Dragon's Dogma

[thejackyl]

I definitely recommend getting Demon's Souls. Absolutely fantastic game. Just keep in mind that it's more difficult than Dark Souls is and be prepared for that.

Having played both, I have to disagree on the difficulty note. I played through Demon's Souls and than Dark Souls, and than replayed Demon's Souls. The difficulty seems to be about the same to me. Plus the fact that you can cheat nearly every boss fight, and the Second Chance Miracle. Though Gwyn still kicks my ass every time I try to solo him, and False King Allant was a cake-walk for me (I never had issues timing my dodges like I do with Gwyn).

ANYWAYS, all that being said: Yes, DD is pretty fun if you can get over some of the issues with it. I think I've played through at least 4 times, and I fully enjoyed the boss encounters and the Everfall.

My major gripes were that you couldn't easily differentiate between story and side missions until you've played through the game (There's only like 10 story missions or so, but I think about 50 side missions, it's been a while).

Annoying Pawns - fixed by turning the game audio down and listening to my own music

Lack of a free fast travel - You can place Port Crystals and than use Ferry Stones to travel between them. I would rather just have a "Get to location A once, you can fast travel here for x amount of gold." Or even just have the ability to fast travel between major landmarks.

Game goes from fairly long to VERY short - Your first time through will take you about 10-15 hours, I think. With properly placed Port Crystals you can beat the game in about 2 hours. But to be fair this is true about a few of my favorite Capcom games (The old-school Resident Evils), so I'm not too bothered by that.

The issues aren't really major, but I can see why some people would be turned off by some of them.

 

[Maxtro]

I've actually just ordered Dark Arisen off Amazon, should be coming tomorrow. Any tips before I jump in? I literally have no knowledge of the game except the pawn system and what's been said in this thread.

Since you're always going to need a healer with you, I suggest making your main pawn a Mage. Also make your pawn a woman just because a lot of Mage gear is designed for women.

For your main character, try EVERY class. Once you get to rank 5 or so in a class, switch it to something else. Past rank 5 the classes gain ranks much slower and by that time you should get a good feel for how the class plays.

 

[Baralak]

Eh, I wasn't too impressed with the combat system. Yeah it was fun climbing on top of a griffin or cyclops, but more often than not, I felt like there wasn't much more to the combat. I tried like, 6 of the vocations, and enjoyed the stalker, or whatever was the base version of the ranger the best.

Still, just having the sludge through the world, and the *exact* same enemies over. and over. and over. Just really killed it for me. Like I said, I really prefer Skyrim's take on fast travel: Go there once, and you can get there instantly from then on.

I also had a really hard time getting any money. Equipment was too expensive I thought, and I wound up grinding so much just to keep equipment up. And I wasn't even trying to keep equipment up for me, but for me and a pawn, which doubled the costs to my wallet.

Wow it's super interesting that you didn't get any money...hmm. It seems like you had an entirely different experience. The grinding, finding money pouches and rare items all over is what gave me money. Quests also give you money, but those are the very things that you're hating.
As to fighting the *exact* same enemies over and over, again - you can change vocations and support characters so that the fighting stays interesting. No way that Skyrim's combat is better though.

You really needed to find Ferrystones for fast travel, but since you didn't make enough money, you didn't get them. They're 20,000 from the Black Cat in Gran Soren, and 10,000 from another character there.

It sounds like you didn't spend enough time with DD, but it also sounds like your more into game design, which is all good. DD is kinda old school.

Eh, I put a good 30 or so hours into the game. Even bought the guide with the game, lol. It was a good game with a bunch of small flaws that stopped my enjoyment of the game. Hopefully DD2 will be better.

 

[Aesir23]

I certainly prefer it over Skyrim even though I do love Skyrim as well in spite of its flaws. It's mostly because I love stories and while Skyrim does have that as well the thing that pushed Dragon's Dogma ahead of Skyrim in that department for me was the cutscenes. I loved seeing my character in the cutscenes interacting with other characters in ways other than dialogue (especially considering he/she is a silent protagonist).

Aside from that the things that got me were the character creation system and being able to climb on the larger monsters. Even Skyrim doesn't offer the level of depth in character creation that Dragon's Dogma does, and that's saying something.

