Dragon's Dogma Review
Legacy Review
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Platform: Playstation 4 Xbox one Nintendo Switch PC
Reviewed on: PC w/Controller
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release: 4/23/2013
Time Played: 28 Hours
Genre: Action RPG
Review
Intro:
Dragon’s Dogma is an older action RPG based in a land in medieval like times full of mythical creatures like dragons, griffins, and goblins. But has it stood the test of time? Does the game stand up to todays standards of game play? Well hang tight and I will let you know.
Story:
The story follows a man or woman, you decide in character creation, living in a small fishing village suddenly attacked by a dragon. The character tries their best to help defend the village and is ultimately bested by the dragon. The dragon senses something in the protagonist and takes their heart, making them an Arisen. In Dragon’s Dogma the Arisen are individuals that are destined to challenge the dragon. Honestly, I thought it was kind of odd for the dragon to fight someone and thing “Hey, I want to fight them after they bulk up a bit, I’m going to take you’re heart so you have to come at me”. So, with a goal in mind the Arisen takes on the challenge and leaves their home for adventure.
Kiddos:
Dragon’s Dogma got a Mature rating due to the blood, violence, and partial nudity. There does seem to be quite a bit of blood flying when fighting humans and monsters. The partial nudity isn’t totally apparent, just a few monsters like Harpies will be bare chested, but the graphics and speed of the enemies makes it hard to see. The fight scenes can get a little graphic with the dismemberment of some monster parts as well. So, depending on personal restrictions and age of the kids, you may be more inclined to wait for bedtime before busting this game out.
Mechanics/Opinions:
The game starts with an in-depth character creation. After choosing the gender their will be a lot of options to adjust like height, haircut, make-up, and even voice. There will be options at barbershops later in the game where everything can be changed for a price, so nothing is permanent.
During character creation there will be an option for what vocation, or class, is preferred. There are a total of nine vocations, but only three basic vocations can be selected at the beginning. The fighter, who fights with a sword and shield, the strider, using bows and daggers, and the mage, using staves and magic. The rest of the vocations will either focus on one fighting style, or be a mix of two basic vocations, giving plenty of options for preferred fighting style.
Shortly into the game the Arisen will be introduced to Pawns, an otherworldly human who’s only mission in life is to do the bidding of the Arisen. The Arisen’s party will consist of themselves and three Pawns. A main Pawn will always be with the Arisen, you can customize them as much as the main character and decide what vocation they will use. The other two Pawns will be sought out and summoned in specific areas of the game. They are usually Pawns created by other players for their own games. The secondary pawns will not level up with the Arisen so they do have to be swapped out so the party can be well balanced. A cool mechanic in the game is the Pawn of a friend can be summoned into the party for no extra cost. Rift crystals are a currency that will be used for summoning Pawns, if the Pawn is the same level or lower than the Arisen it will be no cost, but if they wanted a really beefy Pawn it would cost quite a bit of Rift Crystals to get them on the team. The team of Pawns will constantly be talking about the current quest or area, usually giving some good advice on how to go about the quest or where a hidden treasure might be, so even when their talking can get annoying at times, its still worth it to listen.
The combat felt a little difficult at the beginning of the game. When first starting out there isn’t a whole lot of attacks that can be used. In order to learn more the Arisen has to fight to level up their knowledge in the given vocation they are using. As that levels up they can use Discipline, skill points basically, to learn new things. Each vocation has it’s own set of fighting skills, core skills, and augments that can be learned. Augments can be equipped on the Arisen regardless of vocation but fighting and core skills are tied to their respective vocations. After a good understanding of the different skills and builds combat got a lot smoother and fun. An interesting mechanic in Dragon’s Dogma is the ability to climb onto the bigger monsters in the game. Like a cyclops for instance, its super effective to climb up onto its face to slice off tusks and stab the eye causing the cyclops to collapse for everyone to attack the face.
The biggest issue I had with the game was the slow pace of traveling. There is a teleporting system in the game, where you can teleport to major cities, and wherever a portcrystal is placed in the open world. Portcrystals are special items found throughout the game for a total of ten. But initially getting somewhere on the other side of the world was tedious. Enemies will stand in the way making for some action on a long trip but those too, can be annoying if you really want to get to your destination.
After the story is complete the game will end, forcing a New Game plus if you would like to continue. New game plus in Dragon’s Dogma doesn’t have a lot to offer in differences, a few quests will be added with a lot of gold as a reward, and your character will get to keep all the experience and items obtained on the first playthrough. So, it’s a great opportunity to play with new vocations or see different outcomes of some quests. Difficulty will not be increased in a new game plus. The only way to increase difficulty would be to start a Hard Mode game. Doing so starts the story over, but all the items and xp will travel with the character.
Ranking
I absolutely loved Dragon’s Dogma. It certainly felt like an older RPG, which isn’t a bad thing, there’s just a lack of nice quality of life mechanics making the game take longer. Mostly just the slow travel. I think a mount of some sort would make the game so much better. And at times it felt like the AI of the pawns was not quite up to par, if I really needed an elemental buff it was a crap shoot on whether I would get it or not. All in all I’m definitely putting this on my top shelf. I may be done streaming it, but I’m not done playing it.