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DRAGON'S DOGMA

PUB: CAPCOM

DEV: CAPCOM

PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX360

RATED: MA15+



HEX

Ah, the fantasy RPG. Dragon's Dogma is Capcom's take on a fantasy epic, and as a fantasy fan, dare I say it has one of the coolest story intros in a game, I've ever seen.





BAJO

A terrible Dragon attacks your small fishing village, terrorising and slaughtering your people. You, naught but a peasant, take up arms and bravely take on the beast all by yourself, but he swats you like a fly, plucks your heart from your chest and eats it.



HEX

Miraculously, you are brought back to life with magic by the Dragon, and instructed to seek him out and challenge him for your heart. You are hereafter known as 'The Arisen', and with some newfound strength, magical abilities, and some devoted companions you set off on your epic quest.



HEX

Your first task after customising your character, in a wonderfully detailed and extensive customisation menu, I might add, is being quickly introduced to the concept of pawns. Pawns are a kind of mystical race of devoted, soulless golem things that exist only to serve in times of crisis. In this case, their duty is to you, The Arisen and future dragon slayer.



BAJO

You can have up to three pawns at one time, of various classes to make up your party. One of these will always be your pawn, which you will customise and shape to your liking, initially with a rather clever survey which will ultimately determine their class and inclination. This is one of many little things I love about this game. Such how your pawns will collect items on the ground and loot, and you can also sit down with you pawn and give them a good talking to if you want to readjust their combat tactics. Pawns are great. Other pawns can be swapped in and out whenever you encounter a rift stone, you can set favourites and you can even hire your pawn out to other players who can give them gifts upon their return, which is something we couldn't test out with our code, but a very cool idea.



HEX

It's a cool system, and as each pawn has different abilities, strengths, weaknesses and personalities. I just, kind found that I didn't really care about them, because they sort of weren't real people. They're just these zombie-like drones who are like "I live to serve you, master" and if one dies you can just go back into the rift and get a new one.



BAJO

That's why I liked them, they're my underlings. I did feel a connection when I went to trade in another one though, because you feel that they have lost the popularity contest, you're sending them away and getting a new one in. Sorry buddy, you talk too much.



HEX

Although I did quite enjoy having my bad-ass group of ladies with me, better watch your back, beasts of Gransys!



BAJO

But, let's talk about the classes. Initially, you can only choose from three vocations, Fighter, Mage, and Strider, but as you level up you can upgrade to evolved versions of these vocations with a vast array of abilities using a combination of melee and magic, or simply pick a new vocation altogether. I thought this was really interesting.



HEX

Yeah, now when we reviewed Kingdoms of Alamalala: Reckoning. I was fiercely against being able to change your class willy-nilly. But, now I have to admit I'm kind enjoying it. I still stuck within my range, mind you, I began as a Strider, you know I always choose the rogue/hunter option, but I then evolved to a ranger, and eventually a MAGIC ARCHER. Oh my god, Baj, SO freaking cool. I had daggers with a whole host of insane attacks, slicing and dicing, tossing targets into the air and firing explosives at them, aerial dashes, my bow would rein arrows down on trolls, but I could also play at mage with a staff, which let me do this and this, and this is just the Magic Archer class. There are NINE VOCATIONS in this game!



BAJO

Yeah, so much to choose from. I loved the sword play, especially the "tusk toss" which launches foes into the air and my favourite, "flesh skewer"! And they all play so beautifully too, such reactive and fluid animations. Combat is just a joy with no inch of the controller put to waste. And watching other my pawns abilities rain down around my own, ah it's exciting!



HEX

I loved that I could begin a fight with my magic staff, then switch to daggers mid-way through. This gave me a wonderful mix of ranged attacks, but then getting up close and personal by utilising the game's awesome grab mechanic to climb onto the beast and attack its head as it thrashed around.



BAJO

Oh. The grab action is brilliant, and reminded me of shadow of the colossus a bit. I'm surprised more games haven't done this, it makes more sense to grab on to an enemy and attack them like this rather than just attacking their feet or doing a quicktime event. It's one of those great simple ideas that just makes combat so engaging.



HEX

And the sense of accomplishment when you take the enemy down is so much more satisfying.



