Dragon's Dogma
Tags: revenge, cult

Plot synopsis:
The game begins with a knight named Savan proceeding through a deep canyon and eventually a temple. After fighting a Chimera, he passes a set of doors leading to an unknown beast. The story then progresses a number of years until the next appearance of the Dragon, a sign of the end of days.
During its raid on the fishing village of Cassardis, a dragon approaches the hero of the story, telling them that he or she - depending on the choice of the player - is the "chosen one", and proceeds to tear out their heart. Due to having their heart taken, the hero is revived as an "Arisen," and is destined to find and kill the dragon that stole their heart. The Arisen proceeds to an encampment along the way to the capital, Gran Soren. During their stay at the encampment, a hydra attacks. The Arisen cuts off one of its heads, and proceeds to the capital with the head to be presented as a gift to the duke of Gran Soren. After reaching Gran Soren, and investigating a hole known as the Everfall, the Arisen works for the Wyrm Hunt, and proceeds to do various tasks, including uncovering a cult known as Salvation, who want the dragon, known as Grigori, to destroy the world.
After working for the duke, the Arisen is tasked with stopping the leader of Salvation, Elysion, who is attacking a castle. After reaching the top of the castle and defeating the attackers, Grigori arrives and kills Elysion, and it is revealed that Grigori has captured the Arisen's love interest.
The Arisen arrives at the Tainted Mountain to fight Grigori, and is presented with a choice, to sacrifice the kidnapped love interest, or to face the dragon. The Arisen fights the dragon, and stabs it in the heart. The Arisen recovers their heart, and goes back to Cassardis with his/her beloved. After a few days of peace, the Arisen treks back to Gran Soren. Along the way, several details are revealed. The sky has been blotted out and replaced with greenish gray clouds that rain ash, and all normal monsters have been replaced with much stronger versions. After the Arisen reaches Gran Soren, it is revealed that half of it has collapsed, leaving a gaping hole. The Arisen goes to meet the duke, and is surprised to see that the duke has turned into a frail old man. It is revealed that the duke made a deal with Grigori to make himself immortal, but without Grigori, the deal is now forfeited. The duke attacks, blaming the Arisen for his condition, but he is swiftly beaten. Guards arrive, and the duke accuses the Arisen of placing a curse on him and of making a deal with Grigori. The Arisen is then hunted by the guards. The Arisen is chased to the hole in the town, where creatures begin to fly out of the hole, with one bumping the Arisen into the hole.
The hole is actually The Everfall, a center for the strongest monsters in the world and a nexus that connects all worlds together. There the Arisen meets a pawn named Quince, who tasks the Arisen with collecting 20 Wakestones to unlock a portal. After unlocking the portal, the Arisen enters the portal and finds the Seneschal, the mastermind behind the workings of the entire world. The Seneschal is a mysterious being, covered in a glowing light and having two voices, one a woman's, and another a man's. After a short fight, the Seneschal is revealed to have been Savan, the knight at the beginning of the game, who defied Grigori after entering the temple, then chose to fight him and win.
The Arisen and their main pawn fight Savan, now known as the Seneschal, and his pawn. In return for defeating the Seneschal, he/she takes Savan's place, becoming a new fount of will to the world. Before dying, Savan reveals information about being the Seneschal, and tells the Arisen that he is not the only Arisen currently, as there are multiple universes with their own respective pawns and Arisen. As a result, he is only the Seneschal of this universe, though it is a bitter reward, as the Arisen cannot be seen by anyone in the world once they return from their throne. Using the Godsbane, a sword granted to him by Grigori and Savan, the Arisen stabs himself in the heart. The body of the Arisen and the main pawn are sent hurtling back to the world. The pawn wakes up on the beach, and it is revealed by the change in his/her voice that the pawn's form has changed into that of the Arisen. The pawn is then greeted by the Arisen's love interest, and they walk along the beach to Cassardis. If the player romanced Selene (who was earlier revealed to be a former pawn from a past Arisen, her grandmother, who had given Selene her body and will to allow her to live as a human), she reveals that the Arisen has given his/her pawn their will and body to free them from the eternity of a pawn's life.

