Overlooking Dragon's Dogma (Part 2)

   What is the role of combat in basically any action game, besides giving the player a direct method of affecting the space they’re allowed to inhabit.
Given that we’ve been punching, kicking, slicing and stabbing for over thirty years now, it’s amazing to see what developers are able to do with modern hardware.
   This isn’t a nostalgia piece, but I do think it’s important to recognize that I don't think
any of us figured videogames – let alone action games, would have become as intricate
as they currently are.
This is a sentence that should always be followed with ‘for better or worse’ though, especially in regards to the way the “AAA” game industry makes action games.
   Last time I touched only briefly on the way combat in the world of Dragon’s Dogma is structured.
Moving focus from the ever-brilliant Pawn System and the way the plot in the game is laid out,
there’s a breadth of ground to cover with Dragon’s Dogma that I think has been rarely touched upon in  reviews of the game.
   Something I noted last week is that the size of the world in Dragon’s Dogma is large – not massive.
The most obvious comparison would be Skyrim but Dragon’s Dogma is a little bit closer in regards to Zelda in the presentation of its world; which is a series of disparate landmarks connected by open fields.
   Most of the navigation in Dragon’s Dogma is a lot more about effectively maneuvering challenge, and not discovering a new route to somewhere. As it actually is too, anytime you go to a new area it’s usually on a storyline quest.
Here’s the thing though: Dragon’s Dogma doesn’t bullshit the player at all like Zelda frequently does.
   If you want to go somewhere, the biggest challenge in Dragon’s Dogma is exploring the unknown.
That’s the importance of the midway game twist, which significantly changes what the player has dealt with (and has to deal with).

   What’s exceptional about the way Dragon’s Dogma handles ‘all of that’ which would be everything that navigation is tied to, is how just impossibly tight that weave is.
You might travel to the same location three or four times in the span of a few hours, whether you’re on quests or just poking around and adventuring, but that journey is never meant to be made easy.
Larger monsters can show up at any point in time, and just about the time the player is powerful enough to deal with what they’ve faced before relatively easy, the player is encountering a different type of enemy.

   Many times, the player might fight something on a quest only to face two of the same creature later as a regular encounter, or one with a different set of abilities or a changed status.
I think this type of conditioned-release of content harkens way back to much older RPG’s, and is kind of a hallmark of JRPG’s in particular. That obscured veil of the unknown covers the entire world of
Dragon’s Dogma up until the very end, introducing new abilities and concepts as far as the end of the game.
   Negatively, Dragon’s Dogma downplays one of its most important mechanics throughout the entire journey, and it’s often not until a repeat playthrough you might notice how just important the crafting system is. Not only does effectively embracing the crafting system make the entire game much easier, namely by enabling you to be much more well prepared than you would normally be. The Crafting System is also brilliant because it’s so closely tied to what seems to be the design philosophy behind   Dragon’s Dogma. If I were to put it into words, it’d be a remark along the lines of everything having a role.
   Very little in Dragon’s Dogma is there ‘just because’ which is very different from many of its contemporaries, quite a few of which carried over legacy features that didn’t necessarily evolve as the design did and stood to contribute nothing to their titles they were present in.
One of the most involved aspects of Dragon’s Dogma is that previously mentioned crafting system.
   There’s a host of items in the game, all of which have dozens and dozens of effects either on their own or when used in a crafting recipe and probably the most interesting thing is there are no ‘useless’ items in the game. Every item can be applied to different situations.
As an example, there’s an encounter later in the game with a Gryffon. Usually the player might have to wait until the Gryffon lands to deal damage to it, but a smart player might make an infinite stamina potion and simply cling to its back for the duration of the flight, or stay on the ground but
use their infinite stamina to stay hot on their feet and avoid taking damage.

Possibly one of the more realistic videogame castles.

   Further to the point: only the players most willing to look for out-of-reach items in obscure places
(sometimes even at different times of the day) will stumble upon some of the most helpful item
recipe’s in the game. Crafting is a huge part of inventory management, as many times crafting a single item can greatly reduces inventory burden; which is directly tied to player movement speed.
   The player isn’t just encouraged to combine items randomly at the start, when inventory space is much smaller at the beginning of the game they’re essentially forced to get used to crafting items and hoarding what might be necessary to use for a recipe in the future.
   As previously mentioned, inventory clutter is directly tied to how fast the player can maneuver and attack; hoarding items can be a double-edged sword. With only two towns in the game, both located a far distance away from where a lot of the action takes place, inventory management often becomes just as important as actual survival.
   Even the basic combat theme plays up this aspect of the game, sounding more tense than the traditional 'epic' fanfare that tons of western games receive, fitting for the mood of the game.
That mood is incredibly important. I've already mentioned Dragon's Dogma's Berserk references before, but it's important to dwell on that, as both the game and the anime have a very close atmosphere, blending traditional fantasy and a sort of 'grimness' that is entirely seperate from the kind of hackneyed inclusion of 'gritty' elements that's pretty much been the standard design template for the last few years.
   Dragon's Dogma uses the elements of the game to set the mood, not by giving the protagonist permanent stubble and a chiseled chest; or by making everyone mopey all the god damned time.