Dragon's Dogma Previews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on June 16th, 2011

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I'd say the basic combat feels most like Demon's Souls, in terms of the heavy nature of the movements and the movement abilities of the characters, but without the crushing difficulty. The normal enemies are dangerous, but not all likely to kill you immediately. A crowd of enemies in that game would be instant death; here, it's just a somewhat exciting battle. Frequently, one of my pawns would grab an enemy and urge me to finish it off.

This is where the game's biggest flaw comes in: those AI partners are clearly meant to interact with the player in a way that encourages activity on your part, but in that interest Capcom failed to make them not stupid. Rather than a cool, context-sensitive, occasional moment, it seemed like they required me to finish off every enemy. You've got a huge axe, guy, try using that instead of putting every goblin in a half-nelson!

Furthermore, every time we happened across a group of these enemies, all three partners felt compelled to inform me that "their kind hate ice and fire both!" Three different characters, with three different voice actors, recited the exact same line to me, every time a fight started. And I didn't even have any ice or fire abilities, so I couldn't do anything about it. I guess that's the only factoid they all knew about the goblins, and just wanted to have something to say, to keep our time hanging out from getting awkward. The axe guy also went out of his way to chop up every crate, half-broken wooden structure, and loose board he saw. I'm guessing he was supposed to be looking for raw materials or treasure, but the way he seemingly fixated on that, it just came off as a guy who really hated wood.

Character detail shined superbly down to the creases in the course fabric and the rusty chain-mail. However, I believe that level of sharpness among characters wasn't exactly consistent when it came to NPCs or the enemy. Regardless, all the baddies still look satisfying when you're placing them at the end of your sword.

Animations were fluid, and every combat ended with brutal satisfaction. You can change up your attack style by switching between quick swings or the slower heavy-handed haymakers if you can manage the timing. Grabs can also be performed which is then followed by a few options on how you want to manhandle your opponent. Amid the fast paced action, you will be able to see the health of your enemies with their health bar conveniently located above their heads.

After sending your foes to the earth from whence they came, you can replenish your character's health and stamina by accessing the departmentalized inventory system and choose whatever healing snack is munchable.

Dragon's Dogma is another big game that really uses the spectacle afforded by today's generation of graphics, from big bosses to wide-open environments, which I believe is becoming more commonplace among all types of games these days, not the least of which Capcom's. Itsuno agreed, adding that "a lot of other [companies'] games don't do it well; that they follow certain boss patterns and make you hit certain buttons at just the right time, which can get kind of boring." For Dogma, the developers want to give you those big fights, but give you the opportunity to fight how you want to fight, by forming your own strategy and use the weapons and skills you think will be the most effective methods to kill the enemies. (Something that also sounds like Monster Hunter.)

The quest structure, specifically having simultaneous quests, compliments the fact that there's an emphasis on story compared to Monster Hunter. The game has a similar quest structure, so your progression through the story is based on completing quests. However, unlike MH, you can have multiple quests active at one time, and they're not all about defeating boss monsters; mysteries and other bits of character interaction will come into play.

The combat with a melee character was fairly elementary hack-and-slash, so far. Aside from the usual stable of heavy and light attacks, your abilities were expanded through the use of the shoulder buttons. For example, while holding down R1 or L1, three of the face buttons would have an enhanced ability. Each type will have their own abilities, but in the case of the melee character, the R1 button gave access to offensive powers (such as a 360 degree slash) and the L1 button had defensive powers (such as a shield smash). It remains to be seen if the same logic is applied to the other types. Following some rooms of elementary enemies, which were disposed of quietly, the demo was hit with a fight against a chimera (lion, goat, snake combo, for those playing at home).

As your pawns shouted out tips, such as which part of the chimera was weak to what, this sequence provided the ideal basis for showing off the .rab' mechanic. Basically, all larger enemies can be grabbed by their limbs, so that you can attack them individually. This was handy in getting rid of the snake part first, and as explained by the developers, this is to avoid the tendency of action games having players hack away at shins of a large enemy. While we didn't really get to try, you'll apparently be able to climb around the enemy in order to get to weaker spots.

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