Traveling in Dragon's Dogma

I heard about this game. It sounds good, and I think I'll buy it once the price drops, but I do have one question.

What is it like traveling through the game?

I heard it has a very big map and no fast travel. That sounds very anoying.

I didn't have a problem with it because the more I played the more fast travel options I got. I can see why it can deter people, though.

^ There is fast travel? I read many articals that said there was no fast travel system in the game.

I haven't played in a while, so I don't remember the exact system. But there are "portcrystals" that you can put anywhere in the world that you can teleport to by using a certain (limited) item. The further you get into the game and the more playthroughs you go through provides you with more portcrystals and items that let you teleport to the portcrystals.

Fast travel there is, if only once much of the game hath been completed. Objects called portcrystals thou can obtain, which act as warp-points when placed. Ten at most may thou set-and only one two shall be available until NG+, and unmoveable one is.
Thou must use ferrystones, and expensive they are, to warp. Even so, recommend this game I do; strongly, so strongly, I do.

The game has 1 Fast Travel system which are Ferrystones and Portcrystals.

Ferrystones teleport you to the main city at anytime. They come at a hefty price early game, and at pocket change price end game.

Portcrystals are teleport points that you can place anywhere on the world map that will grant you an additional teleport point besides the main city. These are night impossible to buy early game and are even expensive end game. You get 1 free as part of the main story.

Otherwise, all traveling will be done exclusively on foot. There are 3 "cities" in the game, although only 1 of them is really for the sake of story; the rest are for the sake of side missions.

Don't know how true this is but I heard that if you're fast enough you can re-use your Ferrystones. When you use one, if you're fast enough, you can pick it up back off the ground so you end up keeping your item. It saves money as those things can cost a pretty penny.

That is only a rare occurrence in the case of teleporting to Main City. Your first teleportation guarantees a Ferrystone waiting for you. Afterwards, there will be certain times where there will be a Ferrystone, but it ain't guaranteed.

Well, that makes me feel better. The reveiws I read claimed the game was huge and had no fast travel. I thought, "If it's like the Elder Scrolls without fast travel, then I am going to spend most of my time traveling, and that would be boring."

Now I feel better knowing there is a fast tavel system, even if it's limited.

It's very good when you're traveling through areas you're not very familiar with forcing you to do it, I really enjoy that.

However when i'm travelling from the first little town to the big city for the 100th time I'm just in a comatose state of mind.

Well the combat is hella fun but the lack of effective, early on fast travel is frustrating. You'll need to invest a good hour to get some missions done with all the travelling you'll need to do. I would recommend checking out a map online to find all the shortcuts, they will greatly reduce your journey time.

Gamers whining about the lack of fast travel are missing the point. This isn't Skyrim.

Play it on hard mode, and all the minor quest that would seem like an annoyance are suddenly a dangerous adventure in their own right that have to be prepared for smartly.

Once you have played through the game two or more times it will be clear to you how smartly the game is put together. In truth, the map isn't very big, at least not compared to its contemporaries. You can run from one side to the other in ten minutes, if you know where you are going. When you are new though it will seem huge, and if you are playing on hard mode you will feel a wonderful tension ala Dark Souls because every enemy encounter can kill you if you aren't careful. The thing about the hard mode is that you won't get hit often, but when you do it will almost always be a one shot. So make sure you save a lot.

The story grants you fast travel appropriately at the point in the game that it would be annoying to not have it, and if you save some money you can simply purchase all the fast travel items you want. Having some sense of how to prioritize quest and travel efficiently will go a long ways. For instance, instead of doing main story quest A, traveling to capital, and then going back out to side quest b, do the two of them in one trip if they are located in the same region.

Dragons Dogma is not a game for dummies, but it isn't DKS either. It is a very pleasant balance between the two extremes. I highly recommend playing it on hard mode however, not because of some silly elitist pride, but because the game mechanics really shine their best on hard mode.

Just to make a point about fast travel, if you save enough money to buy five portcrystals and ten or twelve ferrystones, you can beat the following cycle of the game in less than one hour.

And to further testify on this games behalf against the naysayers, the story is one of the more engrossing video game tales I have played, period. The problem is that the story basically disappears for the middle portion of the game and you are just given filler quest for a while. Some of them are fun, some of them you will breeze through or skip in your subsequent journeys. The beginning, ending, and post-game portions of the game are absolutely engrossing, however.

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:And to further testify on this games behalf against the naysayers, the story is one of the more engrossing video game tales I have played, period. The problem is that the story basically disappears for the middle portion of the game and you are just given filler quest for a while. Some of them are fun, some of them you will breeze through or skip in your subsequent journeys. The beginning, ending, and post-game portions of the game are absolutely engrossing, however.

I agree with this. Many say the game lacks story, but it is by far my favorite out of any game I have ever played.

It's just great. It is big, dramatic, not overly complicated but has a certain profundity that gets you thinking, it doesn't take itself to seriously even though it is dealing with deep subject matter, and once you get sucked in you can't stop until you are done.

I still remember my first play through, once I started the Dragon fight I played all night until the final finish. I kept telling myself that I would stop at the next lull in the action, but I just couldn't. I have never been engrossed in a game like that before, not even DKS (on the contrary, I had to take a lot of breaks from DKS).

It is also the outstanding musical score that drives the epic finale, but don't even get me started on the soundtrack!

The same thing happened to me. I played through the first 1/2 of the story in 5 days but finished the rest in one night.

The ST is also boss, I cannot get enough of it. Strange that such a great game doesn't have a fraction of my DkS playtime...

I only played it a few times until hard mode came out. I must have played it ten times since hard mode, and I still haven't acquired all the goodies. I may go back to it soon, I am already burnt on DS.

It's the character customization and the fun gameplay that keep me coming back. Every time you kill a cyclops by sticking a sword in his eye it is fun, and every time you have a chance encounter with a griffin it is exciting.

I played it 5 times before hatdmode, and now I need to finish my hardmode playthrough. It's nice knowing that I have a quality game to relieve Dark Souls - I just haven't reached my breaking point in DkS yet.