Dragon's Dogma

[PalmTrees]

Tried the demo. It was ok.

Didn't much like the chaotic nature of having a squad of npcs just running around doing whatever. Climbed up on the chimera to stab the goat head. At least I think I was. It's kinda dark and it hops around a lot. I dunno, I was doing something I guess. It got knocked down every once in a while. Was that me? Probably not. Well someone did something. Walk over and stab it a bit. Stuff like that will probably be less confusing with some experience.

[NiX]

I killed Lydia, maybe I can kill these "helpers" too.

You don't have to bring them along.. just like you didn't have to bring Lydia. Psycho.

[Falconeer]

Tried it today. I am impressed with so many little things, and I know this is going to be a day 1 purchase for me. But I must say, the pawns are annoying as hell. They are too vocal, they are too independent and even without the chat spam it feels a lot like I am in one of those multiplayer sessions in Vindictus (or Diablo, you know) where the other three players are just grinding instances and running to the end as quickly as possible. At some point, just to try and get mor familiar with everything, I just stayed in the back while they hacked through a group of enemies and basically wiped them away while yelling tips and suggestions like there's no tomorrow. It was weird. They are optional you say, sure, but are they? I'm under the impression that in a game where you can have up to 3 companions, choosing to go around without them is probably unforgiving. Maybe a good compromise is to have one, and bring in the whole party only when things get too hard.

The whole thing -in the demo- seems a but too chaotic: pawns running left and right hitting everything and spamming chatter, enemies that cannot be locked on nor have a health bar over their head make for a difficult (for me) first approach. I can see people complaining that Mass Effect companions are too silent, but these randomly generated minions chatter doesn't give them that much personality anyway.
I wasn't expecting a new Demon's Souls, but I must admit that I was hoping for a slightly darker-toned adventure. In this regard, pitch black nights or not, the game is set on "epic" and the music is excessively in line with that. Turning down its volume isn't a bad idea.

The boss battles were fun, I loved being able to climb on them at any given point and having to chop at the tail, or being carried away by the flying one while hacking at its neck.
The one thing I really miss so far, given how confusing everything seems to be for me, is the lock-on feature.

TL:DR: Not exactly what I was wishing for, but still day 1 purchase to me. It seems really good, even though I haven't mentioned the awesome here.

[MuffinMan]

I'm hoping the demo gets opened to us poor folk without gold soon. I want to play!

[Hawkbit]

Demo was a lot of fun.  There' a ton of stuff going on screen, but I'm glad I have this on order.  The character aesthetics are my favorite in a game so far, I think.  The female models are beautiful without being slutty.

[Margalis]

Yeah, put me in the "i had no idea wtf was going on" camp. Too dark, too many people onscreen, too many UI elements. I have no idea if my actions affected the game in any real way.

NPC buddies are hard to get right.

[Kageru]

The best sort of NPC buddies are the ones that don't exist. AI pets are either too capable, in which case they steal from my play experience, or irritatingly incapable in which case they detract from the game experience. Doubly so if there's no pause feature for giving commands (and that video looked like a zerg). And putting in all this framework and not allowing co-op multiplayer?

Heck, I can't even watch the gameplay without it making me nauseous and irritated at all the NPC chatter. And trying to do some sort of tactical control with a controller, lol. Feel free to mash your X or Y key (heavy hit and light hit, oooh, innovation).

This is some sort of "forever alone" version of an MMO I guess?

[Falconeer]

I think Mass Effect did companions right. I wasn't fond of them at first, but over time I started to appreciate their help without messing too much with what I'm trying to do. I'd extend my comment to all the three episodes.

I still prefer to go solo though, Demon's Souls style.

[Margalis]

Xenoblade has good AI buddies. They feel effective but you can't just sit there and let them do the work either.

From what I hear the demo is not that representative of the actual game though, so maybe it gets better.

[rrazcueta]

I don't know if you guys have played the demo the way MH fans have been playing it. They've been throwing the first pawn off the ledge by the dragon and soloing the rest of it. I personally don't like that. If you just play with that one pawn and don't summon the other two, I feel like you get a better feel for the game. Remember, in the game proper you have to pay for pawns that are better than you (much unlike the demo), so having less than a full party will make it more like regular difficulty.

