Yeah, when I have been facing guys within my level range thus far, such as wolves, goblins and such I feel pretty badass. But then I decided to venture down a little path and got raped by an ambush of bandits. You will be taking normal damage then, bam, you will get hit just right by a certain attack and you are toast. This is early on as well, and even the easy guys can get some good hits in on you if you are not careful. It's great, the game is exactly what I thought it would be.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Dragon's Dogma |OT| For the night is dark and full of terrors
- Thread starter Dresden
- Start date
Yeah, when I have been facing guys within my level range thus far, such as wolves, goblins and such I feel pretty badass. But then I decided to venture down a little path and got raped by an ambush of bandits. You will be taking normal damage then, bam, you will get hit just right by a certain attack and you are toast. This is early on as well, and even the easy guys can get some good hits in on you if you are not careful. It's great, the game is exactly what I thought it would be.
You can. Just select which one you want to set as the priority quest and even all the highlights above the heads of NPCs will mean they have info related to that quest. Really clean and easy to manage.
Lucent
Member
This game man. =p
MagicWithEarvin
Member
Nice. Makes me wish that Xenoblade had a much better implementation of quest tracking.
intheinbetween
Member
so, can anyone confirm about what's included in the exclusive DLC pack? is it on disc or is it online?
There are streams that have been up since Friday. They're still up at the time of this post. Twitch.tv clamps down on early release streams now, but the other stream providers don't care as much. (own3d.tv etc.)
edit: http://own3d.tv/live/33395
edit2: Moved to http://twitch.tv/gyoruspy
Here is a bit more of my first impressions. This is what I posted over on Unity.
Happy to report that the PS3 version looks and runs great, with ony a bit of stutter when the game auto-saves sometimes. But that is only for a few seconds when it even does it. The game is precisely as advertised. If you love what has been so freely shown, then you will feel right at home and love it once you start playing.
Enemies within your level range are fair game, but be careful how far you wonder off. As you can get in trouble fast and will be quickly reminded just how mortal you really are - despite still walking around with your heart ripped out. It's this that gives the world a real sense of danger and that is something lacking in most games within this genre these days. It actually feels like an adventure.
All in all, I am still in the early goings and I can already tell that it is going to be a time sink that I will love every minute of and will come back to replay many times. Underneath things like some quirkiness here and there with some of the NPCs, a finicky camera in tight corners or maybe not the sharpest textures in places, there is a very special game in a world that feels alive and is brimming with attention to detail. In short, it delivers on being something that feels unique on the whole.
Happy to report that the PS3 version looks and runs great, with ony a bit of stutter when the game auto-saves sometimes. But that is only for a few seconds when it even does it. The game is precisely as advertised. If you love what has been so freely shown, then you will feel right at home and love it once you start playing.
Enemies within your level range are fair game, but be careful how far you wonder off. As you can get in trouble fast and will be quickly reminded just how mortal you really are - despite still walking around with your heart ripped out. It's this that gives the world a real sense of danger and that is something lacking in most games within this genre these days. It actually feels like an adventure.
All in all, I am still in the early goings and I can already tell that it is going to be a time sink that I will love every minute of and will come back to replay many times. Underneath things like some quirkiness here and there with some of the NPCs, a finicky camera in tight corners or maybe not the sharpest textures in places, there is a very special game in a world that feels alive and is brimming with attention to detail. In short, it delivers on being something that feels unique on the whole.
If you take your time and do side quest/explore, about 30 to 100 hours, basically your typical open world RPG.
A minimum of 30 hours.
The side quests are usually found on the notice board, so they're really easy to differentiate from the main story quests. I'm only 10 hours into the game but all of the main story quests usually come from the "royal" looking people, if you know what I mean.
Also, side quests are by no means a walk in the park; Escort missions are listed on different notice boards from your typical fetch quests, but can be really hard because you only get ONE attempt (yes, only one), but the payoff is really high. Like 10,000 EXP and 50,000 Gold high.
For example, I chose to take on an escort mission to a place I've never been to before. Halfway there I ran across a goblin group terrorizing a merchant and his cart, so I took care of them all in one shot with my mage, but.... a fucking griffin came out of god damn nowhere, dive bombed my escort character and started attacking my party. :O I was able to fend it off -- it flew away at 50% health -- but the escort character only had 25% of his life left, and he eventually died before reaching the destination...
Yes, you can post screenshots via facebook or twitter, or just copy them to USB and post them some other way.
