“Warning: long video” *laughs in Witcher video*

Warning: "long" video! >not even 45 minutes Lol 2016 KZfaq was wild

The ending of this game was almost traumatic for me. Dragon "I have your beloved" Me "Dafaq!? Who's he talkin about? Me (see's blacksmith surrounded by goblins)

Just to let you know this game was heavily resisted by capcom. They gave in a less than modest budget as well as a rushed deadline. Hideki itsuno pushed hard and grinded to bring his vision to light. The game was unfinished as said by the man himself. Development started in like late 2000s but he pitched it in 2000. It need a second chance. Support dd2!!

I'd like to answer a few of the questions you brought up and also point a few things out. Firstly, Grigori doesn't take your heart as punishment for defiance. He takes your heart in order to make you an arisen, because you didn't run away from him; you stood your ground and fought him even though you knew you would most likely die. You showed resolve and proved that you had the will to live, which is one of the traits of the arisen. Also yes, he offers you a chance to give up your beloved to see if you have the strength to face him, or if you are weak enough to give up the person you love and live in shame knowing that you achieved nothing. The reason Grigori is so friendly and seems to want you to kill him is because he does. He knows that he is nothing more than an obstacle for you to overcome, and he does want you to succeed. But you have to earn your victory by besting him in a battle to the death. The seneschal is not actually God. He's simply the keeper/watcher of the world that maintains order and is given the power of creation as well as immortality. Basically, he's a glorified manager. This can get very confusing since the only way to kill the seneschal is to use the "godsbane" blade. The reason killing Grigori unleashes more monsters is because doing so opened up the everfall which Gran Soren was built over. There were many monsters inside the everfall and when it opened, they escaped. Grigori's death marked your victory and showed that you were worthy to challenge the seneschal, which you could only do if the everfall was opened. It is mentioned several times throughout the game that the longer a pawn stays with its master, the more it starts becoming like its master, until it begins to change into its master and becomes human. Selene the young witch in the woods is one of the pawns that mentions this and the dragonforged and his pawn also mention this. It is hinted that the arisen that become dragons do not retain knowledge of their previous lives, as Grigori himself in the final battle seems to regain some memories, as he says that he now remembers the pain he feels you inflicting upon him as he too once inflicted it himself. I hope this helps answer a few of the questions.

"Use fire!" "Strike with fire!" "Even in numbers, a weakling is a weakling still!" "Their kind hates ice and fire BAWLS!" "Goblins hate fire!" "We have triumphed" "We have triumphed"

One of the many things that annoyed me was how while fighting Direwolves, a pawn through gained knowledge would yell out how fire is the key to defeating these foes, and she then proceeds to enchant my sword with an ice spell.

This video is long? He didnt know..

I loved this game and played it for hours, but my only takeaway was this: I named my character Master and was real tiny, my pawn was Blaster and was real huge. I though I could climb on him, but it turns out you can just pick the pawn up and carry him around. So I did this at every opportunity for no reason other than Master carrying Blaster.

THE WIND IS PUSHING ME

The Dragon doesn't steal your heart because of "your defiance" The scene plays out more like he respects you, he looks at his massive paw and sees your insignificant blade stuck there, it did nothing, you had NO chance of victory and still you stood up to this world ending monster. So he makes you an Arisen, gives you a chance to build yourself up to fight him for real. The Dragon was interesting because he DIDN'T treat you like an enemy but more like an equal in some way, even giving you words of wisdom in some instances, daring you to seek out and kill him.

Dragon's Dogma is the Demon Souls of a series that doesn't exist.

Despite all its flaws and mistakes, I will always have a soft spot for this game. I can't fully explain why but I really do enjoy it.

2016: “Warning! Long video” 2020: “Witcher is a weird word” (4.5 hours remaining)

It's kinda sad to see how many people missed that this game DOES have meaningful choices in quests. You don't pick a dialogue option, you just act and your actions affect how it resolves. When someone dies you can either just tell their beloved or try using a wakestone to revive them (it works!). Do you do the sidequests and help people? Oh, you didn't? They're dead and offer no future quests and disappear from the world. Maybe it's the game's fault for not making it clear, or even, what kind of world it is. You're not so much playing a Skyrim game, you're playing a D&D campaign. Sometimes you'll find something that's too hard for you and you're forced to run and do other quests. Sometimes you decide "I CAN DO IT" and use skill alone to beat REALLY difficult encounters before you should be able to. The meatiness of getting around the world, of cheesing systems, it very much rewards the crafty player for abusing the details the DM gives.

