As someone who spent a large chunk of the weekend delving into this awesome little game, let me help out anyone who's unsure!
First up, to be clear about the type of games I like and why (so you know if this applies to you or not) here's my view on the games that it's likely to be compared to.
Demon's / Dark Souls
Two of the best console games to come out in the last few years. Not because they're perfect, far from it, but because they dare to
challenge which is such a nice change. And also because they're demanding of the player, and yet fair. It's rare you get killed cheaply (though it does happen), but it really makes you work for your successes.
I put a stupid amount of playtime into these two games. :twisted:
Skyrim
Great in vision, not so great in execution. Besides the various bugs and technical problems, the actual gameplay always felt kind of lacking to me. The combat especially, you rarely felt like you had
proper control over what you were doing and often ended up swinging wildly instead. The world was vast and amazing, but most of the things that populated it started to feel very samey and boring after a while, and didn't feel like the content matched the vision.
Right, that's out the way.
Dragon's Dogma (PS3, but I assume the Xbox version to be much the same)
Visuals:
I've seen lots of people say that it's visually bland, but I'm really not seeing that at all. Yeah, it's got the RPG tropes of castles, forests, hills, you know... landscape, that most 'medieval + magic' RPG's tend to have, but it's pretty detailed.
Particularly the lighting, which is amazing to be honest, fully dynamic, with a full day-night cycle? Very nice! The shadows are a little rough-edged, but nowhere near as poor as Skyrims were! (they were apalling, frankly, on the PS3 at least, I assume the PC version must've been a lot better!)
Spell effects are pretty neat too, for what it's worth, much better than Dark Souls' spells
Speaking of the full day-night cycle... a battle in pitch darkness against a Manticore in a forest, lit only by your lanterns and the fire being blasted all around is really a sight to behold, and pretty damn awesome.
Sound:
Pretty good thus far. Some of the voice work is a bit wooden, but the main people (ie, the voices for the pawns) all seem to be pretty good, which is a relief, as you can hear a lot from them sometimes!
By and large, the pawn-chat
rolleyes: that sounds so bad) is pretty good, occasionally very informative, and actually worth listening to in combat to know what's going on.
Spell and combat effects are as you would expect, and pretty good thus far. Again, they tend to be good indicators of what's going on and where.
Gameplay:
This has taken a little while for me to get used to. The conventions of the RPG genre are pretty well established... but this game likes to work differently, and it took me a while to adjust.
Your average RPG quests will tend to be dealt with pretty quickly, they're usually somewhere local and pretty well signposted by the game.
Dragon's Dogma really doesn't do that much. There are a few 'kill X of these' quests, but they're not given by people, and don't require returning to anywhere to finish, they just complete once you've taken out enough of X creature, you get the reward, and that's it, so they aren't a pain to do at all. (These have so far all been got from notice-board type quests for me, with NPC's having the more interesting quests)
The more involved quests so far have required me to go places where I have no idea where they are, which has involved a lot of travel, and normally my repeated dying on the way.
Initially, I found that rather frustrating, but that's just because I'm not used to things not being obvious. But that's a problem with the genre, not with the game.
If you're the type of player who likes to get a quest, do it, and get it out the way and get the reward... I suspect this might irritate you. If you're happy to assemble a fair list of quest and objectives and do them as and when you find out how and where they are, then you'll be fine.
Suffice to say... just because you've picked up a quest, it does NOT mean you'll be able to do it.
One example of this can be found right in the starting village before you leave. It's possible I just hadn't levelled enough (though I'm not sure what I could have missed) in order to do it, but it killed me repeatedly, and I'm stubborn enough to just keep trying :twisted: but I eventually relented, then came back a few levels later, and it was just fine, though still a bit of a challenge!
If you can adjust to a less regimented way of approaching quests (ie, get it, then do it), you'll be fine.
