You know what, I lied. I am going to list a few of the little things that overall make Dragon’s Dogma a really neat game.
If you get afflicted by a “blind” spell, your screen is covered by a dark, inky smoke that actually hinders your vision. You can still hear, and move around, and catch glimpses of action through the smoke, but it’s REALLY scary to get blinded in the middle of a fight.
If you get drenched in water, not only does your lantern go out but you’re also soaked, which means you’re more susceptible to being frozen solid by ice spells (and subsequently shattered by an attack).
If you exhaust your stamina while running, you’ll get winded and be forced to stop to recover. However your pawns will rush to your side to lend you a hand, which gives you a little boost in stamina.
If one of your pawns dies in combat, and you’re far away, your other pawns may pick up the fallen pawn and try to carry it to you, so you can revive it.
Enemies actually feel like they live in the world. You don’t come across goblins just standing around with their thumbs up their asses waiting for you to show up. They’ll either be ravaging through a destroyed caravan, sitting around a fire, or even stretched out on a big rock soaking up the sun.
Certain quest objectives may appear or move based on the time of day. People can wander.
Escort NPCs actually run when and where you run, instead of casually walking straight into enemies. Also you can pick them up and throw them out of the way of danger if you need to.
Certain ability combos can be really cool… my warrior has an ability that knocks enemies up into the air. My ranger pawn can pin enemies to the wall with arrows. Once I flung an enemy up and she pinned him to the ceiling of the cavern we were fighting in. Or you can throw a water flask at an enemy to soak them, and then have a mage imbue your weapons with ice to freeze them. Or throw a flask of oil and shoot them with fire arrows to watch them burn.
Your choices matter. The decisions you make on certain quests may mean that some options or NPCs are or are not available to you later in the game. You can screw yourself a bit, but that’s what New Game+ is for!
There’s an NPC that will make forgeries of your items for a price. You can create forgeries of powerful quest items so that you can turn in the fake and keep the real one for yourself, or vice versa. This can come back to bite you in the ass though.
Not every quest gives you an objective marker on your map. Sometimes you actually have to explore for yourself.