HomeVideo GamesDragonica Pre-CBT - Final Impression and Review

Dragonica Pre-CBT – Final Impression and Review

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So, last Saturday at 9:00 GMT+8, the very successful Dragonica Pre-CBT came to a close, with many thousand characters having their character name reserved and many players entering the game for the first time. Among the spams for “Where can I find Farrel?” and “Where do I go for a job change?”, there was a sense, that everyone loved the game, and that it will be successful. For the full review on nearly everything, please do read on!

mycharacter

archerwarriorthief

My Characters: Well, my main character was still my mage named Sam, however I also made three different classed characters to test out the different classes and also to reserve character names. I did however leave this to the last minute and ended up spending up to the last 5 minutes levelling my archer to level 10, which I fortunately managed to do.

I was able to get my character level up to mid-high 40s, I would be up to 60 but I did spend a good portion of my time doing videos which I uploaded to Youtube, as well as helping other gamers run through Farrel, which I am glad I did.

graphics

Graphics: This usually would be the same as last week, however…. with more of the game opening up as my level rose, it is really easy to see that they haven’t just added the best at the start, the best is honestly spread out throughout the whole game. I cannot really begin to describe how well the levels are designed, it has to been seen to be believed! The character designs in regards to clothing and skills are also getting better and better as the levels increase. New comedic skills can cause large poisonous gas clouds that can be shown in the image above, as well as new costumes are looking as cutesy/scary as ever!

Music: As I stated before, the music in this game is great ranging from the slow paced songs to the intense battle themes. This was until I heard the music of the levels past what I usually use. The music of the later levels were even better! Once again, listening to the music would be better than reading about it, so definately turn the sound up when CBT starts!

Gameplay: Above is a movie from one of the many boss battles ingame. I would be copying what I said in the Half-time review, but basically, the game mixes a sidescrolling game with some fast paced action. The only problem I have with the game in regards to gameplay is that you are only allowed 4 people per party. This does cause guilds to be not as useful as other games, but in the future when PvP and GvG comes into play more, it should definately be more interesting. As mentioned in the previous post as well, Quests get more and more interesting and time demanding as your levels increase!

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PvP: Definately one of the most exciting aspects of this test were the very high paced PvP Battles. They are honestly very very fun with the amount of variety and balance within the class. Despite being an acolyte, usually one of the weaker classes in the game, I was able to win a PvP Game against Knight and Master Addict Nuglar as shown bellow. (Note, it is Nuglar: 44, Sam: 92)

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So unlike most games, every class is free to take part in PvP, as it is more reliant on how well you use skills and tactics then how strong your class is outside PvP. There are many PvP options to modify such as:

  • Battle Map – There are currently four PvP Maps to choose from, which will increase as time goes on.
  • Teams or Singles – You can have teams of up to 5 people in each or alternatively, have a 1 vs 1 vs 1 continuing on.
  • Time and Rounds – You can select how long a round goes for and how many rounds there are in total. Most of mine relied on 9 rounds.
  • Handicap – Are you 10 levels bellow everyone else? You can ask for a handicap which boosts up your skills to up to 200%.

and many more which I just cannot remember at this time. Here is a video of a full video, with credits going to Super-Moderator Eilrahc21 for taking a video of it!

Communication/Guilds: There are so many ways of communicating in Dragonica! The different types of communication include:

  • Local Chat – Talking to people in the local area.
  • Buddy Chat – Talking to everyone on your friends list.
  • Guild Chat – Talking to everyone in your guild.
  • Whisper – Talking to someone privately.
  • Party Chat – Talking to everyone in your party.
  • Microphone/MegaPhone – Sending messages to everyone in a certain channel or server.

Another thing I do like is the kawaii~ emotions that you can do while talking to people/partying with people. In the following guide, I show the current emotions that are available for use.

addicts

Guilds on the other hand were currently really for socialising in this version, but in future versions, there will be more guild related activities and more of a rush to unlock the Guild Level buffs.

Events: Taking a break from the main gameplay, I would like to review the events that took part during the Pre-CBT. First of all, the GM’s and CM’s were almost on 24/7 talking and helping people with problems (Including all the repetitive Where is Farrel questions). As well, they made public certain milestones such as first family to hit level 60 and first faction (TheAddicts), thus encouraging people to take part in the game, even if only their names are preserved in the future versions. As well, some other fun events took place, such as in the final hours, they unleashed Farrel and a whole lot more monsters into the Port of Wind, I took a small video clip of it which can be viewed below.

