I initially picked up the controller for an in-progress Dragon’s Dogma demo in which I played a Fighter, fighting off a bunch of orcs and angry giant owls. Light and heavy attacks were mapped to square and triangle, specials were based on what I had in my left and right hands (in this case a sword and shield), with L2 and R2 and the face buttons concurrently.
After dispatching the enemies in the first room of the dungeon, I was led to the chimera. This creature was essentially a lion with a giant snake for a tail and a goat head sticking out of his back. Each head attacked in different style, the lion biting at my ally "pawns," the goat casting magic, and the snake spitting venom at me. I knew that if I wanted to survive, I needed to kill one of the heads, and fast.
I immediately jumped towards the snake, holding onto it around its neck and hacking at it with my sword. It shook me off, but undeterred, I repeated my assault until I severed the Snake from the rest of the body, killing it.
This didn’t make the rest of the creature any happier. Unsure of how to approach the chimera, I began slashing at its legs, which eventually brought it to the ground. At the repeated insistence of my pawns that the goat was weak to physical attacks, went to work cutting it to pieces. Unfortunately, the lion ended up killing my pawns and me because despite the numerous calls of "the lion is weak against magic!" my warrior couldn’t cast any spells.
In the next part of the demo, I played an arrow-shooting, knife wielding Strider. After dispatching a few orcs in an open field, I was knocked across it by a giant griffon. After recovering from the damaging strike, I turned my sights on it and drew my bow, ready to slay the elegant beast.
As it flew through the air, I started shooting arrows at its wings, sending it crashing to the ground. One of my more magically-inclined pawns then set the griffon ablaze as I started slashing at its head, emptying one of its three health bars.
It then stood up (still on fire) and started flying. I jumped onto its back and held onto it as it went skyward. I kept slashing away as it shook around, trying to shake me off. I fell off of its back only to have my bow enchanted, turning my arrows into fire arrows. Once again, my team ignited the creature and it crashed to the ground. I rushed at the griffon and used my special knife abilities to get rid of the two remaining health bars. The griffon raised its burning, bloodied head for one more plaintive wail before collapsing to the ground.
I had completed the battle. I was happy to have survived the ordeal but felt cruel for killing such a beautiful creature.
Dragon’s Dogma will be out on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in early 2012.
