Dragon's Dogma (2012 Video Game) User Reviews (2)

Dragon's Dogma is What Dreams are Made of

[RehashCritics · 9/10 · 21 May 2013]

What can I say, it's one of those RPG games again. And I love it!! Out of all the different RPG games out there this one is the most unique. Here is the why. The pawn system! It is one of the best ideas to come to a game console in a while. You create your right hand helper for the game (sorcerer, fighter, stryder, etc…) and then you can choose from other players created pawns to round out your team. If you are either on-line, off-line, or not even playing, other gamers can choose any pawns to help in their journey. What this means is that your pawn gains knowledge to new areas, battles, and quests while he is out fighting for someone else. Some might say, "So What?", I say "Question me again I rip your heart out!" This idea is brilliant because the pawns will always help you out in your adventure, with knowledge you haven't yet acquired, because they have retained the information and experience from other gamers that choose your pawn.

There is a ranking system allowing people to rate your created pawn on helpfulness, battle, and appearance. Be sure to make your characters inclinations (type of AI) and appearance incredible because these reviews stick with you for life. If you make the right pawn money will be made, and gifts will be more likely when your pawn is released from the user.

We learned about the unique pawn system but I haven't talked about the surrounding aspects. This is a beautiful game from the perspective of gameplay. The combat is fast and powerful. The game has hours upon hours for main quests but sometimes you just might come across a Hydra or a Griffin that you will have to take down. Now these are some of the best battles in the game till you reach the mysterious dragon. During your adventure you will have access to many classes to choose from at your disposal. If your not happy with the combat of a warrior you can change to a sorcerer just like that. Each weapon or spell you use is over the top. A lighting whip takes up the whole screen, meteor strikes make your hair stand straight up, and epic bow battle makes for serious fun For me personally, it's all about the little details to make my guy and my pawn look sweet. Just like any role playing game you will spend hours tracking quest and customizing your main character, but Capcon added the pawn so you are that much busier.

My lovely Capcon-anites could have taken the time to make the graphics a bit better and the pawn system is great but sometime aggravating when they don't come to your aid.

This is a fun game no doubt about it and I definitely recommend that you at least try this bad boy out up to level 10. MINIMUM... Understand! Minimum!

Boon - The Rehash Critics

***Sleep? WHY!!! I got pawns to take care of***

Generally Great Game; Lacks Fluidity

[Renerocks9 · 7/10 · 13 May 2013]

Now let me start off by saying I'm not picky with video games, this is just my honest opinion. This shouldn't contain too many, if not any spoilers either, and also, for some reason this seems to be the first review for the game, but whatever.

I like the concept of this game. It is essentially a fusion between Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy (without the turn-based element). You basically run around doing somewhat interesting, yet monotonous quests, and ultimately fight boss enemies which have very cool concepts. There is also a day & night cycle, which has a very survival-esque feeling to it in the sense that death is inevitable if you just wander around outside at night. You also get to manage your own 'pawns' to decide the course of action in your various adventures & battles, which is fun because of the element that only some of your pawns will be effective against some type of enemies. Overall it seems like a fun game, but I feel like it just lacks something more.

For one, the level-up system. I cannot begin to put into words at all how I can despise a level-up system in a game like this. Let me explain.

When you pick your classes in the game, you are basically given 'set' attributes that are auto-levelled when you level-up, and these attributes are dependent on the class you picked (e.g. Strider = Dexterity) You cannot set these attributes yourself, you are instead forced to let the game choose instead of being given the creative knowledge to do so yourself. This will ultimately lead to giving the player less creativity with their own characters as it prevents them from focusing on one attribute that could be more important.

Another thing I'm not too fond of in the game is the fluidity in combat as well. While the concept of working as a team is nice, there is no option to lock-on to an enemy you're fighting, and as a result, you'll probably miss about 30% of the time. However there is sort of a 'magnet' effect when you're close enough to an enemy which will sort of force your character to attack in that general direction. This however is no excuse for the lack of a targeting or lock-on system. Although before I eat my own words, I should mention that there is a class which lets you lock-on; The Mage. From what I can tell that's the only class, and it's range with the targeting is limited nonetheless.

A Slightly less bothersome part of this game is the graphics. Let's be honest people. What year was this made? 2012. Surely anyone would find that a game should have socially acceptable graphics in 2012. The graphics in Dragon's Dogma are essentially the same as Final Fantasy X's graphics.. just slightly more polished. As for animation; namely with the way the character's lips move, abysmal. I wouldn't be a reviewer if I didn't mention the Pro's and Con's of a video game, but honestly. Just abysmal. In fact, when I made a new character just the other day, I noticed a 'preacher' of sorts in the intro who had the lip-sync of a modern-day Madonna, and the lip-animation as if someone stretched and ironed their lips. But that's it for Con's as far as I can tell, let's get into the Pro's.

Game-play Wise; Not too bad. I just mentioned that the combat and graphics weren't so hot, but the gameplay in general is actually decent. You basically run off of quests to complete the game. Most of which are basic-to-advanced gathering quests, and some of which are escorts and timed quests which can actually have a severe detriment on your playthrough if you neglect them. As I mentioned before, you also have the Day & Night cycle which is a basic fundamental in any open-world game, but is more expanded upon in a game such as this due to the more threatening factor that nighttime withholds. You also have random merchants in the game that act as Rescue quests since they're being attacked by enemies. Speaking of enemies, they're mostly randomized around the world you're exploring, since they're always a constant threat. It ranges from Bandits, to Goblins, to Wolves and much more.

Sound-wise; Not too fond of it. The title screen music sounds almost like a Swan Song as if someone's dying, which makes little to no sense considering the theme of the game is more-so about saving people/killing bosses rather than blood/death/violence.

Control-wise; Not too fond of this either. The controls in this game are all generally good for the most part, however the controls in combat almost feel like you're supposed to be extremely precise and fluid with your button combinations in order to win. I'm not too fond of that at all, but for the most part it's OK. I do like the grabbing mechanic a lot, as it allows most enemies to be KO'd through vulnerability, and bosses to be climbed upon and dealt extra damage.

Replayability; Excellent. This game probably has more replayability than any other game I've played in a long time, and that's mostly due to the different multi-class combinations you get later on, as well as the different pawn/team setups.

All in all, I give this game a 7/10. I feel that it would be more deserving of an 8-9/10 if it had a slightly better front on the animation and sound, as well as the level-up system. In fact, I might be willing to push this to 9/10 if the level-ups weren't fixed. Nonetheless, I can safely recommend this game to any fan of Medieval RPG's.