BAJO

I did find in some of those larger beast battles that the camera gets a bit messy. If out in the open, these fights looked amazing. But often you're near trees and you spend half your time with your vision obscured by pixelated branches.



HEX

Oh, I know. In fact I found the nature of those fights to be horribly messy in general. In this one fight with a hydra I was clinging on for dear life, and the camera was swinging around so much I had no idea what was happening half the time.



You and your pawns work together in battle, and you need to keep them alive as well as yourself. But their contributions to each fight are immeasurable, they'll utilise their various attacks and abilities to not only pound their fair share of damage into and enemy, but also assist by setting your weapons aflame. Sometimes they'll even hold an enemy for you, while you strike the killing blow.



BAJO

Yes, the map is just begging to be explored, both due to the lay of the land itself and its many nooks and crannies to find chests, herbs and treasure, and the frequent urging of your pawns who will chat to you constantly, both warning you of dangers, letting you know when you're heading in the wrong direction, and advising you of what there is to gain from travelling certain paths.



HEX

Yes, but ye gods, the best advice they will give you is to fear the night. A lantern will help you see in dark times, but honestly nothing will save you if you're caught in the forest after dark. By night, horrible ambushes of bandits, death knights, the undead, and chimera will reign down upon you and your band of travellers with a whole heap of unpleasantness. Oh and save often, because the auto-saves in this game are brutal.



BAJO

Yeah, it adds a real sense of danger doesn't it? If you're out adventuring and you lose track of time, suddenly the sun starts to set and you're miles from safety, it's terrifying! There's no fast travel system in this game save for ferry stones which are very rare indeed. This means that the land has to be traversed in the most traditional way, on foot and whatever dangers you encounter along the way have to be faced head-on. Prepare for a lot of replaying, and a lot of re-running across half the map if you forget to save.



HEX

At one point I journeyed all the way to this fort in the forest, but then it got dark and I was so terrified to leave the castle in the darkness and head home that I literally just stood there all night and waited for the dawn. They got the difficulty here just right. It's punishing, yet so rewarding and fills you with real dread of what lurks beyond. In the end I was panic-saving every 5 seconds!



BAJO

Me too, mostly because I didn't want to have to redo quests, because on the whole the quests in this game are a bit of a let-down. For the first part of the game you'll really only be strong enough to take on quests in the area that runs along the coast between your village and the main city, and it's a lot of kill 20 of these, kill 10 of those and it just gets a bit grindy and repetitive.



HEX

Yes, or a whole bunch of escort missions.



BAJO

I HATE escort missions!



HEX

I know, and there are so many of them! Sometimes I'd set out and not even realise I had some dude with me I was supposed to take somewhere, so I'd tell him I wasn't really interested in helping him right now.



BAJO

I love that you can pick up nearly anything in this game, it's a really fun feature, I spend 20 minutes throwing pots at people, throwing people at people and throwing rabbits off cliffs. Don't get in my way rabbit.



HEX

I also thought the stamina system in this game was really well implemented. Running, jumping, climbing and combat all use up stamina, and managing this in battle as well as health is just as important. Recovering stamina takes a few precious moments, and if you're caught off guard it can mean a quick death.



BAJO

You have potions and herbs that you can take to recover both health and stamina. You even have to be careful using it when sprinting through the forest, because if you run out of steam on the road and are suddenly ambushed, you're leaving yourself vulnerable to attack. As usual, your trusty pawns will help you when you're out of breath, though.



HEX

There's so much about this world that really sings of a sense of realism and attention to detail, it's a wonderful landscape to explore.



There's just a host of little annoyances that turned what could have been a near-perfect game, into a good game with a fair few foibles. I just hated 80% of the quests in this game, which is a big part of it. Thankfully, there is so much opportunity to just make your own fun. And as someone who enjoys customising and managing abilities, I thoroughly enjoyed doing all this for both myself, AND my main pawn! Just a couple o' gals going shopping for swords and vambraces.



I haven't felt such a genuine sense of fear of the dark in a game like this before, it's excellent, and I had a great time with it, so I'm giving it 7.5 out of 10 rubber chickens.



BAJO

Yeah, there are a few things holding it back, it could of done with a bit of polish in some areas. But that combat system was just so interesting to me, I stuck with it just for that. I'm giving it 8 out of 10.



X360, PS3

15.5 out of 20 Rubber Chickens