As a game manufacturer with the honorary title of " action god ", Capcom's action games can be said to be top-notch in the industry. For me, the most profound personal impression is not the representative games such as "Devil May Cry" or "Monster Hunter", but an ARPG work born 10 years ago - " Dragon's Dogma ".
This work is an open world role-playing action game developed and promoted by Capcom in 2012. Although Capcom is not very good at this type of game, the quality of this work itself is no worse than the first-tier European and American RPGs of the same period such as "The Elder Scrolls" and "The Witcher". In the game, players must play the role of the awakened protagonist, leading his followers to fight against various enemies. The goal is to defeat the powerful dragon and explore the truth behind the world. So, what is so special about this game? This time we are going to talk about this classic and unpopular ARPG masterpiece from Capcom.
Art Pictures and Music
Dragon's Dogma was a game ten years ago. The picture performance is inevitably different from the current game masterpieces. The picture is a low-saturation gray tone, the textures and details of the scene objects are not very detailed, and the character's body movements and expressions are also very stiff. As an open world map, the scale is not large, and the scene changes are very few. Most of them are caves, forests, plains or fortresses, etc., which inevitably gives people a monotonous feeling. However, the scenes of this game, from the small fishing villages on the seaside, the fortresses on the border, the territorial castles to the underground ruins, are full of orthodox Western fantasy style. The gray and dim tones of the picture and the simple character design are very suitable for the heavy and dark story atmosphere of this game.
The special effects in combat are not overly flashy, the melee moves are simple and neat, and the scenes of casting large spells or fighting giant monsters are quite impressive. In addition, the music performance of this game is very good. The leisure and tranquility of the fishing village, the bustle of the territorial capital, and the excitement of the battle. The background music appropriately sets off the current atmosphere. Especially the soundtrack and theme song with human voices are very nice, and also bring out the long and tragic traditional fantasy style.
Solid and smooth action design and multi-professional combat system
In terms of basic action design, the performance of this game is not inferior to that of current action games. The character's combat actions are very smooth, including basic running, jumping or climbing, as well as basic attacks and moves during combat. There is rarely a feeling of lag and sluggishness. In addition, the combat feeling is particularly good. The ranger's light attack or the fighter's heavy attack can feel the solid impact of punches to the flesh. Even the magic moves of the mage have the feeling of hitting the enemy. The smooth movements and good strike feeling can make players more involved in the battle. In addition, there is a unique monster climbing design, which allows characters using melee combat to climb onto giant monsters to attack their weaknesses and enjoy a more courageous battle.
Next, the protagonist of this game can choose different professions, from basic warriors, rangers and mages, to advanced fighters, marksmen, wizards, magic archers, arcane knights and assassins, a total of nine professions. Some skills of each profession can be used interchangeably. After learning the core skills of each profession, you can install them at will even if you change to another profession. Although there are only nine types of professions, the operating feel and skill characteristics of each profession are quite different. As long as you have enough career points, all professions can be switched and practiced at will, and the degree of freedom and variability is quite large. During the game, I played the mage in the early stage, the magic archer in the mid-term, and the wizard all the way in the late stage. I won’t comment on the other professions until I am familiar with them. The characteristic of the magic archer is the bow and arrow moves integrated with magic. The long-range attack of the bow and arrow is very useful. In addition, the weapon can be switched between dagger and staff at any time, and it can switch between physical and magic attacks. It has more flexibility than pure physical and magic professions.
The wizard is similar to the advanced version of the mage, but cannot use healing spells. Its feature is the most powerful spell attack, the wizard's unique ice spear, earthquake, tornado and meteor shower. The disadvantage is that the speed of large-scale spells is very slow and requires follower cover. But once it is successfully used, the wide-range and high-damage lethality is very refreshing. I personally like to use the tornado to clear out all the mobs in the field. It is also very useful when fighting BOSS. The ice spear technique can also cause a lot of damage by focusing on the monster's weak points.
Single-player game experience, cooperative combat follower system
The most unique thing about this game is the follower system. Players can create a follower and decide the appearance, tone, personality, fighting style and profession. The follower will follow the player all the way to the end of the battle, especially the profession and personality. Different combinations will have different effects. In addition to the players' own followers, they can also invite friends or other people's followers to join the team to form a team of up to four people. Although the player can only control the protagonist to fight, by following the team of followers, different professional combinations can be matched with each other and experience the fun of cooperative combat.
The followers will not only help the player in the battle, but followers who are experienced in the task will also give the player tips, similar to the function of task guidance, and the followers who follow the player will also chat with the player along the way. Although it is a single-player action adventure game, it also has the feeling of being accompanied by teammates. It is a pity that although the AI of the followers can cope with most situations, the player can only give simple instructions to all the followers during the battle. There is no way to give precise instructions to the followers individually. Therefore, the followers will inevitably feel inflexible or slow when acting.
