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It's a Demonstration! Of what, I'm not exactly sure...

  • Muninn
  • 07/06/2012 09:53 PM
  • 948 views
Dragon Kingdoms II: Legend of the Great Sword is an RPGMaker VX Ace game created by VideoWizard. The current release is classified as a Demo, although there is so little content in it that its not really demonstrative of anything.

Summary:
William, the one who wields the Great Sword, is missing. Go find him.

Story: The entirety has been condensed into the prior sentence.
Storywise, this demo is not going to be winning over the masses. The sum total of the story content is a short cutscene at the beginning where the main character sets out to search for William, and a later encounter where somebody tells you to where to search for him. (You cannnot actually reach the place where you are told to search, because the demo ends before then).

Presentation: If this demo is going to sell anybody on the full game, it'll be here.
The graphics in this game are rather decent-looking. The maps are a little too spacious and haphazard at times, with large expanses of random trees being largely indistinguishable from each other. Some extra work to add more memorable locations that the player can tell apart from each other would be nice. (Alternatively, since the entire area gives the impression of the place that the player is supposed to pass through once on the way to the start of the plot, the vast expanses of land could probably stand to be scaled down quite a bit)

Gameplay: Severely Lacking
Gameplay in Dragon Kingdoms II consists of fighting spiders. The only variation in enemies seems to be whether you'll be facing one, two, or three spiders. Battles consist of mashing that attack command, because Corry doesn't start with any other abilities (despite his class being "Spellblade", which would seem to imply magic capabilities). He gains the "Wind" spell after you advance to level 2 by killing 17 spiders, but there's really no point, since there's nothing stronger than spiders in the first place (and one could probably make it through the demo without encountering any, since the game uses ontouch-encounters).
Aside from fighting, you can find chests with treasure. Some of these are useful things, such as a stronger sword and better armour. Others are useless, such as money that can't be spent anywhere and an MP potion to restore the MP that you'll probably never use.

Errors
On at least one occasion, the game Error'd out because it tried to load a map that didn't exist.
The second time I started a game, I was given only one Hit Point. I have no idea why.

Final Verdict: Everything showcased in this demo could have been achieved with a few screenshots and a paragraph summary. (N/A)/5 stars.
I like the idea of a demo release to build interest in ones game and gather feedback on what should be fixed. Unfortunately, the demo of Dragon Kingdoms II contains so little content that neither of those goals can be reached (Unless the feedback is "Add more Content"). The graphics are nice, and I'm sure at least some people will appreciate the non-random encounters. That's probably not really enough to hook anybody, though.