Dragon's Dogma
8.6
10
111
111
Simply Magnificent
When buying Dragon's Dogma, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I had heard it was fun from a few of my friends and so I decided to give it a chance. It was the right choice. The game is smooth, difficult and down right fun. Most games similar to the style of Dragon's Dogma are rough and that gets in the way of game play. However, the game is smooth and quick-paced never to lose your interest. The only flaw to this game is that it keeps me up until way past the time that I should go to sleep. CAPCOM did a marvelous job and has proven to be a superb company.
10/19/12
You won't put this down for awhile.
Dragon's Dogma is a terrific game to play if you're into games that will give you a challenge and reward you with great and fulfilling game-play. It will make you scream during some parts of its adventure, and it will make you feel so proud during other parts. If you are looking for a new adventure game to play, here are some reasons to buy into Dragon's Dogma.
1. Dragon's Dogma not only allows you to customize your character, but a pawn that uniquely stand beside you through your adventure. Included with your own pawn is: weapon and armor setup, leveling, skill setup, class setup, tactics setup, and a unique feature that allows your pawn to be used by other players online. Leveling and purchasing equipment for your pawn makes them more ready for battle, and during battle your pawn needs to be ready. When in battle, your pawn will -- and i'm not kidding-- learn how to slay the multitudes of beasts and creatures within the world to help your character out.
2. Class systems in Dragon's Dogma seem to be limited in number, but there is a lot of flexibility and structure with each class. As a general rule of thumb, your main class starts your character with a build he/she can work off of through the rest of the game. Advanced and hybrid classes are optional, but allow for many changes to be made. Each class is fun to play as as you play the game.
3. Combat is a key beauty in this game. Imagine being able to fight a Ogre within most games. All you're doing is striking at it's feet until it falls over and dies, or until you die. In Dragon's Dogma, they involve a unique system Shadow of the Colossus did. Instead of just slashing at the Ogre's feet, you can leap onto its back and climb to its head to get a few damaging blows in before it shakes you off! The combat in this game is rich and unique because you actually get a sense that you're killing an ogre, or a cyclops, or a chimera, or a dragon, or whatever the game throws at you!
4. Sound is wonderful in this game. On a personal account, when i was reading the instruction manual while at the title screen, i was rocking out to some crazy good j-pop music. Battles or even walking through the world of Dragon's Dogma will involve some pretty fantastic music that will envelope you in it's atmosphere.
5. Free world exploration. A lot of people are getting into the realm of free-world exploration, because it gives players something to do when they aren't off doing a mission, or slaying a monster, or escorting someone from point a to point b. You will be revisiting places often in this world, but everything that you find will respawn. Chests and large boss encounters will constantly leave your adventure filled with excitement, so that the action never ends.
These few reasons are some of the mechanics that Dragon's Dogma does well in it's gameplay. There are a few things that will bug a player, and warning the player of these things is crucial.
1. There is only one system of fast travel, and it will cost you. That's right, you will be revisiting places very often, and will need quite a bit of coin to be able to go back to your original place to go out and trek again. This becomes annoying at times, but does offer a simple use of re-spawning enemies and grinding for experience and loot.
2. Pawn will not shut up and become annoying at times. While it is very cool that pawns will provide you with information on enemies, and you don't feel lonesome when you do play this game, pawns will sometimes talk a little too much. This cannot be directly dealt with in itself, so be warned.
3. Tough game-play will constantly be a threat of your sanity. There are times where the difficulty spikes in the game to where you will want to scream and throw your controller. These moments are few though and scattered through the game. Just remember that you do not have to always fight, and carry around plenty of supplies to be prepared.
4. No evident story really rests in Dragon's Dogma. For awhile, you will be confused as to what will come next in the game. There are a few key roads that make a stream of linear plot, but the game constantly trails off to leave you confused with what's going on.
