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Big game, little flaws!
TheRpgmakerAddict- 03/15/2020 11:59 PM
- 1484 views
Today, for the review number 99 (!) I'm gonna review Drekirökr - Dusk of the Dragon. This game is just a demo, but one that can guarantee a couple of hours of fun at least.
Graphically this game is gorgeous: I love the details, the art and the big animated battlers, large monsters, detailed locations, items... everything looks great, coherent and it's a graphic style I like a lot. Mapping is very good, I like the different enviroments, there is a city in the desert, a city in the snowy lands, one on the plains... and they all look different, but they are also quite small so that you will immediately know where you've to go.
Music is good, even if a bit repetitive, I'd like to see more different tunes, anyway it's not bad at all.
Hey! How rude!!!
Gameplay is really what you can expect form a classical Snes jrpg: you travel on the world map (using trains of boats when needed), do fetch quests, explore dungeons and fight with the usual ATB system. Speaking of combat, I found difficulty rather low, but it's not too bad. I also noticed that mana is rarely an issue, since abilities consumes very low quantities (I never used a single mp/ether potion... and no healing potion too since every character has a healing spell!) and it seems that you are healed after each combat (but negative effects, like poison, won't go away!). Some abilities have a "recharge time" so you cannot just spam your strongest attack each time, and that's a clever idea.
Besides combat we've puzzle and some platform sections that luckily weren't too hard to finish, since I am not an expert in neither. I liked how this game isn't punishing or difficult at all, but it provides a good variety of challenges.
Controlla are a bit different from usual: you press D and not Esc to access the menu and you press Shift to enter the sub-menus. You can also move in eight directions and not just four, and you can also jump! It's a system that at first left me surprised, but it's not too complex or difficult to master.
A strange thing, that at first worried me was that I noticed that I was earning NO money doing sidequests and killing monsters. But the game told me that I had earned something... at first I believed that this was a bug, then I realized that in this game there are banks that accumulate our earnings, so we have to check the bank of the nearest town in order to retrieve our money! Nice idea!
Boss killing time!
The Bad
Some flaws are for example untranslated dialogues (the shady merchant in the first town, the dialogue on the top of the mountain during the boss fight) and some typos ("your lider, ensign Vipond...", "dissappeared"). Also we have some empty places or characters with no dialogues, but clearly this is because this is just a demo. But I guess that all these things I mentioned will be easily fixed, if this will happen and the game completed my score will improve for sure!
Then maybe a defect is also the uselessness of healing and mana potions, just stock antidotes and phoenix feathers and you will be fine!
Wat? Yeah, "Wat?" here is both the answer and the question!
Verdict
This imperfect gem earns a solid 4 from me!
If this will become a complete game and the errors I mentioned will be corrected I'd give at least 4.5 since it looks really gorgeous, gameplay is classical but well done and I find the difficulty rather adequate (maybe a bit too on the easy side, but ok this is only the beginning of the story).
While this game doesn't introduce anything really new and some locations feel incomplete, it has a lot of character and style. It's a promising appetizer of the whole dish.
This Dragon may be still sleeping, but it still earns 4 stars!
Graphically this game is gorgeous: I love the details, the art and the big animated battlers, large monsters, detailed locations, items... everything looks great, coherent and it's a graphic style I like a lot. Mapping is very good, I like the different enviroments, there is a city in the desert, a city in the snowy lands, one on the plains... and they all look different, but they are also quite small so that you will immediately know where you've to go.
Music is good, even if a bit repetitive, I'd like to see more different tunes, anyway it's not bad at all.
Hey! How rude!!!
Gameplay is really what you can expect form a classical Snes jrpg: you travel on the world map (using trains of boats when needed), do fetch quests, explore dungeons and fight with the usual ATB system. Speaking of combat, I found difficulty rather low, but it's not too bad. I also noticed that mana is rarely an issue, since abilities consumes very low quantities (I never used a single mp/ether potion... and no healing potion too since every character has a healing spell!) and it seems that you are healed after each combat (but negative effects, like poison, won't go away!). Some abilities have a "recharge time" so you cannot just spam your strongest attack each time, and that's a clever idea.
Besides combat we've puzzle and some platform sections that luckily weren't too hard to finish, since I am not an expert in neither. I liked how this game isn't punishing or difficult at all, but it provides a good variety of challenges.
Controlla are a bit different from usual: you press D and not Esc to access the menu and you press Shift to enter the sub-menus. You can also move in eight directions and not just four, and you can also jump! It's a system that at first left me surprised, but it's not too complex or difficult to master.
