Dragon's Dogma provides a better sense of "adventuring" than almost any game I have ever played.

I just started really playing Dragon's Dogma for the first time. This game is absolutely badass. It allows for you to get lost, it lets you screw up, and it lets you have second chances. It's unforgiving, but it gives room to explore.

Let me tell you what happened to me:

I was deep in a dark - and when I say dark, I mean pitch black - dungeon. Bats occasionally nibbled at my neck, but I brushed them away. I reached the bottom of a gigantic spiral staircase and found an item.

Suddenly, monsters appeared all around me. I began to fight them but grew frustrated with my inability to kill them all. That's when I realized: I don't need to kill them. I just need to run.

Rather than sprinting back up the stairs, I noticed a small passageway. I found refuge there. I make my way through the passage, expecting it to be an escape route.

I walked slowly through it, having been safe for a short while. Suddenly, those invincible creatures I had just escaped begin rising all around me. I reached the end of the tunnel. The passage had been nothing a long dead end.

At this point, I thought I was screwed. I sprinted back towards the room I had fled. The enemies rose around me as I ran out of breath. Occasionally, one of my companions would rouse me when I am was out of stamina, and I would aid them as well. I was filled with terror.

I then ascended the pitch-black stairs I had strolled down so leisurely before. This time, I was tripping and running out of breath all along the way, barely dodging enemy attacks. I also escaped with the quest item I needed - thank goodness.

---

Had Dragon's Dogma not let me tread down this passage with such safety, luring me into a false sense of security? Or, had it not let me sprint down a series of lengthy passages to a dead end? I never would have had such a gripping and memorable experience. It felt like I was adventuring because it felt like I was in a place that wasn't designed for me. I was lost in a long-abandoned tunnel, and it felt like it.

What a truly strange, lovely experience this game is. I can't recommend it enough for folks looking to scratch an RPG itch.

PS: Literally just writing this in the heat of the moment, so pardon the rough writing.

I am glad they added a quick save option yesterday i lost one hour off gameplay cause i tried to take on a Chimera way too early. So save often!

2012 was around the start of Capcom's troubles, i can't remember when things started looking financially tight for the company, but DD to me always felt like the last hoorah before the dark period.
I remember its announcement, it looked like Capcom wanted to make a Skyrim and the trailer didn't do a lot to stand out besides a few quick shots of its 3rd person combat ambitions and hints of its humor, we all knew they couldn't put in the time and budget to actually make a Skyrim, but we knew talented people worked there and i was excited to see what they'd come up with.
I remember hearing word that it was a passion project for the developers, something the big talent at the company all wanted to work on, and the thought of that made the game even more enjoyable to me as it became clear later that Capcom would start to pursue... less exciting paths in game development.

For me what really set the tone was the main menu, booting up the game for the first time this song happens, and you may not have heard it if you're not playing the original version of the game as it was replaced.

It definitely wasn't trying to be Skyrim :P, the game is light hearted, weird, fun, if the developers did have fun making it that enjoyment was passed on to me the player, and from that song forward the game took me on a wild and crazy ride, it set the tone perfectly (no idea why they replaced it with something generic and boring, i personally mod the old song back into the PC version it's perfect).

Huh, I just saw this exact post on Waypoint.

@rejizzle: i just saw it on reddit /r/games...

@machy: Ha, sounds like an ad for Dragon's Dogma.

Nice to see more people giving this game a shot, it does a lot of interesting things within an action RPG template imo. It's real easy to stumble in above your head at first so that quick save is a god-send.

@rejizzleI @machy@casepb posted it on all three platforms just to hear people's thoughts. Not a Capcom rep I swear lol.

@cikame: I wish this song was still in the game so badly. They should just add a feature to swap to the old music or something hahaha. I'm sure they won't do that, but I can dream.

I wrote plenty about it back in the day trying to get folks to give it a chance cause at the time of release Patrick was the one who had played it and he was kind of lukewarm on it, which proceeded to make everyone else on the staff adopt the same lukewarm approach. I mean those that were never going to play it like Jeff were never gonna play it regardless, but I think Brad might have given it a shot. Anyway my moment of being like "wow this game has some really awesome ideas" was when I was doing a quest at night where you can't see anything and had rented a pawn that already completed the quest I was on. During our meandering through the woods and not knowing exactly where to go, that rented pawn calls out "I know where to go, here is a shortcut" and then lead my party to the dungeon and showed us a back entrance or something. I thought that was really awesome, how NPC's that had experience would speak up and give you clues and engage with the world. During fights letting me know what elements an enemy I hadn't faced before was weak to.

That and of course the dress-up in Dragons Dogma is TOP NOTCH. There is both a Guts and Griffith outfit from the manga Berserk that you can purchase and man it's sweet.

I loved the game. Gave me dungeons and dragons vibes.

It's a great game that I'm really glad I went back to. Bounced hard off of it the first time I tried it, but after giving it another few hours I really loved it. Might pick it up for the Switch just for traveling since I have a lot of that coming up!

It's great, but the lack of focus always loses my interest after a while. I have gone through 2 playthroughs (one on 360 one on PC) and stopped about halfway on both. The night Mechanic was what initially stopped me since they kind of punished you for getting lost, but even when they added the infinite travel stones i still lost interest after a while(although i got further in on pc)

I'm glad to see that through yet another re-release that more people are discovering how cool this game is. Hopefully they'll make a proper sequel someday.

@cikame: That song almost defines Dragon's Dogma for me. It is an absolute shame they weren't able to retain the rights to keep using it.

I completed it when it came out and enjoyed it but I didnt think it would be a game people would still be talking about so many years later. (I guess a lot of that is due to Capcom re-releasing it so many times) Probably because it was pretty rough last gen, letterboxed, sub par framerate and the game didnt look great either but it was interesting and clearly still is today.

While i'm not holding my breath for a big open world RPG from Capcom (I love Monster Hunter World but I dont think that counts) but another weird game like that would be great.

This thread just reminded me of Deep Down.

What a strange fucking thing. That is most likely dead. (if it was ever alive to begin with)