Dragon's Dogma reviews

This game is amazing. There is just so much good to say about it, so I'll start with the few faults:

• Graphics are a bit sub-par during cinamatics.
• World reactions to events are pretty much non-existent, beyond what happens in the main story line.
• Old World language may put off some people, lots of Aught's, Thous etc.

Otherwise, thats about all that is wrong with the game. Some of the many great things about it are:

• Amazing combat system. So much creativity, many many ways to kill a monster. Including grabbing and crawling over them stabbing.
• Various classes, each with weaknesses and benefits. But nothing OP.
• NPC system that is without a doubt the best companion AI seen in gaming for a long time. These guys learn from your actions and instruction, becoming a real benefit.
• Story that is pretty in depth with various ending and twists. Each play through can be very different to the last.
• Masses of equipment and various ways of outfitting characters.
• Highly indepth customization system, you can even change how your character stands.

One of the best games this year. If you're into the kinda game that doesn't guide you along a path while holding your hand, and forgoes levelling spawns as you level, in favour a tradition “explore at your own risk” system, then this is the game of the year for you.

It’s a really fun game and I’m very glad I bought it. But it’s not really much of a role playing game. It IS an RPG in that you do quests, gain XP and level up but the RPG elements are quite thin. When you gain a level your main attributes, health and stamina, go up automatically, you don’t assign points yourself, which is lame. The only thing you actually need to do is choose your skills. And all of the skills are combat maneuvers or enhancements to your physical prowess. There are no sneak, lock picking or speech skills or anything like that. It’s not that big of a deal but it makes levelling up a bit of a non issue. You can take on tougher enemies but it robs you of the pleasure of customising your character to some extent. But luckily there are other ways to do that. You can customise just about any detail of your physical appearance, and there is a fairly wide range of clothing and armour options. And what’s cool is you can wear both clothing and armour on your upper body and legs to further customise your look.

There are a lot of quests but here again it falls a bit flat as an RPG. Most of the quests are taken from notice boards and they are simple “kill 44 undead” quests or random escort missions. Filler in other words. The story missions are better, and you occasionally find some from NPCs but the vast majority are the notice board quests and they quickly became boring for me to the point that I stopped even looking at them. The main focus of the game seems to be exploring the world and combat. Combat is done really well. It’s fast and fluid and animations are excellent. Different weapons offer different skills and types of attacks allowing you to string different combos together. And fighting the various giant monsters is really fun as you can clamber up them to stab at their heads and eyes, or target various parts of a monster to disable it, like attacking a cyclopes weapon arm to make it drop it's club.

The dialog is fairly limited and your character doesn’t speak or have the option to ask questions. An NPC will say what he has to say and you can either accept or decline the quest. But the writing and voice work is very good, and the dialog is in ye old English with lots of “Prey, is there aught I can do for you, ser-” Which I love.

The game looks wonderful. Although the graphics are slightly dated the art design and gorgeous landscapes are a visual treat and it runs perfectly smoothly on the 360. Dungeons are well detailed as well. The art design has a sort of realistic look that I like a lot.

The only things I really don’t like about the game (besides the filler quests) are the respawn and the hinky save/load system. Everything in the world quickly respaws, from the monsters and bandits to the plants and mineral deposits (which you use for crafting) to the contents of chests. You get sick of battling through the same group of mobs over and over and the constant item respawn is just silly. All I’ll say about the save/load system is I recommend regularly copying your save file to an external source to avoid pulling your hair out in frustration.

The game world isn’t overly large which is a bit disappointing and there are only two settlements including the village you start at. But there is a lot to keep you busy and the game is just fun to play. I’d say if you’re interested enough to be reading this then you should just go ahead and buy it. Just go into it with an open mind and try not to compare it to anything.

To be honest I wasn't expecting to play this game much since Diablo 3 is stealing hours and hours from me.

but i've put in close to 60hours already and am loving it.

the “sharing” of pawns, the not completely hand held quests, the job system.

the monster battles are great fun, some of the spells/moves you can pull off look insane.

thier is a bunch of DLC online for it already, and i haven't tried any of it yet.

some of the gear lookos pretty cool as well, thier is even the armor set and weapon that Griffith from the anime/manga series “Berzerk” in the game, and some that looks very much like the gear Guts uses.

its managed to pull me away from my large backlog of games, and very few games have been able to do that lately. overall i've extremely happy with this purchase.

