Dragon's Dogma is honestly kind of messy. Certain vocations are pretty blatantly better than others, pawn AI is questionable at best, and you can definitely feel the rushed nature of the game at times, mainly in its story and quests. Everything involving Aelinore and the whole beloved system is a prime example of that. However, despite that, the game is just a blast to play.

Combat is great, as expected coming from the current director of the DMC games. Climbing on enemies and beating the shit out of them is always fun. This is also one of the few games I can think of where playing as a magic caster is pretty badass, as you're able to do things like summon meteors and tornados. I also appreciate how willing this game is to completely kick your ass. This game will throw enemies at you at points where it's pretty clear that it's better to just run away and try fighting them later.

The open world isn't amazing by any means, but the game's endless new game plus and the way it handles traveling is pretty cool. Instead of just being able to fast travel to locations you've found, you find crystals that you can lay down almost anywhere on the map and create your own fast travel locations. There's a limited amount of them, but in new game plus, those crystals remain, and new ones spawn where the places you originally find them. In short, the more you play the game, the more places you can set as a fast travel point, and thus the more efficiently you can get through the game on repeat playthroughs. Definitely more unique than most open world games I can think of.

Hoping that the sequel is a bit more than just more of the same, and that Capcom gave them the time and budget to make the game what they wanted the first game to be. Please continue that redemption arc.