delusion of challenge instead. The only time I’m okay with these kinds
of abilities is when you have plenty of time and warning to stop the potential
move happening, some of the fights have you chance, such as the first big boss,
and some of them didn’t, such as the final boss.
The story of the expansion goes that a woman named Olra
wants you to journey to Bitterblack Isle and find out what’s happened there and
why she is drawn to it. I won’t spoil it but I did actually find the conclusion
to the story somewhat satisfying, it actually explained quite a lot about the
expansion. It is somewhat comparable to the base game again, in the the regards
that the story is largely non-existent until the later stages.
For the PC version the frame rate issues of the PS3/Xbox 360
versions are no longer a thing, especially now that the game runs at 60fps
rather than 30fps. The game does still crash sometimes though.
“Into Free (Dangan)” by B’z is missing from the title screen
too, which is a shame. However the music in the expansion is very good, much
like in the base game. Some of the tracks really fit in nicely and make
Bitterblack Isle feel like a hostile hellish place.
I also don’t really understand why they couldn’t release the
expansion as DLC, rather than solely attached to the base game. The official
word seemed to be that the expansion had “major technical limitations” although I don’t really know how that
makes sense for something releasing in 2013, especially when most of Dark
Arisen’s content takes place in a completely different place to the base game.
If you were a
huge fan of the base game then expansion is worth picking up, or if you didn’t
play the original PS3/Xbox 360 version or wanted to try it out for PC I’d certainly recommend picking it up, just for
the base game. However I’m not sure it’s worth the effort of trading in the
base game for the Dark Arisen edition, as the new content won't be everyone's cup of tea. Don't go in expecting Dragon's Dogma, go in expecting to play something on a similar playing field, but with a different set of rules.
