I was fighting a pretty high level Ogre (I was taking out slivers of life at each hit) and found out women made him horny/angry. So my female pawns were screaming all about it as he was charging directly at them, which gave me (who is a male character) the opportunity to get on his back and start stabbing him. And then he jumped up, fell on his back, and killed me.

I love this game.

I want to like this game but it actively confounds me.

@TheSpoonyBard said:

I was fighting a pretty high level Ogre (I was taking out slivers of life at each hit) and found out women made him horny/angry. So my female pawns were screaming all about it as he was charging directly at them, which gave me (who is a male character) the opportunity to get on his back and start stabbing him. And then he jumped up, fell on his back, and killed me.

I love this game.

The first time an ogre picked up one of my pawns and RAN AWAY with her, I was struggling between laughing and trying to keep up so it didn't kill her.

This game has some really amazing systems. I just wish it had a SHRED of personality. The gameplay is so much fun and most of the exploration is pretty okay. But every character in the world, and I mean every character, is so damn generic...

It's a pretty great first out though. Now that they know what htey have, I wouldn't mind seeing them try again with single player actually being the focus this time instead of having to be the shoehorned in end result.

Fuckin' drakes in the forest...can't even run from'em.

@Mesoian said:

@TheSpoonyBard said:

I was fighting a pretty high level Ogre (I was taking out slivers of life at each hit) and found out women made him horny/angry. So my female pawns were screaming all about it as he was charging directly at them, which gave me (who is a male character) the opportunity to get on his back and start stabbing him. And then he jumped up, fell on his back, and killed me.

I love this game.

The first time an ogre picked up one of my pawns and RAN AWAY with her, I was struggling between laughing and trying to keep up so it didn't kill her.

So females make ogres horny then? :p I'm confused.

@Mesoian said:

@TheSpoonyBard said:

I was fighting a pretty high level Ogre (I was taking out slivers of life at each hit) and found out women made him horny/angry. So my female pawns were screaming all about it as he was charging directly at them, which gave me (who is a male character) the opportunity to get on his back and start stabbing him. And then he jumped up, fell on his back, and killed me.

I love this game.

The first time an ogre picked up one of my pawns and RAN AWAY with her, I was struggling between laughing and trying to keep up so it didn't kill her.

This game has some really amazing systems. I just wish it had a SHRED of personality...

without wanting to be a dick about it, it kind of sounds like that is personality? I haven't played the game, and I know that I'm basing this off you describing one isolated incident, but you know, if that kind of stuff happens a lot...

Not that I'm denying the story is rubbish or whatever, like I say, I won't be able to see for myself until tomorrow. I do wonder though whether there is something self-fulfilling about when people say the story is worthless. I feel like it's common for people to say "oh the story is bad so I skip the dialogue.." so...you don't know whether some awesome shit is happening in that dialogue, actually?

I feel like I saw this with Dark Souls myself - everyone told me there was no story to speak of, and also told me that the game didn't tell you anything about what or how you were supposed to tackle it, so I didn't bother reading dialogue or anything like that, really, the first time through. The second time through, though, I did pay attention to that stuff, and discovered that not only does a lot of the dialogue provide really useful information about what you're supposed to be doing, there is also a huge amount of story info to be had (particularly from the serpent dudes), either around the "main" plot or just little side-stories, and a lot of it is quite interesting, in an oblique sort of way.

I just wonder if it's a similar situation, basically, but I suppose I will get back to you about it tomorrow evening.

There, now the two locked threads are together...for eternity.

@Bocam said:

I wish my Pawns would shut the fuck up

You can tell your main pawn to not talk as much. Just go to an inn and sit in the knowledge chair, I think it's called that at least.

I'm enjoying it. It feels like Monster Hunter Lite in a lot of ways.

@TheSpoonyBard said:

@Mesoian said:

@TheSpoonyBard said:

I was fighting a pretty high level Ogre (I was taking out slivers of life at each hit) and found out women made him horny/angry. So my female pawns were screaming all about it as he was charging directly at them, which gave me (who is a male character) the opportunity to get on his back and start stabbing him. And then he jumped up, fell on his back, and killed me.

I love this game.

The first time an ogre picked up one of my pawns and RAN AWAY with her, I was struggling between laughing and trying to keep up so it didn't kill her.

