im picking this up next week, anyone been playing this?

I've seen some reviews on this, looks interesting but I have enough games to play right now.

thats a good reason not to play it, it is a major time suck. I just picked it up. im going to sleep (been up for 30+ hours) then im going to be playing it a bunch when i get up

What's your thoughts on the game so far nobody ?

I think its an absolutely amazing game. Id go so far as to call it the pinnicale of action RPGs. its not perfect, but all of its gameplay mechanics are spot on. (there are some frame rate issues here and there, nothing too bad imo though, and the ps3 is the best version)

I played over 100 hours in 1 week

it takes all these different mechanics from various (A)RPGs, and combines in in such a great way. tkae for example the forger. you can give him an item and pay him an he will create a forgery. this can be used in so many ways. you upgrade weapons and armor by using crafting material (often gotten off defeated enemies) and you can use the forger to duplicate rare components if you dont want to keep farming the same enemy over and over to try to get a rare drop. exchanging money for time. or you can use even use the forger to duplicate quest items. for example in the main quest a ring is stolen, and you need to go get it back. that ring reduces the casting time of spells to anyone who possess it. in most games youd have to either choose to keep the ring and not complete the quest, or give it up and complete the quest. but with the forger you can create a forgery of the ring and keep the original. and give him the forgery. and when you give them a forgery quests often play out a bit different then if you were to give them the real thing. some items the forger makes a perfect copy of others they arent perfect. components and potions and such are generally made into perfect copies, but quests items arent. some items have different effects as well. like ferry stones which are basically magical coins used to fast travel. when you use a normal one your character throws it up in the air and there is a bright magical light and you are transported. if you use a forged one you throw it up int he air but it just falls back down on the ground.

the game doesnt have a lot of player choice in the same sense as something like skyrim, and it never tries to be a game about choice, but it is there. it is there so subtle that I didnt really even realize it until my 2nd playthrough. there are a lot of side quests but in order for some of those quests to appear you need to do other previous quests, or sometimes you need to do a quest for a shop keeper to sell better things. but there are specific moments where your actions have a more direct impact. for example someone around town wanted me to help him get some powerful spell book. and I went and got it. (you can make a forgery and give that to him if you want to keep it) and i gave him it, he thanked me quest complete. but then later in the main quest I was fighting a griffin. (they like to fly around and stay airborne making them harder to hit, in order to ground them you need to have one of your team mates throw you up in the air so you can grab onto him, or use fire, as flying enemies crash into the ground when they are on fire) and when I was fighting the griffin the guy i gave the spell book appeared and told me as thanks for helping him he would help me, and he used the spell book to blast the crap put of the griffin with fire spells. the griffin never stood a chance thanks to his help.


but what I love best about this game is what feels like shadow of the colossus, but put into a true action rpg. it changes enemies from simply feeling like big hit boxes with lots of HP, to feeling like your actual in the world fighting the monsters. you can attack a cyclops on the leg to make it trip and fall, or you can climb up on its back and attack where it cant reach you, or you could climb onto its arm that is carrying the big club, and attack its arm to injure the arm enough to make it drop the club. (and while you are on him arm he has extra weight on his arm so he cant attack as quickly.) or you can climb up onto his head and stab him in the eye.

one of my favorite moments was when fighting a hydra. (and keep in mind that none of this is cinematic. this is all done in regular gameplay you do on a regular basis. not like gow where you enter some QTE and you complete the action) so anyways im fighting the hydra its a real tough fight, then one of the hydra heads picks up one of my pawns. it is in his jaw fighting to keep its mouth from shutting on him. (during this time if you attack the head enough you can get it to drop him, and if you get grabbed like this you can shake the analog stick to try to break free) but I wasnt able to so it swallowed him, now I see this huge bulge in the hydras neck slowly making its way down, so I hop up and start climbing up that snake that has him, and I start hacking away at it, hoping to cut off its head, in the hopes that I wont lose that pawn, and it worked I cut off the head and it frees my pawn. and after I was like wow that was pretty awesome. never done anything like that in a game, where it didnt feel scripted at all. it was all free form as part of gameplay....then later that same fight the hydra swallowed another pawn, and thise time I wasnt able to free him and he got swallowed. but I did end up beating the hydra.

who are you looking for?

thats for the upcoming expansion pack

There is a good sale at Best Buy on this game $35 dollars off for Reward Zone Gamers members. Brings the price down to $15 for in store buy only. I'll be picking this up next time I make it into town. I'm buying this on nobodys recommendation.

