There's been a lot of talk lately about whether the Japanese game industry has lost touch with the rest of the world. If after all of these years as the world's biggest name in the industry has made the complacent and whether their future is in doubt. Oddly enough, Dragon's Dogma, the new action RPG from Capcom is the best argument for and against that idea.

It's an obvious attempt to appeal to a Western market that fell in love with Skyrim, but at the same time, it's got some great new ideas that couldn't have come from anywhere else. Though it sometimes feels messy, the end result is a fun, if not flawed action adventure game that does a lot right -- if you're looking to find it.

"...the plot all but disappears for a major portion of the game..."

Much to my dismay, Dragon's Dogma has absolutely nothing to do with Alanis Morrisette as a deity fighting dragons. Instead, it places players in the boots of an Arisen, a once proud hero who has had his heart taken out by a Dragon. Through some sort of magic, the hero survived and can now attract legions of followers. It becomes your quest throughout the game to find and kill the Dragon that took your ticker. If nothing else, it's an original story, but it's not the most thought out one, and before long it becomes evident that the development team really didn't know where they were going with it, as it becomes unfocused hard to follow. In fact, the plot all but disappears for a major portion of the game, only to show back up at the end to remind you what you were doing the whole time.

This would be acceptable if the actual world the game takes place in was all that interesting, but that's not the case. The true mark of any good virtual world is the ability to believe that it goes on whether you're there or not, and Dragon's Dogma simply doesn't have that at all. Townspeople are voiced laughably bad and behave as if they're simply there for you to get quests from. It's a bit off-putting as well that entire cities are often all but void of people, and the only ones that are there often seem to be the ones you need to talk to or get items from.

All that aside, Dragon's Dogma completely nails the combat and it all starts before you even truly get into the game. Dragon's Dogma allows you to create your own character through a respectable suite of tools and options. Your most important choice though is your character's class, though whether you choose a fighter, a ranged fighter or a mage, you'll be able to swap abilities between the classes as the game goes on. It's an interesting idea -- as the game features a lot of repeated enemies and quests, but it somehow rarely feels that repetitive since you're able to switch between fighting styles and powers on the fly.

"...one pawn that you can edit and create to your heart's desire..."

One of the best ideas the game gives you is the ability to employ pawns, or characters that accompany you on your journey. Though the idea of going into battle with a party is nowhere near a new one, Dragon's Dogma handles things differently. The game gives you one pawn that you can edit and create to your heart's desire, but the real genius of the idea is being able to “hire” two others from a pool of characters created by other players. The main idea behind this is that if you're stuck in an area, pawns remember their time in the game, and hiring one that has been through it may help you pass it that much easier.

With all of this going for it, it's disappointing then that Dragon's Dogma has so many flaws. The game is literally filled with graphical glitches and issues that will halt your game in its tracks. I was once walking through a town and one of my pawns just started freaking out and animating all over the place. Though there are also some issues with the graphical layouts of the game, some of the backgrounds are incredibly gorgeous.

It's truly tough to classify a game like Dragon's Dogma. It's definitely not for everyone, but there are some fun times to have and to be honest it does have some great ideas -- it just doesn't organize them very well. At best, it's a fun action title that flirts with the RPG side of the world, but at worst, it's little more than a messy attempt by an out of touch developer to appeal to a demographic they've grown out of touch with.