Capcom Unveils Dragon's Dogma

The trailer and the name sell it short, but you probably don't want to write off Dragon's Dogma. Or perhaps I should say that I was just about ready to write it off after seeing the trailer last week at this year's unveiling of Capcom's upcoming lineup. The trailer makes the game look a little too clean and sharp, and the attached names-- Hiroyuki Kobayashi and Hideaki Itsuno--previously worked on the Devil May Cry series, painting a specific type of action picture. Then there's the name, which fits into the story of the game, but is also kind of awful. At least you can give them credit for using "Dogma," which only appears in one other game title in our entire database.

Seeing an early version of this 2012 release in action, however, makes it clear that there's more going on here than the trailer currently illuminates. Capcom is reaching out and trying to develop something much larger than the traditional action games that it's released over the years. Dragon's Dogma is an open-world game that promises big fights against large creatures and a feel that potentially evokes an action-focused, Japanese take on open-world fantasy games, like The Elder Scrolls or 38 Studios' similarly timed third-person action-RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

  
In practice, the short, playable demo that Capcom presented to the assembled media last week doesn't necessarily sell the potential scope of the world. In the demo, you play as the strider class, which is a ranger-type character that uses swords as well as a bow. Along with three other AI-controlled "pawns," you take on a group of goblins and fight a large gryphon, which swoops in from overhead to knock you down and occasionally lands, giving you time to strike. The combat is somewhat simple, with a few sword attacks, a few bow attacks, and special abilities that let you launch a volley of fire arrows at your target or rush in for swift melee strikes. To be clear, just because it says "from the makers of Devil May Cry 4" on the box doesn't mean that this is going to fall in line with that style of combo-based madness. The most interesting combat function I saw was the grab button, which lets you pick up the goblins and toss them around at each other. That can be silly fun, but its real purpose is to let you grab onto the large gryphon, climb up onto its back, and start stabbing the hell out of it. That's where the game starts to show some real potential.

The AI characters in your party will be chatty, and it's said that they'll call out weak spots on the creatures you face. With the ability to climb around on your enemies, those weak points could be anywhere, and staying attached to, say, the giant hydra shown in the game's trailer while attempting to deal damage is an idea with real potential. Nothing shown puts the enemies on the same scale as Shadow of the Colossus, but the same basic idea applies. It could be pretty cool.

There will, of course, also be some kind of story in Dragon's Dogma. It deals with the rebirth of the dragon, who calls out to your character to send you on quests designed to pass on, well, the dragon's dogma. There will be side quests and such, but the ways in which you'll take on quests and interact with NPCs wasn't shown. It doesn't sound like it will contain any sort of dialogue tree, for what it's worth. 

  
In addition to the strider class, players can also choose to play a fighter or a mage, which varies the available abilities. Mages get things like an area of effect healing spell that can be used to fix up the party mid-battle. Weapons can also be enchanted with various elemental effects. If you have a mage in your party, the AI will get those heals and enchantments out to you. The game doesn't use an MP or mana system. Instead, mages will have to charge up their spells by chanting for a longer period of time. The game does appear to have a stamina bar that prevents you from spamming out your abilities on a constant basis, but since only the strider was playable, it's not completely clear how that will pan out across the three classes.

Dragon's Dogma looks nice, but it's hard to say if Capcom is properly exploiting its open world without seeing that world in action. The developers often paused the game and pulled out to show the world around the action, but the areas never seemed incredible in size or scope. The combat seems interesting, but it'll depend on how the encounters against large, grabble creatures are built. In short, the developers appear to have built a really interested set of tools for the player to use, but we haven't seen enough of the game that's being built around those tools to know how it will all pan out. Dragon's Dogma is already a few years in, developmentally speaking, and it'll spend the rest of this year coming together to prepare for its early 2012 release.