Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Black]

Japanese game designers focus on gameplay first and foremost.

Simple as.

Then why are jrpgs so bad at gameplay?

Because you only play shitty ones?

Considering they supposedly focus on gameplay first the ratio of shitty ones to good ones is staggering.

Great majority of anything sucks, just look at how many western games focus on storytelling and their writing fucking sucks. At the end of the day, regardless of what the trends are, there will always be a handful of good games hidden among vast amount of trash.

But that doesn't support the "Japanese game designers focus on gameplay first and foremost" theory.

 

[Anonona]

But that doesn't support the "Japanese game designers focus on gameplay first and foremost" theory.

Well, you can find examples of everything in the industry, but many of the big name companies used to make games focusing more in the gameplay. For example, many IPs of Capcom focused mainly on gameplay, like DMC or Resident Evil, or just look at Monster Hunter which it wasn't until 4U that they decided to have a "serious" story. For RPGs you have your wizardry clones, Shin Megami Tensei, Disgaea, Etrian Oddisey, Saga's games, Y's series, Tales of series, Breath of Fire Dragon's Quarter, and more like them which have either bare bones plot, or the plot is more comedic in nature and not taken seriously. Of course, there is a healthy amount of story driven RPGs and games too, like many of the main line FFs games, but many Japanese games seems to use story more as a context for the action. For that same reason I think when it came to storytelling, Western games had more memorable examples like Deus Ex and Planetscape Torment.

Granted, that used to be the case, but I think there has been a stern shift on Japanese's market. Now we have MHW with its forced story mode, the main FF games abandoned the Turn-based combat system for action combat with more spectacle, making the spin offs Bravely Default their "classic" RPGs, even games like Ninja Gaiden 3 had a bigger focus on storytelling and showing an "humane" Ryu, and I'm sure you can find more examples of that, so I'll say nowadays that theory may actually not be true anymore. At least it seems many AA studios still uphold it.

PS: Just remembered a kind of funny example of japanese game focus on gameplay over story. I have to find a source for it, but allegedly, Miyazaki though of cool setpieces and enemies first, and then made up their story and lore as he went along, which makes it quite funny how many people are obssessed with Souls game lore when most of it was improvised to justify cool shit that Miyazaky liked, or to rip off Berserk.

PPS: Found one of the articles, but I think there are more interviews out there in which he claims the same.

https://www.gamesradar.com/even-miy...-know-what-the-dark-souls-games-are-on-about/

 

[Black Angel]

Skyrim's world is larger, more populated with diverse enemies and friendly settlements, and visually better. But I think Skyrim's shit combat really hurts it. Skyrim has more lore, but the relationships you build in Dragon's Dogma seem more personal. The feeling of mystery is also better in Dragon's Dogma and the final battle with the dragon blows Skyrim's final dragon battle away. I know I can't quantify it, and I'm not trying to make a pun on the game, but it seems like for all of its limitations when compared to Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma just has more heart and soul put into it.

It wasn't that Skyrim's world is larger, so much that a LOT what was originally planned for Dragon's Dogma, including its gameworld, didn't make it to the final cut. And I don't think Skyrim's enemies are more diverse, the ones I could remember off the top of my head were bandits, thieves, draugrs, those blind former snow elves, giants, trolls, small critters like mudcrabs.... idk, only some of the more iconic ones like giants and draugrs which I memorized the most, but the rest is just blurry.
Meanwhile, not only DD has the most diverse beastiary out there, especially if we include Bitterblack Isle (just this one dungeon utterly blows everything Skyrim has to offer), it even did exceptionally well by following Gothic's open world design philosophy of placing the more challenging ones in specific areas and certain regions, as has been mentioned. Its sudden miniboss encounter like when you meet a Cyclop or a Chimera in the middle of nowhere and the game gives you a quest to slay them are a whole lot more exciting than meeting a dragon wyvern in Skyrim.