And no, you can only have one save file per account.
rockman zx
Member
Really?, you mean like if you fail, is gone forever, or can you upload your save game?, or the game save after a failed or successful quest?.
I tried uploading them from the Pawn Community on the main menu and everything looked like it went fine. Then I checked and the pics were not there. So, all I did was:
- exit the game
- open the browser
- logged into facebook
- selected upload photos
- selected the Dragon's Dogma photo folder
- chose which ones I wanted and it worked like a charm
Unity2012
Member
Good stuff here; glad to hear about your experience so far. Midnight release, here I come. I'm off Tuesday so it will be perfect.
Thank you for sharing Ironcreed.
That sounds so good, I can't wait until Friday.
Deified Data
Banned
Anyone else calling in off work this Tuesday?
I will be paid briefly to sit at home and play DD. Bliss.
I will be paid briefly to sit at home and play DD. Bliss.
No problem, my friend. Hope you enjoy the game.
Yes, if you fail an escort mission, it's GONE. But the only way you can fail an escort mission is if the person you're escorting dies. So it makes sense that you can't retry because the person is dead.
The game doesn't auto-save after those escort missions afaik though.
Karak
Member
Right around 48 hours total playtime.
Enjoyable game. Not perfect, not great, just a good all around game that keeps you coming back to play just a little longer. Still think that the extra attention paid to animations and so forth are the best part.
Turn on and off the lantern for some reason gets me every time. So many games would have skipped that having the character put a burning lantern into their fucking vest pocket. But just that little extra attention really pays off.
Did many sidequests early and am pretty powerful not really having much difficulty with any of the enemies now. Most stand out bit so far is actually an early quest in the starting village involving the water well. The first time going underground and the surprise contained there was pretty awesome.
Technically you can tell these guys are pushing the systems to their limit though. I really wonder what this game would have looked and played like had it been on a next gen or on the pc.
Enjoyable game. Not perfect, not great, just a good all around game that keeps you coming back to play just a little longer. Still think that the extra attention paid to animations and so forth are the best part.
Turn on and off the lantern for some reason gets me every time. So many games would have skipped that having the character put a burning lantern into their fucking vest pocket. But just that little extra attention really pays off.
Did many sidequests early and am pretty powerful not really having much difficulty with any of the enemies now. Most stand out bit so far is actually an early quest in the starting village involving the water well. The first time going underground and the surprise contained there was pretty awesome.
Technically you can tell these guys are pushing the systems to their limit though. I really wonder what this game would have looked and played like had it been on a next gen or on the pc.
Deified Data
Banned
From playing the demo and looking at the game's various media, I agree with this, 100%.
I don't think I've ever seen clothing and hair move so naturally in a video game before that wasn't a cutscene. At least not a game with heavy customization. This is a major draw for me - the characters and monsters are just a joy to watch.
Karak
Member
Ya from the way a character holds his sword, to the actions of someone attacking a creature taller then themselves and them turning their heads up to look at it. Also when you grab someone(a friend) and run around with them they begin like kicking and screaming if there was no real reason to grab them. It looks hilarious but it also fits as in a giant warrior would be like "Unhand me this instant!"
Also of special note were the wind effects. It sucks HORRIBLY there is no rain(another performance saver on the older consoles) and the grass is just 2d planes of texture but when the wind is blowing and dusk is turning to night...damn it looks great. As my friend said the game is one of the few that looks better in motion than in screenshots. And that is true.
Deified Data
Banned
Yeah, I sat around during the Plains demo and played Pawnball*, waiting for day to turn to night. Twilight in this game is really gorgeous, even though it's the harbinger of death. Sad there's no rain, as well. I don't know why, but I always get a cozy feeling from seeing rain in a game, taking shelter, etc. Such a thing would have fit this game perfectly, given that being wet actually has effects on the gameplay. Missed opportunity.
* Pawnball is the sport of picking up a pawn and tossing them to another pawn. "I caught it!"
RiderKairuu
Member
I'm contemplating on whether to pick it up while I'm out of town or wait until I get back home on Wednesday. If I get it at midnight I'll be able to play some before heading back. Decisions...
You can create one, your main pawn.
RiderKairuu
Member
So does it always feel dangerous at night even when your a higher level?
Do the sidequests run out or are they randomly generated?