Spent most of my time buying healing herbs. Ended up sould bound to a merchant. 10/10 would gay-marry again /s

One of the finest character creation setups ever in an RPG! : You can play everything from a 6 yr old elf boy to an 90 year old woman, and all inbetween! Plus you can be properly big and chunky (for once!) , or eating disorder skeletal....Nothing else like it! (in terms of who you can appear to play as) - As Capcoms first W-RPG effort it's pretty impressive!

You're right: the game has a number of flaws that span the gamut from combat and statictical to story and pacing. But in spite of all of these problems, I still put around 150 hours into the game and its expantions. Maybe that's due to the fact that I didn't bother to explore the game's fundamental narrative absurdity or the damage reduction system that is a cross purposes with the twitchy combat. For me, much of the fun of the game's first half came from the tension between the desire to forge ahead to see what is beyond the next hill and the danger implicit in that decision. The oppressive nature of the game world is bolstered by a day-night cycle that sees stronger enemies come out at night and the world, while rather empty feeling, still had enough in it to hold my interest. Then again, I'm one of the players that enjoyed the limits the game puts on fast travel in the beginning. Also the magic is super dope.

I really really wish you would have looked at the story Arc of dark arisen. It answers your question about whether or not Grigori has free will.

I love how DD2 solved none of these issues lmao

This is indeed a flawed game, but I love it :)

I don't wanna be making excuses for the game or anything, but a lot of the inconsistencies in the mechanics, lack of enemy variety, the actual plot being compressed in the last quarter of the game, and so on make a bit more sense in context when you consider that it suffered a similar fate to Itsuno's previous project(DMC4). That is to say Capcom axed the project midway through development and the devs had to scramble to finish the game with what they had, so the rest of Gransys, Dragon Isle, the moon, the infinite tower(that hooked all the players' worlds together so you could actually go hang out in other people's worlds in real time) got cut.

Personally I LOVED playing as a Warrior. Their Arc of Deliverance (which is an incredible name for an ability) is so satisfying when fully charged. Dealing several massive blows and shredding off multiple health bars from massive and powerful enemies is extremely satisfying.

I still think the pawn system is one of the most innovative things in gaming, I really wish a modern game would take another crack at it.

You can hotkey the lamp...and anything else too...

I beat this game four times. I must have liked it

Man, Itsuno really just went and made Dragon's Dogma 1+1. God fucking dammit.

This guy forgot to roleplay on a roleplaying Game 😭😭

Ah... Dragon's Dogma is one of more modern games to have piqued my interest with just how... ambitious it is. It's flawed as hell, but, for a product that is basically Japan's first and most genuine attempt at replicating Western RPGs like the Elder Scrolls, I have to give it credit as a very innovative beginner's product. Honestly, Dragon's Dogma is the game I wish more non-traditional Japanese RPGs would try and emulate. As is, I honestly have to say I prefer Dogma's potential to the Souls series's repetition.

I love this game, and while I agree with practically all your points here, I think you missed talking about some of the game's greatest features. -The pawn's ability to learn. How you pawn will react to enemies and situations depends heavily on what they know. If they see you strike a saurian's tail for instance, they learn how effective that is and will perform it themselves and even teach it to other pawns. Other pawns that you recruit can even attempt to teach yourself about weaknesses and strategies by calling them out to you. -Large enemies. I think this game has the single best big creature encounters out of any game. The creatures are animate and unique, and pose differing sets of challenges for you to figure out how to overcome them. Knocking a weapon out of a cyclops' hand, silencing a chimera, and hitting the wings to get a dragon to fall are excellent design decisions that make things so much more enjoyable despite the game's many flaws.

"the damage calculation, healing management, and wakestones ruin the game" breath of the wild (flat defense instead of percent, eat food whenever, faeries that can be farmed): I'm about to end this man's whole career

I played through this game at least 20 times, I enjoyed it that much.