Of course, Dragon's Dogma has its flaws just like every game does. Travelling between quest points can get dull and repetitive with the same monsters spawning in the same spots. The quests themselves outside of the main story are quite sparse as well unless you like gathering, fetch and escort missions. After my first playthrough I never did any of the sidequests unless I wanted to raise my affinity with a certain npc.

If there's one spot where DD and Skyrim are absolutely equal, however, is that the romance "system" is absolute rubbish.

Nonetheless, I plan on trading in DD and putting it towards Dark Arisen when I have the chance. I spent my last $45 on Skyrim.

However, if there is one thing about DD I truly dislike (aside from the sidequests) it is that you are allowed only one save file and that autosaves overwrite it as well. I was so close to the end on my first playthrough and decided to do one quest before another. Apparently this was in the wrong order and so the quest I was going to do afterward was cancelled. Usually that's no big deal, just go back to the last checkpoint. No luck, it had autosaved after the cutscene.

 

[The-Traveling-Bard]

Well I just put myself a ps3 and this week I am getting DD and Dark Arisen. (Going to buy the original DD to get the extra bonuses. D)

I can't wait to play!

 

[Operation Genesis]

Yeah, Dragon's Dogma is pretty fun. The big draw is for sure the big monster fights, since those get pretty tense and they break up the standard RPG gameplay nicely. The combat itself is pretty fun, though I only played as a warrior because, since I get the shit kicked out of me in every game I play, I like to stick to melee classes that can take a beating. So on the gameplay front, Dragon's Dogma is kind of a badass.

My problems with it start leaking in once you get away from that, though. I thought that the pawn system, while novel, was vastly inferior to, say, a Bioware or Obsidian companion system that has actual, written characters. Having unique characters follow me around with things that only they say is a lot more interesting to me than the pawn system, and I'm a sucker for character arcs, so I would have preferred having something like seven or eight set characters that level up with you or something. I also like having a strong story that I pretty much always have a good idea of what I'm doing in. Dragon's Dogma is kind of loose with it's story, being more interested in providing a sandbox journey type thing, which is fine, but not something that is to my taste. The third big thing is that the post game is kind of annoying to me, since everything turns black and the formerly really fun boss fights just become a tedious slog. I'd also say that I would have liked a more clear indication of where to find ferrystones, as it got a bit boring running back and forth all over the map.

EDIT: Also, as far as Skyrim vs Dragon's Dogma goes, I'd say I liked Skyrim more, as the story was a bit more of a driving force in that one, as most of the sidequests are stuck into guilds, which all have their own plotlines, and the story quests just seemed more narrative driven. That's not to say that Skyrim has a particularly good story, it's just that it was more present in what I was doing minute to minute, and my tastes lean more towards that style of game.

 

[templar1138a]

... okay, first of all,

I haven't played the game.

It shows. It's a game I WANTED to like. However, it was so full of gameplay oversights (an unskippable and seemingly irrelevant tutorial, annoying pawn dialogue, the inability to have more than one save file, idiotic and fragile escort NPCs, no level gauge in quest descriptions, etc) that it's pretty much a terrible game.

Skyrim, on the other hand, is a much more solidly built game. Not only that, but there are many mods to tailor it to the type of gameplay experience you want. That's hard to beat.

In future, don't claim to think a game is fantastic (or otherwise) if you haven't played it. It doesn't speak well of you.

Off-topic: Discover can kiss my ass.

 

[The-Traveling-Bard]

... okay, first of all,

I haven't played the game.

It shows. It's a game I WANTED to like. However, it was so full of gameplay oversights (an unskippable and seemingly irrelevant tutorial, annoying pawn dialogue, the inability to have more than one save file, idiotic and fragile escort NPCs, no level gauge in quest descriptions, etc) that it's pretty much a terrible game.

Skyrim, on the other hand, is a much more solidly built game. Not only that, but there are many mods to tailor it to the type of gameplay experience you want. That's hard to beat.

In future, don't claim to think a game is fantastic (or otherwise) if you haven't played it. It doesn't speak well of you.