And Skyrim has more lore? I was like, "what the faq?" for a second, but then I think about it some more and, duh, Skyrim has 4 games worth of loredumps before it to draw from, and yet unfortunately for people who cared about Elder Scrolls's lore, Bethesda didn't. I heard that there exist those who even have PhDs on Elder Scrolls lore, and when Skyrim came out (or maybe even since Oblivion?) they pulled their hairs out of frustration with the retcons Bethesda did with it, especially the one that made the choices you've made at Morrowind completely and utterly useless.
Meanwhile, being a completely new game, and despite being cliche, I think Dragon's Dogma pulled off the 'cycle' trope much, much better, even better than Fromsoft could ever done with 3 Dark Souls and its many DLCs. Tbh, I think Fromsoft should've stopped at Dark Souls 1 and don't even think about making a sequel based on cycle trope. But DD, with only Everfall and Bitterblack Isle, was able to conjure a more compelling 'it's a cycle' narrative where Fromsoft failed with 2 sequels and 5 DLCs.

 

[HoboForEternity]

WTF you can do this??
https://files.catbox.moe/sswhm7.mp4

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Cool

 

[Delterius]

WTF you can do this??
https://files.catbox.moe/sswhm7.mp4

w t f

 

[Alienman]

What is he doing exactly, I don't remember those things?

 

[Delterius]

What is he doing exactly, I don't remember those things?

Those are baby beholders with a petrifying gaze. He stuns them, picks them up and throws them. Every time he picks them up again they activate the gaze, which he uses against enemies.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

To be precise, that enemy type is called a Vile Eye, which appears in the base game only in two chambers of the Everfall but is also present in three zones of Bitterblack Isle.

 

[Citizen]

WTF you can do this??
https://files.catbox.moe/sswhm7.mp4

I approve the class choice #twohandedmasterrace

 

[A horse of course]

Skyrim's world is larger, more populated with diverse enemies and friendly settlements, and visually better. But I think Skyrim's shit combat really hurts it. Skyrim has more lore, but the relationships you build in Dragon's Dogma seem more personal. The feeling of mystery is also better in Dragon's Dogma and the final battle with the dragon blows Skyrim's final dragon battle away. I know I can't quantify it, and I'm not trying to make a pun on the game, but it seems like for all of its limitations when compared to Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma just has more heart and soul put into it.

It wasn't that Skyrim's world is larger, so much that a LOT what was originally planned for Dragon's Dogma, including its gameworld, didn't make it to the final cut. And I don't think Skyrim's enemies are more diverse, the ones I could remember off the top of my head were bandits, thieves, draugrs, those blind former snow elves, giants, trolls, small critters like mudcrabs.... idk, only some of the more iconic ones like giants and draugrs which I memorized the most, but the rest is just blurry.
Meanwhile, not only DD has the most diverse beastiary out there, especially if we include Bitterblack Isle (just this one dungeon utterly blows everything Skyrim has to offer), it even did exceptionally well by following Gothic's open world design philosophy of placing the more challenging ones in specific areas and certain regions, as has been mentioned. Its sudden miniboss encounter like when you meet a Cyclop or a Chimera in the middle of nowhere and the game gives you a quest to slay them are a whole lot more exciting than meeting a dragon wyvern in Skyrim.

And Skyrim has more lore? I was like, "what the faq?" for a second, but then I think about it some more and, duh, Skyrim has 4 games worth of loredumps before it to draw from, and yet unfortunately for people who cared about Elder Scrolls's lore, Bethesda didn't. I heard that there exist those who even have PhDs on Elder Scrolls lore, and when Skyrim came out (or maybe even since Oblivion?) they pulled their hairs out of frustration with the retcons Bethesda did with it, especially the one that made the choices you've made at Morrowind completely and utterly useless.
Meanwhile, being a completely new game, and despite being cliche, I think Dragon's Dogma pulled off the 'cycle' trope much, much better, even better than Fromsoft could ever done with 3 Dark Souls and its many DLCs. Tbh, I think Fromsoft should've stopped at Dark Souls 1 and don't even think about making a sequel based on cycle trope. But DD, with only Everfall and Bitterblack Isle, was able to conjure a more compelling 'it's a cycle' narrative where Fromsoft failed with 2 sequels and 5 DLCs.

The original vision for DD was to have half the damn game be some shitty pseudo-MMORPG experience, so I'm thankful they had to scale things back in the end.

