By Sam Coles:
Games can go two ways, they are successful and are talked
about for years to come or they are quickly forgotten and left to the void.
Dragon’s Dogma is one of those games that people don’t really talk about, now
it does get brought up in certain conversations but after seven plus years after
its release there has been no sequel and only a re-release of its debut game.
Now I want to talk about why it is a great game (mostly) and why you should play
it, just to preface this piece I would like to thank Capcom UK for supplying me
an Xbox One code for the remaster of the game! Let’s get into it!
The story of Dragon’s Dogma is rather simple you are a
peasant living on a coastal town, where things go wrong when a dragon attacks.
However the dragon takes a specific interest in you where he rips your heart
out, but due to strange events you survive the endeavour because you are an
Arisen. You are tasked with taking this dragon down with the help of Pawns, who
are at your command. The story is not anything spectacular as it just serves as
basic context for the quest ahead, it’s the gameplay and world that stand out
to me and I remember it enthralling me back in 2012 when it first release.
Now I can hear shout from the hills “Sam what is so special
about the gameplay”? Well it takes elements form several different games, think
of it as an experimental smoothie where they take bits from Dark Souls, Monster
Hunter, Shadow of The Colossus, Devil May Cry and The Elder Scrolls to make
this unique and fun fantasy adventure.
The gameplay was something that grabbed me immediately
especially combat, unlike Skyrim which it was compared to straight away combat
feels like you are doing something. The problem with combat in Elder Scrolls
games it lacked finesse because all you did is wave your sword at something
until it was dead, however in Dragon’s Dogma combat is fast and you have to
time blocks coupled with being able to climb on bigger enemies. This is where
the Shadow of the Colossus comparison comes in, you can climb on larger enemies
and this gets really tense especially when you are on the back of a dragon it
decides it’s bored of the fight and flies off with you clinging for dear life. Not
only that the combat in general just feels great as it takes the fast and
flashy approach from Devil May Cry, you can pick from the standard warrior,
rogue and mage which the rogue is my favourite as you can flip around like
Spider-Man.
Now let’s get into the Pawns, these act like your companions
on your adventure but they are made by other players from around the world. You
can choose various Pawns who will be different levels and vocations, but like
any mercenary they cost money to hire which are rift points in this game. When
you use them and want to swap them out you can rate them as well as give other
players feedback, this is also the same for you as your Pawn will bring items
back to you from different playthroughs which always seem to be rocks the
thanks guys!
The game wasn’t perfect in fact it had a lot of issues with its
initial launch back in 2012, for one the visual presentation was a bit of a mess
not the graphics themselves which were okay, but the black bars on screen and the
mess that was the UI. Fortunately in the remaster on PS4 and Xbox One the black
bars are gone, which is great as you can witness the beauty of the world. The
framerate in the original Xbox 360 and PS3 release would tank all the time, it
was almost unplayable especially when explosions happen and just moments that
involved fire. Other problems stem from the pawns, what I mean is that they
never shut up it is the equivalent of a child constantly asking “are we there
yet”? You can tell the Pawn you have created to shut up, but the other Pawns
carrying on by stating the obvious such as “Fire is effective against them”,
really fire against a fleshy mammal is effecting you don’t say!
Dragon’s Dogma is a game that has almost fallen into the void;
it’s a game that no one really discusses these days. Outside of a remaster for the
PS4 and Xbox One there has been no sign of a new instalment yet, it is pushing
on 8 years since its original release and that saddens me. It is an utterly
unique title borrowing elements from otheer games, while it forges its own
identity. If you haven’t I highly recommend picking this game up, just get the
remastered version as the 360 and PS3 versions are a bit of a mess.
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