Community: The IAHGames Dragonica community are mostly very helpful. You can always find a good lot of members who are willing to sit down (Well, stand) and talk to you for a bit or even do a few instance levels. No news is good news for this category.

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Party System: The party system in Dragonica is good. There are positives and negatives of using parties which are:

Pros

  • Party Buffs
  • Extra Firepower
  • Especially with Acolytes, extra healing or other skills.
  • Honestly, more fun.

Cons:

  • Slightly less experience
  • Less combo chains

My only little annoyance with the party system is it only allows 4 people all the way through the game so far I believe. I would like to see more challenging levels which open the party limits to maybe 8+ people, potentially even guild instances. Still, it is only the beginning of the game, so things shall improve.

boxes

Loots are usually FFA in the maps and at the end, depending on the map, you are either invited to select a box which will contain hidden rewards or you will be given a ranking of S-E and then get an item depending on your ranking.

Other Systems:

mm

The Market
Just like most games, they have a fully functional shop which allows users to open stores accessible throughout any city or town ingame. For example, if you wanted to go to McNuglar’s to buy some apples (Sorry, dont store nuggets yet, forum joke) you can enter the store and simply purchase them, having direct delivery to your inventory. Also, there are three types of shop, with your shop being promoted depending on what market item you have. (Althrough making a normal shop is free)

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Star Levelled Missions
Instead of forcing everyone to do the same mission with only one level, Dragonica splits the instance levels up into 5 levels. 2-4 star is unlocked after completing the previous one and the F5 mission is unlocked after reaching a certain point in the hero quest. A very helpful way of levelling up. As well, some levels randomise their maps a bit, guaranteeing a different gameplay every time. Finally on the missions, despite being unrelated to the star rating, some mission maps do have a very big comedy factor, just like in Dr Farrel’s sewer, with comedic adaptations of well known real world art. These can be see below:

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Achievement System
As seen in the previous images, there are unlockable achievements that you can each in Dragonica. One achievement can be equipped to your character via an insignia which not only gives you a fancy title but some very nice stats added to your character. Some examples of achievements are:

  • Killing X Number of Woodis
  • Unlocking the next job class
  • Reaching a certain level
  • Using a portal a certain number of times

and many many more! I don’t have an image of the achiement menu sorry. I completely forgot.

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Plenty of photo opportunities:
With all the features of Dragonica’s very nice graphics system, there is a lot of potential for great videos and photos, from guides to machinima. The sky is the limit in my honest opinion.

Daily Missions
On certain bill boards, especially outside of towns, you can pick up daily missions which range from kill X number of Y or do a combo of Z. These give out money and experience and eventually get harder and harder, with the rewards getting bigger and bigger. These are not to be confused with monster mission billboards, which are usually one time only. Note, you have to complete the mission within the day to get the reward and new ones are posted daily, with the old ones being wiped.

These are a couple of extra features which I can remember, your next mission is to, during the CBT, find some of the other features, both old and new!

Overall Rating
Character: 5/5
Graphics: 18/20
Music: 14/15
Gameplay: 38/40
PvP: 15/15
Communication/Guilds: 12/15
Other Features: 18/20
Personal Opinion: 20/20

Total: 140/150 (93.33%) A

Final Words: Simply, a marvellous sidescroller which despite its few bugs and localisation issues which were debated in the half-time thread, it has a great potential which will no doubt make this another big winner, alongside Granado Espada (My Ultimate Online Game COMBO!)

Other Resources:


Dr Farrel Guide – By Myself

“I will be uploading more guides and videos soon which will be added to a new post on the main page”

Links:

IAHGames Official Dragonica Site – http://dragonica.iahgames.com
IAHGames Official Dragonica Forum – http://forums.iahgames.com/dragonica
Master Addict Nuglar’s Dragonica Blog – http://nuglar.wordpress.com
This Blog (Sam’s Anime Study) – http://otakustudy.com

Credits:

  • Nuglar (For the images, and countless hours of gaming)
  • Sakamoto (For completing the Farrel mission with me the first time!)
  • Eilrahc21 (For the PvP Videos – I highly recommend them)
  • Kenzai (For the countless hours put intoquest guides that have lead many people to the Farrel mission.
  • BurntMyPie (For the time put into the Job Advancement Quest Guide)
  • The rest of the Dragonica Moderating Team (Crimson_Moon, Altessa and Hachimaki + all the others mentioned above ) for keeping the forums perfect for the whole time it has been open!
  • and finally myself (Sam) for writing this review/impression!

All of the….

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that joined me ingame during the two weeks.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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