Off-topic: Discover can kiss my ass.

Err.
I'm pretty sure I can. Just because I haven't actually played the game doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on it. I watched plenty of videos, and read about the game. I think Mass Effect is a good game story wise, but I don't play it due to science/space themes aren't my thing. Just because you haven't read/played/watch something. Doesn't mean you can't have your opinion on it. It's a little thing called research. You don't actually have to read/play/watch to form an opinion. Just research. Dragon's Dogma (despite it's flaws) seems like it is good game, and could very much be a great game if they ironed out their flaws more.

I know very well that flaws it has, but I can over look them. Besides the whole pawn talking too much thing. They tried to bring pawns to life instead of your generic (like Skyrim.) side hero that doesn't do anything. Which to me is a fantastic choice even if it's executed badly. Which again.. a sequel could fix that, and improve on the choice to make pawns life-like.

As far as flaws goes. Every game has flaws. Woopie. Stop being so cynical.
Skyrim has flaws.
Too much fast travel, combat is crap, story is crap, the game is shallow, the quests are boring, there's no weight behind your actions. (Kill the Emperor? Cool! The rest of the world doesn't care at all.) Dragon Fights are boring. (Which is funny because the whole game is centered around dragons.) The Magic System is just damn awful. The story is generic, and boring. The dungeons are so damn boring. A dungeon full of easy weak enemies than at the end there's a boss. Woo. The world is quite ugly, and exploration is also quite boring. There's very few places in Skyrim that are actually nice. The AI is also crap. Sneak 100? Well you can stand in front of a enemy in dark cave and they won't notice you!

My opinion of Skyrim is this.
It's a cash gab, and Bethesda is like. "Oh well, we will half ass our game then make the modding community fix it."
A game shouldn't need mods to *fix the game.*

(Dragon Riding in Dragonborn... guess who fixed that? The modding community of course.)

 

[That Annoying Guy]

Well to answer your first question, does DD beat TES? Probably not, but it does have a few leg-ups that Elders Scrolls doesn't, things like the pawn system, a challenging and strategic combat system, the amount of diversity in enemies and the different class play-styles/restrictions.

Now for the second comment made: "Is there going to be a sequel"? My answer to that is yes, Dragon's Dogma was so successful and such a refreshing blend of elements like: adventure, hack & slash, and survival horror that Capcom, soon after the release of the game, decided to make Dragon's Dogma one of their "main" (for lack of better words) franchises just like Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Resident Evil. The problem with that is because of the frame-rate issues that the game encountered on the Xbox 360, we may not see a release of Dragon's Dogma 2 until after the two next-gen (PS4 & Xbox 720?) consoles are released.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

My major gripes were that you couldn't easily differentiate between story and side missions until you've played through the game (There's only like 10 story missions or so, but I think about 50 side missions, it's been a while).

This is an issue that I cannot possibly understand, if my life depended on it. The game literally goes out of its way to tell you where to go, who to talk to and what to do next.

Spoiler: Description of how ridiculously easy it is to find main plot quests.

Soon as you try to leave Cassardis, they give you a pawn and you're told to go to the Encampment. Whereupon you will hear a Pawn speak to you and you go to the rift stone at the inn and be asked to prove yourself. Afterward, you go back into the main area of the Encampment and a small scene plays, directing you outside the gate. You'll prove yourself go back in, go get your main pawn and immediately see Mercedes with a giant green bubble over her head. You'll then travel with her to Gran Soren, where everyone and their grandmother tells you to go to the Pawn Guild. Once you're done with that, someone is sent to see you(and believe me, you cannot miss him) and you're told who to talk to and where to find them, for further story quests. After those, you actually get inside the castle and when you try to leave, another scene plays that tells you who to talk to and where he's found.

The game continues to tell you where to go, who to talk to, what to do. It goes out of its way to shove it in your face what's next. I don't mean to sound full of myself or act like anyone's stupid because I've seen this complaint frequently, but...holy Jesus. It's difficult to not be able to differentiate main quests from side quests.

Lack of a free fast travel - You can place Port Crystals and than use Ferry Stones to travel between them. I would rather just have a "Get to location A once, you can fast travel here for x amount of gold." Or even just have the ability to fast travel between major landmarks.

