Dragon's Dogma Preview

From the moment I saw the first trailer for Dragon's Dogma I was immediately excited.  I've been waiting for a Monster Hunter type of game to finally come to consoles.  Dragon's Dogma shares one core similarity to Monster Hunter; which is being able to battle huge creatures.  If you look deeper you will see that they are very different games.


Dragon's Dogma is a mixing of high fantasy elements with Capcom's action game style of gameplay.  The game will be story focused and more of a single player experience.  The developer did say that there will be no traditional multiplayer and online elements will be announced in the future.  I'm hoping what they mean by "no traditional multiplayer" is something akin to how Demon's Souls did it.  After all battling huge creatures is a lot of fun solo, but it's even more fun with friends. 

Burn Chicken! Burn!

Don't worry though, even as a single player experience you won't be alone.  You will have a party with you throughout the game to help you out.  You can select from different pawns or partners to come adventure with you.  They all have different styles and bonuses so you may want to swap them out depending on the situation.  If they die, they can be revived or you can just replace them.

Your party members are able to help fight along side of you and do combination attacks.  The smaller enemies they will sometimes grab and hold so you can strike them down.  The larger enemies they can help give you a boost up into the air so you can grab onto the creature and do massive damage.  Your party will also give you battle advice and tell you about enemy weaknesses.  The AI is supposed to be done fairly well so they don't just stand there like in most games and will be an active participant in battle. 

I don't trust the look in that Goat's eye!

The game has 3 classes that you can choose from: Fighter, Strider, and Mage.  The Fighter is a sword and shield brawler type that gets up close and personal with the creatures.  I imagine the Fighter to take on the role of tank distracting the monster for everyone.  The Strider uses dual daggers for close range, and a bow for long ranged attacks.  The Strider is also the best at grabbing onto the enemies which gives tactical advantage for doing massive damage.  The Mage uses elemental magic attacks to fight with.  The Mage can also give elemental buffs to the parties weapons, and can heal or revive fallen comrades.
 
Dragon's Dogma will be Capcom's first open world game which I'm really excited about.  Capcom has said that it will be a full open world action game.  They want you to experience a real sense of adventure when you quest.  You will be able to see creatures attacking villages in the distance and you can decide if you want to venture there to help or not.  Where you choose to go and who you want to help can impact the story later in the game.

Somebody get these mutha effen snakes outta this mutha effen castle!

Fighting against massive creatures and impossible odds gives you a sense of life or death anxiety that you can't get from anywhere else.  I'll be keeping an eye on this one and will keep you updated as more information becomes available.  Dragon's Dogma is slated for release early 2012 for PS3 and 360.