S&S Reivews: Dragon's Dogma Demo

Title: Dragon's Dogma Format: PS3, 360 Release Date: May 22, 2012 Publisher : Capcom Developer: Capcom Price: 59.99 ESRB Rating M
Capcom released a demo of its newest IP, Dragon's Dogma, yesterday. After barely being able to tear myself away from the screen, here's my verdict.
Note: After going through the demo once, I highly suggest you turn off everything you can in the Options menu. The screen can get a bit busy sometimes.

The prologue quest is fun, but the Countryside Quest is the real meat. The area is set in a grassy knoll littered with goblins. I commanded my Pawns to hold off from aggroing them by hitting down on the d-pad. When I couldn't take enough of their annoying laughter, I had my Pawns rush in while I shot arrows from afar.
Details are in abundance here. If you throw your Pawns around, they'll get up and dust themselves off. The goblins swayed and bobbed their heads as they chuckled at my group. It's astounding how much work seems to be put into the animations.
As soon as the last creature dropped, so did the griffin that was circling in the sky. We ganged up on the big bird as I switched over to short daggers. The mage, Alexandra, buffed my weapons with fire damage. As the griffin flapped his wings and prepared to leave, I latched on.
One problem I noticed was a slight pause in the action. Instead of the choppiness of the frame-rate, it just stopped for less than a second. Nothing game-breaking, but noticeable nontheless. My Pawns weren't healing me, and right before I could get mad I saw them in the process of doing things like summoning fireballs. Thank you, Capcom, for not making them useless.
Our skyward adventure didn't last long as the griffin landed again for more combat. I put some distance between myself and the monster so I could let lose a skill called Cloudburst Volley. As the arrows rained and stuck into his body, he left the ground again.

One of my pawns launched me into the air to go after him. Somehow, I got a hold of the beast's head, and I mashed the square button like crazy. It wasn't long before he crashed into the dirt and we completed our quest. Incredibly short, but so entertaining that I went right back in to redo the quest.
There's not much to dislike here, and a whole lot to enjoy. Capcom has created a medieval-style game that doesn't feel like a copy of Skyrim. May is going to be a long month.
Final Verdict = Day 1 Buy