Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[80Maxwell08]

I played the PS3 version and my FPS was fine most of the time. The only real problem I had was when I fought the Ur Dragon and every now and then the FPS dropped to nothing. Was still fun most of the time but damn that fight got annoying.

 

[duanth123]

The new 60 fps looks amazing.

Although, I would almost suggest that those playing DD for the first time on PC run the game at 30, at least initially. There are key mechanics when it comes to bosses and even some common enemies that require performing certain actions within brief windows of time, all while the insanity of DD combat in going on around you.

I could see some new, inexperienced players experiencing frustration at the faster gameplay .

Do you have damaged brain ? 60 FPS doesn't change input controls, timers or anything of sort (at least in this case).
Also what 60fps ? This game is on MT Framework and it will run like butter.

144FPS at 4k baby if you don't have garbage for GPU.

What is your problem, you dumb asshole. There is definitely a lag at 30 that doesn't exist at 60 fps (much less 144.) Were you dumb enough to think I meant the actual internal timers on mobs changed or something?

 

[Morgoth]

To those who played it: What's the longterm motivation, you know that special DNA that makes the game stand out? Hard to tell from watching videos. This isn't Bethesda-tier boredom I'd like to hope, no?

 

[Scroo]

I got annoyed by the hordes of respawning enemies on the outside areas after a while which ultimately led to me not finishing it. But maybe that's just me.

 

[Delterius]

I got annoyed by the hordes of respawning enemies on the outside areas after a while which ultimately led to me not finishing it. But maybe that's just me.

Well, you can just run past them~

To those who played it: What's the longterm motivation, you know that special DNA that makes the game stand out? Hard to tell from watching videos. This isn't Bethesda-tier boredom I'd like to hope, no?

Quite simply put, Dragon's Dogma is what happens when a bunch of japanese devs behind devil may cry decide to do an open world action RPG that, in their words, doesn't implement basic gameplay so wrong like Bethesda's games always do. Then they run out of investment at some point and decide to release a small, single hub 'open world' RPG with a generic story and great combat.

The game gives you a lot of options in how you get to face your enemies and everything feels like it has a weight behind it. Instead of flayling your pasta arms around like the dragonborn does, you'll be timing your heavy strikes just right to make a wyrm flinch; you'll climb the giant gryphon and strike its head to keep it from flying away; you'll cast tornadoes and earthquakes at your enemies. Even your character's height and weight affects these things: a harpy can grab you and happily fly off (to kill you with fall damage) if you are under 1,50m tall. Not so much if you are a 2,10 fat barbarian. Its all there. Plus: there's no roll spam in combat. You'll have to make do with running for your life.

Aside from combat you've got some interesting ideas here and there. You can go to the seedy part of town and fabricate some quest items so you get to hold them (and their precious powers). You get to design yourself and a 'faithful squire' to painful amounts of detail. And although the story is painfully generic (evil Dragon brings evil and steals your heart, kill him to get it back), there are some strange moments and I should reveal no further.

In short, try the demo on the consoles. If the first Chimera you face interests you at all, then this is a game for you.

 

[Zombra]

I got annoyed by the hordes of respawning enemies on the outside areas after a while which ultimately led to me not finishing it. But maybe that's just me.

Well, you can just run past them~

At the risk of outing myself as a role-player, what is the fiction surrounding the PC and s/his team? Are you heroes sworn to eradicate monsters from the land, or more a team of mercenaries taking contracts that interest you? I'm the kind of player who doesn't avoid trash raider encounters in Wasteland 2 because it's my job to deal with them. So if I'm "supposed" to be killing all the monsters, the thought of running past them is unpleasantly dissonant.

 

[Perkel]

Although, I would almost suggest that those playing DD for the first time on PC run the game at 30, at least initially. There are key mechanics when it comes to bosses and even some common enemies that require performing certain actions within brief windows of time

What is your problem, you dumb asshole.

 

[Great Deceiver]

What sets this apart from everything else is the quality, responsive action gameplay. It's got RPG tropes, but really is an action game at heart.

Play it for the moment-to-moment gameplay. It is excellent. To me, the enemies are the best rendition of traditional D&D monsters (Cyclops, Chimera, Griffon, Dragon), and they are reactive and take distinct tactics to beat. Also, all classes are pretty interesting and varied.