Dude, you do good, solid work, but you really need to stop apologizing for the length of your videos. People don't mind, and those who do rarely watch anything more than 5-10 minutes long anyway and aren't really your target audience. As for the game itself, agreed on pretty much everything. There's just so much potential in the game, so many great ideas, but it feels like the devs were doing this as a side project and never really fleshed it out. I never quite finished it, mainly because I ended up disliking my build and was too fatigued to start over. However, I did find the spoilers interesting, and it's consistent with the rest of the game - great potential, the feeling of an idea deep in there that was never fully realized...

If you lose to "God" your soul is taken and you become a dragon. I would assume losing your soul would also mean losing your free will.

One huge note at the beginning of the video for him taking your heart: he isn't mad at you for attacking him (this is directly from the cutscene) but rather has respect for your courage. So he decides to imbue you with a blessing... or curse...

Honestly, this game feels like there was so much more planned for it, both gameplay and story wise, but was cut short for time or budget constraints. I feel like they had planned to fill the map more, to develop the story more and explain it more, to expose some gameplay features more. It's also very obscure in many ways as there are so many things you only learn about once you make mistakes. Overall, it feels like a wiki game where, once you read the wiki and learn about all the things, you get a much better gasp of the game and it almost feels like you play a different game with all the stuff you understood thanks to the wiki. I personally like the combat overall but, in my opinion, the key to enjoying the combat is avoiding too much cheese. For example, I avoid using healing items and instead rely on a mage pawn to heal me. I also avoid Periapts and other damage boosting items as it makes things too easy for me. Combat does have its flaws like some hitboxes being a bit wonky and pawns being outright stupid at times, but I think it's way more enjoyable and complex than you put it. For example, about climbing combats, I have had little issues with stamina and you actually get a damage bonus for climbing, even more so with a Strider who also gets a climbing speed bonus (which really outlies how the game fails to communicate such unique mechanics to non-wiki players).

The silence you put after "sigh-clops" was the exact amount of time that it took for me to get done with my UGHHHHHHHHH.

I'm sorry, but most of the criticism about the story just shows that you probably didn't really even care all that much. The reason why the dragon takes your beloved (and why more monsters appear) _is_ to test the Arisen, or rather, their resolve and desire for freedom/choice. The entire story is about the struggle against the rules, against fate - against the cycle, the eternal return (recurrence). It is why when the Arisen fails, s/he turns into what he fought the entire time, and loses everything that s/he stood for - free will. The game practically hammers you over the head with this the entire time, surely it's not that easy to miss... and on that point, this theme also plays into the copious amount of player choice you claim doesn't exist. You have some sort of a choice in many of the game's quests, they're just not explicitly presented to the player - it is about free will after all, not blindly following what you're told you can do. The fact that people aren't "prepared" for this cycle can also be easily explained by the cycle actually not being linear at all. The game constantly deals with multiple worlds/universes (the paws, Everfall), it's not such a stretch to assume that, for example, only one full cycle happens in one world. After all, the only Arisen you meet along your journey are the ones who've failed - and by the time you reach the one who has succeeded - the "God" - you are on a completely different plane of existence than the world you started in. It's also pretty sad to hear the ending felt awkward to you - I found it great and hard hitting. Surely there are multiple ways of interpreting it, but you can look at it as finding out that in the end, no matter how much you struggle, there might not be a way to truly defy the universe itself (going back to the concept/philosophy of 'eternal return') - or worse, that the free will you were fighting for this whole time was just a part of a grander scheme anyway. You weren't struggling, you weren't making your own choices - you were just a part of the system this whole time, pushing it forward, quite literally fuelling it on. But the game isn't over yet, and it has one last "hidden" choice for you to make, one last test of your free will - even though whether that really changes anything at all, especially taking into account the events in NG+, isn't really clear, which made me like the ending all that much more. Personally I hate magical happy endings, and the ending to Dragon's Dogma felt very unique, especially for a story that starts like your usual 'A hero defeats the bad dragon and everyone was happy ever after!' RPG schlock. As for the protagonist giving a part of their soul to their pawn as they die, it shouldn't be anything that comes from the left field either - it is heavily foreshadowed in the witch of the woods questline you mention in your video. I do agree that the "pre-dragon" part of the story doesn't really have much going for it, but I would also like to argue that it was more or less intentional, given the entire bait and switch setup of the story pretending to be something it wasn't up until the very "end" - an end that turns out to only be the beginning. Anyways, just my two cents on Dragon's Dogma, being a crazy fan of the game.

