E3 2011: Hands on with Dragon's Dogma

It's nice when developers are influenced by games other than Call of Duty, and every other dudebro shooter on the market. So when I first laid eyes Dragon's Dogma and immediately spotted the influences of Demon's Souls, Monster Hunter, and Shadow of the Colossus, my interest boner was peaked.

And after finally getting my hands on the game, I also felt the influences of the developer's previous series, Devil May Cry. This game might look like Monster Hunter and Demon's Souls, but it moves a lot faster than both of those games. There's a snappiness to the controls more reminiscent of a character action game than an action RPG. I ran fast, jumped high, and spit combos like nobodies business. But the most surprisingly cool mechanic has to be the ability to grab onto and climb around any larger enemy. Once mounted, I could slash and stab away until my heart was content. During the fight with a Chimera, I could jump on, climb around, and freely attack the parts of the body I wanted. By slashing at and killing the goat head on the Chimera's back, I was able to disable one of the monster's most dangerous attacks. Same for when I went for it's snake tail. It actually made more sense than stabbing glowing runes in that other climbing game.'

The boss fight against a gryphon was especially impressive. When I brought the beast to the ground with my fire enchanted arrows, I then jumped onto it right as it took flight. I was eventually dropped from high to my death when my stamina run out, but the sensation was amazing.

I did have a few small issues with what I played though. I'm not sure why, but the game seems to have no lock-on mechanic. It's easy enough to redirect attacks, but when cautiously moving near dangerous enemies, it would be nice to circle around them as I blocked. I was also unable to find any dodge maneuver -- which could be a real problem when fighting larger enemies. Finally, I'm not sure why, but the demo was filled with AI controlled teammates. They would use abilities that interacted with or buffed the player, but it seems like Dragon's Dogma should be played as a co-op game. Oh, and fuck those birds in the demo.

Dragon's Dogma is definitely one of the best games I've had hands-on with at E3 this year, and while there are still dozens of games I still need to see, I'll most likely be giving this one another spin.