It's not an infinite LARPing simulator, don't go in expecting that.

 

[4249]

The basic combat gameplay is excellent, as it takes more notes from action games than RPGs, and I think the vocation system was solid because the gameplay of each of the advanced vocations feels very different from each other.

But mostly I just loved how many 'oh shit' and 'oh wow' moments I had during the game. Fighting the monsters like Cyclops, Ogre or Dragon for the first time and figuring how to bring them down, adventuring into the night unprepared or running out of oil in a dungeon or catacomb, going into the Everfall rooms without a clue of what's to come, thinking you're an invincible god and then venturing into Bitterblack Isle off the top of my head. There isn't really anything quite like Dragon's Dogma on the market. Except the MMO I guess, but I haven't tried that.

At the risk of outing myself as a role-player, what is the fiction surrounding the PC and s/his team? Are you heroes sworn to eradicate monsters from the land, or more a team of mercenaries taking contracts that interest you? I'm the kind of player who doesn't avoid trash raider encounters in Wasteland 2 because it's my job to deal with them. So if I'm "supposed" to be killing all the monsters, the thought of running past them is unpleasantly dissonant

You're the chosen one who needs to kill the big bad dragon because he stole your heart. You also work as a kind of sort of mercenary for the Duke. Can't remember if that had some requirements for you to slay all the monsters or some shit. Your followers, or pawns as the game calls them, are emotionless, never aging husks just there to serve you.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I basically understood the main character to be basically just a badass that everyone was heaping their requests upon. Whether there's any obligation to fulfill such requests is up to you- but as stated before, you can screw people over in a lot of these quests by cheating them with fake items or simply abandoning them to their fate.

Sadly, you are required to go through some motions to progress the main plot (which is worth doing for various reasons) and said motions can be wildly out of character for someone that murders everyone he meets except his cool bandit friends. Stupid plot armour npcs. _I_ should be the fucking duke.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I basically understood the main character to be basically just a badass that everyone was heaping their requests upon. Whether there's any obligation to fulfill such requests is up to you- but as stated before, you can screw people over in a lot of these quests by cheating them with fake items or simply abandoning them to their fate.

Sadly, you are required to go through some motions to progress the main plot (which is worth doing for various reasons) and said motions can be wildly out of character for someone that murders everyone he meets except his cool bandit friends. Stupid plot armour npcs. _I_ should be the fucking duke.

There is an ending where you can be duke but it might as well be a joke ending for how it's implemented. Personally I think the worst part about the story is the entire ending sequence after gathering wakestones. I cannot think of one redeeming thing about that entire sequence.

 

[tripedal]

Think it will play well with m+kb?

 

[Delterius]

There is an ending where you can be duke but it might as well be a joke ending for how it's implemented. Personally I think the worst part about the story is the entire ending sequence after gathering wakestones. I cannot think of one redeeming thing about that entire sequence.

I actually liked it, so let me try a defense of it.

Spoiler

Seriously if you haven't played it, don't read this.

Spoiler

This is your last chance

Spoiler

Its just another set of overthinking simple videogames stories. Don't spoil things for yourself.

Spoiler

Well, let's face it, narrative isn't one of Dragon's Dogma's strongest suits. For the majority of the game you're in a fantastic medieval setting with knights, peasants and priests. You go from humble beginnings to hero of the realm. You fight monsters and evil cults. Etc. Its as generic as it gets. A plot twist SOMEWHERE was sorely needed. The ending was it. At which point you might dispute its quality.

Well, weirdly enough, the ending is both insane and consistent with the game up until that point. Which in my book is a good thing. Let me explain:

The idea that there's some ultimate mystery to everything is well referenced through the game. Your first encounter with Selene is about the Church hoarding secrets about the Dragon. The 'True Nature' of the Dragon is also mentioned as people point out the strange things surrounding Edmun's own vanquishing of 'his' Dragon. Same thing about the 'True Nature' of the arisen and the pawns ever since the Everfall pointed to a mystery behind the rifts, or Selene's and the Dragonforged's 'Bestowals of Spirit'. So its insane, surprising and perhaps exciting but not really out of the blue.