So females make ogres horny then? :p I'm confused.

I...guess? The funny thing is, after we wrestled the pawn out of his hands, he charged us, fell off a cliff and died. So I guess it was thinking with the lower head, if you know what I mean.

@thomasnash said:

without wanting to be a dick about it, it kind of sounds like that is personality? I haven't played the game, and I know that I'm basing this off you describing one isolated incident, but you know, if that kind of stuff happens a lot...

Not that I'm denying the story is rubbish or whatever, like I say, I won't be able to see for myself until tomorrow. I do wonder though whether there is something self-fulfilling about when people say the story is worthless. I feel like it's common for people to say "oh the story is bad so I skip the dialogue.." so...you don't know whether some awesome shit is happening in that dialogue, actually?

I feel like I saw this with Dark Souls myself - everyone told me there was no story to speak of, and also told me that the game didn't tell you anything about what or how you were supposed to tackle it, so I didn't bother reading dialogue or anything like that, really, the first time through. The second time through, though, I did pay attention to that stuff, and discovered that not only does a lot of the dialogue provide really useful information about what you're supposed to be doing, there is also a huge amount of story info to be had (particularly from the serpent dudes), either around the "main" plot or just little side-stories, and a lot of it is quite interesting, in an oblique sort of way.

I just wonder if it's a similar situation, basically, but I suppose I will get back to you about it tomorrow evening.

This game struggles to make you care about anyone in it. Minor spoilers, but not really, this game wants you to deeply care for Selene. It makes you want to identify with the family that's getting evicted from Gran Soren, it makes you want to fall in love with the princess. It does these things by showing the characters related to you once, maybe twice, and that's it. This game struggles violently to make you identify with anyone save your own characters. Hell, the person I like the most in the game right now is Madeline, and that's because she (although still being pretty 1 dimensional) actually has a personality. Everyone else seems like cookie cutter walkabouts who seem completely detached from what's going on. It makes skipping through big parts of the story really really easy, and that's a shame. Even in Skyrim, a game that has a story that's about as equally shit, you still come to remember the big characters. You remember Lydia, you remember the greybeards, you remember the werewolf dudes, you remember the Nightingales. I don't know what the Duke of Gran Soren's name is, but I know he's probably going to be a boss due to the dungeons I found while exploring the northern territories. However that being said, the best story that game is telling is the one you're telling yourself in your head. Skyrim still gets mileage out of me due to the story of the disgruntled hero and her deity abandoned lover that travel the countryside looking to make some sort of sense in a post Dovakin world. I really hope this game can deliver on that same aspect. Where Skyrim feels like you can take on the world and do anything you like, DD feels like you need to stay home, learn, plan, prepare and slowly extend your range outwards. It's a very different feel that provides for a very different narrative. It's cool. It's almost enough. but the set pieces in this world just aren't good enough, and that sucks. The last thing I did was Selene's story mission and it felt so hamfisted and the voice actors were so checked out and all the emotion was sucked right out of the scene, it was supposed to be powerful and upsetting and motivating, but it ended up just feeling dumb.

I am really digging it so far. The most I've gotten into this type of open world game in a looong while, even after only a few hours. I love the pawn system, and just the feel of the combat. Also, actually liking the lack of fast travel, because I know I would abuse it. Forcing me to really take an adventure. And not gonna lie...I love the J-Rock in the main menu. It sounds like the most anime intro music ever. Makes me feel like I'm embarking on some twenty season TV show.

@Mesoian: See, I hear things like "an ogre grabbed my pawn and RAN OFF" and I feel like that's almost personality enough.. if you could go back, would you still buy the game? I'm considering it but it seems SO middling.

Any game that lets me cheese my way to victory in such hilarious ways Is a-okay with me. The game really early on "challenges you" and you must "wander about looking for something evil to quell". Here I am rushing through some of the boring and I find myself severely under leveled for this cyclops/ogre/something battle. I died. Real fast. And said to myself.. Okay, I will have to do that again after some grinding. Only to find it put me right back in the start of the battle. I noticed all the goblins grouped around the big ugly thing and tried to kill them. That went slow way too slowly.. I was only level 2 or something dumb on my part. But I could knock them to the ground.

So i knocked all of them to the ground with their 80% hit points left. Picked them up and threw them off the cliff. Leveled 2 times in that battle. And killed the monster.

