Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Many little annoyances lead this game to be one of patience amongst all that it does right. Pros: Beautiful graphics, astounding combat effects, playing as a mage is one of pure awe, the devs really put the magic into this class like no other game. secret chests and exploration galore. pawn system is surprisingly fluid and easy to use. ... see a bloke on the landscape .. hire him/her for as long as you wish. Same goes for your own carefully crafted pawn, in fact you hope that others will make them their go to pawn. Character customization is a joy, you can make your avatar into pretty much whatever you want from old/ugly to cliche majestic, and you get to see them in play in many cutscenes and closeups unlike other games. so why the 3 stars? Cons: Many niggling hassles in gameplay for keyboard. Every darn thing needs several keystrokes to complete. Want to use your combat spells? activate them first with a key, then use your mouse controls, which is awkward as they interfere with wsad keys. Every task is a multi menu hassle with awkward key mapping that tasks your patience and flexibility. exorbitant inventory management due to a ton of craftable items that make the variations of the same thing. none of which is really explained. pawns interfere by picking up stuff too which you then have to manually sort/store via several menus. in the end i just started to skip looting, it takes several hits to crack open chests to get more trash to have to sort out or try to craft into who knows what. you can map 5 items for quick use, but there are so many healing/buff items that its worthless to bother. biggest prob is NOTHING is explained, there is a small manual that does little to impart what anything means. there are few to none tooltips in menus and game. enhance items at huge cost only to see it obsolete in the next alley. messy line of sight targeting combat. i see a great game in here, but all the aggravations are making me put it down.

Having been lost for nearly a decade in a land of biting frost and Dragons, I discovered Dragon's Dogma. I'll admit coming from a first person experience, the lack of immersion wasn't to my liking and navigation was far more limited than I was used to. This wasn't an issue for long as the game's story captured my imagination, daring me to solve it's mysteries. Featuring over saturated and smudgy bloom reminiscent of the times, the world's art direction is otherwise unique--to someone like me who's never touched a 'Souls' game. The combat is fun and challenging, which makes exploring both dangerous and rewarding if victorious. The Pawn system was new to me and largely ignored as I'm happy with a single companion or none if possible. Sure it makes battles more difficult and in many cases for me, impossible but that's just how I role. Dragon's Dogma is one of the best RPG's I've come across over the last decade and I'm glad to recommend it.

So, this game is hard to compete with as far as actual combat and gameplay go. You don't just hack-n-slash (though there's plenty of that too), you literally have to climb giant beasts to fight them. SO cool. While the world graphics are quite nice, the character graphics are a bit, I dunno, odd? Proportions aren't quite what I hope for, but the story and gameplay make that part of the game almost instantly not matter. This is not a game for youngsters, by the way. Aside from the gore, some of the female armors are risque to say the least; something you'd expect to see on a beach, not a field of combat. Using a sidekick in the game was obviously meant to be new, novel, and unexpected, but the deadpan nature of your cohort makes them feel plastic and ruins a bit of the atmosphere of the game. All that being said, I've bought this multiple times. If you like Skyrim, or Two Worlds, then you want to add this to your collection. Worth full-price. (And...its modable.)

I wasn't sure this game was going to be that good based on some of the reviews, however, as someone who's played games on computers for over 40 years, I can assure you that this game does almost everything right. It feels like your own personal MMO minus the monthly fees. Yes, it was built for a console first, but like Skyrim (as you can tell by the menu system), console game ports often are VERY tight and this one is no exception. The pawns really make you feel like you're in a group and you can change them out anytime you like with zero penalty and you should every time YOU level because only YOU and your MAIN pawn level with you. The questing isn't as "deep" as a game like witcher, but this game has a lot of magic spells to offer and GREAT visual effects and the landscape and dungeons are very detailed. It has mod support on nexus if you'd like to see some changes and while it's not as easy to mod as skyrim, there is enough there to make it worth taking a look. My only real complaint is the mouse aiming when trying to apply buffs on pawns and when pin point targeting a body part of a mob when you're attacking, but you can't have everything. 9/10 (minus 1 for not the best quests and mouse aiming) There is limited fast travel so the game makes traveling feel more meaningful and doesn't not trivialize the size of the map. Playing the game, knowing when to hang back if you're a caster or rush in if you're mele is something you'll pick up quickly. Thank God for GOG having this game here.

Pros - Combat is amazing. Being able to climb monsters to slash at their head is a great feeling. - Atmosphere is well done - Voice acting is good - Class abilities are interesting - Being able to have 3 other party members makes it interesting. - Exploration is really fun. Cons - Inventory management is tedious. I recommend installing a mod to give you unlimited carrying capacity. Makes the game far more enjoyable as you spend more time exploring and fighting and less time in menus transferring items to other characters in your party. - Translations for abilities can be poor at times. So you need to consult the wiki in order to find out what some abilities actually do. - Story is only average at best. Overall I really enjoyed playing it. Spet 90+ hours in this world.