Furthermore, the narrative of the hero who rises from humble beginnings to take on some grand quest but only in the very end goes through some sort of world changing Epiphany is actually classic storytelling. Which brings me to the second point, that the ending is also consistent from a thematic point of view.

The Hero and a handful of love interests are the only people in the game world who won't roll over and die in face of death incarnate. If you ask just almost every NPC in the game, they'll tell you about how futile it is to run away. Not to mention how the big hero Edmun Dragonsbane stands on the defensive, or the spreading of the Salvation death cult.

So the idea that the Hero stands out for his will to live and to survive adversity is a central point of the storyline from the beginning. And what is cool is that you, the Player, also only realizes the true meaning of the whole journey together with the PC. His epiphany is yours as well.

Now onto the ending itself. You ascend to some divine plane where God tells you all the bullshit has been to see if you were badass enough to become God. Well, in here I found some interesting ideas. When you get to choose between living a happy life as a fisher or marching on towards God, you are forced to kill the main characters of the story. The way I see it, its your PC shredding his mortality, his humanity and his history, in order to achieve Godhood.

Personally, the only real disappointment is that the 'true' final boss is too easy

 

[duanth123]

Although, I would almost suggest that those playing DD for the first time on PC run the game at 30, at least initially. There are key mechanics when it comes to bosses and even some common enemies that require performing certain actions within brief windows of time

What is your problem, you dumb asshole.

So no response, just some meme shitposting. Don't know what I expected.

 

[duanth123]

There is an ending where you can be duke but it might as well be a joke ending for how it's implemented. Personally I think the worst part about the story is the entire ending sequence after gathering wakestones. I cannot think of one redeeming thing about that entire sequence.

I actually liked it, so let me try a defense of it.

Spoiler

Seriously if you haven't played it, don't read this.

Spoiler

This is your last chance

Spoiler

Its just another set of overthinking simple videogames stories. Don't spoil things for yourself.

Spoiler

Well, let's face it, narrative isn't one of Dragon's Dogma's strongest suits. For the majority of the game you're in a fantastic medieval setting with knights, peasants and priests. You go from humble beginnings to hero of the realm. You fight monsters and evil cults. Etc. Its as generic as it gets. A plot twist SOMEWHERE was sorely needed. The ending was it. At which point you might dispute its quality.

Well, weirdly enough, the ending is both insane and consistent with the game up until that point. Which in my book is a good thing. Let me explain:

The idea that there's some ultimate mystery to everything is well referenced through the game. Your first encounter with Selene is about the Church hoarding secrets about the Dragon. The 'True Nature' of the Dragon is also mentioned as people point out the strange things surrounding Edmun's own vanquishing of 'his' Dragon. Same thing about the 'True Nature' of the arisen and the pawns ever since the Everfall pointed to a mystery behind the rifts, or Selene's and the Dragonforged's 'Bestowals of Spirit'. So its insane, surprising and perhaps exciting but not really out of the blue.

Furthermore, the narrative of the hero who rises from humble beginnings to take on some grand quest but only in the very end goes through some sort of world changing Epiphany is actually classic storytelling. Which brings me to the second point, that the ending is also consistent from a thematic point of view.

The Hero and a handful of love interests are the only people in the game world who won't roll over and die in face of death incarnate. If you ask just almost every NPC in the game, they'll tell you about how futile it is to run away. Not to mention how the big hero Edmun Dragonsbane stands on the defensive, or the spreading of the Salvation death cult.

So the idea that the Hero stands out for his will to live and to survive adversity is a central point of the storyline from the beginning. And what is cool is that you, the Player, also only realizes the true meaning of the whole journey together with the PC. His epiphany is yours as well.

Now onto the ending itself. You ascend to some divine plane where God tells you all the bullshit has been to see if you were badass enough to become God. Well, in here I found some interesting ideas. When you get to choose between living a happy life as a fisher or marching on towards God, you are forced to kill the main characters of the story. The way I see it, its your PC shredding his mortality, his humanity and his history, in order to achieve Godhood.

Personally, the only real disappointment is that the 'true' final boss is too easy

Spoiler

You're shortselling the poignancy in the ending. After reaching godhood, in what I believe would be considered the canonical ending, your char kills him/herself with the Godsbane, effectively terminating their very existence, all so that your Pawn might have a chance at a human life and learn to appreciate the strife and constant battle of existence. You basically restart the cycle, and on NG+ the final boss will be the Arisen from your previous game cycle, which sometimes makes the final boss very fucking difficult.

