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Dragon's Dogma: "What a horrible night to have a curse"

Grimreapo

Grizzled Veteran
Jul 5, 2011
368
141
"DARK AND SEXY"

Is the buzz phrase for current RPGs, its pretty much ruined Bioware's RPGs and even though I like the Witcher I yearn for the chance for having a old school High Fantasy setting about slaying monsters and having open world fun. After being told that Japan could never make a good Western RPG the guy behind Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry took this to heart making Dragon's Dogma where you fight fantastical creatures, climbing all over them rather than hacking at their shins like in the RPGs of old:

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Look nice but what does it bring to the table? Think of it being a more hardcore version of Skyrim, well until the sun goes down where it changes... as they come out in the night...

Now before you post something like "LOL, CONSOLE", "CAPCAM R SCUM" or "LOL, LOOKS BLAND" watch this video:
Dragon's Dogma Gameplay Preview - OXM Exclusive - YouTube

Pretty much a must buy if you have a console, IMO...
 
Loved the demo the moment they told me I had a lantern in my inventory for extra light and it had fuel! Note: a character told me. The game didn't force me to take it out before I was allowed to advance!
That's about four seconds into it. Enough to be pleasantly surprised at how normal the characters look right before.

Then I walked on and found an item on the ground I could pick up and it wasn't flashing and had no pointers over it. Just the action button lit up and said I could take this. If I wanted to. Not like the game paused and waited for me to do it...

Really ****ing refreshing.

Then I bashed my shield into some goblin's face, accidentally grabbed my companion and put him in some strange hold (because you can do that!) and the goblin hit him.:p

It's been a good while since I've seen a game like that. On the console no less.

The demo only has two action missions so you don't get to experience the open world part of the game, but you get to mess around in the character creator and it's a treat! Made me a character that looks more or less like me. Hair slightly different, but close enough. Then I made me a sturdy babe as a companion and fought a huge fantasy bird with her (occasionally she tried to launch me up so I could grab onto the beast but I only fell on my ***) until the in-game sun went down! It really did!

I have since then found out it's an actual rpg with an open world so this game jumped onto my "I should definitely look into buying this asap" list.
 
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Loved the demo the moment they told me I had a lantern in my inventory for extra light and it had fuel! Note: a character told me. The game didn't force me to take it out before I was allowed to advance!
That's about four seconds into it. Enough to be pleasantly surprised at how normal the characters look right before.

Then I walked on and found an item on the ground I could pick up and it wasn't flashing and had no pointers over it. Just the action button lit up and said I could take this. If I wanted to. Not like the game paused and waited for me to do it...

Really ****ing refreshing.

Then I bashed my shield into some goblin's face, accidentally grabbed my companion and put him in some strange hold (because you can do that!) and the goblin hit him.:p

It's been a good while since I've seen a game like that. On the console no less.

The demo only has two action missions so you don't get to experience the open world part of the game, but you get to mess around in the character creator and it's a treat! Made me a character that looks more or less like me. Hair slightly different, but close enough. Then I made me a sturdy babe as a companion and fought a huge fantasy bird with her (occasionally she tried to launch me up so I could grab onto the beast but I only fell on my ***) until the in-game sun went down! It really did!

I have since then found out it's an actual rpg with an open world so this game jumped onto my "I should definitely look into buying this asap" list.
Just been playing the demo and one of the best things about this is how well animated the Griffen is next to Skyrim Dragons which look like they they hung around with rails...

Also compare things to fighting Giants in Skyrim: Dragon's Dogma gameplay - Assassin vs Cyclops - YouTube
 
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Yeah, being able to climb around on the big monsters does wonders for giving you a feel for their size!

And I love that it's completely dynamic! No little quick-time event when you halved his HP that allows you to jump onto him in a little cutscene so you can hit a blinking vulnerable bit for some extra damage before you jump off again in another cutscene... You just run up to the beast, grab onto it and then start climbing and slashing.
You can even pluck small low-flying bird-creatures out of the air like this, because you're much too heavy for them so you can take them down to the ground where you can hack and slash them more comfortably. Or you could just keep them pinned to the ground while one of your buddies finishes them off!
The AI companions also do this! Sometimes they'll just grab some fellow from behind and hold on to him so he can't move, shout over to you that they got one, so you can run over and get free hits in.:D

That's the kind of interaction group-based RPGs need so you can feel like you're fighting side by side with your companions.