Combat:
Oh the combat... the combat is glorious. :biggrin:
The controls feel a
little bit like Dragon Age 2 or Kingdoms of Amalur (basic attacks on buttons + specials off of L1/R1 + button), but infinitely more satisfying than either.
The world, and the monsters, have a physical presence that you rarely get in games. They move about a LOT, they're pretty smart, (well, Goblins aren't, but what do you expect from Goblins?) and enemy types are very distinct. Bandit fights are very different from a cyclops (big, slow, dumb), and that is VERY different from a manticore in a forest in the dead of night.
I've run across many a group of bandits who keep their ranged people way back, just as they should, and pick you off with some pretty painful attacks, while the rogue and warrior sorts are merrily laying waste to your own people. You can't just fight whatever is in your face and expect to win, you've got to be aware of what's going on around you and react accordingly. Similarly, you'll need to make sure your team is a good mix of skills, for obvious reasons.
In short, the combat is very active, can be very tactical, and very varied.
The only worry I have about the combat, is I have a feeling that the available moves aren't going to vary too much as the game progresses. BUT... bear in mind I haven't even gone to a second class/job yet, so that's hardly a surprise.
Also bear in mind that you can switch jobs pretty much whenever, and level them independently, I just haven't yet, i've been focussing on the one for now. So I ASSUME that when you have several jobs at a high level, you can mix and match their skills to some extent... but i can't be sure about that yet.
In short, to summarise, the combat is bloody awesome. But i can see that it MIGHT get repetitive... though it certainly hasn't yet.
Pawns
Won't go into much detail here (this post is stupid-long already :whiste
, suffice to say, Pawns are a great idea, seem to be executed well, and are genuinely useful and smart, which is quite rare in gaming! Obviously they don't have that much personality, which is very much intentional, given their interchangeable nature, and is addressed within the game-world's setting and history as well, but their ability to be members of your group, the quest hint system, and valuable sources of knowledge about combat and the world areas all at once, is a brilliant idea.
Gear:
This isn't an RPG that's focussed on gear. Simple as that.
It IS important, don't get me wrong, in fact, if you don't make sure you get hold of some fairly decent gear, you're likely to get killed repeatedly, and quickly (I certainly did until I started to get some better armour) but it's not even remotely a focal point of the game.
Skyrim dropped gear by the bucketload, and generally served no purpose other than selling for cash or encumbering me and being dumped
Amalur did much the same, though at least there you could make them into resources for crafting.
This needs you to buy your gear, and upgrade it, and get the best you can with your limited cash (at least to start with) as you'll need it, as you won't find it dropping from enemies or in random crates all over the place.
I think i've picked up a grand total of 3 bits of gear so far in my adventuring. Two I sold, one I used. The vast amount of my gear has been bought, and then upgraded.
Dragon's Dogma has a upgrading and combining system that uses all sorts of resources (ores, stones, metals, herbs, inks, potions, etc) and combines them to make other things, or uses them as a required part for an upgrade to a weapon, or armour. It pays to keep hold of most small odd sounding ingredients, that's for sure.
Not a lot to say here, other than experiment and tinker with the assortment of junk that'll end up in your bags, as most of it can be used for something.
Sum up:
As if you couldn't guess, by the stupid length of my post already, I personally feel this is an awesome game.
It takes a bit of getting in to, it's different enough that if you stick to RPG conventions like "I just got this quest, MUST do this next", or combat tactics "kill whatever is attacking me!" then you're likely to have problems and possibly not like it.
But... if you do come around to it's way of doing things, or don't suffer from such OCD compulsions as I do of "MUST beat it!" and are prepared to come back later on instead... then you'll do just fine.
If you liked the challenge of Dark Souls and found yourself thinking "Man, this would be great with a 4 person party and a more open world setting", then you will probably like it a lot. The combat is a lot more hectic and a lot less based on precision timing and counterattacks than Dark Souls, but it is just as tactical, possibly moreso... just in different ways.
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