Character favorability and mission design, serious and unique Western fantasy plot
The missions in this game are mainly divided into three types. The first is the main plot mission, NPC-related side missions and general missions. The main mission is the main process that the game must go through, while the side plot missions are commissions from the main supporting characters or NPCs. You can learn the stories of the supporting characters or supplement the world view. At the same time, there will also be choices in the branching, which will affect the process of the story and the ending of some supporting characters. The design of the side plot is actually pretty good, but the side tasks will disappear with the progress of the main line. In addition, some side tasks are continuous. If you miss the previous tasks, you will not be able to receive related tasks later. This part needs to be paid attention to. General tasks have no plot. Most of them involve destroying a specific number of enemies, handing over specific materials, or escorting NPCs. Because there are many such tasks and there is no special plot, I just solve these tasks by the way when solving the main plot and branch plots. It is one of the main sources of making money.
What’s also interesting about this game is that, except for a few characters, all supporting characters and even passers-by or store owners can cultivate favorability through side plots or giving gifts, and they can become special relationships regardless of gender, which in turn affects a small number of plots or ending scenes. However, since all characters can cultivate good feelings and fall in love, except for some supporting characters who have more plot developments, the relationship development between most characters and the protagonist is very abrupt. In addition, the favorability value is hidden, so it is difficult for players to directly determine who is the character with the highest favorability. They cannot directly choose their favorite person to enter the character's ending. They can only control the character's favorability in a specific way. Therefore, it is very funny to see some players accidentally fall in love with the store owner. In my case, the lover in the middle plot and the character in the ending are different people.
Speaking of the main plot, the world view and background of this game is superficially in a fairly orthodox Western fantasy style. The protagonist, the awakened one, is a special being similar to a brave man, dragons and monsters, swords and magic, territories and city lords, churches and underground cults, etc., including various elements of Western fantasy. The first half of the main plot is also a pretty decent dragon-slaying story. The story only takes place in a small territory, and there is nothing particularly outstanding about it. Only when the truth of the world is revealed in the second half of the plot will the plot become uniquely interesting.
The most attractive part of the plot of this game is the mystery of the world view and the true ending that the protagonist reaches after going through various choices. The design of the followers not only meets the needs of the gameplay, but also has a deeper meaning in the plot. After completing the main plot, I quite like the artistic conception presented by the truth about the world view and the choice of the protagonist. The overall plot is not long but has a unique charm.
Other game designs
As an early open world game, this game is quite different from current open world games in terms of map scale and landscape design. First of all, the map is not large in scale, only about the size of a territory. Except for the territorial capital, there are only small villages or fortresses, and the terrain and landscape are not particularly rich.
However, there are many changes in the design of the exploration of mazes or caves, such as forests full of mist, castles and fortresses with caves or secret passages, or temples with pools and mechanisms. The exploration process is quite interesting, and the map indications in this game are also very clear, so you will not get lost. However, there are still some very inconvenient aspects of this game. First of all, there are very few teleportation points. Only the fishing village and the leader have fixed teleportation points. You can only get a few teleportation cornerstones that can set teleportation points in one round.
There are very few teleportation points in the early stage. It takes a long way to go to certain places to complete tasks. The protagonist does not have horses or other means of transportation. In addition, the protagonist also consumes physical energy when running on the wild map, which makes walking and running the map take a lot of time, reducing the player's desire to explore everywhere. Weapons, armors, props or materials and other items also have weight settings, and the character's body shape set by the player will affect the weight and running speed. A short person will run fast and have a low weight; a tall person will run slowly and have a high weight. The higher the weight of the items on the character, the slower the character will move. Because almost every item and equipment has a weight, players cannot carry too many props with them. When going out to collect materials or explore, they often have to allocate the weight of the items on the character, or put things into the warehouse to avoid being overweight and slowing down the movement. This is also more troublesome.
Black Curse Island Chapter
Black Curse Island is an additional regional chapter independent of this article. At the beginning, you can talk to the woman at the fishing village dock to go to Black Curse Island. To put it simply, the Black Curse Island is a large maze. It is divided into several areas. The enemies and BOSS are stronger than in this chapter. I finished the main story in about 50 levels in this chapter, and ran directly into the Black Curse Island at the beginning of the second round. Except for the final BOSS, which was a bit tricky, I was able to clear all other areas smoothly. The Black Curse Island has more advanced equipment enhancements. The Black Curse items picked up on the island can also be used to obtain better equipment than in this article by removing the curse, which can further make the player's equipment and weapons stronger.
It is a pity that although Black Curse Island can fight monsters or BOSS that do not appear in this article, the overall maze terrain design has many repetitions, which somewhat reduces the novelty of exploration. Although the plot setting behind the Black Curse Island is interesting, there are few plot performances. Almost the whole process is about combat and exploration. The story of the Black Curse Island can only be understood through the stone tablets picked up on the road, which reduces the player's sense of investment in the plot, which is also a pity.
Conclusion
Although Dragon’s Dogma was an open world game ten years ago, compared with current open world games, the map size is very small, the screen performance is very ordinary, and there are some very inconvenient game designs, such as too few teleportation points, heavy items, running consumes stamina, etc. However, the excellent combat design, unique follower system, and charming main storyline still have outstanding features compared with many games today. Even as a new player, I had a lot of fun playing it. If you can accept the older parts or shortcomings of this game, "Dragon's Dogma" is an action game worth playing. After ten years, there is finally news about the second generation. I look forward to the sequel making more innovative breakthroughs in the original system and world view.
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