Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Perkel]

I played the demo of it and saw a friend play it. I really liked it, especially how you can grab onto a FLYING MONSTER WITH WINGS and it will actually fly you around the map while you stab it to kingdom come.

That said, I have two issues with it.

1. The melee class was extremely frustrating to play. Like Monster Hunter, the enemies take a ridiculous amount of hits. Unfortunately the combat isn't quite as tight as MH. They shouldn't be such damage sponges because the big lion thing should have looked like minced meat with the number of times I slashed at it.
   
2. This is hearsay but apparently it has some of the worst padding in all games. It's open world and doesn't have fast travel. Everything inbetween bosses is boring as hell, and it should really be a boss rush instead of an endless walk to your next objective for 10 minutes of fun gameplay.
3. I also distinctly recall how your companions would constantly shout nonsense at you. Is there a way to turn it off? It got on my tits really fast.

With those caveats in mind, is it still worth it? I'm rather more of an action gamer than RPG so that part is up my alley, but are there lots of boring tasks inbetween? Do bosses drag on for too long?

Played full DD without expansion and :

1. DD is literally only game where i didn't mind huge HP pools. This is mainly because only huge monsters have huge HP. I mean you are puny humans trying to kill dragons with sticks. This is why people don't mind it in MH. This is battle of attrition not some stomping on weak. You are fighting constantly with monster which are better than you in every way. You are fighting with wit and tactic not pure muscle. Same in DD. You are targeting monster and slowly chip away their health and strategize approach to that goal. Only bloat of HP i didn't like was sometimes on human enemies and smaller monsters. But this wasn't huge problem overall.
2. Game doesn't feature fast travel* because Dragons Dogma feature unique mechanic where day and night cycle completely changes environment you play in. You quickly will understand that you start quests at morning and you will hope to finish them by end of day usually running to city like a dog before night sets out. IF night will surprise you then you have huge chance to die especially at lower levels. On night in DD monsters come out which can be way and above your level and not only huge ones but smaller ones too.
This is why they don't feature fast travel from get go and even when you obtain ability to fast travel it is severely restricted to just 2-3 places of your choosing. To get more fast travel points you would need to finish game multiple times (game features new game+) to get more stones.
3. As far as i know no. Though they sometimes say stupid things but overall they are good. Especially since you can completely customize what they will be using in fight and their AI isn't that dumb. When they will see flying beast they will try to give you jumping point when you analyze some monster they will use monster weaknesses and so on.


Yes some quest require you to trek whole map to get somewhere but like i said part of fun is to get to safety before night which is why those trekking can easily change into WTF OMG OMG OMG I AM SO DEAD.

Also DD features proper nights if you set gamma at proper level (provided calibration by game) so traveling by night and hitting on back of some huge ass monster and running away isn't impossible here.

Also i just remembered how awesome DD FX for enemies are. For example if you use fire spell on someone it has chance to set up it if fire. But that is not all. Hit it another time with fire spell and it will burn more (and you will see this). I remember cyclops being basically living torches, gryphons flying on fire and so on.

A lot of the quests and open world are there for people who want to sperg out collecting all 99 widgets or finding every last bit of jew gold in an area. Not my bag either; I ignored most of the quests and just beelined between bosses.

True but most of quests give you unique pieces of gear (fashion not stats lol) so without them you can't play fashion dogma. Frankly speaking DD is the only game where i didn't also mind those fetch quests as by end of quest i knew i would get most of the time something interesting.

edit:

damn i didn't know Dark Arisen is such awesome expansion. I though it was mainly some bigger pack of DLC rather than Dark Souls style expansion. Didn't try Dark Arisen becaue by that time i borrowed my DD copy of game to friend and dude fucked it up.

here is trailer:

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I played the demo of it and saw a friend play it. I really liked it, especially how you can grab onto a FLYING MONSTER WITH WINGS and it will actually fly you around the map while you stab it to kingdom come.

That said, I have two issues with it.

1. The melee class was extremely frustrating to play. Like Monster Hunter, the enemies take a ridiculous amount of hits. Unfortunately the combat isn't quite as tight as MH. They shouldn't be such damage sponges because the big lion thing should have looked like minced meat with the number of times I slashed at it.
   
2. This is hearsay but apparently it has some of the worst padding in all games. It's open world and doesn't have fast travel. Everything inbetween bosses is boring as hell, and it should really be a boss rush instead of an endless walk to your next objective for 10 minutes of fun gameplay.
3. I also distinctly recall how your companions would constantly shout nonsense at you. Is there a way to turn it off? It got on my tits really fast.

With those caveats in mind, is it still worth it? I'm rather more of an action gamer than RPG so that part is up my alley, but are there lots of boring tasks inbetween? Do bosses drag on for too long?