It was glorious.

@murisan said:

@Mesoian: See, I hear things like "an ogre grabbed my pawn and RAN OFF" and I feel like that's almost personality enough.. if you could go back, would you still buy the game? I'm considering it but it seems SO middling.

Oh no, see that'st he thing, the combat is FANTASTIC. They spent a lot of time and polish making enemies behave in interesting and unique ways and that plays on the fact that you can create your own character types. That stuff is REALLY cool. That being said, there is NOTHING that matches it when you're out of combat. Everything outside of combat seems SO much more drab when compared to the fighting because the fighting is so good. You need to have a mixture of both, otherwise you get bored. Motivation for why you're fighting is important, especially in games like this. That's why RPG's with shit stories don't get a lot of traction by me. FF12 ranks low for me because, while the combat was amazing, the story was so boring (not bad, just dull), same thing with Star Ocean 4 and Grandia 3. What makes Skyrim and DD different is that the main narrative is one you create yourself, in your head, which is unique to you, so it's almost okay if the story is shitty. But that doesn't mean I don't want the characters to be well defined and interesting. I want this game to make me care about things other than leveling up and getting the best gear and finding the next dungeon and watching out for random epic class characters. I want a narrative that makes me feel something. Skyrim, somehow, managed to do that for me, based on the stuff that I had done throughout that game. There's nothing in DD (THUS FAR, I'm only like, 17 hours in) that makes me feel that way.

I feel like indie games are putting big budget massive games like this on the spot. I felt more playing Bastion for an hour than I have the 17 I've been playing this. But the combat in this game is AMAZING and super fun and it keeps me coming back. The traversal doesn't even bug me any more now that I learned you can cheat fall damage with the double jump.

I suppose a better way to put it is that the game has plenty of personality, the but the story and narrative have none. Everything interesting and worth seeing thus far has nothing to do with the plot. I kind of hate that fact. But I'm still enjoying it.

And yeah, i'd still buy it knowing then what I know now. I knew more than I should before the game came out, so that didn't sway me too too much. But still...::shrugs:: I hate that all the characters are so bland.

I'm only a few hours in, so far I find it enjoyable. Difficulty seems a little uneven, but that's OK. I think I just need to spend some time with it to learn a bit more, i hope it is still interesting 40 hrs from now.

@Winsord said:

@Mesoian said:

@RainbowKraken said:

Is it hard for anyone else so far? There have been a few quests where I have been getting my ass kicked hard.

It can get quite difficult. Wander too far off the story path and the game is ready to remind you just what's up.

Yeah, I found this out when I checked out the sewers in the main town at only level 6. Managed to kill one of the monsters in there, only to lose two pawns and have to run out of there as quick as I could.

When pawns die is it permadeath?

All I've seen on this game has me drooling for it. I love RPGs and have been playing through the fun but incredibly ordinary KOA: Reckoning. From what i've seen DD has a survival horror feel that's very appealing.

@stryker1121 The pawns don't perma-die, but they won't instantly come back at the end of the battle they died in. You've got a chance to revive them by walking up to them and hitting B, but in some secarios you're forced to flee as you know they'll kill you too. Your main pawn is brought back automatically the next time you visit a rift stone, and the two subs would have to be brought back manually.

@stryker1121 said:

When pawns die is it permadeath?

All I've seen on this game has me drooling for it. I love RPGs and have been playing through the fun but incredibly ordinary KOA: Reckoning. From what i've seen DD has a survival horror feel that's very appealing.

Nah. They will KO for a while and if you cant get to them to bring them back (my main pawn got launched to the bottom of a cliff) they will pop out of the next rift stone you click. They even gain experience while KO'd and it seemed to me that they give you a good 5 minutes or maybe more to revive the pawn before it disappears into the rift again. But no permadeath.

@Totori: I'm loving it right now. I find the Arisen concept to be interesting and the world just feels right to me. T'is a fine game to play. I like the pawn system (it could definitely be improved though), to be exact I find the idea of my pawn learning how to solve a quest (and in turn being able to help another player through said quest) to be awesome.

It should be noted that I hated Skyrim. For whatever its worth to you. I found its combat and fiction to be just a baseline fantasy game.

