Apparently there's a hard mode coming for Dragon's Dogma this year and a major expansion in 2013. Hopefully the hard mode will be the Dark Dragon's Souls Dogma game we all want. I probably won't replay the game, especially not with this year's Q4 releases, but if I had one complaint about Dragon's Dogma, it would be that you quickly outleveled enemies and then had to mow through countless wolves. God I hate the wolves in that game. White wolf, dark wolf, scary wolf, regular wolf...Wolves are the worst when you're a melee character because they'd always run.
Dragon's Dogma was the pre-4th quarter GOTY for me without a doubt. I'm looking forward to seeing how good the expansion will be, but knowing Capcom I'm not holding my breath.
So ... no long-term appeal in this one? Once you've done it all, you've really done it all? Now that the enthusiasm is tempered by time, is this still worth picking up and playing? The aesthetic sure looked nice, although I'm guessing the pawn database is probably a barren wasteland now ... :/
The pawn database is informed by your friendlist as well as global contributions. Mine stuck around for as long as people were playing long after I wasn't, so I don't think it will be a problem. It's one of the most expansive and exploration-friendly recent action RPGs in recent memory, and it combines some of the best ideas of Gothic and other incomplete-but-interesting games along with some annoyances. I give it 27.5 Skyrims and .1 Dark Souls.
Perfect timing, because my copy arrived yesterday! :D Now, to trawl through this thread in search of a fun build... General question - what does this game do best? For the Souls games the answer was "melee combat" (based on playing a DkS knight and a DmS royal). So far, across the game's two demos, I've tried a melee warrior, a mage, and an archer, and none of those playstyles seemed to have an immediate edge over the others.
I strongly recommend (as someone once did early in the thread) making a beeline for the capital city once you've maybe done the first witch quest in the town, or at least before you do any major wandering. That will provide you with choice in secondary classes and a store that sells cheap, better healing herbs. Personally, I got a lot of mileage out of being a ranger primarily (I loved the sniper rifle bow in a game with such long range options for combat and the climbing of enemies), and I also enjoyed playing an assassin and magic archer. All of those relied on the ranged combat and fast hit and run/climbing attacks. Others really enjoyed the magic hybrid classes, iirc. No one liked the warrior. I say "primarily", though, because augments go across class so it's usually wise to pick up some universally useful augments off different classes. For instance, fighter 5 makes life a whole easier and warrior/mage 1 substantially improve survivability in early levels.
What it does best is capture the hectic yet exciting nature of combat. It pretty much ruined Bethesda fantasy rpgs for me forever since it's hard to go back to swinging with one mouse click and blocking with the other and occasionally moving left to right to make an alternate swipe. It also has imo the most impressive looking spells of this generation, if you aren't giggling with delight the first time your maelstrom erupts and yanks an entire camp of bandits 100 feet into the air something is very wrong with you. The biggest problem is that it gets very easy once you learn how to fight each monster and it's only in the epilogue where you encounter enemies that can really decimate you if you aren't careful.
Hey, now, I had fun playing a Warrior. It does suck that you only get 3 skills when everyone else gets 6, though. All the Rogue classes were good times too, though I never tried Magic Archer.
Yeah, that's the class I'm going for as I play. Whee! Haven't played in a while though, should get back into it.
As a dude that played a Magic Archer, don't rush right into Magic Archer. They're really weak until you get some of the Mage and Sorcerer passives.
It's $40, comes with the main game, and there will be no option just to buy the new content. So trade in your copy of the original ASAP I guess.
Yeah, the wording in that article does imply a 'standalone expansion,' which in this case just means an updated version of the original with some additional content. Could be worse, I guess. I'd like the option to spend $15 and get the added content, but I'm guessing that (on XBL at least) treating that content as separate DLC wouldn't enable it to modify the base game, and the improvements mentioned in the article all sound like necessary enhancements.
This is perfect for me, I've been wanting to get this game but didn't want to spend $60 for it. I have no issue waiting.
That might be true if it wasn't Capcom. But it is Capcom. Remember how they charged a full $40 for a slightly modified Dead Rising 2? The double-dip is a core component of their business model.
That certainly seems to be case, they've done it with both SF4 and MvC3. In both cases I took advantage and got the better version of a game I wanted for less money by simply waiting.
The press release says 25 new enemies, a whole new area, and a new tier of both skills and upgrades. Which is just... awesome.
It'll be ~$30 for me after a trade-in, which is about $10 too much in my opinion... but I'll still get it, both because I want to play the new content and to encourage MOAR DRAGON'S DOGMA!
oh Miranda <3 You know, I just realized I need to do the same. I never actually turned in the final quest and got official completions.
I'll have to rebuy it (hey, I burnt out and probably put more hours in than anyone!) and then collect my pawn who has probably infinity crystals ready for me. Sure it isn't a sequel but at least it shows some faith in the franchise.
Does this mean that a moderately patient person should just wait to pick that up instead of picking up the original on the cheap? EDIT: Looks like it, unless this is super compelling to anyone: " Furthermore, owners of the original Dragon's Dogma will receive 100,000 Rift Crystals, unlimited Ferrystones and the Gransys Armour Pack consisting of six brand new costumes for free, upon purchasing Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen."
Yeah, if you don't have it and are interested in DD, just wait. The unlimited Ferrystones would be convenient but not essential, and Rift Crystals are a non-issue assuming you have people on your friends list who have pawns, since you hire your friend's pawns for free.
It is 20 bucks on Amazon so if you just can't wait (like me) there it is ... I can't stop playing this. The job system is great for fiddling with your character for EVER, the world is full of STUFF and actually the lack of fast travel means all its nooks and crannies are becoming very familiar to me, and the combat is great chaos with cool moments, like when my bear of a warrior grabs a bandit and holds him so I can stab him in the FACE. I was exploring Fighter, Strider, bit of Mage and then Mystic Knight, but realized I should probably max out Fighter if I want my MK to inherit some more abilities. I'm a bit confused how that works: do hybrid classes inherit whatever you unlocked in their base classes and then have a handful of their own, or are there more arcane rules in play? It seems like they inherit a subset - is there any way to tell which will carry over? I'm probably missing an icon or something.
Consider that it's just a couple of weeks until Dark Arisen is released, too, but it will let you import characters. I'll probably just play the copy of the original I got as a gift and wait to pick up DA until it's on sale.
That was my plan as well. It already looked like a pretty huge game, hardly needing expansion and $20 for something of this caliber (as shown earlier in this thread) is almost impulse range for me. $40 is not, so ... no-brainer.
Alright then, I'll continue to wait for DA! Incidentally anyone playing this on PS3? I'll need some pawns when DA comes!
The closer we get to the release of Dark Arisen, the more annoyed I get that Capcom isn't doing a PC release. My 360 hasn't been on in months, and I'm not really sure this is the title that will work against that momentum. I'm unlikely to want to play on the Dual Shock and compete for Netflix time on my PS3, so I may just end up skipping it entirely. It's funny how much my console time has dwindled over the course of this generation, and it might be a real shame to miss this one as a result.
A dashboard update last year removed the correlation between the amount of force required the press the power button and the duration since it had last been pressed. You'll be fine.
