Just finished Dragon's Dogma. It was the Dark Arisen version but I kinda accidentally ended up not actually finishing Dark Arisen't extra chapter before clearing the game so I guess I can't honestly say that I actually won Dark Arisen, heh. Confusing stuff, just like a lot of other things about the game.

Anyway, all in all I loved the game. I started playing it because I needed a break from the overly depressing and stressful Demon's Souls but still wanted to play something remotely in the same vein and Dragon's Dogma turned out to be pretty much exactly what I was looking for. First off, I'm not sure there is a single other game out there that captures the archetypal Tolkienesque fantasy quite as perfectly as this game. A big evil threatening the land, a call for adventure, a long journey and always a band of companions by your side... the game is admittedly far from perfect but its core is just right and it's sad there's not a sequel yet (and I have a feeling that Dragon's Dogma Online, despite looking very similar to Dragon's Dogma in a number of ways, differs in exactly these matters due to the simple fact that it's an MMO).

Anyway, I don't even know where to begin in breaking down what I liked and what I didn't like about the game in particular and I honestly think I'd be able to fill dozens of pages with commentary. Well, I'll try to make it brief: I think it's a great action RPG, that is, the combat is really solid dynamic stuff, better than anything I have seen in any western ARPG, and the character development and pawn system made progression very satisfying. Particularly the ability to change playstyles on the fly by switching not only the class for your main character but being able to change your entire party setup at any point was just fantastic. Having finished the game while maxing out seven of the nine classes I'm not sure how I'll ever be able to enjoy any RPG again where I'm restricted to a single class in a single playthrough. It's also great that you can hire the pawns of other players, it's fun to see what kinds of characters other players have come up with. And having a jolly crowd defeat a magnificent creature in an epic battle, with the classes supplementing each other, is pretty much as good as it gets.

Content-wise the game is solid but kinda meh. The world is as generic high fantasy as it gets and the universe and characters are neither as sophisticated as in some western RPGs nor as unique or charismatic as in many Japanese titles and simply underdeveloped. The main intrigue in the story is ridiculously simple and there's only a handful of characters who had the potential to become interesting figures (as a matter of fact there's very few characters in the game at all!) but the game doesn't go anywhere with them. It's the same with the game world: the world has a nice feel to it but it is ultimately very condensed and small and without any unique or otherwise memorable places. The same goes for the quest design. All the quests in the game are very straightforward, most are just variations of "kill x creatures", "collect x items" or "escort x to y" and even the "craziest" ones are very down-to-earth, actually.

And yet, despite all of this I just had a really great time with the game and can't wait to start a new playthrough so I can do Dark Arisen's original chapter on Bitterblack Isle, collect even better loot and finally kill the Ur-Dragon (the toughest but entirely optional enemy in the game whom I accidentally skipped). Maybe I'll also approach hard mode one day. Oh yeah, and I'll try to actually choose a love interest this time. During my last playthrough the game decided that my character's gay and chose a fella as my love interest whom I despised from the first moment he appeared in the game. For frigg's sake...