1) whaat? equipment and stats affect damage? oh noooo. just as it does in 99% of RPGs 2) the affair with the duchess is a reference to the manga Berserk 3) arisens are chosen irregularly

It's interesting. I played the game twice but never ate to recover health, even though that is all I did in BotW. Since I always had a healer with me I had a more organic combat experience.

I wanted to keep the video under 40 minutes so I cut some thoughts after writing the script. I stayed awake to finalize the upload so I'm too tired to get into them now, but I think it's worth mentioning that the pawn system / multiplayer in this game is a really interesting idea. I think it's one of the reasons that so many people like the game and, while I can understand the appeal, it didn't hook me enough to mess around with it. I found the pawns to be more annoying than helpful--especially earlier on in the game. Even in the tutorial with them all shouting so many different robotic lines. I always watch the video again before publishing on youtube to make sure it uploads properly. I think I came across more negative than I actually feel about my time with the game. If a sequel was made, I'd happily play it and be thrilled if there were improvements to the game's core components. Some of the boss fights are good, but they could be great.

I'm laughing my ass off at this critique. Not because I think its wrong or anything. But instead because it's so pinpoint accurate as to why I cannot recommend a game I've spent years playing. I love Dragon's Dogma as much as I hate it, and I don't regret any moment I've ever spent with it. It's a wonderful contradictory mess of a game.

"Combat in this game feels like a waste of time", "my favorite part of the game is going in and out of the coliseum to fight".

Wildest thing is that this review, 8 years later, is perfectly applicable to Dragon's Dogma 2. Almost all the cons are still there, minus the only good thing actually worth playing: Brittleblack Isle... Absurd.

Modding this game to have unlimited carry weight + unlimited stamina while sprinting makes this game *much* more enjoyable.

It hurt hearing some of the bad things be ripped apart on this game but, they are correct . I love this game but it has alot of flaws

Review was made 3 years ago. Sees comments made 1 day ago. That's how amazing DD is. The game is played and loved 'til today despite its flaws.

There's a difficult to trigger sidequest chain that goes down this rabbit hole about Pawns being granted souls by their Arisen, including another pawn who was granted free will by her dying master. It also goes into this whole concept that, over time, the pawn will start to look like their Arisen, which doesn't happen in game until the final cinematic.

Dragon's Dogma has always been a weird one. In some ways, it's incredibly fun, in others, it feels kinda backwards. It's flawed, but i still love the game. The healing items are probably my biggest problem, and i'd like if every class got a dodge/evade move, it'd make sense if certain classes had better versions of this. Still hoping for a true sequel to fix these issues and improve what's already there.

I'd like to hear your opinion on the witcher 3 one day

Damn, it ALWAYS hits me hard at how strange it is, Joe saying a 30+ minutes video is long, long enough to watch it in parts, even??? Oh, how things change I love it XD

You had around 4 valid sentences in this entire vid, but at least I finished my lunch watching it lol

Has anyone told him he could have used the "category" button when deposting items to select them all?

Played this for the first time recently and it’s one my favorite games ever. 10/10 would recommend

While it may have its shortcomings Dragon's Dogma, I feel, is able to offer an amazing experience. Encountering monsters feels exciting and you feel as if you're actually fighting something grand and fierce, not a regular enemy. Most creatures have a weakness you need to discover in order to do good damage to them, whether it be an element or a certain attack type or a weakspot on their bodies. It actually gives you the feel of travelling the world as a group of adventurers and facing impossible odds and I love this game for that. The story isn't stellar but some characters can be actually charming and slowly make you love them. The world is fairly unique and the thematic is well executed. The combat can either be looked at as a pro or a con. Longer grueling fights where you whittle down massive enemies can feel epic. Someencounters just force you to run from them because you aren't strong enough - that's ok since it shows you that you have a lot more progress to do. I never once needed to grind, simply doing a few sidequests had me at a decent level to tackle the game's challenges. The healing system wasn't a problem for me because I never tried to abuse it. I never bought 80 Greenwarishes, I just ran on what I could find in the world, I only used a wakestone once for a room with 2 chimeras and a lich. These things are there to make the game easier for those who are struggling, it is entirely a choice whether you want to exploit it not.