 

[Delterius]

i wanna go to the moon

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

i wanna go to the moon

[Fry and Leela are taking a ride on the Moon Park]
Moon Rover Ride Narrator: The story of lunar exploration started with one man - a man with a dream.
Animatronic Ralph Kramden: One of these days, Alice --- Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!
Leela: Wow! I never realized the first astronauts were so fat.
Fry: That's not an astronaut, it's a TV comedian! And he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife.
- Futurama, Season 1, Episode 2, "The Series Has Landed"

 

[Ataraxia]

Have you guys ever tried a solo run, a.k.a. a no pawns run of the game? It can provide a different but very fun experience.

Of course for a normal or general playthrough it is not advisable to do this as you lose out on experiencing one of, if not the, most interesting and unique feature of the game: the arisen's pawns and your interactions with them.

I find that although playing solo can be very lonely and lacking(at the beginning), those feelings go away once I experienced my first few battles as a solo warrior(class). I felt like a total badass mowing down hordes of enemies all by my lonesome self using nothing but a giant hunk of metal; I was slashing and hacking through creatures like i was cutting through butter using a knife.

However, it did not mean that it was a mindless experience; Some enemies are too dangerous to use such a, 'direct', method without end up getting into serious trouble. A bit of ingenuity and thinking is required.


For instance, beholders evil eyes are surrounded by magical barriers(?) that made any physical attacks just bounce off them(at least for my solo warrior playthrough, not sure if this is the case all the time) so then I found out that if you first slice off the tentacles they summon off the ground, they're going to end up stunned and vulnerable to your attacks.

Another notable enemies are liches, they have a tendency to float in the air, out of range from your attacks. To deal with them, you can goad them into floating down, just enough to be in range, by running off a certain distance then quickly running back in them hit them a few times before they float back up again, then repeat as necessary.

Living Armors, like those in bitterblack isle, after getting rid of the armor part, you can deal with them by simply using a weapon with a decent enough magick stat like the warhammer, Angel's Fist, that you get as a reward for beating Ur-Dragon. If you don't have any, you can bait and kite them into elevated platforms and damaging them by letting them fall into their deaths using gravity.

Wyverns, you can hit their tails enough times to stop them from hovering in the air. For the big bad dragon himself, Grigori, the bulbous part of his wings(the very tip/top portion) is a body part to climb upon and bash him to death while being absolutely safe from his attacks.


Not all are sunshine and rainbows though, there are cases where it was seemingly impossible to kill the enemies you face against - Griffins flying in the sky that won't ever come down no matter what you do. That one token of a golem in bitterblack isle that is simply too high above to reach. Those hellhounds that spam fireball attacks, while not impossible, are a massive pain to deal with. Those bitterblack isle mimics... I don't even want to talk about them.

Nevertheless, even with the issues I've run with, the playthrough ended up being so fun and stimulating that I personally ranked it above the one I had with a normal playthrough, with the pawns and all pawns related stuff.


Of course it's not for everybody's taste but if some of what I am saying stir some of your interest, You can see what a solo playthrough could looked like (limited to bitterblack isle only though), there is a youtuber by the name of Nihil0.0 that does solo stuff for videos.

Here is one of them:

 

[Black]

Have you guys ever tried a solo run, a.k.a. a no pawns run of the game? It can provide a different but very fun experience.

Yeah, it's a better learning experience since you can take in what monsters do what without pawns interrupting you.

 

[Black Angel]

WTF you can do this??
https://files.catbox.moe/sswhm7.mp4

I remember now that I actually used to do this kinds of shenanigans even back during PS3 days. But as my character grows, I just don't bother doing it anymore because of the many things my characters can finally do, and completely forgot about it

The original vision for DD was to have half the damn game be some shitty pseudo-MMORPG experience, so I'm thankful they had to scale things back in the end.

I mean, I'm sure they could've tone down or even get rid of the shitty pseudo-MMORPG without having to scale down the gameworld and content, but I guess what's done is done. Still hoping for a bigger and better DD experience in the sequel.

Nihil0.0 and Infinite Cringe are probably one of the only DD content creators around here

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

How is the switch version? I played the game multiple times through the years and is the only version i haven't played.

 

[distant]

How is the switch version? I played the game multiple times through the years and is the only version i haven't played.

Least favourite by far... pop in, frame drops, 30 fps target, playable but not great. Ended up dropping it pretty early.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Son, my first time was with the PS3 version, you understimate in what conditions i can play the game.