@murisan: The game, the world, and the enemies have a lot of personality. The lore and character that does not have personality.

I don't agree with comments that the world lacks personality. It does in the fact that dark caves, dungeons, and forest are very atmospheric. It is the lore of the world that is lacking, not the actual environments.

@Mesoian said:

You remember Lydia,

I hate to ruin it for you but hire any other female houscarl. They all have the exact same dialog, even the exact same skills and stats. They do each have a different voice actor though. See Lydia only had personality because they let the voice actress sound bitchy, the character actually has no personality at all and there are something like 4-6 other NPC that have the exact same dialog right down the punctuation. I also can't remember crap about the greybeards other than that they were old dudes who didn't talk much. I remember Caius Cosades though, that ol skooma addict blade that he was!

@Totori said:

@DonChipotle said:

I think putting j-rock in the main menu was probably the worst thing. I also think that having the name monikers contain a ton of Capcom characters as options is the best thing. My dude can be known as Viewtiful Joe!

mine is wesker it's could be worse, it could be indestructible from street fighter 4

I'm starting to feel like I'm the only one who enjoyed that song and was sad when they removed it from SSF4.

@Karkarov said:

@Mesoian said:

You remember Lydia,

I hate to ruin it for you but hire any other female houscarl. They all have the exact same dialog, even the exact same skills and stats. They do each have a different voice actor though. See Lydia only had personality because they let the voice actress sound bitchy, the character actually has no personality at all and there are something like 4-6 other NPC that have the exact same dialog right down the punctuation. I also can't remember crap about the greybeards other than that they were old dudes who didn't talk much. I remember Caius Cosades though, that ol skooma addict blade that he was!

Oh totally. Lydia's "arch" for me was so interesting because I hated her initially, seeing her as mostly a poorly designed boon. As she traveled with me, I came to think of her clumsiness and her poor AI as character traits, and eventually, I started to enjoy her company. I was really shocked and saddened when we got jumped by 6 spriggans in a swamp and she didn't make it out alive. It was seriously impressed that the game could make me sad by removing what is essentially a poor string of loose scripting. Eventually I ended up teaming up with Arrianna Lennith after her god abandoned her and she felt useless. Her over aggressive combat AI and regal nature eventually felt like character traits too and I came to really enjoy having her around. Stuff like that I find dramatically interesting. DD has some of that, but...well the fact that you can make your team takes a little bit out of it. They no longer feel as unique as they could because there's no preexisting structure surrounding them. And there's nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't have the same punch.

But then, that's why Skyrim is successful even though the combat is pretty bad, how you interact with that world is super cool. DD's world feels like a combat arena because everything else is so blaise. As...crazy as it sounds, this game could do some amazing stuff with DLC beyond the, "escort x to y", "kill 10 x", "gather 20 y". Well constructed, well thought out mission sets that aren't just dropdown menus could be pretty amazing.

But then Capcom's never been much to put effort into DLC.

@Mesoian: Yeah, same thing happened to me. I was hacking away at that same orge after he killed me the first time and was around halfway down his lifebar before he charged at me, fell off the cliff and gave me a relatively easy 5000xp

Yo, FUCK JAIL. That's it due to spoilers, but seriously, FUCK JAIL right in the ear.

@TentPole said:

@murisan: The game, the world, and the enemies have a lot of personality. The lore and character that does not have personality.

I don't agree with comments that the world lacks personality. It does in the fact that dark caves, dungeons, and forest are very atmospheric. It is the lore of the world that is lacking, not the actual environments.

Couldn't agree more. Just went through the Catacombs and the Chapel area. Chilling, to say the least. Some of the best 'undead areas' I've seen in a game. I think it might be the game's pretty solid lighting.

@murisan said:

@Mesoian: See, I hear things like "an ogre grabbed my pawn and RAN OFF" and I feel like that's almost personality enough.. if you could go back, would you still buy the game? I'm considering it but it seems SO middling.

Several times over. And recommend it to many of my friends. It's technically middling, but there's a charm there that so beautiful and has to be experienced. This sort of jarring juxtaposition of charm and technical failure reminds me a lot of Nier (which I loved). As far as gameplay goes, it's sort of like if Demon's Souls and Oblivion had a sweet baby that wasn't nearly as cruel nor as boring as it's respective parents. There's just a magical sense of freedom and discovery.

