It's not very often that a game is so fun that minutes after playing the demo I hop in the car and go out and buy the game. Dragon's Dogma, though, it was one of those games.
Dragon's Dogma is a fantasy RPG. If that genre interests you at all and you own an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 then go queue up the demo while you read this. The demo is what sold me on the game but it's sort of a long story. The demo came out awhile back and I downloaded it but I didn't play it immediately. I knew it was a fantasy RPG and I'm a sucker for fantasy RPGs (good or bad) so I avoided playing it figuring that I'd end up getting it. Finally one day I mustered up the courage to play it. The main menu advertised a character creator that promised to allow me to import my created character into the full version of the game.
Let's take a moment to talk about the character creator. If you care about how your character looks in a game this is the creator for you. It has so many options. You can control pretty much every aspect of your character including height, weight, breast size (for females at least, not sure about large males). You can make what are essentially children if you set the height incredibly low. You can create fat people, skinny people, average people, whatever. The game also features a larger number of hair styles than most games which is a welcome plus. You can come up with some really interesting juxtapositions like creating a child fighter. I naturally opted for a petite, lithe female.
That was as far as I made it the first time I started the demo. I was interrupted before I could play the main game proper. I only managed to create my main character and her main pawn (more on pawns later). About a month later I finally worked up the courage to play the demo again. It presented two quests for me to play. The first is the introduction sequence to the game and had me playing somebody I didn't create. The class of the character was Fighter which is my least favorite. Never the less the game was pretty fun, especially the "boss" fight against a Chimera. The Chimera had 3 heads with different attacks. During the fight I killed a couple of the heads on the beast's back which obviated those attacks. The coolest aspect of the fight was climbing on the Chimera to attack it from it's back. The beast wasn't huge or anything but it was large enough that I could climb on it Shadow of the Colossus style to attack it
Then I tried the second quest available in the demo. This quest let me play as my created character fighting a Griffon. This segment had me playing as a Strider (Rogue, dual-wield daggers and has a bow). This segment sold me on the game instantly. The mechanics of using the bow and daggers to attack were just so much fun. It was awesome watching my pawns climb on the beast attacking it while it flew around with me staying on the ground shooting arrows at it. I tried this segment again after I completed it the first time and this time I climbed on the Griffon some to attack it. It also grew dark during the fight which made it incredibly intense because I had no idea which direction the beast would come from. The lanterns we had were of no help because they didn't illuminate far enough to see the beast flying around. I was unsuccessful at defeating the beast in the dark but the demo was successful in selling the game.
I've been playing the game proper now for a few days and just made it to the main city which opened up the game to me a little bit. The game is sort of an open-world fantasy RPG (I'm not sure yet just how open the world is). At the outset the main character is one of the three classic archetypes, a Fighter (sword and shield), Strider (Rogue, daggers and a bow) or Mage (Staff, magic). There are other classes you can choose once you reach the main city. Most of them are hybrid classes allowing you access to different weapons and skills. When I reached the city I decide to switch vocations (classes) to Magick Archer. I didn't really know much about the class other than "Magick" and "Archer" were in the name but it seemed like a good idea because I've been primarily playing as an archer. As the name implies, this is an archer with magic abilities.
Oh man, did changing vocations make the game even more fun. I thought the game was fun before but the awesome factor ratcheted up by 8.7 when I switched to Magick Archer. My character can now use daggers, a staff or special magic bows. Her bow attacks now have elemental properties but the biggest change is how the bow works. Now instead of requiring pinpoint accuracy my targeting reticule is a large circle. If an enemy is in that circle and highlighted arrows home in on them. Kkills now lock on targets as well so the attacks home in on them, too. One attack locks onto a target and fires 3 arrows at them which is absolutely devastating to them almost always knocking them in the air on the first hit with the other two arrows circling around until they find a mark, too. It made my already fun archer into something amazingly fun.
Needless to say combat in the game is a lot of fun. It's very action oriented and quickly paced. Since the game features a 4-player party I thought it would be little more than a more generic Dragon Age clone. This premature assessment of the game was wrong. It's really nothing like Dragon Age despite having a fantasy setting, featuring a dragon and having a 4-player party. Combat is quick and frenetic with the entire party attacking with skills and spells, many of which knock enemies around.
The game features an item combination system that makes a little bit of sense. Various items can be combined together in semi-logical ways to produce new useful things. For example, a rock and a piece of kindling produces a pickaxe (Just go with it). More logically empty jars can be used to collect oil for the lantern. Perishable foods with limited durations can be kept indefinitely in airtight containers. Arrows can be created by combining kindling with poisons and oils. Various potions can also be created though the crafting is nowhere near as dense as it is in a game like Skyrim or The Witcher 2.
The main unique component of the game, though, is the pawn system. This is a single player game but it features a multiplayer component - sort of. The main character is followed by a main pawn which is created just like the main character. This pawn is with the main character for virtually the entire game. However, the game features a party of 4 characters so that leaves room for 2 additional pawns. Where do these pawns come from? The pawns come from other players. The game features a hub which allows searching for and inspection of pawns created by other players. The pawns can be summoned to the hub area so their stats, equipment, abilities, vocation, inclination (behavior) and knowledge can be inspected. If the pawn is satisfactory then they can be hired using an alternate currency. Pawns of the same level as the main character are free as are pawns from friends (people explicitly on your friend's list).
The pawn system is interesting. When people use your pawn then he or she will gain knowledge of quests, monsters and locations which cause them to give more helpful hints when the main character is presented with the obstacles. For example, a pawn knowledgeable about a certain monster may yell out "cut off it's tail" signifying the monster's weakness. They provide other audio cues to help with quests as well. Admittedly the chattiness of the pawns can get rather annoying but I have learned to tune them out for the most part.
Pawns do not level when others employ them, they simply gain the aforementioned knowledge. The hiring player can also provide gifts to the pawn as well as rate a few categories. The pawn also returns with Rift Crystals, the currency used to hire non-free pawns and buy certain items. It's in the player's best interest to try and have a good pawn so others will choose to use the pawn and continue to use the pawn allowing it to gain more knowledge and Rift Crystals.
Or, as Yahtzee put it, you play as a pimp.
The game is a lot better than I expected it to be. As I mentioned earlier I thought the game would be sort of a generic Dragon Age knockoff. I didn't necessarily think it would be terrible, I just wanted to avoid having yet another fantasy RPG to play (I have over half a dozen in progress already). I was very pleasantly surprised by what the game offered, though. It is incredibly fun and I'm glad I finally got around to trying the demo.