2 hour gameplay video of Dragon's Dogma

darkling said:
Why is this PC game only coming out for consoles? What's Capcoms problem?
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Japanese developers in their later days and wisdom have abandoned their unique development styles and tend to copy western game developers and their business models, however with a time lag. Western developer are now seeing the profits coming from PC games and digital distribution and are producing more PC ports. Capcom and because of their copy time lag and their console dominated market (by nature of the games they develop) have not yet realised the significance of the PC market, and probably are not equipped for the PC market (with continous updates and patches). Or they are very clever and are in the 'wait and see' situation to see how PC games do first in the western market before adopting (copying) their models.
 
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Thrasher said:
Interesting game. I'd be more interested if they delivered a decent PC port.
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Don't hold your breath. I've been a big fan of Capcom since the beginning of Resident Evil, but most of their PC ports have been terrible. They're probably my favorite console developer though.
 
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I didn't realize so many here were PC gamers. But like I said, I heard that if the game sells well enough they will do a PC port, so you might get the game sometime down the road.

Here's a fantastic look at the pawn system for those interested. It's the most in-depth preview of the system yet. 8 minutes long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEsVmmXQqWA

The online aspect sounds very interesting. I can't wait to hire some good pawns that others have created, or get my own pawn hired by others. It just seems like a very unique take on the party system.

Here's another great video that takes a look at the skills and class system in the game. 5 minutes long, well worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vi...DI&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_309568
 
Well, after reading a couple of previews and watching a few gameplay videos, my interest was slowly building to a pretty high level, enough to place it in my "most anticipated" list for this year (which sadly is pretty slim at the moment). And then I saw the boss fights….which led to the upcoming rant below ;)

One particular boss fight featured a player pitted against a boss with 7 (!!!) health bars. Yes, this means that you have to fully deplete the enemy's enormous health bar 7 times to defeat it, using the exact same approach for a battle that seems to stretch on for an eternity (I got burned out just watching this encounter!). I despise this type of game design. It is not fun to mindlessly grind away at the same enemy for a ridiculous period of time until it finally goes down, and it does not lend itself well to a satisfying experience from either an action or tactical standpoint. My goodness, talk about immersion-breaking…"Hey! I've been hammering away at this monster for ages now and it still yet lives!"

Because this game is developed by a Japanese company, I was worried that there would be a "catch" of some sort to this wonderfully western-themed game. The absurdity and backwards thinking of the mindless "HP-sink boss fights" seen in countless JRPGs appears to be that catch. Such an unfortunate way to use what appears to be some really solid game mechanics. This has to be the most blatantly lazy way to create a false sense of challenge and accomplishment, and I can't believe that so many Japanese developers refuse to move on from an idea that never worked in the first place. (This is a big reason why Tactics Ogre and Demon's Souls are just about the only JRPGs I've ever enjoyed - they were challenging, and in some ways punishing, but I don't remember any excessive grinding. Instead, I remember some well-thought out encounters that required actual strategy rather than a battle of "who has the patience to see this through.")

Alright, so with that rant out of my system, I am still interested in the finished product. Many elements point to a fleshed out game and game-world, and there appears to be a decent amount of depth in terms of different character builds, loot, exploration, and customization. Hopefully there will be enough redeeming qualities in the game and a way to make these boss fights more manageable, as I still like a lot of what Dragon's Dogma has to offer.
 
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Nerevarine said:
One particular boss fight featured a player pitted against a boss with 7 (!!!) health bars. Yes, this means that you have to fully deplete the enemy's enormous health bar 7 times to defeat it
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So what's the problem? I eat 7 health bars for breakfast.

Geez… what a bunch of sissies around here. :D
 
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JDR13 said:
So what's the problem? I eat 7 health bars for breakfast.

Geez… what a bunch of sissies around here.
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Well that's surprising :) …I guess I just prefer the Western approach to boss fights. If preferring the much more sane/non-masochist boss fights seen in countless RPGs makes me a "sissy," then I won't protest the label ;).

I'm not saying that boss fights should be resolved in an extremely quick manner, but they should be to the point and brutal, forcing the player into using a sound strategy of some sort instead of mindlessly wailing away on the same enemy using the same attack pattern for an eternity - once you figure out how to defeat an enemy, what fun is it to rinse and repeat ad nauseum? I've already "bested" this foe and exploited it's weaknesses; let me move on! But this is why I don't enjoy JRPGS. Having one battle take in excess of around an hour is not appealing in the slightest - especially if you make a mistake towards the end and need to go through the same damn thing again. It just seems far too masochist and dull for my liking, and length alone is not a good measure of a truly rewarding boss fight.
 