What the hell...all this talk about stamina consumption....by some damn mushrooms....sheesh

Before talking about the combat you should have learned the difference between gear and Level dependent. ANY piece of gear can become END game with dragon and gold forging, You do however need to level your Character in order for you to do any of that

You just described a formula that is present in the majority of these kind of games and especially mmorpgs. That's the way rpgs, jrpgs and mmorpgs have been for the last 2 decades. You play until you hit a wall where you have to grind for levels and better gear. You name it... Final Fantasies, Xenogears, Breath of Fire, Shin Megami Tensei, Priston Tale, World of Warcraft, Ragnarok Online and the list goes on. It's actually pretty rare a game in which your skills as a player can dictate if you win or lose. Grinding for equipment and levels is at least for me part of the fun for these games as it gives me an objective and a reward after i achieve it. I have seen people saying this game is about skill and i think you have the freedom to play in a "skilled" way, dodging, parrying and creating combos but to be honest you can abuse the game with top equipment and i think that's fine. Capcom never advertised this as a Dark Souls-like game and i never felt that this game has anything that resembles Dark Souls. The healing and how the wakestones are farmable are terrible i agree with you. The open world is everything you said it is except for the fact that you really explore or "experience" this map much more than you do in Skyrim for example where you can freely fast travel anywhere and end up walking in the same roads just like you do in Dragon's Dogma. I'll finish by saying that Dragon's Dogma has the "luxury" to be a mechanically flawed game because it is for a lot of gamers THE game that people wonder what would be if developers put X + Y + Z together. It mixes very good gameplay mechanics and it definitely is the only of it's kind. For me DD is much more acceptable as this weird and unique "experiment" than other triple A games in the market that can't get right simple mechanics that are everywhere in the industry, yes i'm looking at you Skyrim. Sorry for any errors, english is not my first language.

You say the romance option with the Duke's wife was obvious, but my character was a little girl so in the initial scenes where you meet her, the lines that were supposed to be flirty came off like she just thought I was adorable. Then I went to her room to see what was up and I realized what was going on and I was like "I need an adult!" and then the Duke showed up and I was like "I NEED A DIFFERENT ADULT!" Things were very awkward after that...

Great game, but too much annoying aspects of it makes you want to give up.... which i did. To think some people compared this game to Skyrim.... What a joke!

You are quickly becoming my favorite youtuber, man. Your critical analysis of games should be the new gold standard for other reviewers. Keep it up, duder. I can't get enough.

Did you play through as all of the vocations, like, switching them up as you played or did you stick to the same yellow path? In your section about dying in one shot or grinding, you never mentioned blocking or perfect blocking mechanics which do give you another option in hard encounters if you're under-geared/leveled. It's mostly a matter of timing, but it's basically the most "skill" based combat mechanic, unfortunately locked behind a few classes. I felt like often switching your vocation to try out new skills and combos was one of the core features or great things about the game. Locking yourself into the same rotation and routine for 20+ levels in a row is kind of ignoring one of the aaaand of course i come upon the part of the video where you sort of address that. They do need to give equally viable movement options for the other classes.

"Dragon's Dogma is a pretty bad game" What?

Also if you replay the game in New Game+, the "God" Arisen is the previous one you played as with all of your gear and skills. I think that's kind of a really cool idea honestly. Also that huge dragon boss whose health can be widdled away by players online until someone deals the final blow is a pretty smart idea. It really does only go halfway with them though...

Binging your videos today. Loving them!

"...almost like he wants you to kill him!" Because he literally does lol he intentially makes you an Arisen just for that its blindidly obvious

I know he heavily criticizes the games that he reviews but something about his descriptions make me want to play them even more.

