Dragon's Dogma

Dragon's dogma is an action role playing game released in 2012, developed and published by Capcom for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The game is set in a fantasy world of dragons and other mystical beings who either help or hinder you slashing through quests.

 

The visuals are realistic with a hint of magic, as weapons glow and streams of power bounce around the immediate surroundings. The version we had was from the Xbox, showing signs of drained, pastel colours in some day or brightly lit scenarios. The models and physics of such are amazing; especially of the mystical beasts: The first beast being a Lion, Goat and Snake combined comes to mind.

 

Game play is an individual experience as you can create your own class of character with any appearance you desire, much like the pawns. You have: Fighter, Warrior, Mystic Knight, Strider, Ranger, Assassin, Mage, Sorcerer and Magic Archer to choose from, each with their own weapons and powers. Pawns are your helpers within the game from which you modify, much like your own character, from an astounding array of choices: From body type, hair and tattoos to their characteristics on how they react to certain events. These characters you can call for using preset interaction orders: for example, "Come", "Go" and "Help". Combat is fluid as there is no waiting between animations: attack moves are combined with animations flowing in to each other.. Boss battles are revolutionized from the normal 'dodge and attack' cliché as now you can climb or grapple enemies to deliver devastating strategic blows.

 

Replay ability is present due to the random spawning of enemies, couple this with all the different character types you can play as or have helping you: Many reruns are possible, if you can survive past the bore of repetitive cut-scenes.

 

During my first impression I found that the game expected you to know how to play, throwing me in to a battle. However, this was a nice, fresh approach apposed to sitting still for 10 minutes as the game ran through each and every control asking me to repeat. To help was a layout of controls on the HUD, making memorizing them semantic as I kinesthetic-ally learned them. Once the tutorial level was over, and I  finished creating the character I'd play as for the rest of the game, I was bombarded by cut scenes, shortly followed by a short burst of game play and then another few cut scenes; this was the order of the rest of the amount I played until the introduction of pawns and another boss Battle: A giant Cyclops. With the Cyclops a few attacks were made until its back was turned, followed by climbing his back and defeating it with a few hits to its eyes; this concluded the game play time.

 

Personally I am not in to mystical quest games, whether point and click or action but this game seemed well made, compelling and innovative enough for perhaps a few more hours of play. I give this game:

 

7.5/10