This complaint I can kind of understand. Although personally, I kinda like it the way it's done in DD. I like teleporting back to "base," if you will, and traveling to other areas. It encourages the player to explore or seek new routes. See other areas of the world that you'd otherwise skip over if you were capable of fast traveling to another area that's near your next destination.

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

My main gripe that the game get`s to easy once you reach a certain level has been eliminated with DDark Arisen. New loot, new enemies and a fresh enviroment was all i needed after hundreds of hours with DD. The lack of fast travel has been fixed too.
Thanks to the combat this game turned out to be my alltime favorite.

Note: If this sounds like advertising, hell yes it is.

 

[Maxtro]

Has anybody tried playing without any pawns? It's a completely different and much harder experience.

Even though I'm doing it on a New game+ with some pretty good gear, I've still died a few times. Me vs. 10 bandits makes for an interesting fight depending on what class I am. Throw in a Chimera just because and it's time to run.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

... okay, first of all,

I haven't played the game.

It shows. It's a game I WANTED to like. However, it was so full of gameplay oversights (an unskippable and seemingly irrelevant tutorial, annoying pawn dialogue, the inability to have more than one save file, idiotic and fragile escort NPCs, no level gauge in quest descriptions, etc) that it's pretty much a terrible game.

Skyrim, on the other hand, is a much more solidly built game. Not only that, but there are many mods to tailor it to the type of gameplay experience you want. That's hard to beat.

In future, don't claim to think a game is fantastic (or otherwise) if you haven't played it. It doesn't speak well of you.

Off-topic: Discover can kiss my ass.

Err.

I know very well that flaws it has, but I can over look them. Besides the whole pawn talking too much thing. They tried to bring pawns to life instead of your generic (like Skyrim.) side hero that doesn't do anything. Which to me is a fantastic choice even if it's executed badly. Which again.. a sequel could fix that, and improve on the choice to make pawns life-like.

As far as flaws goes. Every game has flaws. Woopie. Stop being so cynical.
Skyrim has flaws.
Too much fast travel, combat is crap, story is crap, the game is shallow, the quests are boring, there's no weight behind your actions. (Kill the Emperor? Cool! The rest of the world doesn't care at all.) Dragon Fights are boring. (Which is funny because the whole game is centered around dragons.) The Magic System is just damn awful. The story is generic, and boring. The dungeons are so damn boring. A dungeon full of easy weak enemies than at the end there's a boss. Woo. The world is quite ugly, and exploration is also quite boring. There's very few places in Skyrim that are actually nice. The AI is also crap. Sneak 100? Well you can stand in front of a enemy in dark cave and they won't notice you!

My opinion of Skyrim is this.
It's a cash gab, and Bethesda is like. "Oh well, we will half ass our game then make the modding community fix it."
A game shouldn't need mods to *fix the game.*

(Dragon Riding in Dragonborn... guess who fixed that? The modding community of course.)

YYYYYYYesssss! Finally someone who can articulate this in earnest! I was able to see this after about 2 hours of it.

As the "flaws" that Dragon's Dogma has, I'm super old school. I think Dragon's Dogma has the potential to be the best type of this kind of game out there. I simply don't understand the draw to Skyrim. I would take Amalur and 2 Worlds 2 over Skyrim. After you escape execution and your companion houses you for the night, he and his whole family somehow forget who you are and speak to you like a stranger. People complain about the Pawns - who are deliberately designed to be soul-less humans - when the people in Skyrim are just...weird.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Has anybody tried playing without any pawns? It's a completely different and much harder experience.

Even though I'm doing it on a New game+ with some pretty good gear, I've still died a few times. Me vs. 10 bandits makes for an interesting fight depending on what class I am. Throw in a Chimera just because and it's time to run.

LOL those Chimera's can appear randomly, and this is why I love DD. Playing without pawns is seriously crazy, but a fun thought...hmm. I may try this.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Man, I just don't understand why this game is even questioned. The dragon fight is ridiculous, even with that Makersfinger arrow. Amazing game. If it were any bigger, it'd be too much.