I can guarantee that 100% of the flaws in this game will be present in Dragon dogma 2 since it's a copy paste with a new engine. It's going to be hilarious.

Hey man, I actually really liked your Sigh-Clops joke ;)

Took the words out my mouth dude. I for one loved this game and it's ideas though. Most I can do is hope the sequel is improved upon.

That is so cute! Back when he thought a 36 min video would be thought of as 'long'.

I honestly found this game much more challenging and more fun than games like witcher

Protip: You can setup hotkeys for important items in the PC version. Like pressing 1 to lanturn, or 2 for heals. Still yeah it is kinda hidden and clunky to setup.

I too feel as if you haven't totally grasped the story, the rest of your critique feels spot-on. Like Vokoca said, the end impacted me way more than it did you. Although there are certainly gaps in the story, I didn't find them jarring enough to dislike it and could either fill them in myself ('God' might not even be the most powerful being, as it seems he too must bow to the laws of the universe and the cycle) or just accept the ambiguity. I realize that's not satisfying to everyone, especially an analyst like yourself. Thank you for the interesting video(s).

Man, I’m really glad I found your channel. I really enjoy these longer-form analyses

Oh well... there is so many "off-set" points at the video... per example "big-or-tiny-map" that didn't even matter... it's what it's you know... it's big enough to give you atleast 20 hours of play being a bit modest... and still... don't matter much... the fun part is wander around, searching around... there is always something new you can find... and well... even if that ended being small... it's the game... also, atleast as far as I know... and of course, the Elder Ogre and the Giant Gore Cyclop were thought to be a second run at Bitterblack Isle ("normal" mobs)... "normal"... they weren't made to be attacked at level less than 100... even with that... they still over that level... in hardmode still at level 180 being low level to face the Gore Cyclops... the fun part of BBI is how they teach you that sometimes you should run from an enemy... no matter what... the Garm are the worse... fast, deadly... a moment of distraction and you are dead... no matter the healing system that you can pause or any other thing... they deal like 2.5k damage twise and you are dead... Dragon's Dogma teach you the hard way, that... knowledge is the key

Dragons dogma is honestly the best bad game i've ever played

stat progression and skill progression arent mutually exclusive like, you can kill the Gazer (the first boss of the Dark Arisen) and the Dark Bishop (the 2nd boss of Dark Arisen) at basically level 1 with clever use of items and game mechanics, when you first approach the Ruins of Aernst Castle encounter a heavily armored warrior that is basically impervious to physical damage (the one at 11:30) if you go there as early as you can, but if you manage to knock him over you can just pick him up and chuck him off the cliff instantly killing him. sure you can just grind exp until you're like lvl 30 get a Dragon's glaze for free in Dark Arisen and oneshot everything in the story. but the same goes for dark souls, final fantasy, borderlands, Tales of, you name it. the catch is how you want to play the game, if you are not invested enough to care to find a way to kill that enemy that has way higher stats than you then maybe skill driven combat is not your thing. except if you think that system knowledge does not equal skill, in that case you better play stuff like jubeat or taiko because i cant think of many games that requires only physical skill and no amount of system knowledge (granted the instant heals from items and infinite lifes provided by wakestones are pretty bs) i dont want to discredit your opinion, i am just kind of frustrated that you tried to kill a gorecyclops with a dark enchated weapon (and apparently only 1 pawn?) but complain about not doing any damage and say its the game's fault, not to mention that are arent even supposed/meant to fight that gorecyclops the first time around Dark Arisen, the game specificly tells you that you dont need to engage in combat with enemies that are above your capability. you can play dark souls at SL1 without weapons or armor, but youll take a long ass time to kill anything, but thats not valid critisism towards dark souls having bad combat. i really like your videos and even that they are so long, but this time i cant help but downvote because there is just a lack of understanding (just a bit but still) of the game that is passed of as criticism