TL DR spoiler: THe game actually has a very subdued, melancholic story with some great moments of quality characterization (like the Duke or his jester) and I would say the best open world gameplay.

Bitterblack Isle is also the best dungeon in any open world game imo, not that there's much competition...

 

[Perkel]

Although, I would almost suggest that those playing DD for the first time on PC run the game at 30, at least initially. There are key mechanics when it comes to bosses and even some common enemies that require performing certain actions within brief windows of time

What is your problem, you dumb asshole.

So no response, just some meme shitposting. Don't know what I expected.

Arguing with retards is counterproductive. IF you don't see problem then i shouldn't step into your bizaro world. I even quoted part which is entirely bollocks and you still don't get it.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I basically understood the main character to be basically just a badass that everyone was heaping their requests upon. Whether there's any obligation to fulfill such requests is up to you- but as stated before, you can screw people over in a lot of these quests by cheating them with fake items or simply abandoning them to their fate.

Sadly, you are required to go through some motions to progress the main plot (which is worth doing for various reasons) and said motions can be wildly out of character for someone that murders everyone he meets except his cool bandit friends. Stupid plot armour npcs. _I_ should be the fucking duke.

There is an ending where you can be duke but it might as well be a joke ending for how it's implemented. Personally I think the worst part about the story is the entire ending sequence after gathering wakestones. I cannot think of one redeeming thing about that entire sequence.

I liked it. In a world where RPGs mostly just serve to masturbate the player's ego, Dragon's Dogma had a somewhat bittersweet ending. Nothing good happened to the main character after the Dragon stole his heart. Even after he got it back he still ends up having to sacrifice himself first to become a God and let a Pinocchio become a real boy and then kill himself as a God to end the cycle and free everyone. The Arisen lost everything.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Delterius duanth123 Hobo Elf
I didn't notice a good amount of those details so I'll give you all that so I'll just explain my problem with it.

Spoiler

Dumping you into a room with no explanation of what just happened to talk to someone who starts the conversation saying "I won't waste your time talking your head off. Kill me and become god." Then proceeds to talk non stop during the pathetically easy fight. I didn't even know you could swing your weapon in that long hallway so I had to run through it with a guy who had heavy armor. Then it's revealed the seneschal was actually Savan all along. So who was the dragon he fought? Did he win or did something else happen? Then once again easy fight then end.

I actually loved that it was bittersweet. The duke accusing you of treason because you won, falling into the everfall full of pawns from other people who have no drive anymore because their masters were slain, the haunting music of the everfall shaft. I loved the tone of the entire post-game but it was just how dumb talking to the Sensechal was that knocked me out of it, plus the cutscenes trying to make him look badass when I beat his first phase in nearly one hit.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I think the Senechal was intentionally an easy fight to show the player via gameplay how thinly he has worn himself out at that point. Also, if you play the game in NG+ you'll fight

Spoiler

your previous main character as the Senechal

 

[80Maxwell08]

I think the Senechal was intentionally an easy fight to show the player via gameplay how thinly he has worn himself out at that point. Also, if you play the game in NG+ you'll fight

Spoiler

your previous main character as the Senechal

Yeah duanth123 already pointed that out but I haven't gotten that far in NG+ yet.

 

[toro]

Until so much hype it will disappoint without a doubt.

 

[Volrath]

The new 60 fps looks amazing.

Although, I would almost suggest that those playing DD for the first time on PC run the game at 30, at least initially. There are key mechanics when it comes to bosses and even some common enemies that require performing certain actions within brief windows of time, all while the insanity of DD combat in going on around you.

I could see some new, inexperienced players experiencing frustration at the faster gameplay .

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Think it will play well with m+kb?

Having tried Dark Souls like that, no, not even close. For me, DD was much harder than DS and the biggest part of it was getting used to the controls.

 

[GrainWetski]

Yeah, because Dark Souls bad mouse controls had nothing to do with the incompetence of From.

Not that I actually expect Capcom to do it properly.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

If it's the holy grail of localizations, then maybe. But probably not.

Remember you're dealing with azns.