Played a bit of Bitterblack Isle at level 53. I can take on regular monsters with ease (e.g. Trolls, Giant Saurians, etc), but the bosses take way too little damage. A lot of people suggest going there at level 100+, I am definitely not grinding that much. Will probably call it quits at this point, though might come back later to try a different vocation.
Calm your butthurts, fanboys, here are my objective takes on Dragon's Dogma:
- The combat itself is pretty good for an aRPG, there are a ton of abilities, animations, good solid feel to it. Climbing on giant enemies is pretty neat. Compared to something like Skyrim, it's great. But on the other hand, it lacks the elegance and player skill component of something like Dark Souls. Enemies have very high damage reduction, so you can only damage them with appropriate weapon, level, enchantment, etc. Also, the way enemies often gang up on you and the way the abilities work, it's usually just easier to spam some fancy attack rather than be reactive as in real combat.
- The story has some interesting philosophical/religious overtones and novel angles, but it's mostly hidden beneath mountains of confusing writing and voice-overs, and tons of MMO-type quests. And just being the Arisen takes the whole chosen one retardation to the next level. All the NPCs keep ranting theatrical lines for every little thing, which is not a good thing either.
- Exploration isn't that great either, and what first seems like an open world continent quickly becomes a hub (Gran Soren) with a few spokes (paths you can take from there). Until you get portocrystals, it's really tedious too.
So between the combat system and some novel story angles, it's not a terrible game or anything, but too many flaws to be considered really good.