[Bann]

Playing on PS3, enjoying it so far. Take my pawn, f13!

psn id: Excapase
pawn name: Xom
Pawn Class: Fighter

[Hawkbit]

This just arrived in the mail.  I'm not sure what to do with it, as D3 is soul consuming.

[MuffinMan]

The demo must have scared everyone away or D3 made everyone forget this and their families.

[MisterNoisy]

The demo must have scared everyone away or D3 made everyone forget this and their families.

I'm holding out for a PC version, to be honest.

[Kitsune]

I've been raising a support/healing mage pawn under the theory that most players aren't gonna want to be doing that job themselves.  She's level 12 now and coming along nicely.

My PSN is Valatar
Her name is Cyllix

So far the game's really good, if just as brain-crushingly obtuse as Demon's Souls.  I'm still trying to figure out how half of the game's systems work.

[Falconeer]

MIne was shipped today (Europe), but I can't wait to put my fingers on it. Pawn info as soon as possible.

[Bann]

Played maybe 4 hours yesterday. I rolled a small strider because I personally value movement speed over just about everything across all games, regardless of whether or not that makes sense. Using archery and blades about evenly, and love it when there is a moneter large enough for me to climb up.  I spent a long time banging my head against a quest in the first town that I'm now convinced Im just not meant to do yet (The one down the well.) Can't wait to get home today  and play some more..


*edit* Does anyone have any insight about what will cause towns/NPC's to dislike you? I've noticed that my pawns seem to take all kinds of stuff whenever I walk into a house, so I've started doing that too. I've also climbed on top of a few cows and stabbed them in the first town. No one in town has said anything or treated me differently after these actions.

[Kitsune]

Anyone playing this on PS3 should send me a friend request on PSN, as evidently you don't have to pay for pawns you receive from friends.  My handle on there is Valatar, just mention F13 so I know you aren't just some random idiot.

[schild]

I will probably buy this the first week of June.

[Hawkbit]

DLC menus at launch kinda suck.  Also, the dragon's face is too fat or something. 

However, the tone and atmosphere of the game are 100% there for me.  I like it so far. 

[Kitsune]

Definitely having some Demon's Souls flashbacks with the way the game works.  I went into a cave, ran across an ogre, it beat my ass.  Went back to town, picked up some fresh skills and pawns better suited to the fight, went back to the cave, beat the ogre now that I knew what to expect from it.  Went deeper into the cave, ran across a second ogre, beat that too.  Then ran into a THIRD ogre.    After that particular trial by fire, I'm thinking that I pretty much have ogres down pat at this point.  The game is very not shy about throwing things at you that you can't deal with; without entering spoiler territory I'll simply mention that I've already encountered one literally unwinnable fight.  It took me several deaths before I realized that the game wasn't just being hard, it was putting me in a situation where I'd have to flee.

[Bann]

Were those the ogres in the quarry? Whats your strategy for them? I spent about an hour trying to kill the first one with no luck. I could get him low by climbing and stabbing, but it was a very slow grind and at some point he would usually catch me with a backslam. I finally just kited him over to the switch to open the gate and sprinted through to the end, then ran all the way back to talk to the guy that wanted me to open the way. He thanked me for opening the way, but said he still needed the monsters cleared. 

Oh, and I managed to clear the well in the first town. The trick for me was hiring pawns that could enchant weapons to do ice damage.

[Kitsune]

My original strategy of 'slash the crap out of their leg and hope they fall down' didn't pay off very well.  What I discovered is that headshots are the order of the day for ogres, so I stood back and shot arrows at their face a lot, then when they'd charge and fall, I'd run over and beat on their head.

[Kitsune]

So I fired the game up today, stopped by an inn to rest until morning, and discovered that eighteen people had hired my pawn overnight, netting me 56,000 rift crystals and giving her piles of monster, quest, and location experience.     So I did what any good American entrepreneur would do and used some of the crystals to buy her some blue anime hair and help out her popularity.   

[Yegolev]

The demo must have scared everyone away or D3 made everyone forget this and their families.

I didn't forget but besides work and D3, I still have Xenoblade Chronicles to deal with.