A strange thing, that at first worried me was that I noticed that I was earning NO money doing sidequests and killing monsters. But the game told me that I had earned something... at first I believed that this was a bug, then I realized that in this game there are banks that accumulate our earnings, so we have to check the bank of the nearest town in order to retrieve our money! Nice idea!
Boss killing time!
The Bad
Some flaws are for example untranslated dialogues (the shady merchant in the first town, the dialogue on the top of the mountain during the boss fight) and some typos ("your lider, ensign Vipond...", "dissappeared"). Also we have some empty places or characters with no dialogues, but clearly this is because this is just a demo. But I guess that all these things I mentioned will be easily fixed, if this will happen and the game completed my score will improve for sure!
Then maybe a defect is also the uselessness of healing and mana potions, just stock antidotes and phoenix feathers and you will be fine!
Wat? Yeah, "Wat?" here is both the answer and the question!
Verdict
This imperfect gem earns a solid 4 from me!
If this will become a complete game and the errors I mentioned will be corrected I'd give at least 4.5 since it looks really gorgeous, gameplay is classical but well done and I find the difficulty rather adequate (maybe a bit too on the easy side, but ok this is only the beginning of the story).
While this game doesn't introduce anything really new and some locations feel incomplete, it has a lot of character and style. It's a promising appetizer of the whole dish.
This Dragon may be still sleeping, but it still earns 4 stars!
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orochii
6740
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CloseThanks for the review!
I struggle a bit with language since I'm Spanish, so yeah that's always a thing to improve. I'll take note and check every thing you mentioned, I've fixed a lot of translation mistakes since the last release, but there might be some still left, like the ones you mentioned (I'll double check later). The battle sequence is probably the biggest offence here.
Potions for now are very unbalanced, yeah. They sometimes have their uses, but not much. MP potions can be useful at long battles, however they restore way too little. I might end up making all potions percent-based just to make them more consistent. We'll see! That's a part of balance I still need to get right.
As for difficulty, yeah, it's still the early stages. The idea is to up the difficulty as it goes along. Early game might change little however, some people find it though enough. So I better leave that part as is, try and explain better the mechanics and raise the challenge from now on.
And... yeah! Thanks a lot for the review! I'm really glad to read your impressions, and hopefully the game can meet your expectations in the future.
I struggle a bit with language since I'm Spanish, so yeah that's always a thing to improve. I'll take note and check every thing you mentioned, I've fixed a lot of translation mistakes since the last release, but there might be some still left, like the ones you mentioned (I'll double check later). The battle sequence is probably the biggest offence here.
Potions for now are very unbalanced, yeah. They sometimes have their uses, but not much. MP potions can be useful at long battles, however they restore way too little. I might end up making all potions percent-based just to make them more consistent. We'll see! That's a part of balance I still need to get right.
As for difficulty, yeah, it's still the early stages. The idea is to up the difficulty as it goes along. Early game might change little however, some people find it though enough. So I better leave that part as is, try and explain better the mechanics and raise the challenge from now on.
And... yeah! Thanks a lot for the review! I'm really glad to read your impressions, and hopefully the game can meet your expectations in the future.
TheRpgmakerAddict
60227
author=orochii
Thanks for the review!
I struggle a bit with language since I'm Spanish, so yeah that's always a thing to improve. I'll take note and check every thing you mentioned, I've fixed a lot of translation mistakes since the last release, but there might be some still left, like the ones you mentioned (I'll double check later). The battle sequence is probably the biggest offence here.
Heh I am italian do not worry, I know the struggle,(by the way I speak spanish too) anyway the exact places where I found untranslated text are the shady merchant at the first town after the prologue, the boss on the mountains, aaaand the one on the pic. Maybe I forgot something, anyway do not worry, the game is good. You probably already posted a new version in the meantime I guess, so I should check next demo when I can.
author=orochii
Potions for now are very unbalanced, yeah. They sometimes have their uses, but not much. MP potions can be useful at long battles, however they restore way too little. I might end up making all potions percent-based just to make them more consistent. We'll see! That's a part of balance I still need to get right.
As for difficulty, yeah, it's still the early stages. The idea is to up the difficulty as it goes along. Early game might change little however, some people find it though enough. So I better leave that part as is, try and explain better the mechanics and raise the challenge from now on.
And... yeah! Thanks a lot for the review! I'm really glad to read your impressions, and hopefully the game can meet your expectations in the future.
Yes, I know what you mean by the way it's not a bad thing. Blackmoon Prophecy II is one of the (complete) games I am playing now and it's really easy, still it's a good game. It's relaxing, so I don't mind that too much, it can be a choice.
The only "problem" I had with this game was waiting for the a.m. during the escort quest. Maybe I did not find the wait option? It may be possible!
