Lucas
Versantvoort / December 23, 2014
Dragon’s Dogma is one of those games that’s deeply flawed and
yet a lot of fun to play. For every bad game design choice, there’s just as
many good ones.
The story begins with how every
classic hero’s story starts: at a peaceful little village. But of course, peace
doesn’t last and it’s not long before a dragon attacks your village and…steals
your heart. However, you’re not dead. You wake up with a large scar across your
chest and the dragon’s voice emanating from within: “If you would face me, take
up arms, newly Arisen.” So you take up arms and start your journey to take back
what was stolen from you and simultaneously save the world.
The basic story is…well…basic: everything
is peaceful when your happy life is disrupted by the Big Bad and you go out to
restore order. That being said, the story does have a few nice plot twists up
its sleeve. It’s hard to suggest the nature of these twists without giving it
all away, so I’ll try to be deliberately vague: it’s a variation on the cycle
of life theme. It lends an air of melancholy to everything that’s happened (and
will happen) once you figure it out and subsequent playthroughs are actually
tied into the narrative. It’s a great twist on the whole typical, medieval fantasy
save-the-world fare…which is more than I can say for Dragon Age: Inquisition, a game I reviewed recently, hence the
random comparison…
The problems regarding the narrative don’t lie
with the story itself however, but with the telling
of the story. The sections where the story picks up are great, but there’s a
whole lot of nothing in between which is more a direct consequence of the open
world-style of the game. The story starts with a bang and only takes off again in
short increments (usually when the dragon reappears) before ending
spectacularly. But all the narrative content in between is ploddingly executed.
This is only punctuated by the poor handling of the important characters. The
keywords here are: wasted potential. There were possibilities here to create
some well-written characters, but save for a few scenes dedicated to most of
them, they have nothing to do. Take Mercedes for example: a captain who has to
lead others despite actually being insecure about herself and her abilities, a
feeling only strengthened when you start making a name for yourself. In the
right hands, this could’ve made for interesting stories, but she’s underwritten
and underused. It’s obvious there’s a wealth of histories to these characters
and lots of lore, but the game doesn’t do justice to any of it. All characters
are written just well enough to rise above being one-note caricatures, but not nearly
enough to be considered fully three-dimensional, to speak nothing of the bafflingly
poor handling of romances, a system so shoddily executed, it’s almost
nonexistent. It just makes me wish a company capable of writing stories and
characters would’ve produced this, because well-written characters can drastically
increase immersion. Do you really think the Mass
Effect series became so popular because of its main storyline? No, it’s
because people cared about the characters
that they cared about the rest, a notion that seems to confound the people at
Capcom.
 |
| Strength in numbers, Arisen. Strength in numbers, Arisen. Strength in numbers, Arisen. |
Speaking of terrible characters,
this brings me to the Pawns, your companions. Pawns aren’t just your typical
everyday companions however. They do justice to their namesake, because they
come from a strange realm of sorts with their only purpose being to serve you…whilst
being completely devoid of individual character traits. Ironically, their key
characteristic is their lack of personality. Instead, they’ll constantly—and I
mean constantly—make random
observations about where you are, enemies, quests, etc. This seems fun the
first time. After all, it does make you feel like a hero when companions make
observations and give you advice, but after you start travelling through areas
you’ve already visited, it dawns on you: Pawns will repeat the same shit ad nauseam. How can anyone consider this
and think: yeah, this isn’t going to annoy the player at all? It’s all made
worse by the fact that they make the same observations in reverse depending on
where you’re going. Let’s say you’re going from city A to B. Pawns will make
observations x-y-z. Now afterwards, let’s say you’re travelling back from city
B to A. The pawns will then make the same observations in reverse, which
occasionally makes zero sense. When you near a city gate, a pawn might say,
“let’s have that gate open.” Makes sense, right? But he’ll also make that same
comment when leaving the city, which
makes no sense. Though they tie in to the main story in a significant way, I
cannot help but feel Pawns were designed this way to avoid spending half the
budget on voice acting and actually writing interesting companions à la Dragon Age: Origins.
This does mean however that most of the budget
was spent on what is easily the game’s true saving grace: the gameplay and
that’s saying something coming from someone who easily gets bored with games lacking
interesting stories and characters. The first thing you’ll notice gameplay-wise
is the wonderfully deep character creation screen. I’m the kind of guy who’ll
spend way too much time tweaking my character, so needless to say, I had to
restart a few times once I was disappointed with how my character turned out
when viewed in natural daylight. The awesomeness that is character creation
continues when you discover the vast array of clothing, armor and weapons
available from shops or as loot. Some of these are incapable of being worn
depending on your class. Speaking of classes, there’s a total of nine, each
allowing for drastically different play styles. And you’ll need them, since many
enemies require different tactics. Some enemies are very weak to certain
elements, while chasing after nimble enemies with a sluggish longsword isn’t
exactly a great idea. So, ensuring you’ve the proper skills and equipment and
the right Pawns for the job is crucial.
The other great aspect of gameplay
is exploration, the key to any open world game. While the world of Gransys isn’t
massive, it’s large enough that you’ll feel
the length you have to travel. Some of my fondest memories playing Dragon’s Dogma are from just wandering
about in the wilderness, finding loot, defeating enemies etc. It’s extra tense
during nighttime, because your lantern (which you have to buy, equip and provide
with oil) will only illuminate a small area around you. So, you might be
wandering about when you hear an enemy in the distance. Your pawns shriek
something along the lines of, “careful, an ogre,” and you’ll tensely look
around you to locate the threat. These scenarios arise naturally from however
you decide to play and are, as a direct consequence, more impactful…at least
more than anything the story’s throwing your way anyway.
However, these kinds of scenarios
are only effective in areas with enemies that are equal to you in level which
brings me to the major downsides of exploration. Enemy formations rarely, if
ever, change. Combine this with the amount of backtracking you’ll have to do
and you’ll mostly find yourself sprinting through the same areas with the exact
same enemies. Needless to say, you’ll find yourself running past them most of
the time, especially once you’ve surpassed them in skill levels. This is where
travel becomes cumbersome. Rather than allowing the player to ride a horse, the
game utilizes magical stones that allow you to teleport yourself to areas
visited earlier. However, these items are rare and cost a moderate amount of
gold. I get that only teleporting all the time would reduce immersion and
‘realism’, but I would be able to deal with travelling if only there were some
new enemy formations or other surprises, anything to deal with the monotony.
Then again, travelling can be a lot
of fun. The environments are wonderfully realized and every corner can hide
either treasure chests or enemies. The graphics, while not stunning by today’s
standards, look good and are most of all atmospheric. A soft lighting scheme
pervades the entire world and it all feels more believable as a result. The
music is also quite noteworthy. While most tracks are quite short, they do
their job just fine, whether its conveying the beauty of Gransys or the tension
of a brutal fight with enemies like Cyclopes, chimeras, etc. Indeed, it’s the orchestration of these tracks that makes
you notice the score, which isn’t a surprise as this was handled by Jonne
Valtonen and Roger Wanamo, the same dynamic duo that’s been involved with some
of the best orchestral video game music concerts of the past ten years
(Symphonic Fantasies, Final Symphony, etc).
All in all, if you like emotional
narratives with your medieval fantasy epics, you’re not going to find it here.
The story itself definitely has its strengths, but it falls completely flat in
terms of pacing and characters. Rather, it’s the gameplay and character
customization that has kept me—and will probably have you—coming back for more.
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