User blog:Soldierscuzzy/Dragon's Dogma Review Roundup

With Dragon's Dogma hitting store shelves, the critics have voiced their opinions!Here are a few snippets from publications on both the Internet and print. Make sure to let your voice be heard on the matter below!

Game Informer
Score: 8.5/10 "Dragon’s Dogma is an unconventional game for Capcom, and action/RPGs in general. Combat feels like a necessary part of the game’s design, rather than something that was begrudgingly added to provide interaction between cutscenes. I left the game feeling that I made my mark on Gransys the way I chose to, instead of being escorted from plot point to plot point. When you’re talking about an open-world game, I can’t think of higher praise."

Official Xbox Magazine UK
Score: 8/10

"Dull bug-bashers won't abide the rough edges, but they'll be missing out on one of this year's best RPGs. Put up with the shortcomings, and the rest is superb. With a terrible name and a dull-looking aesthetic, this is proof that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. It's too difficult and esoteric for many, but fans of the genre need to play this game now."

IGN
Score: 7.5/10 "It’s a strange game, Dragon’s Dogma; it does some really brave and interesting things, but it also feels unfinished, with technical problems that often spoil things. The combat, though, is one of the best real-time RPG fighting systems around, with flexibility and variety that carries the whole game. It deserves to be complemented by an absorbing fantasy world and an array of well-written quests and characters, but instead the quests get repetitive and the fiction is soporific. Dragon’s Dogma has the scale and challenge of a great action RPG, but not the character or polish. Nonetheless, if you can persist, there’s a lot to love here, and some great ideas that make you want to give it a chance."

Destructoid
Score: 7.5/10 "Should you play Dragon's Dogma? Yes. The high points are so very worth getting to, and while the main game will be cleared in a number of hours, there are lots of monsters to battle and a dose of end-game content to clear, providing more than enough to rival the Skyrims and Diablos of the world. Just be aware that, for all the absorbing and exciting things to be found in Gransys, there are almost as many disappointing and infuriating things to let you down. Just grit your teeth, fight through the pain, and the rewards are there."

Eurogamer
Score: 7/10

"Ambitious, grand, at once derivative and pioneering, Dragon's Dogma may not be a classic but it's an important title nonetheless - the first example of a blockbuster Japanese RPG attempting to marry its own heritage with contemporary Western expressions. Expectedly, coming as it does from an action game developer, its jewels are to be found in the dynamic combat, stat-tweaking party-building and defining boss battles. In this way, the game echoes the adventurous, dragon-hunting spirit of its (second- and third-hand) literary influences: that sense of unpredictable peril that could be lurking in every cave and thicket."

GamesRadar
Score: 7/10

"Dragon’s Dogma is a fascinating and odd game. The core of its combat is geared more toward action gamers than players of more plodding RPG titles, and yet it’s full of big breaks in the action. There are long journeys on foot, plenty of inventory management, and trips back to the capital city to swap vocations and pick new Pawns. After spending a few dozen hours in this world, we’d definitely describe it as a great mix of action combat a la God of War fused to a high-fantasy role-playing game. If you’ve ever wanted an experience like that, give Dragon’s Dogma a try -- there is a demo, after all. It’s a game destined to find an audience among that rare action junkie with extensive patience, or Elder Scrolls fans who are tired of swinging swords in the first-person. If you’re someone who falls in that category, jump in."

EDGE
Score: 7/10 "But when Dragon’s Dogma succeeds, it offers a potent piece of alchemy – a studio that helped define the Japanese action genre redefining the Japanese roleplaying game. Capcom might not have crafted the kind of world in which players will invest, but it understands the powerful draw of party building and gear tweaking, the immediate thrills of slashing and spellcasting, and the spirit of adventure in sallying forth on a dragon hunt. "

Joystiq
Score: 2/5

"I did have one or two of genuinely fun experiences in Dragon's Dogma; exploring the temple to the water god was atmospheric and exciting and the Gransys countryside occasionally provided some fairly interesting vistas, but any brief flickers of fun I came across were consistently extinguished by the game's oppressive flaws."

Wikian Review
Is Dragon's Dogma worth playing? Yes No