1. This is true of the larger enemies in the game, but the more numerous mooks that you encounter can be taken down more quickly. And frankly, it makes sense for an enormous creature like a dragon, cockatrice, hydra, or cyclops to be able to absorb large amounts of damage from human-sized weapons. The battles with large enemies are the better part of the game, as you are able to make use of more complicated tactics and also climb on the creatures à la Shadow of the Colossus. These battles tend to be suitably epic without dragging on for too long, unless you're underlevelled in which case the obvious solution is to adventure elsewhere for a while.

2. You must have heard this comment about padding from someone playing the pre-Dark Arisen version of the game. Fast travel exists in the original version, but it's limited to teleporting back to the main city (Gran Soren) until you acquire a portable teleport destination called a Portcrystal, but only one exists and you won't acquire it until late in the game. In the Dark Arisen version, they not only added a teleportation site to the starting town (Cassardis) but more importantly increased the number of Portcrystals to 5, with the first one being acquired shortly after you arrive in Gran Soren. And for good measure the price of the ferrystones that you use to teleport was slashed by 90%. Dragon's Dogma was originally intended to be Open World, but this was scrapped during development. The game doesn't prevent you from running around parts of the world where you don't have any particular reason to be, but there isn't much reward for doing so.

3. The "knowledge chair" that allows you to customize (to a limited extent) your main pawn's behavior includes a question affecting how often the pawn speaks. I'm not sure if there's a way to change this behavior for the other two pawns, though. In any case, I found this to be only mildly annoying in my three playthroughs.

 

[Delterius]

How many waifus are there and can you fuck more than one?

Every NPC in the game is a waifu in potential. This includes an assortment of various orthodox waifus and... er... the little girl, the bald old man, the main vendor, etc

I played the demo of it and saw a friend play it. I really liked it, especially how you can grab onto a FLYING MONSTER WITH WINGS and it will actually fly you around the map while you stab it to kingdom come.

That said, I have two issues with it.

1. The melee class was extremely frustrating to play. Like Monster Hunter, the enemies take a ridiculous amount of hits. Unfortunately the combat isn't quite as tight as MH. They shouldn't be such damage sponges because the big lion thing should have looked like minced meat with the number of times I slashed at it.
   
2. This is hearsay but apparently it has some of the worst padding in all games. It's open world and doesn't have fast travel. Everything inbetween bosses is boring as hell, and it should really be a boss rush instead of an endless walk to your next objective for 10 minutes of fun gameplay.
3. I also distinctly recall how your companions would constantly shout nonsense at you. Is there a way to turn it off? It got on my tits really fast.

With those caveats in mind, is it still worth it? I'm rather more of an action gamer than RPG so that part is up my alley, but are there lots of boring tasks inbetween? Do bosses drag on for too long?

Just to complement what some people said so far:

1.The HP pools in general don't get anywhere close to MH's.

The Chimera you fought in the early game only takes a fair amount of hits for a while, you'll soon have the ability to kick their asses by the truckload. The game has 200 levels and you should finish the vanilla main quest at the 50s-60s if you are thorough.

At the 20s/30s (which is early in the game) the Fighter class you probably used get a charged precision strike, while the Warrior is mostly about such abilities, which allow them to deal a lot of damage, sometimes surpassing the power of even the magick classes.

2. With the expansion you get a larger amount of items called Portcrystal and Ferrystones. The former let you place fast travel points and the latter lets you access them. Ferrystones are rare in vanilla DD, but they can be bought cheaply in Dark Arisen.

That said, the mileage may vary when it comes to running back and forth. There's always a shortcut that lets you cut travel time significantly, but often you have to keep an eye out.

3. There's nonsense about the surroundings, commands and battle tips that they'll throw at you. The latter can be useful, at least when your companions call attention to some support skills they are using, such as giving you a booster to a flying monster. I learned to tune out after a while.

All that said, Dragon's Dogma is a great action rpg that could use a bit more polish, but its solid on its own right. I wholeheartedly recommend.

 

[Makabb]

Angryjoe gave it 7/10

 

[Makabb]

Haters gonna hate

 

[Anthony Davis]

Angryjoe gave it 7/10

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this guy.

 

[deuxhero]

DD on PC has 4k/144hz support + better textures:

You forgot about no FXAA. That made the original super blurry

 

[Great Deceiver]

Angryjoe gave it 7/10

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this guy.

6:46, tries to sound smart and talk about AI algorithms, says "alogarithms". Guy is a fucking gesticulating monkey. Detestable.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Angryjoe gave it 7/10

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this guy.

6:46, tries to sound smart and talk about AI algorithms, says "alogarithms". Guy is a fucking gesticulating monkey. Detestable.

Besides the obvious reasons why he is a spastic idiot - he doesn't know the game. You can set your Pawn's AI priorities by either using the Chair, or by buying potions from the Pawn equipment vendor dude.