Dragon's Dogma will leave you in awe from it's impressive gameplay and it's awesome action oriented combat. Dragon's Dogma really hones in on it's good parts and takes risks that make it great. For it's really annoying faults in it, it's still absolutely fun to traverse Gran Soren again and again. You will love this game, and you will not want to put it down.
6/30/12
Great Game, not for beginners.
After playing this game for countless hours I would first like to start with the bad - 1.) The Story, the story is boring and has you confused on what your actual goal is. 2.) The beginning, I can honestly say when I first played the beginning I wish I never spent any of my money. It was the most lack luster, most boring, and most stupid beginning I ever played. 3.) There is no quick way to travel! Not even a mount! I run for hours! Next I would like to review the good things about that game - 1.) IT's AWESOME NO MATTER HOW BAD THE BEGINNING IS, after fighting my way through the horrible beginning I soon started to get attached, one hour became two, and two hours became a day. Replay value is very high as you could explore the game in many different ways, shapes, and forms. 2.) The Visuals, though the character models could use some work and there are some lack-luster textures, the environment is beautiful, the sun glare fits perfect with the bright lush scenery. 3.) The boss battles, my god was it fun, and it was VERY challenging as well! A Challenge is good and leaves you sticking to the game again, the bosses are huge and reminds me greatly of Shadows of the Colossus. It is as if Skyrim and Monster Hunter has a baby, and throw in a little Dark Souls to fill in the goth. OVERALL, it is a solid game, though it can be very difficult for even veteran gamers. I highly recommend this to RPG fans, bare through the beginning and I am sure you will love this game.
4/3/13
Hours of fun... then it's all lost.
This game would awesome if it auto saved frequently. Currently you can roam for hours outside the town. As soon as you die though... all that time spent, items acquired, and EXP gained is gone! Can't stand these gaming companies that like to hold onto the none checkpoint/save features like Final Fantasy used to be. I don't have the time nor the patience to deal with it.
3/30/13
amazzzing
Great story, game play is sick nasty, tonss of options and things to do, super fun crazy badass boss's, this game is deffinitly top 10 of all xbox games, rivals skrym maybe even beats it, if there was a coop mode this game wold be legandarryyyyy, buy this game if u want to enjoy a bit of greatnesss!!!
3/26/13
Give the game 10+ hours before making judgement
After 3-5 hours of this game I was ready to admit I had made a mistake in buying it. I kept playing because I recalled reading somewhere that the "Game" really doesn't start until a few hours in... and I am SOOO glad I stuck in there. The first 5, 6, maybe even 8-10 hours give you an intro into all the cool stuff in Dragon's Dogma but the game doesn't fully "open up" and really give you all the tools you need until you reach a really big city (not where you begin the game... it's a little after that)..... and when it opens up there is a LOT to like.
Graphics are top-notch with spell and magic effects being AMAZING. The sound and music is perfect, it perfectly fits the tone and atmosphere. Magic Archers shoot blue, glowing arrows that streak through the air in a very neat way.... Mages can throw fireballs, lightning.... they can even summon a lightning whip that they can wield in their hands.
The gameplay is the main course of this game (as it should rightly be, yet oftentimes games will sacrifice gameplay for flash and explosions). For the first couple of hours you are stuck as 1 of the 3 base classes (Basically Fighter, Thief, Mage, though with slightly different names) and not that many offensive moves. You've got your basic: "Main Weapon, secondary weapon, various armor slots and slots for enchanted stuff", and with quite a bit of variety in each (although your options don't really grow super-rapidly until you get to the bigger town I mentioned" The fighting itself is somewhere around Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Dark Souls.... once you expand your move-set you can juggle enemies, shield-bash, drive your daggers into the ground and cause a huge explosion.... there are a LOT of different moves and augments, mostly separated from class to class (example: A Strider (thief) might have rapid dodging and back-stabbing moves while a Magic Archer (A thief-mage hybrid and my personal favorite class) will have SOME overlapping moves but have more magic-oriented dagger moves (like causing explosions, sending out waves of holy energy, etc.) Once you upgrade your character with a few moves you'll quickly see the crazy-high number of fighting styles, moves, techniques, etc.