The things I liked most were the bank thing (at first I was "hey there's a bug, I am earning NO MONEY!!!) and the cool graphics. Maybe I forgot to say something of the 8 direction movement, anyway I liked a lot the unique feel and appearance of this game. Clearly it's on the early stages, but I found it very promising and worthy of a review (with a good score), clearly I'll bump the rating.
So far, great job!
orochii
6740
The latest public release is from January 6th 2019. Unless you downloaded the game prior to that date, you should have the most up to date (public) version. I'll be updating the game soon, however it's mainly bug fixes and some slight design/visual changes.
For the escort mission, to kill time the "easiest" way is to go to the INN. I can't remember if that was properly implemented in this version however, as the norm for the INN is to pass around 6 hours. In a next release, however, I made sure that while you're at that mission, the INN will make you wait until around 30 minutes before, so you have time to get there (you can still get a bit early so you don't have to wait too much either).
The bank it's sort of based on ideas from Earthbound, Pokémon and Final Fantasy 8 (to some extent). It's pretty common to argue about how little sense makes having monsters with money, so the idea was that the money you get from monsters is sort of a bonus from the Academy (lore?). Just like EB's dad giving money to your character. Or FF8, where you get paid once in a while. You lose your money if you die (EB, Pokémon, Dark Souls, etc), but you keep your experience, progress and stuff (mostly based on FF6, I found it interesting when I realized it keeps some of your stuff if you load after dying). The bank is there to keep your savings, so you only lose your change if you die. --But the bank is one of the things I didn't explain or introduce to the player, so yeah that's being addressed too, hopefully it's clearer in the next release.
...I'm sorry I like to talk xD.
For the escort mission, to kill time the "easiest" way is to go to the INN. I can't remember if that was properly implemented in this version however, as the norm for the INN is to pass around 6 hours. In a next release, however, I made sure that while you're at that mission, the INN will make you wait until around 30 minutes before, so you have time to get there (you can still get a bit early so you don't have to wait too much either).
The bank it's sort of based on ideas from Earthbound, Pokémon and Final Fantasy 8 (to some extent). It's pretty common to argue about how little sense makes having monsters with money, so the idea was that the money you get from monsters is sort of a bonus from the Academy (lore?). Just like EB's dad giving money to your character. Or FF8, where you get paid once in a while. You lose your money if you die (EB, Pokémon, Dark Souls, etc), but you keep your experience, progress and stuff (mostly based on FF6, I found it interesting when I realized it keeps some of your stuff if you load after dying). The bank is there to keep your savings, so you only lose your change if you die. --But the bank is one of the things I didn't explain or introduce to the player, so yeah that's being addressed too, hopefully it's clearer in the next release.
...I'm sorry I like to talk xD.
TheRpgmakerAddict
60227
author=orochii
The latest public release is from January 6th 2019. Unless you downloaded the game prior to that date, you should have the most up to date (public) version. I'll be updating the game soon, however it's mainly bug fixes and some slight design/visual changes.
I admit, it was not short but it felt short since I wanted to see and understand moooooore of the plot so good job. I did not find bugs by the way.
author=orochii
For the escort mission, to kill time the "easiest" way is to go to the INN. I can't remember if that was properly implemented in this version however, as the norm for the INN is to pass around 6 hours. In a next release, however, I made sure that while you're at that mission, the INN will make you wait until around 30 minutes before, so you have time to get there (you can still get a bit early so you don't have to wait too much either).
I did that still I had some time to waste so I preferred to wander a bit until it was the right time. No problem. I was able to complete the mission on my first try, the first one was a disaster! ^_^'
author=orochii
The bank it's sort of based on ideas from Earthbound, Pokémon and Final Fantasy 8 (to some extent). It's pretty common to argue about how little sense makes having monsters with money, so the idea was that the money you get from monsters is sort of a bonus from the Academy (lore?). Just like EB's dad giving money to your character. Or FF8, where you get paid once in a while. You lose your money if you die (EB, Pokémon, Dark Souls, etc), but you keep your experience, progress and stuff (mostly based on FF6, I found it interesting when I realized it keeps some of your stuff if you load after dying). The bank is there to keep your savings, so you only lose your change if you die. --But the bank is one of the things I didn't explain or introduce to the player, so yeah that's being addressed too, hopefully it's clearer in the next release.
It was a clever and nice choice, well in FF8 I remember you still earned gold from encounters even if you had your earnings from the rank, by the way it makes sense that you get payed for killing critters and you do not find money on their dead bodies! As I wrote at first I believed it was a bug and I try to survive (selling the few items I found)... when I realized my mistake... BOOM it was easier!
author=orochii
...I'm sorry I like to talk xD.
No te preocupes. No hay problema! ;)
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