 

[Dexter]

Sweet!

 

[StaticSpine]

I remember him mocking the game for not having a fast travel system, though it appeared in Dark Arisen expansion.

 

[Ninjerk]

obligatory "Fallout 3 Kicks Ass" image

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've said it before in this same thread, but Dragon's Dogma is probably my favourite game of the past 5 years. I played the original to death on the PS3 even though the framerate sucked ass and I could hardly see anything through the smear filter. I never did play the expansion - what a glorious way to do it, 4k and 60 fps. January can't come soon enough.

 

[Makabb]

but what are the pawns exactly and can you play solo ?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Pawns are difficult to explain, they're player-created companions that you can recruit - people can also recruit your self-made pawns, and they inherit whatever behavioural choices you set for them in your own game (there's a chair you can sit them down on and "talk" to them to establish their general behaviour - talkativeness, etc.)

They're a pretty fucking cool system to be honest, and most complaints people have about pawns are due to ignorance of the system itself.

But yeah, you can play without any pawns, it makes the game a lot harder.

 

[Martius]

To be precise party can contain your personal pawn and two of others players. I am not sure but I dont think there is a way to take third pawn of other player instead of your own?

 

[Anthony Davis]

"They're Masterworks all, you can't go wrong."

My wife still says that to me.


I've sunk hundreds of hours into this game - and my wife hates it. Hahaha, I can hardly wait to play it again.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I remember him mocking the game for not having a fast travel system, though it appeared in Dark Arisen expansion.

Ferrystones are present in the original DD too, though the DD expansion introduces the Eternal Ferrystone that isn't a one-time item.

 

[Delterius]

I remember him mocking the game for not having a fast travel system, though it appeared in Dark Arisen expansion.

Ferrystones are present in the original DD too, though the DD expansion introduces the Eternal Ferrystone that isn't a one-time item.

The Eternal Ferrystone isn't avaiable to everyone though, what's important, I think, is that regular ones became more affordable and easier to buy.

 

[Perkel]

I remember him mocking the game for not having a fast travel system, though it appeared in Dark Arisen expansion.

Ferrystones are present in the original DD too, though the DD expansion introduces the Eternal Ferrystone that isn't a one-time item.

The Eternal Ferrystone isn't avaiable to everyone though, what's important, I think, is that regular ones became more affordable and easier to buy.

How availble we are talking about ? Because in original DD you could set up i think only 2-3 fast travel points in first play-trough and getting more required new game + which gave you another 2-3.. so new game ++ would get you another 2-3 and so on.

Also you would get first one by 3/5 of total game playtime.

 

[Delterius]

I remember him mocking the game for not having a fast travel system, though it appeared in Dark Arisen expansion.

Ferrystones are present in the original DD too, though the DD expansion introduces the Eternal Ferrystone that isn't a one-time item.

The Eternal Ferrystone isn't avaiable to everyone though, what's important, I think, is that regular ones became more affordable and easier to buy.

How availble we are talking about ? Because in original DD you could set up i think only 2-3 fast travel points in first play-trough and getting more required new game + which gave you another 2-3.. so new game ++ would get you another 2-3 and so on.

Also you would get first one by 3/5 of total game playtime.

Well, I'm talking about ferrystones not portcrystals. But according to wiki 4 portable portcrystals were added in DA and the price for Ferrystones went from tens to a few thousands.

 

[SerratedBiz]

The Eternal Ferrystone isn't avaiable to everyone though

I don't know how you peasants even get up in the morning.

 

[Avellion]

Man, I loved the attention to detail this game had. Repeatedly engulfing someone in flames increases the intensity, character height and weight having actual impact on the gameplay, ogres going crazy when they see women, day and night cycles affecting enemy behaviour and enemy encounters, NPCs reacting not only to how you talk, but also how you act (people wont take kindly to you if you keep shoving them).

I really hope this port will allow for some degree of moddability or tweakability. I want to play Hard Mode without being showered in gold and XP. But even without that, this would still be a

but what are the pawns exactly and can you play solo ?

Not only can you play solo, but some augments (perks) are only active when solo.

 

[Dyskolos]

"They're Masterworks all, you can't go wrong."

My wife still says that to me.

Mine still shouts 'You must gather your party before venturing forth' whenever I'm trying to hurry us out of somewhere.

 

[Siveon]

If someone makes a mod where I can make all of my pawns instead of 1, I think I'd be in heaven. No offense to other people's pawns, I just don't want your underpowered waifu/husbando on my team chattering about goblins all day.

Can't wait for the PC port. I've bought the game twice, but it's so good that I'd pay another 30 or so for that 60 FPS glory. Dragon's Dogma 2 Capcom. Get on that shit.