Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

When this game was released back in 2012 it was by far one of the greatest titles of that generation, let me tell you why It mixes a little from JRPGs, but in its very core is a western RPG. You have 3 initial classes, then 9 later. Class level and Character level are 2 different things, so you can try every class, lvl each one of them and do your build. You'll also be able to customize your companion "pawn", chose his class and things alike (but hybrid classes are not avaliable to them). Your party consist of 4 members: You, Your Personal Pawn and 2 other pawns (in-game or hired), you can hire your friend's pawns for example. Its the "Multiplayer aspect" of this game (and the most endgame DLC boss, but that isnt important right now) This game shines in fighting monsters, like Gryphons, Ogre, Cyclops, Gulems, Dragons, Drakes, Chimeras and a lot of other stuff. The combat is amazing, you can set up 8 skills (except for classes that use 2H weapons, like staves and greatswords) and your main pawn can set them too. Be aware that the world isnt leveled, each region has its own creatures with their lvl so exploring can be a bit tricky early game. Overall, its a great Action Fantasy game. Worth the experience for that price, give it a try!

but i bought it here because it said it would natively support dualshock controllers, while steams version doesnt. i opnened the game to find that the control mappin is rubbish. its close to imposible to know which buttos are which. i have this game on 3 platforms now (ps3,ps4,pc) and the worst experience has come from every PC version i've tried. i wish it was easier to choose buttos or to at least the game to recognize which controller im using so i dont ge tangled in the controls in the middle of battle.

There's a good game beneath it all, however there are way too many nonsensical things, such as: - tips that only people that never played a game need are considered a priority, such as "press shift to run" and they just stop the game over and over although messages with tips that just pop up without pausing the game are implemented (they can be disabled, but then you won't know the useful things...). There was no need for more coding, just common sense; - the allies you can have with you can offer helpful tips however after a while they will not stop talking, beyond insane level of chatter (it can be turned off completely...); - they created a second inventory menu, different from equipping items, just to make the game longer; - the maps are sometimes just making you run in circles. If they're not tricky I'm fine with it, if they are I expect a fast travel option. The fact that at some point there's some teleportation stones doesn't fix the many hours before getting those; - way too many collectible and combinable items; - there is very little happening in the game, it's actually a tiny game using tricks to make it seem big such as absurdly long and dumb battles where you have 2 skills and just hit, dodge, revive allies, heal and repeat, but not in a fun way because; - you can't aim, there is auto aim and you can't disable it; - no autosave (just checkpoints but those can be very rare); - no save management, you can have only 1 save and can't see how long ago it was; - waiting nearly an hour to be released from jail???; Going to work is more fun than this game and I would have rated it 1/100 had there not been mods and modifications available. In fact, the default experience is pure torture.

This game isn't perfect. But the story is fantastic, the combat is the best in any RPG I've played, and the pawn system is pretty neat (though I didn't care too much for it.) For me I am upset I took too long to finally try this game out. Climbing onto a dragon, popping mushrooms while beating the shit out of his heart with a hammer as he's flailing around trying to knock you off. WOW, this game is FUN. The story is also really enjoyable if you care about lore. The new game + is absolutely fantastic as well.

This has an amazing combat system! And the best magic system I have seen so far!