Review: Dragon's Dogma is What Dreams are Made of. What can I say, it's one of those RPG games again. And I love it!! Out of all the different RPG games out there this one is the most unique. Here is the why. The pawn system! It is one of the best ideas to come to a game console in a while. You create your right hand helper for the game (sorcerer, fighter, stryder, etc) and then you can choose from other players created pawns to round out your team. If you are either on-line, off-line, or not even playing, other gamers can choose any pawns to help in their journey. What this means is that your pawn gains knowledge to new areas, battles, and quests while he is out fighting for someone else. Some might say, "So What?", I say "Question me again I rip your heart out!" This idea is brilliant because the pawns will always help you out in your adventure, with knowledge you haven't yet acquired, because they have retained the information and experience from other gamers that choose your pawn.There is a ranking system allowing people to rate your created pawn on helpfulness, battle, and appearance. Be sure to make your characters inclinations (type of AI) and appearance incredible because these reviews stick with you for life. If you make the right pawn money will be made, and gifts will be more likely when your pawn is released from the user.We learned about the unique pawn system but I haven't talked about the surrounding aspects. This is a beautiful game from the perspective of gameplay. The combat is fast and powerful. The game has hours upon hours for main quests but sometimes you just might come across a Hydra or a Griffin that you will have to take down. Now these are some of the best battles in the game till you reach the mysterious dragon. During your adventure you will have access to many classes to choose from at your disposal. If your not happy with the combat of a warrior you can change to a sorcerer just like that. Each weapon or spell you use is over the top. A lighting whip takes up the whole screen, meteor strikes make your hair stand straight up, and epic bow battle makes for serious fun For me personally, it's all about the little details to make my guy and my pawn look sweet. Just like any role playing game you will spend hours tracking quest and customizing your main character, but Capcon added the pawn so you are that much busier.My lovely Capcon-anites could have taken the time to make the graphics a bit better and the pawn system is great but sometime aggravating when they don't come to your aid.This is a fun game no doubt about it and I definitely recommend that you at least try this bad boy out up to level 10. MINIMUM... Understand! Minimum!Boon - The Rehash Critics***Sleep? WHY!!! I got pawns to take care of***. Generally Great Game; Lacks Fluidity. Now let me start off by saying I'm not picky with video games, this is just my honest opinion. This shouldn't contain too many, if not any spoilers either, and also, for some reason this seems to be the first review for the game, but whatever.I like the concept of this game. It is essentially a fusion between Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy (without the turn-based element). You basically run around doing somewhat interesting, yet monotonous quests, and ultimately fight boss enemies which have very cool concepts. There is also a day & night cycle, which has a very survival-esque feeling to it in the sense that death is inevitable if you just wander around outside at night. You also get to manage your own 'pawns' to decide the course of action in your various adventures & battles, which is fun because of the element that only some of your pawns will be effective against some type of enemies. Overall it seems like a fun game, but I feel like it just lacks something more.For one, the level-up system. I cannot begin to put into words at all how I can despise a level-up system in a game like this. Let me explain.When you pick your classes in the game, you are basically given 'set' attributes that are auto-levelled when you level-up, and these attributes are dependent on the class you picked (e.g. Strider = Dexterity) You cannot set these attributes yourself, you are instead forced to let the game choose instead of being given the creative knowledge to do so yourself. This will ultimately lead to giving the player less creativity with their own characters as it prevents them from focusing on one attribute that could be more important.Another thing I'm not too fond of in the game is the fluidity in combat as well. While the concept of working as a team is nice, there is no option to lock-on to an enemy you're fighting, and as a result, you'll probably miss about 30% of the time. However there is sort of a 'magnet' effect when you're close enough to an enemy which will sort of force your character to attack in that general direction. This however is no excuse for the lack of a targeting or lock-on system. Although before I eat my own words, I should mention that there is a class which lets you lock-on; The Mage. From what I can tell that's the only class, and it's range with the targeting is limited nonetheless.A Slightly less bothersome part of this game is the graphics. Let's be honest people. What year was this made? 2012. Surely anyone would find that a game should have socially acceptable graphics in 2012. The graphics in Dragon's Dogma are essentially the same as Final Fantasy X's graphics.. just slightly more polished. As for animation; namely with the way the character's lips move, abysmal. I wouldn't be a reviewer if I didn't mention the Pro's and Con's of a video game, but honestly. Just abysmal. In fact, when I made a new character just the other day, I noticed a 'preacher' of sorts in the intro who had the lip-sync of a modern-day Madonna, and the lip-animation as if someone stretched and ironed their lips. But that's it for Con's as far as I can tell, let's get into the Pro's.Game-play Wise; Not too bad. I just mentioned that the combat and graphics weren't so hot, but the gameplay in general is actually decent. You basically run off of quests to complete the game. Most of which are basic-to-advanced gathering quests, and some of which are escorts and timed quests which can actually have a severe detriment on your playthrough if you neglect them. As I mentioned before, you also have the Day & Night cycle which is a basic fundamental in any open-world game, but is more expanded upon in a game such as this due to the more threatening factor that nighttime withholds. You also have random merchants in the game that act as Rescue quests since they're being attacked by enemies. Speaking of enemies, they're mostly randomized around the world you're exploring, since they're always a constant threat. It ranges from Bandits, to Goblins, to Wolves and much more.Sound-wise; Not too fond of it. The title screen music sounds almost like a Swan Song as if someone's dying, which makes little to no sense considering the theme of the game is more-so about saving people/killing bosses rather than blood/death/violence.Control-wise; Not too fond of this either. The controls in this game are all generally good for the most part, however the controls in combat almost feel like you're supposed to be extremely precise and fluid with your button combinations in order to win. I'm not too fond of that at all, but for the most part it's OK. I do like the grabbing mechanic a lot, as it allows most enemies to be KO'd through vulnerability, and bosses to be climbed upon and dealt extra damage.Replayability; Excellent. This game probably has more replayability than any other game I've played in a long time, and that's mostly due to the different multi-class combinations you get later on, as well as the different pawn/team setups. All in all, I give this game a 7/10. I feel that it would be more deserving of an 8-9/10 if it had a slightly better front on the animation and sound, as well as the level-up system. In fact, I might be willing to push this to 9/10 if the level-ups weren't fixed. Nonetheless, I can safely recommend this game to any fan of Medieval RPG's.