Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Latest patches were not adopted in GOG, and some bugs reside on the server. This makes the GOG version, as much as we like drm free stuff, undesirable, less updated than the Other version, with known bugs, uglier, and harder to mod. It can work for you, it does not for me. Check the discussions in the game name's forum here for further details.

I am sad that I have to give this game 2 stars. It could be worth so many more. I can't do that, however because the pawn system is completely borked on the GoG version. The game is supposed to let us players share our pawns when we play, and after doing this we would get rewards, ratings and comments from players expressing their thoughts on eachothers pawns. It makes the game infinitely more interesting, via currencies and gifts. It does not do any of these things properly. Even worse, there are topics in the forum saying this won't be fixed and even some refunds and seemingly denials from CapCom or GoG that this is even an issue. I have searched many places and it seems very shakey about being fixed. I can say the game is delightful otherwise, strictly as a single player RPG, as the play is interesting and the monsters and skills are fantasic. The graphics are very nice and the game runs fairly smoothly outside of the connection issues that are part of the other ongoing bugs wrecking my fun. It's such a shame, I would only reccomend you get this version if they fix these problems. Otherwise the steam version has none of theese issues, so get it there when you can instead.

I want to play this game more, yet I can't find any reason to do so :| 1. Writing 2/10 Setting: Generic as hell Main Plot: ...there is a plot? Side quests: exp farm. NPC: Cringy as hell, best avoided. 2. Visual 4/10 Graphical fidelity: Actually all right Animation: Really good in combat Locations: Empty, bland, lack of imagination in design 2. Sound 2/10 Music: abscent for 95% of the game, prepare your playlist Speech: when people grunt it's all right, but when they actually try, you want to make them stop. Enviroment and other: About right. Gameplay 10/10 Combat: It's glorious Outside of combat: you will want to be back in combat UI: I need more hotkeys Other... 8/10 Stability: best port I've played so far. Fun: Had to mod one or two things Value: subjective In summary, I had great time with the game due to amazing combat system, but the untapped potential of the whole title leaves me frustrated. Gameplay carries it hard, but it's not enough in my book. Although if this game had co-op... yeah that would be a perfect fit. Many people love Dragon's Dogma and I can see why.

DDDA is the kind of game with a huge up, which is combat, and a bunch of details that bring its evaluation down for me. Short version is, leave your brain at the entrance, get in for fast-paced action (though lacking in fluidity in-between actions) and if that's all you care about, you'll have a blast. Let's start with the basics: it's a console port. Don't expect a friendly interface for mouse & keyboard, the GUI is not meant for PC. It takes patience to do any inventory management, and there's a LOT of it. Quest display on your map is terrible - only the objective you focused on in your journal will appear, secondaries on the way aren't. Graphics are starting to show their age. RPG-wise, it's the usual forgettable trope about being some nobody-turned-hero. I'm not even wasting time on that. At least you get a sense of progress and learning as "classes" progress in rating (level) as you play them and unlocks abilities for learning. You can also switch them at a small cost. Combat is great. Fast-paced, though clunky in a few areas (the grabbing/throwing range is terribly short). Magic on the other hand is immobile, when any trash can interrupt you. If you get controlled (staggers being common), the animation is terribly slow and leaves you vulnerable. Comboing does not exist, each action is independent. All skills consume stamina, but its regen is slow so you're dependant on consumables, which brings us back to the terrible inventory management. AI is downright awful. Remains idle half of the time, while your escort missions stand under bosses' feet if you're the melee sort. But stand too far, and your allies disengage. You can provide them with consumables but even mages jump in the middle of the pack for whatever reason. Open world is wide, mostly because of uneven terrain and sprinting consumes stamina. It's heavily time-consuming from travelling to objectives, and the day-night cycle make it a pain at night with a bunch of minibosses. Know what you're in!

Argh. Yet another game that has different steam/gog version. In this case GOG one is worse one and doesn't contain most recent patches. Shame.