I disagree strongly that there's no skill based element to the gameplay. The fact that most damage can be completely negated through timed blocking or dodging, as well as the fact that the game rewards good timing in the form of the perfect block system, along with the fact that combining your skills and using them effectively allows you to easily outpace most enemies in terms of damage, means that skill and knowledge of the system is both encouraged and directly rewarded. I was able to get through most of bitterblack with a character I hadn't even completed the main story with. Eventually I got to a point where I had to go back and level a bit more, but the fact remains that the player can tackle challenges far ahead of their own level if they're particularly skilled at the game. That's not something that can be claimed with most RPGs and that's precisely due to its skill based element. Enemies have telegraphed attacks with predictable patterns, clear, exploitable weaknesses, and resistances, all of which is integral to the design of any skill based game. Your 2 examples were also terrible, you listed two exceptionally powerful and exceptionally tanky bosses that are intended to be fought in the end game, both of which you're not even supposed to fight when you encounter them. Percentage reduction has its pitfalls too. It means that they can essentially get high resistance gear and be able to tank hits from an endgame enemy if this isn't properly distributed. Also, the need to grind for better gear doesn't suddenly make this no longer a skill based game. That's utterly ridiculous. Also your point on the attack damage was outright absurd. You went from doing 1 damage to 2 damage, how overpowered! You do realize how many times you'd have to hit an enemy for that kind of difference to even be noticeable? Not to mention that this very specific example completely ignores the fact that gaining attack and defense as you level is perfectly normal for an RPG, and that these increases have what is essentially diminishing returns, because by the time you're high level, getting an extra 1 damage when you level does literally nothing for you, and a case could be made that this does almost nothing for you in the early game as well. It's only when you reach the highest levels that this is actually noticeable. For healing items: they have weight, you can take a lot of healing items with you, but you'll be moving slower and using more stamina because of it, which in turn makes you have to use more of them. Another issue with your assertions on this is that many attacks can kill you very quickly. These items are also pretty expensive relative to when they're useful to you, (the potent greenwarishes cost you 70,000 gold, that's about a quarter of an average playthrough worth of gold, all being spent on consumables, you're saying they're not expensive when you're bringing over currency from a ton of previous playthroughs, and of course its not expensive then, otherwise the economy on the first playthrough, which the game is designed for, would be hopelessly unbalanced and absolutely ridiculous to expect the player to find the money to accumulate any actual stock of anything) and they're hard to find elsewhere in the world. This is nowhere near as much a problem as healing in games like Skyrim, where healing potions are practically everywhere, every alchemist in the game sells ingredients for making them, and you can pop them like candy with no downside, since the weight system only registers when you're overencumbered. This system is an immense improvement on systems like these, and that's what it's meant to be. The only way healing constantly is viable is if you've accumulated millions of gold across multiple playthroughs to spend solely on healing items, and don't care about moving like a turtle due to carry weight, even then, you're not in any way required to use these systems, because the game rewards player skill, and if you do use these systems, you're certainly not required to exploit them to the point of absurdity. Again, people exploiting the game's mechanics doesn't mean that it isn't skill based. Hell, there are ways to break dark souls in similarly ridiculous ways. Wakestones are again ridiculously difficult to find in your first playthrough, since you have to accumulate 3 shards just to get one, you lose it when you die, there's only one merchant who sells them, and even he only carries one shard, plus the only way you can really farm wakestones is if you specifically farm them in the endgame area in Gransys long past the need to accumulate them for the main quest. There is also the fact that wakestones weigh a lot. Again you're balancing your ability to heal against your ability to actually be effective.

>"warning: the following video is long" >36 min Oh what a sweet 2016 child you were, Joseph

While I love this game with all of my heart, I find myself agreeing with the points made here. I guess I play Dragon's Dogma simply because it carried me through some rough times. I'll never forget getting home, powering on my Xbox, and letting the real world's troubles be replaced by the simple cycle of fight, level, die, repeat. I would still recommend this game to anyone who wants a mindless grindfest to spend a few hundred hours on. DD is the kind of game you can play without paying much attention to. Yes, in hard mode you have to be careful, but you're not doing much actual thinking, just dodging at the right moment, and hitting the right weak spot as often as is possible.

Honestly it's just a massively fun combat game for me. If other games took how fun the combat is with their story and bigger maps, with random encounters. Shit'd be lit.

Joseph : says the video is long Also Joseph : has a 3 hour god of war video

The warrior class needed a crossbow and the ability to roll and block attacks kinda like gutts from berserk.

