Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Catch-All

heavyfeul wrote:

I have had this game in shrink wrap for some time. I pulled Dark Souls out of the PS3 and I will be loading up it up tonight. Any advice for a die hard Dark Souls fan moving to this new rpg system? A magic archer sounds cool and I want my pawn to be able to heal and add buffs as I fire from range. Is that possible?

Yup. You'll want to start out as a mage -- since magic archer's damage stats are based on magic. Since you and your personal pawn are going the magic route, be sure to hire a physical attack/meat shield pawn and you'll be fine.

Motleyai wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

I have had this game in shrink wrap for some time. I pulled Dark Souls out of the PS3 and I will be loading up it up tonight. Any advice for a die hard Dark Souls fan moving to this new rpg system? A magic archer sounds cool and I want my pawn to be able to heal and add buffs as I fire from range. Is that possible?

Yup. You'll want to start out as a mage -- since magic archer's damage stats are based on magic. Since you and your personal pawn are going the magic route, be sure to hire a physical attack/meat shield pawn and you'll be fine.

Feel free to hire my pawn, Puffin. She's a healer, but she's very... large.

I picked up the game over Christmas for PS3 and am having a blast with it. I went with a Strider as my main and a fighter as my personal slave pawn. Picked up two mages from the auto-generated pawns in the game and got to level 22 before I realised that they were not levelling with me and my main pawn! D'oh! So, I'd been inadvertently making the fights MUCH harder. Now I'm level 28 and just maxed-out my class so pondering if I should change... Still not sure.

I think the thing I love about this game the most is the exploration - just being able to go around (with a few restrictions) and find things and quests organically. No, wait. The thing I love most about this game is the way nothing is explained to you but yet everything is. Like how your pawns will basically relay information to you about quests (if they know it), creatures, locations and game mechanics as if it's conversation between friends. I love how I can upgrade all my stuff and how, once you get pretty high level you can ignore the buffs and debuffs of equipment and just make your character look as cool as you want them to.

The thing I don't like is how I can't upgrade equipment on pawns if I didn't put it on them - OR take equipment I put on them off without losing it. It really limits how I want to use the hired pawns. Also, I noticed that one time a hired pawn picked up a piece of armour and then wore it! I didn't see her pick it up but when I went into her inventory after a pretty rousing fight I noticed there was a "New" sign next to the leg section in her inventory. So I took a peek and saw some knee-high boots and thought: Perfect for my strider! Only, I discovered she was wearing them now! Not cool!!

il dottore wrote:

As for the prologue and nature of the dragon... it's all explained at the end, and ties together in a pretty awesome/absurd way. You might be able to see it coming as you progress and some backstory is revealed.

Not sure if I'm getting the hints right but:

Spoiler:

One of the pawns I hired from in-game was constantly telling me about how many people fall to their deaths and then one time he said something along the lines of "that's how I died". Which I take it to mean that pawns are really the arisen but from other realms/parallel realities and the dragon moves between each realm when it defeats the pawn it has chosen to face it. Only when the final pawn that it faces and loses to (which I presume is supposed to be the player in this game?) will its eternal purgatory be over... At least, that's the romantic version of the story I've made up in my head!

You should definitely change classes when you're maxed out. Some of the secondary abilities from other classes can be used on a strider to great effect. Particularly offensive ones from ranger and defensive ones from fighter/warrior. The rule of thumb is it is best to experiment.

All the "New" sign meant is that you hadn't seen it before. They probably had it all along.

And as to your theory about the ending...the reality is much crazier.

Blind_Evil wrote:

You should definitely change classes when you're maxed out. Some of the secondary abilities from other classes can be used on a strider to great effect. Particularly offensive ones from ranger and defensive ones from fighter/warrior. The rule of thumb is it is best to experiment.

Wait.... you bring across the auxiliary (passive) abilities? Or the primary and secondary ones?

I didn't realise this.

Zembonez wrote:

All the "New" sign meant is that you hadn't seen it before. They probably had it all along.

But I'd been in the inventory before that... Hmmm... I'll keep an eye out in future.

And as to your theory about the ending...the reality is much crazier.

Haha, I should write for video games!

I picked this up for PS3. If you don't have me yet, feel free: matthewgwoodard on PSN!

Just heard the Giant Bomb guys sum up the ending to this game. Holy CRAP.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Just heard the Giant Bomb guys sum up the ending to this game. Holy CRAP.

Yup!

Yeah, the ending to the game is nuts.

Right. After i finish Borderlands 2 I'm going to go and actually finish Dragon's Dogma.

I GOTSTA KNOW

Not to mention: the game doesn't end where you think it does. THAT'S when sh*t starts to get real.

Well, this little exchange just got me reinvigorated to finish the game. I'm really enjoying it, but I've got Far Cry 3 staring me in the face and I've considered putting DDogma down for a bit.

