Dragon's Dogma (Demo)

[MisterBubbles]

Ok i downloaded the demo from the japanese PSN ( thanks C). So the demo has all english instructions.

You start off by making your character, these are pre builds and make no difference in the demo, the changes are purely cosmetic as the quests need to do specific things.
The countryside quest has you first of all fighting some goblins, with the aid of 3 pawns, 1 of which you made with your character. So you can fight the goblins with knives which you can use with R2, triangle is heavy attack and square is light. Or you can hit L2 and pull out your bow, you have more options here, press square then R2 gives you full bend ie i guess super bow shot, triangle plus R2 it sky volley where your arrows go skyward and a circle comes up where you want them to land, or circle plus R2 gives you triple volley. After you kill the goblins a huge griffon flys in and you have to bring him down, your magician pawn helps with making your bow with fire , absolutely awesome when you burn the griffon and he falls out the sky. If you take to long to kill him the sun starts to set and eventually it turns pitch black and is scary as that huge griffon gets more powerful.

The other quest see you fight a lion/goat creature as your pawn and is inside a temple, here the grample action works great R2. The graphics are great and theres lots of effects going on with the lighting and such. The 2 quests are pretty short but leave you wanting more. May 25th can't come soon enough .

[Friction]

I download this on the Xbox from the XBL in the UK.

I ended up having two custom characters though. I made one and followed it through and it made me make another one, and when I did the second quest, I controlled one of my own characters, but the other I made was running around with me? No complaints there really.

I always liked the look of this from the vids I'd seen and having played it I thought it was great. I'm really looking forward to this now, and luckily for me it comes out the week after my Birthday so I have no excuses not to get it!

I really liked lots of the little touches like how you could sort of taunt by bashing your own shield to gain attention, and the way you could climb on the monsters to wear them down more - like something out of Shadow of the Colossus.

In short, fantastic!

[rmoxon]

I download this on the Xbox from the XBL in the UK.

I ended up having two custom characters though. I made one and followed it through and it made me make another one, and when I did the second quest, I controlled one of my own characters, but the other I made was running around with me? No complaints there really.

The second character you create is your companion, not one that you control.

This was pretty fun and it's certainly very polished but I'm not sure that the demo gives you a good idea of the full game, the short quests presented here just feel like two levels from a somewhat chaotic button mashing action game rather than an RPG.

Im hoping the full game has a bit more about it.

[Finsbury Girl]

Have only done the Prologue Quest thus far, it is a great little teaser. My only concern is that is was very easy to miss treasure/gold/items etc lying about. That could be an issue, however will have to pass judgement on that once I pay the full game.

The character customisation looks pretty cool.

Graphics and sound all seem pretty good, the

->Open Spoiler<-

Chimera

you fight is great with the 3 different bits of the creature unleashing different attacks. AI for the pawns seems ok although I had to ask for help a couple of times to get the healer to heal me, but overall they were smart with the attacks they used and they really got stuck in and I didn't need to micro manage.

Cannot wait for this game, alas I have a long queue of games ahead of it, so it will be a while, I suspect, until I get to enjoy its many pleasures.

[Friction]

The second character you create is your companion, not one that you control.

Ahhh Yeah I knew about the Pawn system but managed to not read what I was doing and just pressed loads of buttons. Now I'm having another go and actually reading what I'm doing it's all become clear!

I do like the idea of customising your support characters though, makes a nice change!

[Daragon]

Not sure why but I really didn't feel the love with the demo. I guess I was expecting something other than just solid combat. Visuals didn't particularly strike me as being anything special either, reminded me a bit of one of From Software's early titles.

Each part of the demo seemed to throw you right in the deep end as well, anything even remotely tutorial-esque was very limited. Kept dying over and over to the Griffin until something (I have no idea what) changed and I managed to kill it. Needn't have bothered however, the reward was the same as dying to it.

[PeteJ]

Extremely short and easy demo, but it showed that it could be the game I'm hoping it'll be. It certainly does throw you in the deep end but despite the somewhat unique controls I actually found it quite easy to get to grips with. There is a button for shield taunts, and that's just cool. You can also pick up your friendly AI guys and throw them around...I have a feeling this game is going to have many weird features which will create some great moments.

The griffin was fun to take down, just grabbed its tail and watched as we flew way up into the sky while I put my daggers through its head multiple times. Much fun... but it died far too quickly for my liking.

I've seen many people dislike the UI, but I quite liked it in my brief play. The pawns constantly chat which will no doubt be annoying if they keep repeating themselves but I found myself enjoying the experience as soon as it started.

Wished they gave you a bit more to do in the demo though.

[EvilBoris]

Is this anything like Monster Hunter?

[Daragon]

The Griffin fight felt just like MH-lite so you might get some enjoyment from it if that's your thing.

[EvilBoris]

So is it grindy?

[rmoxon]

So is it grindy?

It doesnt appear to be.

The demo only features two very short missions though, as I said they are like somthing from an action game. I had gathered that the full game is structured similar to somthing like Skyrim but now im not entierly sure.

All you can really tell from the demo is that the combat seems pretty fun, and the game is very nice looking. Theres no customisation or anything like that on display here, both demo quests let you experiment with a different character build each.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Is it just me of is this game letterboxed?

[jimtendo]

I've no idea how customisation works within the full game, as there's certainly no ruby rares to be carved from the Chimearas tail ;p but it seems quite good. Definitely was on my shopping list, and although the demo only gave a few glimpses of what can be done, its definitely shot up in estimation.

Having played both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, they're both letterboxed (in-game) with the 360 having a slight edge to frame rate. Though the PS3 did look a little sharper in that respect. Both seemed pretty good. it really depends which version gets the most DLC really. Though with Microsoft getting in bed with Capcom lately, as it has specific DLC quests bundled with the JPN chrome controllers.

[saturn-gamer]

Its slightly letterboxed but it doesn't bother me.

Dragon's Dogma is fun, I like it. Fun combat for this type of game, good graphics and animations as well. Feels much better than Dragon Age 2 for example.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Dragon Age 2 was a waste of everybodys time including bioware's.