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Yeah, I prefer boss fights that require finesse (and may be frustrating because of insta death) more than long repetitive battles of attrition.
 
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Asdraguuhl said:
Well, this is a PC RPG site.
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I did not know that. So my favorite RPG site doesn't even cover console games? Sucks for me I guess.

Do you know of any good RPG sites for console gamers?

I'm not saying that boss fights should be resolved in an extremely quick manner, but they should be to the point and brutal, forcing the player into using a sound strategy of some sort instead of mindlessly wailing away on the same enemy using the same attack pattern for an eternity - once you figure out how to defeat an enemy, what fun is it to rinse and repeat ad nauseum? I've already "bested" this foe and exploited it's weaknesses; let me move on! But this is why I don't enjoy JRPGS. Having one battle take in excess of around an hour is not appealing in the slightest - especially if you make a mistake towards the end and need to go through the same damn thing again. It just seems far too masochist and dull for my liking, and length alone is not a good measure of a truly rewarding boss fight.
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Let's play the game and fight a boss before thinking it's going to be dull. I think the prospect of fighting boss creatures for extended lengths of time is pretty cool, because it will make the fight "epic". No, length is not the ONLY key to making a boss fight epic, but at the very least, length will make it so that when you finally do fell a monster, you will be like, "oh shit, finally, it's over!!!yes!!!!", and you will have that feeling of accomplishment that you can't get from a quick fight. But really, I love JRPGs and long boss fights, so yeah, I look at it from the opposite perspective as you do.

But until we play we won't know if it's simply mindlessly mashing the button over and over to beat the boss. In a few fights I've seen videos of, it looked much more intense then that. The user was running around, climbing on enemies, using skills, using "guns" that were planted in the ground at certain spots, trying to kill giant creatures while lesser creatures like goblins were all over the place, trying to hit weak points when they were presented, etc. It looked like an intense fight. And the OXM preview stated it's one of the most intense and exciting games they've played. So I'm not too worried about it being dull. A little masochist, maybe, because you definitely don't want to die when you've almost beaten a monster in a long fight and you have to do it all over again. But dull, probably not.

But anyway, I'm really excited to fight some of these battles and see how they turn out. I can't wait to finally kill a cyclops or something, get whatever it is they drop as loot and go to the blacksmith and craft some new armor out of it.

Here's a 1:30 trailer for "Crafting and Questing". Pretty cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIeQSBXuKJU
 
vurt said:
Except for the very generic environments and characters (some of the monsters looks pretty cool though) it looks pretty interesting… i like that nights are really dangerous.
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Pawns in the final build of the game should look anything but generic. If you watch the first of the 2 2 hour live streams for the game, they showed off the character creation system, and it is extremely deep. You can create short, tall, medium, fat, skinny, muscular, you name it. So I expect to see a wide array of very unique looking pawns once the game comes out. Now if all those pawns are running around with the same generic gear on, that would suck, but it looks like there will be a very good amount of customization in this game so I'm not worried.
 
yeah i watched it, I just didnt think anything except maybe for some of the monsters stood out. The town looked even more generic than the ones in Oblivion i think, very little personality or uniqueness to it. Same with the forest which seems to be same-same everywhere, it didnt seem to have any kind of uniquness or much charm (something at least Oblivion has i think).

But whatever, i'm getting the game anyways, i'm a huge fan of open world games, and not every game can be as good as Morrowind or Gothic3 ;)
 
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I definitely can see why someone would call it "generic". The main town has a sort of typical, medieval castle-town setting, and the outdoor areas seem a bit too realistic maybe. Not sure what it is exactly about those settings but I can see what you're saying.

However, I quite like the art direction in the game. I like that they went for a realistic approach. I like that some people are fat, some are tall, some are dwarfs, etc. There will be a huge variety in the look of the pawns at least. I really can't wait to see what some people (and myself) come up with with that in-depth character creation system.

The town might have charm and uniqueness to it, we have to play it ourselves to find out. Same with the outdoor areas. I wouldn't write them off just yet. The dungeon they showed off in one of the demos looked quite nice, and it opened up from a corridor-type dungeon into a room that was hugely open with high ceilings and a giant monster roaming about. And a cave they showed a glimpse of in one of the trailers looked awesome really, with stalactites jutting out all over the place, etc. It looked sweet. So I'll just wait to play the final game to see how it turns out. Let's hope they deliver...
 
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