2016, 36 minutes: "Warning long video!" 2020, 4 + hours: "This is how you bang a striga in The Witcher"

12:11 this dude really be complaining about DLC that's meant to be played after finishing the game, while he didn't even finish the game.... "Yeah let me try this end-game end-game content with my mid-level gear that would go fine"

Laughs in ranger 10 fold flurry blast arrows 4 stacked conquerors pariapt.

I just LOVE Dragon's Dogma DA. It's the greatest open world action rpg i played till now, for sure (i own the PS3 version) Can you imagine the ppl reaction if Capcom announces "DD2, now in development" on this E3?

the water dungeon was one of the most enjoyable dungeons Ive played in an RPG. Game has a lot of potential with the sequel

As someone who has sunk countless years into this game I can fairly say that you are right about it not being skill based... sort of. I think in the way that the average casual or single run player will play it, it definitely is entirely based on stats and gear. The skill part of the game really kicks in when you have already maxed out your level in the end game, Bitterblack Isle and are doing runs for time, gear and fun. At that point you have already levelled your character and pawn all the way up and even then most good players I know play pawnless most of the time. This end goal phase of the game is entirely about knowledge of enemy weaknesses and patterns, your own skills and execution of abilities correctly. Also almost all of the best skills in the game are the hardest to execute mechanically.

I keep you in my second monitor like a podcast while I'm working. Each video covers about a quarter of a work day and that's genuinely something I appreciate.

Wakestones: Pre-Dragon “This is so damn rare! I’ve only ever had one of these! I’ll have to treasure them for the most dire of battles! Post-Dragon “What? Wakestones!? Where’s that sweet Crimson armor I’m searching for! I’ve got like, 99 of these already!”

Calling Dragon's Dogma a "pretty bad game" is ludicrous. It's very ambitious and equally as flawed, but it's one of the best RPGs of the last 10 years in spite of that, easily. And, though you might perhaps feel that it's a bit lacking in the story department compared to something like the Witcher - though DD has a very interesting story and lore if you bother to explore it - it makes up for it with the supreme gameplay that you can only get when Capcom of all developers decides to make an open-world RPG. It's rough because it's original, and tries to do things other games don't even dream of. It tries to be more. More than any Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age with their hollow stories, characters, interactions, empty worlds and bad gameplay could ever offer.

Enjoyed the video and totally agree with the review. I also found myself loving and hating this game. Loved the beginning because I enjoyed the player movement(running/jumping and mantling all felt great) and exploring the first village. Then towards the middle when I realized the world was much smaller and fairly uninteresting and repetitive I began to dislike it a great deal. Then as you know at the end it picks up especially the main dragon fight which was well done. Post-game and bitterblack isle were also a stark improvement as well as you mentioned aside from the cut and paste job ala Dragon Age 2. All in all it's definitely a flawed gem. I ended up putting in over 120 hours over 2 play-throughs. Oh and about the lantern thing getting wet there is a ring you can find(ring of desication or something) Not sure if you ever found it, but it at least was a temp solution to that problem especially in those sewage areas on Bitterblack Isle.

Fun fact, the beloved can change between the bargain and the final confrontation with the dragon. For some reason even when I was going for the witch, in the bargain cinematic I got the duchess and later I got the witch. Also I like the fact that our opinion and experience on the game are oposites. I liked the main story, left the dlc part for another gameplay (that didn't happened,) enjoyed playing the warrior class. All that said, on a second playthrough years later I couldn't get myself to finish the game.

I hope the new game won't repeat the combat problems like the damage calculation and the healing system

Kinda surprising how you kind of missed the story of the game, especially after playing bitterblack because the dlc expands on "this is just a never ending loop to find someone who's worthy of becoming god". It's a simple story but I don't often see it used so I thought it was vastly more interesting than what most other developers try to flesh out. You were right about all the quests leading up to the conclusion though.

Waiting for 7 hours essay video on dd2 cuh

I enjoy the little things. You adding "UPS a tablet" into the list of story quests made me smile

I had to check to see if I left it on 1.5x speed... Old Joe talks so fast.