Shadow of the Colossus is a classic game known mostly for its non-verbal story-telling, and moral complexities. However it also had great core gameplay mechanics, namely that its hero had to crawl all over giant monsters and stab them in their weakspots in order to bring down these titular colossi. It didn’t bother with many of the tropes of fantasy roleplaying games, like customizable characters, loot, or balancing a party of NPC’s. But the upcoming game from Capcom, Dragon’s Dogma, is out to mix the standard RPG elements found in most fantasy games, with titanic boss battles that let players climb around on huge monsters in epic fights.
A demo hit for Xbox Live and Playstation Network last month, but it doesn’t do justice to the concepts behind the game, and it doesn’t even do an adequate job of explaining them to players who aren’t already familiar with the game. In the demo, players have the chance to fight against two massive bosses, a Chimera and a Griffon.
Players who know their Greek mythology know that a Chimera is a horrid three-headed beast with the heads of a lion, goat and serpent. In the game, players will need to bring down each of these heads separately and to do so they could simply slash away at the Chimera’s legs for a long enough time. However, there is also a convenient “Grab” button and this lets the characters climb up onto the Chimera’s back and attack the creature’s vulnerable points for extra damage, while avoiding most of its attacks.
When fighting the Griffon it’s a trickier situation. Being half lion and half eagle, this critter can fly. Once again players will need to attack the various parts of the griffon in order to fight it most efficiently. Damaging the wings will bring it to the ground, where players have the chance to grab onto a leg and attack it as it flies. It’s a very tricky fight and players who explore the demo multiple times can get a sense of the sort of combat that might await in the full game.
There are multiple classes that include the typical archetypes like Warrior and Mage, but one class, the Strider, actually specializes in crawling around on giant monsters in this manner. This class is playable in the demo, giving players who do utilize the “Grab” feature a good taste of Dragon’s Dogma’s potential.
Another feature that isn’t readily apparent in the demo is the use of “Pawns” for building a party of adventurers. Players can each create a persistent companion character that accompanies them on their quest, but at various points in the game, the party is joined by a pair of other heroes who are actually companion characters created by other players and then shared through Xbox Live or Playstation Network.
The demo does do a great job of showing off the character creation system, which has the same degree of customization that was seen in Dark Souls, the cult hit dungeon crawler from last year. This lets players make their ideal avatar, in obsessive detail. There are a wide variety of body types that let players choose anything from the standard paragon of fitness to a pudgy middle-aged lady. There’s even a slider for determining how “Lady-like” or “Macho” your character’s stance is (Quite similar to Dark Souls’ “Hormones” slider).
A full game can’t be judge by demo code, and this is especially true for Dragon’s Dogma. However, despite its initial cliché appearance, it is looking to be a noteworthy addition to the fantasy RPG genre. It arrives May 24th for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
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