[Rendakor]

D3 is what prevented my purchase as well. If this had come out a month ago I'd be all over it, but I just don't have the cash to drop on a game that won't get played any time soon.

[Hawkbit]

Starting to get into this finally while waiting for D3 to hammer out its issues.  There's something about this game that is really reminiscent of my early gaming on NES or SNES.  I can't even remotely put my finger on it, but maybe it's just that the system and world is overwhelming.  It's not a perfect title; there's all kinds of weirdness with it.  But it really rings my bell in a good way, and likely will be one of my favorite games of this gen.  I'll post my pawn info soonish.

EDIT:  Just dropped friend requests on the two listed above for pawn usage.  Here's my info, though my pawn won't always be quite as high level as I can't play as much as I want.

psn id: T_Abernathy
pawn name: Nika
Pawn Class: Strider

[Kitsune]

I've added you, Hawkbit.  Which, if I understand correctly, means you should be able to use my pawn without spending rift crystals for her, which ought to help you progress faster.  I've been optimizing the crap out of her healing and support powers, and I think she's like level 28 now.

[Hawkbit]

I tried to add her about four hours ago and it did appear free of RC charge, but I think you were online using her and it wouldn't let me take her.  If I borrow her from you while offline, you still have access to her, right? 

[Kitsune]

Yeah, your using her never actually takes her away from me, which would rather suck.

[Hawkbit]

I borrowed her a bit last night and she's really helpful.  Not only is she lvl 30 compared to my lvl 12 toons, but she has your kitted out upper level spells.  And, in a totally cooled out moment this morning, she stopped me while exploring to tell me that there's a cave nearby that she knows there's treasure in. 

The fact that the pawns take knowledge away from their experiences and use it in another player's game, well that's just awesome.  It's a whole new level of DS bloodstains.

[jakonovski]

Bought the game, figures that I'm too exhausted to play it tonight. Did make a character though, very cool creation. Loved the armor set teasing. Hopefully this will make me forget Diablo 3.

[kildorn]

So I picked this up after hearing people rave about it.

This is one of the most fun things I've played in a while, even if pretty much everything about the game outside the atmosphere and combat is pants on head and/or unexplained.

I've been having a blast though, just for the sheer amount of random shit that happens. And the crazy night survival runs that I always wind up doing after being out too long exploring. Every night winds up with a Chimera and a dozen random adds while being unable to see shit due to all the fire. I had my fun fight with a cyclops on the side of a mountain. He charged after being shot up a bit, and a mess of arrows to the back of his knee sent him over the side of the cliff for 5k xp.

My main complaint is probably the camera, which sucks horribly when they force you to fight large things in small spaces. But the pawn system is a neat idea (caster pawns suck if you give them options, though. One boon, a heal if needed, and a bunch of nukes. Giving one multiple boons just winds up with them randomly recasting them all mid fight), and I totally don't get weak spots sometimes. A bunch of arrows to the knee on an ogre knocks him down, then later in the fight unlimited arrows to the knee doesn't even stagger the bugger.

Game could use some form of distinction on bandits, too. Two identical bandits will have really different stats based on where they are with no indication that "this bandit will hand you your ass" until you hit him for 1% of his health instead of one shotting him.

[Kitsune]

If the pawn knows the monster's weakness, they'll cast the appropriate boon to screw it.  Only inexperienced pawns just cast random elements willy-nilly.  I gave Cyllix fire, ice, and holy, and she's very good about picking the correct one for any given fight.  If I'm fighting something without any particular elemental weakness like bandits, she'll just cast whatever; any buff's better than no buff, but against undead I'll see weapons start glowing white, against goblins and wolves she uses fire, etc.  Same deal for offensive spells; a pawn who knows a monster's weakness will hit them with that element, if available.

Oh, and a tip, turn off pawn subtitles in the options menu if you enjoy your sanity.  The pawns often say useful things, but not so useful that it's worth cluttering up your screen with their chatter.

[jakonovski]

For pawns, is there any difference between primary and secondary skill slots? Eg. does my healbot heal more if there are no damage spells in primary slots?

edit: my PSN tag is Jakonovski, in case someone wants to hire a certain Sir Teddy.