Pawns come in all shapes and sizes, which does make some of them pretty to look at… well, some of them.

The Pawn system, however, has some drawbacks. For starters, Pawns become useful for players when they give you hints regarding the games numerous quest lines, exposing the weaknesses of monsters, and having knowledge of the in game world. So, a Pawn without quest or monster knowledge would be weaker in terms of helpfulness in the field. It is also easy to exploit the game through the Pawn system; having a friend or two who power-games their pawn up to level 51, while your Arisen is only level 10, effectively breaks the game. Capcom tried to balance this out by having higher level Pawns be rentable for a price, but anyone on your friend list gives you a Pawn for free, regardless of level, so borrowing Pawns can lead to an easy, exploitable game.

And because of the importance of the Pawns in combat, party balancing, giving information to the player, and effectively solving quests just by asking them, Pawns become more important to the game than the Arisen is. Creating a balanced party of super-powered Pawns will allow you to pretty much walk all over any challenge you face, so your arisen can sit back while the Pawns do all the work. So this over-reliance on Pawns becomes a winning strategy for the long run in Dragon’s Dogma, especially if you have friends who are quick to optimize their Pawns’ builds.

Boss fights against chimera, griffons, and dragons have moments of real tension to them.

Dragon’s Dogma is also plagued by a number of questionable design choices outside of the combat and the pawn system. The biggest offender is an archaic save system right out of Dead Rising, giving you one save slot for your entire game. Coupled with an auto-save system every time you enter or leave a zone, it makes some quest lines, particularly those of the escort variety, a complete chore to get through. The inventory system is another problematic aspect; despite categorizing the hundreds of items that can be collected and combined in Dragon’s Dogma into five different sections, the sheer amount of clutter that can accumulate over time is astounding to sift through without constant management.

Another major design issue for some would be the lack of a fast travel system, at least, a simple one. Instead of fast-traveling automatically to major cities or locations on the game map, only a specific item, one that is rather uncommon in the game, to fast travel to the games sole major city. So it becomes a one-way ticket to safety in a pinch to either liquidate loot or to pick up new quests. Some may see this as a weakness, but I must admit I enjoyed the extra challenge it gave the game. It made combat more life-threatening, especially during boss fights, something that most RPGs today fail at.

Dragon’s Dogma is not the prettiest game to look at, but aesthetically the game does real well at making the world believable. Each field has their own flavor to it, each mountain side their own secrets to uncover. You also have a number of abandoned way castles and underground tunnels to explore, allowing a variety of location set pieces that give the world of Granys its unique flavor. The monsters follow the palette swap school of design to create the illusion of different enemies, but overall that is a nitpick complaint.

A lot of options to customize, at least. Too bad not all of it fits.

The biggest issue however is the lack of a coherent art style between all of the game elements. The world is clearly English-fantasy inspired, so most of the characters and designs in Dragon’s Dogma are slanted towards a more western-style. But every once and a while, a more anime-inspired character pops up, right down to the spiky hair and doe-eyes. It also doesn’t help that character customization allows you to make anime inspired Arisens , as well as elves, dwarves, and even children, if you want to go that route. But the huge amount of options makes the art style inconsistent for each game. No elves or dwarves exist in the world of Granys, with the exception of custom created characters, so having a 12 year old elven Arisen with spiky green hair and doe eyes, with a stout, axe-wielding Pawn as a Gimli clone becomes a jarring sight that is completely out of place.

As for the overall sound of the game, the only characters with a remote personality are the Pawns, who pretty much shout the same scripted lines every five minutes. Your Arisen is mute and most of the faux French and English accents you hear become grating over time. Capcom also went the old English route in the game’s language, which does give the world a more ancient feel if you can sift some through cringe-worthy dialogue deliveries. Music is also strangely absent throughout most of the game, only really flaring up during combat, boss battles, and cutscenes. Thankfully, the opening song by band B’z is not present anywhere else in the game. Don’t get me wrong, the song is catchy and I wouldn’t mind listening to it on rotation on my iPod, but it just doesn’t feel like a song that belongs to Dragon’s Dogma.

And in the end, that is the games sole weakness. Despite the craft and care put into a nearly five-year project, the Frankenstein monster that is Dragon’s Dogma buckles under its weight in a taciturn display of mediocrity. Undoubtedly some role-playing fanatics will enjoy the difficulty of combat, the hours of preparation and customization, and an expansive game world to explore. But several crippling design choices, the lack of a coherent storyline, and the potential for game-breaking by exploiting the Pawn System makes Dragon’s Dogma a hard sell for anyone itching for something new.

The game was purchased for review and played on the Xbox 360 for a total of 42 plus hours. The game has over 100 hours of content included.

Dragon's Dogma Review

By Robert G.

Taking ideas from its contemporaries, this Frankenstein monster of features makes Dragon's Dogma a misshapen, shambling figure, one that apes several sources but never truly meshes together.