Players will start off the game by customising their hero – with different sets of battling styles (which seem to be choices between melee, magic and ‘thief’), appearances and a choice of gender. From there, the story goes that ‘the dragon’ approaches the player (who is the hero of the story), informs them that they’re the chosen one and rips out their heart. It would be a really terrible game if things ended there, so you get to continue without a heart. And doing so earns you to the title of ‘Arisen’. As an Arisen, it’s your destiny to hunt down and kill this dragon. Most likely to restore one or some of the following: dignity, honour or revenge. But not your heart… That would just be silly now.
Jokes aside, the hero is essentially a party leader, as you’re accompanied by three AI characters through out the game. One party member will be someone from the hero’s world, while the other two will be ‘borrowed’ from the world of another player. This will be a literal borrowing if an Internet connection is present or a random draw if not. These characters are known as ‘pawns’ and are apparently drawn to fight and with work with an Arisen. The pawns will not only assist in battle, but talk to your hero, ask for their help and even advise you on enemies. In any case, you’ll have to level up your pawns as well as your main character to get through.
This is going to get messy.
According to some of the noise from the developers, the game is being developed in such a way where even lesser skilled players will be able to get through the game. The theory behind this is such that players should recruit very strong pawns to do their battling for them, while they sit back and bark commands from the sidelines. How and whether this will work is still something a mystery for the time being though. For those who won’t have an Internet connection, they will apparently be able to recruit pawns through a large main city that will contain a huge variety of them.
The E3 demo played through the prologue of the game. Players took control in an area where they were supposedly close to catching the dragon that they had been pursuing. Working their way through the dungeon, the player is a melee type and is joined by their NPC friend. Very early in the game, you’re introduced to a couple of pawns that have followed you into this world. Between the four of you, you have two melee characters, a support character and a magic caster. You’ll have basic commands such as ‘Go’, ‘Follow’ and ‘Stay’.
The snake's head isn't actually that big. Camera tricks.
The combat with a melee character was fairly elementary hack-and-slash, so far. Aside from the usual stable of heavy and light attacks, your abilities were expanded through the use of the shoulder buttons. For example, while holding down R1 or L1, three of the face buttons would have an enhanced ability. Each type will have their own abilities, but in the case of the melee character, the R1 button gave access to offensive powers (such as a 360 degree slash) and the L1 button had defensive powers (such as a shield smash). It remains to be seen if the same logic is applied to the other types. Following some rooms of elementary enemies, which were disposed of quietly, the demo was hit with a fight against a chimera (lion, goat, snake combo, for those playing at home).
As your pawns shouted out tips, such as which part of the chimera was weak to what, this sequence provided the ideal basis for showing off the ‘grab’ mechanic. Basically, all larger enemies can be grabbed by their limbs, so that you can attack them individually. This was handy in getting rid of the snake part first, and as explained by the developers, this is to avoid the tendency of action games having players hack away at shins of a large enemy. While we didn’t really get to try, you’ll apparently be able to climb around the enemy in order to get to weaker spots.
Just when you thought it was safe to go outside...
Otherwise, the combat does raise some questions, though a lot of this was because this game seems like a rather slow burner – a title that you really need to give more than 15 minutes of time before you can start to appreciate it. Everything seemed quite messy. Your buddies will go about their business regardless, though whoever is administering the healing is doing a good job. The combat itself made you wonder why the lock-on kept leaving you swinging at air and why there is no dodge/roll button. Furthermore, the boss fight had a lot of hacking involved and felt slow. Still, the developers are mooting a minimum of 30 hours play time, so clearly there is no need to rush.
There is no way that a 15-20 minute demo can do Dragon’s Dogma any justice. It’s a slower paced and wide-reaching action game that has a lot of new and different ideas, which are at total odds with the hustle and bustle of the E3 show floor. Capcom is throwing a lot behind the title and it certainly has a unique vibe. Hopefully the title will be shown off in a better light when players get a chance to properly sit down and play through, and things will make a lot more sense.
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