Judging on length and rpg elements, is it better to buy the game or to rent?

Depends on what kind of player you are. You could put hours and hours into this, if you're so inclined.

howlongtobeat.com says mainlining averages 40 hours, main quest plus extras averages 50, full completion nears 90. I got my fill at 75.

How did I totally miss this game??

I'm hearing that the faults are overshadowed by what was done well?

Raelic wrote:

How did I totally miss this game??

Don't know.

Raelic wrote:

I'm hearing that the faults are overshadowed by what was done well?

Yep.

I do wish there was some main character voice acting, but I think I've been spoiled by games like DA and ME. Still, this game does what it is meant to do very well.

Raelic wrote:

How did I totally miss this game??

I'm hearing that the faults are overshadowed by what was done well?

Don't feel bad. I first found it yesterday by caving in to boredom and watching the latest Resident Evil movie. Then I got impulse Taco Bell. I'm just glad I didn't call my married ex-girlfriend and make Sunday the perfect storm of bad ideas. Anywho, I like it a lot so far. I chose strider and apparently have sh*t for aim on a controller. Also, do any of the pawns that aren't my personal one level up? If not, does that mean I leave their ass on the curb and just hire a new one of higher level?

Yeah, switch out 3rd and 4th pawns liberally. Choose them according to spells, equipment, tendencies, looks I guess - whatever best suits your quest at the moment. The filtering menus are your best friends.

lostlobster wrote:

Depends on what kind of player you are. You could put hours and hours into this, if you're so inclined.

I'm about 40 hours in and have hardly touched the main quest. I'm basically treating it as Diablo 2...

Aristophan wrote:
Raelic wrote:

I'm hearing that the faults are overshadowed by what was done well?

Yep.

I'm not really finding any faults - at least not compared with any other game I've played in the last two years. Skyrim, Saints Row 3, ME2/3 etc. Haven't had any bugs yet - except that one where I died when I didn't mean to... or I accidentally let the stupid inn keeper die on his escort quest and didn't realise no one would bother taking over the inn until he respawned (which, coincidentally, I'm CERTAIN is more than 7 in-game days!!).

Oh yeah, I should mention - DON'T take escort quests until you're really levelled up because A) you don't always know where you're going, B) you need to kill enemies quickly and have your pawns heal quickly, C) if you fail them, you don't get a retry.

Xeknos wrote:

I do wish there was some main character voice acting, but I think I've been spoiled by games like DA and ME. Still, this game does what it is meant to do very well.

I think the main character voice thing would ruin it for me. I was lucky there was Femshep in ME and female whatsherface in DA2 was pretty awesome as well. Coincidentally, I'm also playing a red head in this game too. I wonder if my subconscious is trying to tell me something?

Nah!

Blind_Evil wrote:

Yeah, switch out 3rd and 4th pawns liberally. Choose them according to spells, equipment, tendencies, looks I guess - whatever best suits your quest at the moment. The filtering menus are your best friends.

I usually end up only switching out my 3rd and 4th pawns when I can get an approximation of the previous skills I had on the team. I started out as a Strider with my main pawn as a fighter (Strider is, I think, my favourite class so far.) and kept the same-ish two-mage healer plus weapon buffs combination through Ranger/Warrior and Magick Knight/Strider until I switched my pawn to a sorcerer when I took up fighter (trying to increase my strength!).

I picked it up after listening to Certis's praise on the best of 2012 podcast, and I'm glad I did. This game is amazing. I knew it last night when I was told 'are you sure you want to continue? All of your open quests will be abandoned,' and I couldn't hit no fast enough. I've got places to be! Things to do! That's a good sign I've totally invested in the game.

For me, it was climbing on the Cyclops.

Grenn wrote:

For me, it was climbing on the Cyclops.

Is that what they call it now?

There's just no way to respond that doesn't make it worse. To quote Calvin, "Today, I'm going for the gusto."

-Yeah. I kept climbing cyclopes all night.

-My roommate said it looked awesome and wanted to try.

-I was so close to killing the cyclops when I lost my grip on the controller and everything went to sh*t.

When I killed my first drake it took me at least 20 minutes. I'm thinking that seven in-game days later and several levels higher means I should find it a lot easier... Also, the whole thing with getting all my armour

Spoiler:

dragonforged! After I killed it I never noticed that one of my things had changed and then hours later I was shopping for some new pants and I noticed that this had a red cross on it instead of stars and I had no idea what the hell it was. Had to wiki it.

I have this on the way from Amazon. Looking forward to giving some GWJ pawns a whirl.

This game can be brutal when it wants to. Still loving it. While my steam account is packed with goodjers, my XBox account is woefully small, so friend me up so I can use your pawns as meat shields or heal monkeys. GWJ Grenn.

Friend me up on the 360, likewise: lostlobster.