You will usually have a party of 4 (yourself, a "main" companion, and 2 temporary companions of your choosing.) You only directly control yourself, but your main companion, or main "Pawn" as they are called, is with you all the time and you can pick what class he is, what weapons/armor he uses, even his looks, voice, tactics, etc. You even choose how much advice to give and other priorities. Your other 2 party members are other players' Main Pawns... but they don't gain level or abilities as they travel with you. Instead: they accompany you until you've leveled up too much for them to be as much help, then you choose a couple more to replace them. Finding the perfect "Minor Pawns" is easy: there is a filtering system where you can sort by Level, Class, Skills, even battle tendencies. There is a lot of room for experimentation.... you have a main "Level" that determines your base stats and hit points, but each "Class" has a level (1-9), more powerful skills and augments (like higher health, more stamina, etc) as your class levels up, and you can switch classes at any of the world's Innkeeper/Trainer-people. You can do this with your main character and your main pawn.... and it really doesn't have to be a "balanced" group with tanks, healers, etc. I've ravaged the countryside and had just as much fun with 4 mages as I've had with 4 Rangers and an Assassin. On a fun side-note, when you're fighting Giants or Dragons or other huge monsters, you can actually climb on them to try to land critical hits on eyes, head, etc. Think God of War bosses, but instead of getting a QTE where the game does all the work and you just hit "X" or "Square" when prompted, you're sill in total control.
This game is HUGE and there is some DLC to add more quests and weapons/armor. I'd recommend picking up 1 or 2 of the weapon pack DLCs because until you complete the first couple of "Main Plot" missions there isn't a huge selection of arms. When i first looked at the main World Map I was concerned that the area was too small.... don't worry. My furthest game is about maybe 40-50 hours in and I've seen MAYBE 15-20% of the map. My Magic Archer (whom I've been nearly the whole time) is only a level 8 out of 9 and I have many hours to go until I "purchase" all of the possible Skills and Augments. Admittedly I've been taking my time, but that should give you an idea of how much content is here.
Dragon's Dogma is basically an open-world RPG where fighting and combat is actually really enjoyable... joining Dark Souls and Kingdoms of Amalur in a small, elite group. If you decide to pick this up, PLEASE stick with it until you get to where all 9 classes are unlocked (about 10 hours in, thus my tagline on the review summary.) There is a LOT to like here.... you just have to have patience to make it through the first few hours (they aren't BORING hours but they definitely don't highlight many of Dragon's Dogma's good points.)
2/14/13
Loved it
I wish there was more. Bigger world. Longer Quests. More of everything. Cant wait until the next major release.
1/27/13
review by deron
ok, so i loved playing this game! voice actors are incredibly average lol, and the gameplay is incredible. i played this for hours and love it so much!!!
12/7/12
Awesome game
This is one of the best games ive ever played, because it isn't too easy, the enemies are extremely hard to beat, depending on them, which makes the game a lot more enjoyable because you have to actually pay attention to where enemies might be and plan your attack instead of just rushing in there and killing them all. it is actually really frustrating sometimes, which is why you have to save often, this is pretty much one of the elder scrolls game (Morrowind, Skyrim, Oblivion) and Dark Souls/Demons Souls combined, making an epic adventure game.
11/12/12
Not Worth It
I bought this game a few days ago and was eager to get started after reading several reviews on different websights. I absolutely love Elderscrolls V and Dragon Age Origins. Thats what I thought this game was going to be like or at least the same caliber. NOT! After several hours of play I was bored already. The story line could have been really good but CAPCOM made it a lame duck. The characters are very shallow, there is no one of any interest during this game to speak with and the cut scenes are not captivating at all. Really wish I had rented this first before blowing 65 bucks. I would put it more in the catagory of 15 dollars at best to get your money's worth. Just rent it to see if you can hack your way through the mundaneness before you open your wallet.
10/12/12