The world of dragons

Massive game worlds, slaying beasts and dragons — welcome to Dragon’s Dogma. There’s nothing forcing you to stay on path and you can keep roaming the countryside slaying wolves, goblins, zombies, and beasts.

It had taken my three companions and me, 40 minutes to slay the beast the last time I met it. This time however it took us only 15 minutes to slay the lion-headed, goat-bodied, snake-tailed creature which roared, bled and hissed its way to death.

I stood there, still heartless, admiring our destructive prowess. Was I now strong enough to fight the dragon and get my heart back? Even if I was, I didn’t know where to go and that is the biggest problem with Dragon’s Dogma, developed by Capcom. There’s nothing forcing you to stay on path and you can keep roaming the countryside slaying wolves, goblins, zombies, beasts like the one mentioned above for as long as you want.

This is one of the first hardcore open world Role Playing Game (RPG) I have played on a console and if you’re one of those people who haven’t played many RPGs you’ll be utterly lost. The tutorials are not detailed enough and you learn things the hard way — from experience.

The game starts off promisingly with a giant dragon attacking a village. You, the protagonist then tries to fight of the mountain-sized creature with a rusty sword only to be defeated. The dragon then proceeds to cut open your chest and eats your heart! That surprisingly doesn’t kill you, instead you become Arisen (pronounced ari-son) whose sole aim is to slay the dragon and win back the heart. In the game, there are these skilled warriors called pawns who always like to tag along with Arisen. They can be summoned from Rift Stones and you can have up to two pawns at a time in your party.

They mean it when they say don’t wander around outside at night, for you’ll be overwhelmed with enemies of all kinds who seem to respawn every time you reach the area, much to my frustration. If the respawning enemies wasn’t troublesome enough, companions who behave erratically is a bigger headache. If the pawns had a little more sense it wouldn’t be so difficult to mow down these enemies.

A lot of the game time will be spent accomplishing side-quests, most of which are trivial. Main objectives, the ones that take the story forward, are too few and too far apart.

However as a fan of RPGs, who likes to level up, explore and find new more powerful items, I found the game to be brilliant. There is nothing stopping you from running in any direction except powerful enemies and the threats that darkness brings. The developers have developed a brilliant universe for the game and it manages to throw in surprises every now and then.

Like all RPGs the game has a class system and you get to choose from being a fighter, strider or mage and each of these classes have sub-classes which lets you specialise between attack and support roles. Similarly, you can decide on the class of your main pawn.

The other part which I like about RPGs, the interactions, was a big let down in Dragon’s Dogma. Dialogues tend to be repetitive and the pawns who travel with you know just how to irritate you with their non-stop chatter. All said and done Dragon’s Dogma will be a game I’ll remember, as it is challenging and interesting, though a bit rough around the edges. It’s a must buy if you’re an RPG fan and if you’re new to the genre check out the demo first.

Rating: 4/5

Developer: Capcom

Price: Rs 3299

Available for PS3, Xbox 360

Distributor: Milestone Interactive

 

Tags: beasts, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Dragon’s Dogma, featured, full-image, game, goblins, Role Playing Game, slaying wolves, zombies

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