Dragon’s Dogma

Game Info

Capcom has long been known for being a video game company that likes to re-release the same game multiple times.  Anyone want to go Off the Record and say otherwise?  It would be Super if their Special Editions wouldn’t be released in such a Turbo frequency every Anniversary….in the Arcade?  Alright, so that last part was a little hokey, but those are all prefixes and suffixes to actual Capcom games that were essentially repackaged and sold with some minor improvements.  And the reason they keep doing that is because gamers buy it!  Which is totally okay, since that revenue allows them to take occasional development risks, such as with Asura’s Wrath and now with Dragon’s Dogma, an Eastern take on a mostly Western genre.

So in Dragon’s Dogma a dragon attacks your village, steals your heart (not in the romantic way) and tells you that if you want to find out why, grow powerful and seek him out.  You are from then on referred to as The Arisen, and can summon user-created AI companions called pawns to aid you along with your character-created main pawn.  It’s a neat way to foster online camaraderie and you can rate each other’s pawns after dismissing them and even give them a gift to take back to their creator.  And while the story won’t win any awards, it’s certainly serviceable.  Most of the time, however, you’ll spend your time completing quests to level up and buy better equipment to eventually face the dragon, which is easily the highpoint of the whole experience.  It’s definitely all worth sticking it out to see the end, trust me.

Built with Capcom’s proprietary graphics engine, MT Framework, Dogma is quite the looker, albeit a drab one, with wide open vistas and great lighting effects, especially while exploring dark caverns by lantern-light.

“The Duke could stand to commission some new roads.”

……right.  As I was saying, there’s the occasional muddy environment texture and object pop-in that’s pretty much inherent with all open-world games, but everything is animated in loving detail.  Trees sway in the breeze, dragon wings flap with exquisite detail, and goblins cower in fear after you slay all of their friends.  The weirdest visual snafu would have to be the presence of 2 letter-boxing black bars that are constantly at the top and bottom of the screen, even on HD sets.  It can be a little off-putting at first, but after a few minutes of play, you’ll hardly notice them.  Those with small televisions may want to use caution, however.

“The Duke could stand to commission some new roads.”

…again with the roads, huh?  Okay, we’ll see the Duke about your damn roads.  Just let me turn in this quest okay?  Anyway, Dragon’s Dogma starts out with an interesting soundtrack choice.  The opening menu at first begins with a generic fantasy song, then quickly changes to a Japanese J-rock song.  At first I thought that was an interesting choice.  Certainly different, anyway.   I was looking forward to see what other styles of music might be represented.  Sadly, I was let down, however, as it switched back to the standard Lord of the Rings style soundtrack.  The rousing brass piece that crescendos as you start to bring the larger scalable enemies health down to zero was a nice surprise, though, and never got old.  The voice acting was solid throughout, but be prepared for Ye Olde English with aughts, sers, and the like.  And hearing a dragon’s wing-beats while travelling at night early in the game can be a pretty chilling experience, so that gives you an idea of how great the sound effects are.

“The Duke could stand to commission some new roads.”

…Okay, enough!  One more quip about the roads and we’re done being civil, okay?  So, early on in Capcom’s press release gameplay footage one can really see what they desperately wanted Dragon’s Dogma to be: Demon’s Souls.  While this game has some similarities to the Souls series (dark caverns, bleak setting, drab color palette, and huge aggressive monsters) I found it to be a more accessible and less challenging affair.  Not to say that this game is too easy.  I had my ass handed to me by several griffins and plummeted to my death on a few occasions, but thankfully I never had to retrace my steps to pick up my lost experience points, just like you would in Demon’s Souls.  Instead, the game is more forgiving thanks to its auto-saving checkpoints and generally helpful pawns that can usually navigate and fight on their own.  Occasionally they may fall to their death or not heal themselves when they’re loaded up with curatives, but for the most part they’ll be more of a help than a hindrance.  And also unlike Demon’s Souls, normal and heavy attacks don’t decrease your stamina bar- only special attacks and sprinting will.

Normally with this style of game combat is usually you blindly swinging your sword or flinging a spell and hoping for a hit, but the combat in Dragon’s Dogma is definitely an improvement from the norm.  This game was made by the Devil May Cry developers, and it shows.  There are numerous combo attacks and abilities to unlock in each of the games 9 classes and the combat is actually fun.  Sword hits make a solid thud and splatters blood onto your intended victims.  Lightning spells rumble in the distance after they electrify their target(s).  In short, you actually look forward to the action and aren’t just waiting for enemies to die while a cooldown meter counts down and you can see what items they drop.  Be prepared for some quiet periods of exploration, however, as some parts of the game can be quite serene, but they do serve their purpose in making the action bits all the more exciting.

“The Duke could stand to commission some new roads.”

ARGH!  Enough!  You stupid pawns really should just shut the hell up!  And this brings me to my biggest complaint I had with the game- the chatterbox pawn companions.  They’ll make observations about your surroundings during your travels, and at first it’s cool.  New roads.  I get it.  The roads are bad.  But if you make the mistake of travelling through the same area again (and you will- fast travel in this game is almost non-existent until about halfway through and even after you gain access to it, it’s very costly) they’ll say the same exact line.  But if you can suffer through these 2 biggest complaints, the shortage of fast travel and the repetitive pawns, you’ll be rewarded with a solid fantasy game that almost anyone can enjoy.  One last note- kudos to Capcom for including armor sets and weapons for Guts and Griffith, two characters from the Berserk manga and anime series.  And to anyone playing this game right now, feel free to hire my Guts pawn.  He’ll make an excellent addition to your team!