Anyone else playing on PS3 or 360? It's an open-world action RPG by Capcom that seems to be inspired in parts by Skyrim, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls. The Story is pretty basic (dragon comes and destroys stuff and you have to go kill it), but the appeal is the open-world gameplay exploring and killing monsters. There's a couple of pretty neat mechanics Capcom have come up with:
Character Creation: One of the best character creators I've seen. You fully customise your characters looks from hair styles and skin colours, to postures, stances and builds. There are tons of preset eye, nose, ear, brows, mouth options which you can combine anyway you like to get some pretty good looking characters. Even further though, you can adjust your characters height, weight, muscle build, posture (from 'ladylike' to 'macho') and stance (from 'timid' to 'imposing'). You can even adjust the build of your arms, legs, head and torso individually from each other to get really outrageous looks if you want.
The customisation is not purely aesthetic though either - height, weight and muscle build have in-game benefits. Weight (either through the weight slider or making a taller, more muscley character) lets you carry more gear and loot before it encumbers you. However it also determines how much stamina you use - A smaller, lighter character will use less stamina for attacks and running. The size of the character even affects their hitbox and attack range - bigger characters have further reach, but will be hit be enemy attacks easier. Smaller characters have smaller reach, but will avoid attacks easier simply by having a smaller hitbox.
There are 9 classes (Vocations) in the game. The 3 Basic classes (Fighter, Strider, Mage) are chosen are available at the start of the game. Advanced (Warrior, Ranger, Sorcerer) and Hybrid (Mystic Knight, Mystic Archer and Assassin) are available later. You're able to spend spec points to change to any class at anytime you want - once you've unlocked a class you can swap to it for free. Each class is levelled individually though so while you might be Level20 as a Vocation 6 Fighter, if you swap to a Sorcerer you will be Level20 Vocation 0 Sorc. Class abilities are also bought with spec points, and are restricted by the Vocation rank of the class. However Augment abilities (passive abilities that you can use 6 of at a time) can be shared between any class. So any Fighter Augments you've bought will be carried over to your Sorc which can lead to fairly deep class customisation. For example, Sorcs are naturally weak to physical attacks whereas Fighters are really strong against it. You can take the physical defense augments you've unlocked from the Fighter and use them on your Sorc which otherwise the Sorc wouldn't have available. Only the passive abilities are shared between classes though, so classes still keep very distinctive roles from each other.
Pawns: Not only do you fully customise your own characters appearance and vocation you get to fully customise your Main Pawn. Pawns in-story are a race of not-quite humans who lack emotion and free-will to do things on their own. Your character can bind them to his/herself and they follow you around. Your Main Pawn can be literally whatever you want it to be. If you're playing as a Mage, you may want to make your Main Pawn a big strong brute to tank and carry your loot around. Or make him another mage and use him to heal/support while you go full offensive magic. Just like the Player Character, the Main Pawn can be respecced to different classes at anytime you want, with the only restriction that pawns can't be one of the 3 hybrid classes.
Not only do you have your main pawn, but you can also have 2 secondary pawns. These guys can't be customised in terms of appearance or class. You can give them equipable items, but they'll be bound to that pawn and you wont be able to get it back. The reason for this is that if you are connected to the internet, you can actually select these 2 secondary pawns from a pool of everyone elses Main Pawn that has been uploaded (as well as other people being able to use your Main Pawn as one of their secondary pawns). You can rate the appearance/combat effectiveness of these pawns and if you are so inclined can gift them with items that will get taken back to that other player. This means that you can find your Main Pawn getting some pretty good loot if other people are using it and like it. If you're not online, you select from pre-build or randomly generated pawns in-game.
Grappling: You can grab things and run around with them in the game world. This might mean grabbing a rock and throwing it bad guy, or it might mean actually grabbing the bad guy and throwing him off a cliff lol. You can grapple monsters to the ground which pins them down, allowing another party member to lay into them. Grappling takes stamina and picking up a bad guy takes encumbrance so heavier, tall characters are better at it. It opens up some pretty cool strats - Fighters grapple enemies to the ground to open their guard, and the Striders (who are dagggers/bows) or Assassins can close in without fear of getting smacked around and lay the beatdown with rapid dagger strikes.
Not only can you grapple the smaller enemies, but you can also climb on the really big enemies. You come across huge monsters (cyclops, ogres, golems, dragons etc) that are able to be climbed up onto so you can get at their weakspots with your melee weapons. Ie if you come across a Cyclops, which has their eye with their weakspot, you climb up their back and onto their head and start stabbing. The monsters will try to throw you off though, so you need to be watchful for that.
All in all, its a pretty fun game. Part Skyrim, in that it's a big open world. See some ruins off in the distance? Run over there and have a look. Part Monster Hunter: Huge monsters which serve as boss fights, that you can climb on etc. Part Dark Souls with a passive online system being able to use other people's created pawns, and also in that it can be fairly difficult. There's no indication on how tough an enemy is, until you actually try to fight it :p. Be prepared to run alot lol.
