Dragon's Dogma Previews and Demo Impressions

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on April 29th, 2012

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Beyond the standard training quests, it's easy to bite off more than you can chew, even early on. I made the mistake of taking on a quest where I was tasked with exploring a well to kick out some baddies that managed to sneak in after the dragon attack. It sounded easy enough, and started out with killing mere critters, but it quickly escalated, putting me in a sub-boss battle with four reptile-like creatures that quickly devoured my party. Coming back a bit later had me barely taking them down, but later encountering some rogue bandits that destroyed my party once again in the same area. Defeated, I set about getting stronger, venturing out of the city to gain experience and learn more about the world. After many more quests, customizations, spell upgrades, armor purchases, and a better knowledge of battle techniques, I boldly marched back into the well, ripped through the reptiles with lightning spells from above, breezed past the bandits with melee attacks, and came out of a well passage on the other side, chest held high. I probably put 30 minutes into party prep and weapon selection before this quest on the third time, but it was easily worth the time.

Battling goes down in third-person, through a combat system system that manages to be both fast and meaty -- the best of both worlds. It's fast but not floaty, and there's plenty of strategy required, so it's not like you're doing mindless Devil May Cry-style slashing. Basic attacks come off quickly, whether it be sword slashes or spell casts, but the harder, meaner ones take time, effort and planning, and careless misuse will find you staring at the retry screen. When the big hits connect, it feels good, but it's never an easy thing, though you'll get better at it as you learn your character's intricacies. Main attacks are mapped to face buttons, and assignable skills can be mapped to a button combination that uses the bumpers as shift buttons. This allows free swapping of any of your skill sets, letting you get creative in your attacking strategies.

Finally, let me discuss the actual combat itself. As I've mentioned, the demo was one-sidedly focused on melee combat, though pawns contributed on the magical front. Both Chimera and Griffon are large fearsome beasts, and come at your group no holds barred. My first glimpse of the Griffon was across a vast field, sort of hovering in mid-air. As I attempted to approach it, it suddenly sped away, only to blindside me from the right, plowing into my group after spear-diving from up high and scattering my collective troops into all directions. Pretty effective opening tactic, I had to admit begrudgingly. For the rest, trying out the game's (Grab) mechanic whereas your character grabs a hold of a monster's limb, or perhaps a tuft of fur, and holds on for dear life, letting you swing and stab your weapon when it isn't trying to buck you off was an absolute hoot! Clinging onto the Griffon's ankle as it took off into the sky, and even climbing up its leg onto its back to inflict some airborne damage, was really reminiscent of some of the epic moments of Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus, only with Dragon's Dogma, such maneuvers are implemented into the character's routine moveset. At one point, my entire party of four was clinging on to the Chimera's sides, holding on for dear life as it charged across its cavern, trying in vain to shake us off. I also got a first-hand look at how the battle can be customized by using this mechanic, as I was able to finally dispatch the Chimera by first clinging to its venom-spewing snake tail and meting out some much-needed punishment to it. The end result was that, for the rest of the battle, my Chimera was short its tail, which lay uselessly in a heap on the floor, severed.

Lastly, the Countryside Quest throws you right into the fray fighting one of the games many bosses. The goal here is to take out the griffin by any means necessary. Before you can even think about engaging the griffin there is a group of goblins that must be dealt with first. During the battle one of my pawns grabbed the goblin from behind and I was able to hack away at the monster. After that my pawn yells, (We can use that as bait.) The pawn picks up the body and then throws it on the ground. The griffin sees it and the beast immediately starts diving down at the body. At same time my pawn tells me, (Come here I can throw you up into the air!) I run to him and he throws my character into the air. While being airborne I manage to grab onto the griffin then proceed to stab it repeatedly in the head sending it barreling down toward the ground stunning the beast while my pawns and I have our way with it finally defeating the monster.

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