Planning on picking this up tomorrow, if they still have it.

And thanks to nobody, I now have a goal.
Hurl all the critters!

one of my favorite things to do is grab an enemy like a goblin, and throw them off a cliff. and there is plenty of oppritunity to do that in the early part of the game before you get to where it opens up. you'll end up spending a lot of time running back and forth alongside a cliff

I picked this up today at Best Buy at the RZ gamers Club discount I mentioned earlier. You do have to go to the Reward Zone Gamers club page and claim the offer before you buy it, it is not an automatic sale. I've planned on getting this as a summer game for a while since Nobody posted about it being a game you could put a decent amount of time into. I am wondering if that guy was doing some kinky stuff to those farm animals tho ??

Its cool that your both picking it up at the same time. You can share pawns with each other. May want to coordinate what classes you use for your pawns. Healer, tank, or ranged. (it is much more complex than that, but that's the basic (useful) roles they can play, and you can always change them later) not a big deal though, you can always find other random pawns to suit your needs, but I find it more fun communicating with a friend over how he can tweak his pawn to help fit my party better and vice versa.

Yeah, about that...
They didn't have it when I went in today. So, it looks like I'll be waiting to see if they release a new version with the upcoming DLC in it after all.

On the plus side, this frees me up to play guinea pig for Bioshock: Infinite when it comes out. I'll still catch what reviews I can, but Bioshock has enough positive reputation with me that I'll risk an early buy. And after all, if I rely on word of mouth, then it's only fair that I take the risk myself sometimes when I can.

Still sad to put this on hold though.

CobaltMonkey wrote:

Yeah, about that...
They didn't have it when I went in today. So, it looks like I'll be waiting to see if they release a new version with the upcoming DLC in it after all.

On the plus side, this frees me up to play guinea pig for Bioshock: Infinite when it comes out. I'll still catch what reviews I can, but Bioshock has enough positive reputation with me that I'll risk an early buy. And after all, if I rely on word of mouth, then it's only fair that I take the risk myself sometimes when I can.

Still sad to put this on hold though.

Go ahead be THAT way !!! Chances are I will be getting around to this game in the summer, I have Bioshock: Infinite and The Last of US up first.

rrwatch wrote:

CobaltMonkey wrote:

Yeah, about that...
They didn't have it when I went in today. So, it looks like I'll be waiting to see if they release a new version with the upcoming DLC in it after all.

On the plus side, this frees me up to play guinea pig for Bioshock: Infinite when it comes out. I'll still catch what reviews I can, but Bioshock has enough positive reputation with me that I'll risk an early buy. And after all, if I rely on word of mouth, then it's only fair that I take the risk myself sometimes when I can.

Still sad to put this on hold though.

Go ahead be THAT way !!! Chances are I will be getting around to this game in the summer, I have Bioshock: Infinite and The Last of US up first.

dont you want to molest farm animals now? and not just farm animals, goblins, and wolves, and you can even try it with a chimera, but careful of that snake, its got a mind of its own, never know how it will react

Quote :

dont you want to molest farm animals now? and not just farm animals, goblins, and wolves, and you can even try it with a chimera, but careful of that snake, its got a mind of its own, never know how it will react

I'm there ! You've convinced me sir.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen out in a couple of days. I think it actually will have the first game included in the PS3 version .

Chugging right along in this. Level in the low 20s, pawn not far behind.
Currently using and abusing Altair, the pawn of our good friend i-like-ninjas (whom I'm forced to abuse by proxy since I rarely see him around anymore ). Looking forward to spreading the fun around to all you guys' pawns when my levels sync up eventually.