Karak
Member
The game doesn't ALWAYS feel dangerous ever even on the start. As the game warns you you can stick to the roads at night and be fine. Which I did as a level 1-4 character and had no deaths ever. BUT its when you go off the tracks. I would say that it loses a bit of its danger in the middle half of the game world starting a couple hours after you go out of the second small encampment. And of course depending on where you are traveling too and your choice of pawns. Sadly with the amount of back and for in the game you can end up traveling a great deal where only 1/8th of the area you traveled in was considerably dangerous at night as many monsters stick to their areas and don't seem to level or have any increase. So you have 8 miles to travel only miles 7 and 8 are somewhat dangerous.
I do a good deal of night travel. So far I have died 6 times in 45 hours. But I am also anal with how I play. I am very careful and always keep stocked up on items. That is the thing. If you don't have a plan you could be in trouble but if you make a good plan you can get through places and do things you didn't think were possible.
I think the average player will find night dangerous unless they plan and if they plan they will find it manageable but still need to be on their toes. Also remember retreat is always an option. A couple times I have been surprise jumped by a huge number of enemies and ending up running for a good deal of time back to a guardpost because they had so many badguys I could barely see what was occurring in battle.
Its great fun regardless and the sign of a true good game is one that makes you feel a certain way. This game feels dangerous, perhaps far more than it actually is, but if you let the atmosphere grab you it really doesn't matter if its real or perceived.
Karak
Member
Sidequests have never run out. In fact I recently found a 3rd bulletin board I didn't even know existed with more quests. I do not think they are random and I don't remember reading that in the previews.
base shagohod
Member
Can anybody pm me a stream? Only found one and the quality is pretty weak.
semiconscious
Member
nice impressions. &, afa the bolded section, yes, that's what i've been hoping for. i had a very good time with skyrim. but, minus serious challenge, it felt for the most part much more like a collected series of activities, as opposed to an actual adventure...
RiderKairuu
Member
Sounds awesome, thanks Karak! Trying to convince the gf to take me to the midnight release at GS, she has work the next day.
Karak
Member
No probs. Just an FYI that I have a pretty unvarnished view of games and I love games so even if I have a little issues here or there and I talk about them I don't play a game if it isn't Fun. That is all I care about. I don't care about reviews, previews, bad GFX, or whatever I just care if it puts a smile on my face
And frankly this game is damn fun despite any little issuesAlso as a new IP and the way the story has been going. I can see there being a sequel perhaps even in a different land or based in the same world but different occurrences.
Femmeworth
Banned
I checked out the demo, but it wasn't quite to my liking. I will definitely have to get this when it drops significantly in price, if only for the character creator. :3
Live Feed is back up: http://www.twitch.tv/godblessbrazil
base shagohod
Member
Thanks!
I'm just watching the super extended play in the mean while, don't watch if you don't want spoilers, I still find their commentary pretty hilarious, and holy shit at the
supernormalmode did it the hard way in his video
http://www.videogamer.com/videos/dragons_dogma_episode_7.html
ogre just dashed and falling off the ledge
supernormalmode did it the hard way in his video
http://www.videogamer.com/videos/dragons_dogma_episode_7.html
No probs. Just an FYI that I have a pretty unvarnished view of games and I love games so even if I have a little issues here or there and I talk about them I don't play a game if it isn't Fun. That is all I care about. I don't care about reviews, previews, bad GFX, or whatever I just care if it puts a smile on my face
Also as a new IP and the way the story has been going. I can see there being a sequel perhaps even in a different land or based in the same world but different occurrences.
Good impressions, thanks.
2 questions for ya:
What character Class did you pick? Happy with your choice?
Do you think that a strategy guide would really enhance the experience, or have you been able to figure out all of the game systems, etc. on your own?
There's going to be a Pawn info thread, or at least there should be. We can post pics of our pawn, give out updated info like what skills and equipment we have chosen, and what type of pawn it is (tank, support, ranged, etc.).
Rei no Otaku
Member
My gamestop is actually doing a midnight for this. I was going to wait until Tuesday morning to pick it up, but with all the positive impressions I may just stop in there Monday night.
Fuck it! I was all up in this thread a few weeks ago trying to fight the good fight, but I don't think I can take it anymore. I just watched a snippet of the live stream and the game looks WAY too cool. I just...I can't...fight it. There are too many things going against my primal instincts. Internal, Japanese Capcom, Devil May Cry team, etc. It's just too much for me, lol! With everything pointing to a 100+ hour game on the disk alone I'll just adopt the "fuck the DLC" attitude for now and purchase it for the game. Jesus Christ...
I read some info way back that... when you share your pawn's pics on Facebook or Twitter - the image itself has some info on the pawn that users can use it or something on your game?
Is this still valid?