Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

It's pretty good, damn shame they don't make more JRPGs like this.

It is an incredibly fun game to play, it has mechanics thatt you dont see very often like climbing big monsters in order to kill them. Building your character and companion is very fun since there are several combinations to play with. The story is pretty standard but attractive nontheless. The skills are very flashy and potent, specially if you play as a mage, massive long casting spells to wreck havoc on battles is a very gratifying experience. The game is good for around 80-100 hours of gameplay if you do every mission you encounter, and its only replayable if you like to farm for the ultimate gear since it can only be obtained by replaying the story over and over. To summarise: - Great customization options for building your character that affect how you can play the game (height, weight, etc) - Great graphics - Over the top combat system - It has a certain degree of dificulty if played on the highest difficulty available (specially on the "Dark Arisen" area)

I've played the xbox version of this game for more than a hundred hours so I think I can add something to the game itself, not the port. I remember having mixed feelings about Dragon's Dogma: the pawn system was fresh (or it was at that time) but sometimes it's AI could be annoying. The items, at very high levels, practically forced me to use this armor or that sword... but but I've spent a hundred hours of my life playing it, so it's d*** good. Good in a manner you can play it casually, or one-hit-killed by a mob. The controls, ahhh the controls... I don't remember any game being so fluid like this. It's like Dark Souls having a baby with Dragon Age 2. A wonderful, funny and very well-crafted baby. It's worth even at full price if you've never played it. Oh, and you can backstab a griffon with dagger while it's flying.

Super game that I rate not far behind Skyrim (which is my one to beat) 100+ hours of play. Hand to Hand combat is generally better than Skyrim. Finding/interaction with items on ground is a bit odd at first. Weak point for me. Boss monster battles tend to be frustratingly long, until your weapons are above their level.

Maybe not *everything*, but it has farly enough of the content, mechanics and narrative you need in a game like this. It is a better game than DAO, that's for sure, and this is by a HUGE margin. It's just a perfect western fantasy medieval RPG adventure, done by japanese people, and they did it perfectly. There is everything in this game you may want from a fantasy medieval adventure. Heavy armor, full helmets, cloaks, goblins, dungeons, two handed swords filled with a Miura's Berserk vibe, a personalized companion, a randomly generated army of two more party members, and a very good and adictive combat system for any vocation (class) you might choose in the game. The clean of the interface, very japanese-like, everything is very tidy on the screen. The only flaw I might find is some lack of lore-reading elements. This is very JRPG-ish, exploration, short and precise dialogues, questing and it ends there, unlike some western rpgs like BG or TES that use to include a heavy lore element in books across the world. Aside of that, is a japanese game that did perfectly what a western medieval fantasy adventure must be.