 

[Machocruz]

Another thing about DD vs. Skyrim. Look at the animation. Meticulous, precise, cool, stylish, powerful in DD. Pretty amateur, lacking semblance of thought, care, and style, muddy, janky, in Skyrim. Worse is that Bethesda doesn't seem capable of realistic animations. DDs combat moves are obviously exaggerated for effect, but the biomechanics are far more accurate than Skyrim.

Boggles my mind how any AAA dev can have lousy animations in an age of video footage of nearly everything. I mean Capcom are the GOATs of this shit, but even mid-tier Jap devs do better.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Boggles my mind how any AAA dev can have lousy animations in an age of video footage of nearly everything. I mean Capcom are the GOATs of this shit, but even mid-tier Jap devs do better.

It's kinda understandable imo
By itself animation is already a ridiculously difficult skil to learn
But now 3D animation for action games - specially of the melee kind...
That's an artform reversed for masters of the trade

They must be clear, stylish, "natural" (in the sense they can't get into the uncanny valley), give a sense of "perceptible power" (even though it's just a bunch of pixel moving in a screen) and lastly in the case of attacks communicate "intention" (what the move is for, how to use it, when to use it, etc...)
You can't just capture an actor doing acrobatic shit and then just copy paste it into the game files
Even if you use motion capture most of the work must come from of all the details and polishes done by hand

And here in the west we don't really have a tradition of dedicating so much attention to combat/movement animations like the japs do

 

[Machocruz]

It's kinda understandable imo
By itself animation is already a ridiculously difficult are to get into
But now 3D animation for action games -specially of the melee kind...
That's an artform reversed for masters of the trade

They must be clear, stylish, "natural" (in the sense they can't get into the uncanny valley), give a sense of "perceptible power" (even though it's just a bunch of pixel moving in a screen) and lastly in the case of attacks communicate "intention" (what the move is for, how to use it, when to use it, etc...)
You can't just capture an actor doing acrobatic shit and then just copy paste it into the game files
Even if you use motion capture most of the work must come from of all the details and polishes done by hand

And here in the west we don't really have a tradition of dedicating so much attention to combat/movement animations like the japs do

Good points. I recognize the challenges and I was being dramatic, but Bethesda is very bad at it, even when it comes to basics. Like they've never studied actual human motion before, to have even a decent foundation. Actually don't believe this is some ingrained technical shortcoming, since they have the funds to hire good animators, they just don't give it the necessary attention, like you said.

Mortal Kombat devs are another, possibly worse. Even when they digitized actual performers, because they have no eye for good, real, or convincing martial arts poses/movements and had their actors take up ridiculous ones.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

since they have the funds to hire good animators, they just don't give it the necessary attention

Dude they have the funds to make the most ambitious and complex ARPG's in the market
They just don't want to put the effort since larping sandboxes are much easier and profitable to make

 

[mogwaimon]

regarding solo runs I've never done a full solo run but I did find it much easier on the final boss of BBI to just slap the Assassin lone wolf skill on my character and go it alone for that fight (and then I went through the rest of the BBI stuff too) just because he has that one attack that instakills all your pawns if they get sucked in...which they inevitably do...I could see how a solo run of the whole game would be doable especially once you got that skill, it's insane how much damage you put out with it.

 

[Delterius]

since they have the funds to hire good animators, they just don't give it the necessary attention

Dude they have the funds to make the most ambitious and complex ARPG's in the market
They just don't want to put the effort since larping sandboxes are much easier and profitable to make

I think you underestimate the baseline competence necessary to just finish projects in the video games industry. Much less something in Skyrim's scale. Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. So the saying on Skyrim goes. But Skyrim isn't the normal. Creating a sandbox larp action rpg bankrupted a company with the backing of the state of Rhode Island. Its not just about money. This is about creating and maintaining a team. Retaining talent and sculpting your pipeline. And what focus you have when doing so. Comparing the combat animations of Skyrim and Dragon's Dogma doesn't get you very far in this regard. It just reminds you that, yes, the people who make Devil May Cry are better at creating Action games than the Gamebryo company. Likewise, take Platinum Games and tell them to make grand strategy. I'd wager there's a 50% the project would go up in flames and completely wreck the studio with talent quitting left and right.