You spoke of the griffin's animations and I gotta say the monsters on the whole look pretty fantastic. I watched a couple of trailers and saw ogres, giant multi-headed serpents and more and as outlandish as they are, the game is shooting for a kind of photo-realistic look for them. They're mythical creatures, but if they existed they could look sort of like this.
The environments too.
It reminds me of Richard Burns Rally, in that while there are games that look technically more impressive there is a subdued photo-realistic quality to the graphics here that you don't often see.
Red Dead Redemption really excels at this too. And so does Skyrim!

And the dragons in Skyrim are incredibly badass. How they snap at you, how they can cling to roof-tops or to tower walls, how they cause a huge ruckus when they attack settlements, how they crash-land after they're done with their last extra curve after they die... After you killed your tenth one and they're just a chore to fight they might feel a little stiff, granted, but not because there's a whole lot wrong with them but with how they're utilized, imo. They're far too numerous, far too weak, too meaningless and far too boring to fight, so you notice any shortcomings they might have much sooner than you should! If there were only like five dragons in the game and they put up memorable fights no one would ever say they're NOT incredibly cool.

@Heisenberg: I found it a little odd that the demo gave us two instanced action scenes and no taste of the open world gameplay at all! I don't know, maybe let us play on after a fight but start a 15 minute timer or whatever. At least show a trailer at some point where it's made clear what kind of game it is! Because I was half-expecting it to be action mission after action mission, like Kingdom Under Fire or something.
I don't know how you can properly demo an open world game.

The prologue seems cold because it just throws you into the thick of it. No exposition, no scripted character interaction, nothing. It's a cool part to sample the gameplay. Good variety of opponents, spoiler-free to a fault, lol..
The countryside part is over when you beat the bird. That's all it is so you didn't miss much. Except the fun of the fight.
I see where you're coming from. Even though I don't agree.

Personally, I'm pretty hyped for this game now.
 
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The prologue part presentation was meh, everything felt kinda distanced and passive. The bossfight was awesome though. Then the countryside part was annoying because it started off against those goblin enemies and a huge flying thing which it took ages to kill so I didn't bother
LOL! You jest! That Griffen can be killed in under 2min if you play you cards right...
 
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Was looking for video that shows off the Griffen fight and this pretty good, if you just want to see that finishes at 6min mark but he then pushes limits of the demo as he replays it but takes too long so we get to see night time as at 13:00 the sun is down, at 13:40 its "Skyrim dark" but 15:40 the whole dynamics of the fight has changed as its so damn dark...
Dragon's Dogma Demo - Countryside Quest vs Griffin! - YouTube
 
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Still better than getting a big fat middle finger instead.

I just wish Dragon's Dogma was on PC. Then we could have massive Skyrim vs. DD arguments.
Not just that, but PC is a big market for RPGs. In many ways, far bigger than consoles due to its history. It just seems silly to not release an open world RPG for PC.
 
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Well there are 3 things to keep on mind:
1) Oh sure PC guys want port but how do you know their not going to throw a sissy fit over something?
2) Its Capcom, NEVER FORGET THE RE4 PORT... *spits*
3) PC gamers tend to be lot softer than they think, some PC'er say that Dark Souls is too hard but then look back on Fallout and Baldur's Gate with fondness (anything that uses a RNG for combat is harder than anything that does not.). Where as harder console games are making a nice niche market at moment...

Personally I think Dragon's Dogma could be a great PC game, just make sure you spread the word and get people to sign as Capcom are listening:
http://www.change.org/petitions/capcom-4-player-cooperative-play-in-dragons-dogma

http://www.1up.com/news/dragon-dogma-could-come-to-pc

If Demon's/Dark Souls is the "Planescape: Torment" of 3D RPGs then this is Icewind Dale which is a good thing, I did like Skyrim but it had no danger, no risk and that means it going to be less of adventure than this...

Also its more like Icewind Dale than you may think, this is a great system:
Dragon's Dogma Gameplay - Pawn Guide - OXM - YouTube
 
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I want to preorder this but I can't find info on whether the German version will be fully playable in English and whether it's cut in any way. Because I'd have to import an English version instead in either case.

They should really be forced to place a "Cut" label on the box of cut games somewhere. They're hoping the majority of casual gamers and buyers won't care/know but I think that's something we should be made aware of.

Anyway, does anyone know?
 
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