And it's just loaded with some bizarre shit that is wonderful to find. The fact that you have access to all the upper walls (I think) of the capital city for NO reason is insane: it feels like some hardcore LARPers wanted to model out a medieval fantasy city to some obsessively comprehensive degree. Also, you can 'grab' onto cows. And ride them, I guess. Why? I don't know. I don't even know why cows are in the game. Or why there's a quest to kill 45 rabbits. It's all so ridiculous--I love it.

I'm nearly twenty hours in and I'm loving the game. I think this game has plenty of personality, but it's not readily apparent. Something about the pawns is really endearing, such as how they "learn" and react to different situations differently. During one battle with some bandits, my main pawn got knocked the hell out. At the moment I was surrounded and couldn't make it to her aid. One of my rented pawns actually waded past 5 or 6 bandits just to pick up my main pawn's lifeless body and bring it back to me so I could resuscitate her when I had the chance.

Another instance, is when my pawn and I were just starting out, my pawn wouldn't gather items out in the world. She would just mutely stand by while I destroyed every box, cart or barrel I came across. Now I'll be in the middle of an encampment or town, kicking back talking to an NPC while my pawn is furiously running around smashing and looting anything that isn't tied down. It's these little touches that really make the game for me.

Dumb name, dumb game.

Dumb name, dumb game.

@RVonE said:

@MikeGosot said:

@Cloudenvy: Then you should be ashamed! Nah, not really, i don't think i have ever listened to J-Rock, so i can't say if it's bad.

The song is done by B'z who are one of Japan's most seminal and successful rock bands. Wikipedia says they were the first Asian band to be initiated into the Hollywood's Rock Walk. I don't know if any of that means if it's good or bad J-Rock, but there you have it.

Well...they're popular. That's like saying Westlife is one of Britain's most seminal and successful rock bands.

Kind of want some Abington Boys School on here.

really loving it so far.

combat is so much fun. it's like this game was made for me. no boring elder scrolls combat, or MMO-esque standing around and waiting for your abilities to recharge. finally a fantasy game that I can like.

I'm loving the game so far. I don't know what people mean when they say the graphics look bad, they look fine to me. This game gives me an MMO feel without needing to be connected to the internet, find a guild, talk to members of said guild, show up a certain time every week, ugh, I could go on.

And combat is really fun, and the game makes short work of people who like to button mash, which is good, more games need to be like this. I should win because I know how to dodge and block, not because I can hit all the buttons faster than the computer. My pawns seem pretty smart, too. They obey my orders, my main pawn is super hot, and even against a large number of bandits we come out of it in pretty good shape.

I only wish there was a more convenient way to travel. Not fast travel per say, but at least a carriage or automated travel of some kind.

Too boring and bland for me. Such a waste of money. Not felt this gutted since I spent money on Mirrors Edge and finished it in the same day.

So I just finished the story.

I'm not embellishing when I say that this game has one of the worst stories in video games. Period. Poorly told, poorly executed, you can see the seems around the things they cut out and areas that they wanted to enhance...It's a complete and utter failure.

But it was awesome to play, even with it's mechanical problems. I would be interested in a dragon's dogma 2.

Edit: Okay, turns out that wasn't the end. And I'm confused. So let's see what happens

Edit 2: Everything in the everflow is bullshit.

I'm liking it, but it also frustrates me a lot. It didn't help that I made a small character, which means if I keep picking up everything I see I quickly get overburdened. I also never remember to save, even less so than in other games where forgetting to save can be bad.

I can't help thinking that there's no way this is going to sell enough for a sequel to be made and that I'm really lucky that, even though it's rough, there's someone out there thought that it was a good idea to make a game with these concepts. That way I can at least play and enjoy the good parts right now.

I'm liking it, but it also frustrates me a lot. It didn't help that I made a small character, which means if I keep picking up everything I see I quickly get overburdened. I also never remember to save, even less so than in other games where forgetting to save can be bad.

I can't help thinking that there's no way this is going to sell enough for a sequel to be made and that I'm really lucky that, even though it's rough, there's someone out there thought that it was a good idea to make a game with these concepts. That way I can at least play and enjoy the good parts right now.

So I just finished the story.