My character is pure Fighter so far, planning on switching to something else once I've completed the vocation. My pawn, Kinara, is a pure Mage, likely bound for Sorcerer once she's done.

Ogres suck. I can't seem to get a handle on fighting these guys too well, though cyclopes are a total pushover. I'm using the best sword I can find right now, and have upgraded all my equipment as far as I can, but I just don't seem to do enough damage even with elemental enchantments on. Perhaps it's just swords and magic that aren't very effective? Would a class change to a bow or two-handed weapon user help?

Wish I could give my pawns direct orders, or at least set them up with certain behaviors a la FFXII's Gambit system. ie, When the thing in front of me is weak against Holy, don't keep enchanting my sword with Thunder when you could be using Holy.

The people you escort on Escort missions are kind of retarded, but at least fairly durable so far. Blundered into an Ogre in the middle of the night in the woods while escorting Quina. I didn't seem to be able to run away from it, so I tried to fight it. She insisted on sticking to my side and getting tossed around with its wide swings. I'm just lucky it didn't pick her out as a target. He actually seemed rather stuck on my Mage, even when I was trying to climb on him.

Don't much like the way Mages are so restricted on their movesets. Magic is highly situational in its application, and I just don't think they get enough slots at once to be at their most useful. I mean, I get why. Only so many buttons. Though I would gladly sacrifice the Grab button on a Mage for an extra 3 spell slots. Or at least let people change in the field, not trek all the way to the nearest town. Or is there a way to do this that I'm not seeing?


Nice enough world so far. Hoping there's a solid fast-travel system though. Traipsing through the same areas over and over could get tiring.

1st off highly recommend leveling up a mage for a bit. youll get a whatever its called that halves magic damage you take.

how are you fighting the cyclops? i'd always climb up and slash away on them

when doing escort missions dont forget you can literally pick up your escort and carry them off donkey kong/bowser style.

mages are fairly weak starting off, but late game are absolutely amazing...well sorcerers are

Did you get Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen that has the first game included Cobalt ?

Yup. Knew it was coming, so I just decided to hold off until it came out.

nobody wrote:

1st off highly recommend leveling up a mage for a bit. youll get a whatever its called that halves magic damage you take.

how are you fighting the cyclops? i'd always climb up and slash away on them

when doing escort missions dont forget you can literally pick up your escort and carry them off donkey kong/bowser style.

mages are fairly weak starting off, but late game are absolutely amazing...well sorcerers are

I knock them down to bash their faces in. Just seems easier, particularly when targeting the tusks. Enough damage to the legs puts them on their bum, and their face at sword level. My mage pawn's lightning decimates them too. Sadly, ogers don't share that particular weakness. Nothing but a good old beatdown seems to work on them. Stab them in the butt, get on eye level via terrain. Did that in the quarry with the 3 of them. Managed to put them all down, thankfully. Hard battles that nearly ran me out of supplies though. Really need to refine my technique.


Carrying people is awesome, and a good way to remove them from danger. You might manage to escape, but you won't be fighting back with your hands full.
Other than in the case of that ogre, I haven't had any trouble with the escort AI. My minions keep them healthy, for a wonder.


My mage and I have both maxed our vocations. Now just working on getting a full compliment of skills. Should probably just get the ones that look good and move on, but I won't yet.
I believe you when you say mage's are amazing. Mine sure is...when she actually manages to cast the right stuff.

well best way to deal with a cyclops comes down more to the class than anything else. I played as an assassin, I had augmentions, and skills that helped in regards to climbing, archers would want to focus on the eye, mages would want to ignite them, etc

in regards to the ogre, just curious do you have any female party members?

there is 1 escort in paticular that takes you right by a chimera, and that is one fight you dont want to have while dealing with an escort. fight when you can, but when you need to get through in 1 piece you can just pick em up and run for the hills.

in regards to the pawn, does it have the right knowledge? does it know what the monsters it is fighting is weak against, and still using different elements?