The landscape is huge, the monsters are huge, and it's not very forgiving. For this reason this game can be overwhelming for people that want a casual open-world rpg experience. However for players that want a more hardcore skyrim, this game is your answer

The midget physics are faultless.

Love you mighty ape

The new fav game for sure…endless action and fun…don't think about it, just buy it! you won't regret it!!

This is a good game. But lacks something. Its good in some parts like combat, but doesn't have a nice interface when buying things or the city roaming looks unfinished, just the little things. Like it's a test for a much bigger completely different game for the company to put on the market

It's not a bad game and I think the bad reviews are a bit harsh. As is comparing it to Skyrim. It's definitely not Skyrim, but I don't actually think it's meant to be.

PROS: I enjoyed the graphics and the controls are relatively easy as far as console games go. I love the combat system and I like the use of ‘pawns’. I loved the character creation system and that you could also create and customise your main pawn. Good, though somewhat generic, storyline.

CONS: The one thing about the pawns that did annoy me was the CONSTANT commentary they make at you whilst travelling. Another thing that annoyed me about this game is that there is absolutely no indication of whether a certain quest you pick is too high a level for you. I can't count the amount of times I accepted a quest and followed it only to be mercilessly slaughtered by the first beastie I came across.

All in all I enjoyed this game and will defnitely play it again.

I like it a lot :) It certainly exceeded my expectations.

It's a nice bit of fresh air in the ‘Big roaming world filled with monsters’ game base and I very much enjoy this game.

I was a little bit wary of the Ol' English language thing but my fears were unfounded; they usually just say ‘ought of use’ and 'pray, what say you-" it's no where near Shakespearian level of Old English thankfully.

The number 1 thing I love about this game is the character customization. You can make your character is such a variety of ways it's awesome. From tall, short to fat and skinny, to weak or muscle bound, you can even change the stance of your character. The sheer variation you can have is brilliant; whats more is that regardless of your characters size and stature they can all wear the same clothing and use the same weapons (though it is amusing to see a little Pawn the size of the ten-year-old swinging around a massive two handed sword)

I also love the ‘grab and hang on’ feature. I haven't encountered a game that had it and loved how it was implemented in Dragon's Dogma. It's fun to leap onto a drake and stab it in the head while it's flying around trying to hurl you off.

There are many different vocations you can choose from, from the tradition sword-and-shield warrior, to a Earthquake wielding sorcerer or a magical-mace using Mystic Knight who can blast electricity from their shields. This is a quick and easy way to spice up your adventures simply by altering your vocation.

The world itself is bright and vibrant. I loved the scenery not to mention all the normal animals, such as rabbits, deer and even little wild hogs roaming about. (Even more hilarious when I picked up some of the deer, started tossing them about only for my Pawns to start mimicking me) Not to mention prowling about and picking up anything I can carry. What can I say, I'm a hoarder.

Also The Dragon fight; Awesome. Take heed, Skyrim and Dragon Age, THAT is how you make a challenging Dragon battle! Take notes. I'm not even gonna start on the Online Ur-Dragon. Whoa, Nelly. Heck, even all the other supernatural beasties, Chimeras, Hydras, Cockatrices, Hellhounds (ALL OF MY HATE) are done wonderfully and really spice up the action, even more obviously post game.

But the thing I like most in Dragon's Dogma is the Pawn system. The fact you can hire pawns from different players is awesome. They in turn can hire your pawn, who will go gallivanting off with them on their adventurers. Your pawn will gain experience fighting with them, as well as quest knowledge. A very interesting and well done feature.

Sure, it's got a few flaws; limited main quest lines, lack of character input to other characters and the inability to turn into a dragon but in all it's a wonderful game with only a few issues that the good parts more than make up for it. Thoroughly recommend.

Open RPG world is a wonder to behold and the combat system is amazing your first boss fight will leave you stunned! The only negatives are that the story isn't that good and the graphics can be glitchy or just plain ugly. I recommend this game to anyone that is a RPG fan 4/5.

Not sure how far I am into it, but so far im really enjoying the challenge, perhaps a bit too heavy on the grinding, but thats more to do with my preferance

Just info i gathered online about the game, its awesome in some ways and fails hard in others, scripted open world combat , long distances between towns with few or nothing to do but run based on a stamina bar that can run out, youtube reviews before buying , just a helpful hint :)