I'm not embellishing when I say that this game has one of the worst stories in video games. Period. Poorly told, poorly executed, you can see the seems around the things they cut out and areas that they wanted to enhance...It's a complete and utter failure.

But it was awesome to play, even with it's mechanical problems. I would be interested in a dragon's dogma 2.

Edit: Okay, turns out that wasn't the end. And I'm confused. So let's see what happens

Edit 2: Everything in the everflow is bullshit.

@Totori holy crap, I thought I had over leveled. Do some story duder.

@Totori said:

I'm 30 hours in and have yet to meet the duke and I'm level 40.

Hah same here still have yet to meet the duke and more than 30 hours in and I'm a level 40.

Edit: Funny turns out I've played for more than 60 hours.

@Totori said:

I'm 30 hours in and have yet to meet the duke and I'm level 40.

Hah same here still have yet to meet the duke and more than 30 hours in and I'm a level 40.

Edit: Funny turns out I've played for more than 60 hours.

@The_Laughing_Man: You mean my size? I know, I don't want to though, I like my character the way she is. I just brought up a couple of my frustrations that were more my own fault than the game's.

@Totori said:

@Mesoian said:

So I just finished the story.

I'm not embellishing when I say that this game has one of the worst stories in video games. Period. Poorly told, poorly executed, you can see the seems around the things they cut out and areas that they wanted to enhance...It's a complete and utter failure.

But it was awesome to play, even with it's mechanical problems. I would be interested in a dragon's dogma 2.

Edit: Okay, turns out that wasn't the end. And I'm confused. So let's see what happens

Edit 2: Everything in the everflow is bullshit.

Did you get to the actual end? I'm 30 hours in and have yet to meet the duke and I'm level 40.

You are dragging your feet. I finished the game at 40 hours exactly at level 57. You're swiftly going to get to the point where the game is too easy. IMO - do all the story quests so you can get to the late game, where things get interesting again.

The ending was not as crazy as everyone says it is, mostly because the rest of the game is so flat. It's a game built on really interesting ideas, but fails at executing almost every single one. It's too bad...

@Totori said:

@Mesoian said:

So I just finished the story.

I'm not embellishing when I say that this game has one of the worst stories in video games. Period. Poorly told, poorly executed, you can see the seems around the things they cut out and areas that they wanted to enhance...It's a complete and utter failure.

But it was awesome to play, even with it's mechanical problems. I would be interested in a dragon's dogma 2.

Edit: Okay, turns out that wasn't the end. And I'm confused. So let's see what happens

Edit 2: Everything in the everflow is bullshit.

Did you get to the actual end? I'm 30 hours in and have yet to meet the duke and I'm level 40.

You are dragging your feet. I finished the game at 40 hours exactly at level 57. You're swiftly going to get to the point where the game is too easy. IMO - do all the story quests so you can get to the late game, where things get interesting again.

The ending was not as crazy as everyone says it is, mostly because the rest of the game is so flat. It's a game built on really interesting ideas, but fails at executing almost every single one. It's too bad...

And that is why video games exist. It's a single player game, who cares if he never meets the duke?

@Cloudenvy said:

@Winsord said:

@DonChipotle said:

I think putting j-rock in the main menu was probably the worst thing.

I felt that way for about 20 seconds, but you just have to embrace it! Love the awful, out-of-place, J-Rock!

But what if I actually like J-rock? :(

No one actually likes J-Rock.

@Totori said:

@Mesoian said:

So I just finished the story.

I'm not embellishing when I say that this game has one of the worst stories in video games. Period. Poorly told, poorly executed, you can see the seems around the things they cut out and areas that they wanted to enhance...It's a complete and utter failure.

But it was awesome to play, even with it's mechanical problems. I would be interested in a dragon's dogma 2.

Edit: Okay, turns out that wasn't the end. And I'm confused. So let's see what happens

Edit 2: Everything in the everflow is bullshit.

Did you get to the actual end? I'm 30 hours in and have yet to meet the duke and I'm level 40.

You are dragging your feet. I finished the game at 40 hours exactly at level 57. You're swiftly going to get to the point where the game is too easy. IMO - do all the story quests so you can get to the late game, where things get interesting again.

The ending was not as crazy as everyone says it is, mostly because the rest of the game is so flat. It's a game built on really interesting ideas, but fails at executing almost every single one. It's too bad...