Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Like others have said, it's an semi-open world western style ARPG with a lot to do, an interesting pawn system and a story that starts out decent...and goes full JRPG by the end. The good parts have been highlighted by enough ppl already, so I'll go for the nasty bits: - it's a console port with every line of it's code. The menues are a pain to explore, there are hardly any hotkeys, no mousewheel support, save->alt+f4 is about 30 seconds faster than trying to quit the game regularly,.......etc. - Hardly any way to command your party/pawns. And they are as dumb as a sack of bricks. You can set a basic behaviour through an unneccessarily convoluted process, and can tell them to go, come or help (not actually sure what that does, maybe focus ?). No "wait", no "heal me", no nothing. They love to keep standing in telegraphed attacks, try to cast right next to the boss. run away from goblins to cast. -The later bosses (post-dragon everfall and bitterblack) are first and foremost gear and consumeable checks. Your dmg stat is too low ? You deal no damage. Literally. Bosses have weakpoints and are said to need different tactics to kill. But they do a lot of random bullshit which can cause you to not being able to do anything for minutes, except for reviving the brainless pawns. Even worse if you had the bright idea of playing a pure melee char. You can be lucky and climb the boss first try and stab it to 30% HP in one go....or you get tossed off every 2 seconds without being able to achieve anything. Oh, and bring health/stamina pots. Lot's of em. And/Or farm a shitlaod of wakestones and faceroll everything. - Big bosses, climbing and the camera are natural enemies. Maybe it works better with a controller, but unless the boss stands still the char sometimes randomly changes directions while climbing when you keep a button pressed. And that's only if you can actually see anything, because the camera loves to stay on the other side of the boss.

Part of my problem with this game is that I started it with unreasonably high expectations. If you like action RPGs you will love this game. The combat system is rich and visually stunning. As an RPG? Meh. It's not a bad game, it's just not a particularly good one. The dialogs are linear, with player agency boiled down to being able to agree or disagree. The plot is written by game designers, not actual writers, and it shows. The cutscenes are beautiful, but oddly empty. My biggest complaint is with the pawn system. While their two dimensionality is cleverly explained away by the world-builders, it is obvious that the real function of the pawn system is to give the game a party dynamic without having to do the hard work of actually creating interesting, dynamic, meaningful NPCs to act as companions. This is a perfectly adequate action game, but it's a pretty weak RPG.

This game is filled with ideas that will makes you: - enjoy it half of the time - hate it half of the time For all the good things, read other reviews: - changing class is possible (but each time you do so you start with a low powered character, so you can't allow to do that endgame... providing you know you're near endgame) - some nice spells (but they didn't think describing them was useful, so you'll ending up with no knoledge about your character if you don't look for a wiki. GOOD JOB CAPCOM) - no autobalance: nice, it's part of the good exploration expect of the game. But huge difficulty cliff totally unannonced: no spoiler, the Dragon is a beast. - you can climb enemies: great idea, to focus their weak points. BUT the camera sucks and 1/2 of the time you don't know which direction you're going and 1/3 of the time you can't see yourself (I almost laughed when I got lost into a dragon's armpit becasue the beast was to close of the wall surronding the arena) - nice world, but lasy endgame: a dozen of rooms base on the same 3D model filled with various models. They lost all inspiration in the design phase? - good quantity of loot: some are very nice looking, but some are useless like hell. Hard to tell the difference. Worse: great stuff are looted endgame, but you will never play with it. Yeah, it's because it"s endgame) The list of annoying and poor design choices are too long to write it down here, so just a few: - equipement menu separated from inventory menu: what a PITA - quests are a pity: 3/4 of them are FEDEX style quests (kill or get things from various location of the map). And particularly bad organised: some are side quests, and some are main story quests. But you can't differentiate them. So, I wouldn't recommend it if you look for a good action-RPG game. To bare this game you have to be patient, and merciful. Anyway, I enjoyed it a bit (and raged a lot), I'd rather play this game than the boring second Tomb Raider remake for example.

Some of the best boss battles I have ever had. Climbing up and attacking an impossibly large ogre is a hoot. Dragons are dangerous. Even the small battles are fun. You will be swarmed by goblins then a dragon notices you. Pure havoc! Your ‘pawns’ are nice to have battling at your side. Graphics are beautiful. Landscapes seem natural. Is it perfect? The save system is awkward. The item management atrocious. It takes 15 minutes to unload your full pack items… So I strongly recommend the patches “dinput8.dll hooks” for a F9 save anytime and “Slight more – Double or Unlimited Carry Weight” (go for unlimited). These make a great game the greatest.

The main draw of the game is the combat that is awesome. Besides regular sized enemies you fight giant mythical creatures you can climb on. Other great thing about this game is pawns. You create your main character and also your pawn. This NPC will be your companion and guide. If you discover weakness of a particular enemy, your pawn will learn it and use it in a fight. You can hire more experienced pawns from other players and they actually give you tips about tactics or quests. It's a really neat feature. Unfortunately, receiving gifts and crystal rifts for using the pawn is kinda broken right now. Stick to the forums to learn more. The graphics didn't look that great even when the port was released. However, I kinda liked the aesthetics. Overall, it's a great game. Not for its story, but for the combat and pawns.