Dragalia Lost (2018)

[ドラガリアロスト]

Note: Service for this game has been discontinued as of November 2022. 

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EPD, Cygames
Director: Hiroki Matsuura
Platform: Androis/iOS

Overview:
The Seventh Prince of the Kingdom of Alberia forges a pact with a dragon, setting off a chain of events that leads to the revival of an ancient evil.

Gameplay:
First off, it's important to note that this is an action RPG, which means that you're going to have to be actively engaged with the gameplay. You move your character by swiping and attack by tapping. You have to manually turn the character when attacking. Simply tapping where your target is won't do. Personally, I feel it would've made more sense for you to just tap in the direction you want your character to go or to direct them to a particular enemy, much as in Diablo because it often feels like you move too slowly to properly react to the enemy. (It could just be me.) Also, you can activate a special attack by pressing down. If you have a heavy touch, when trying to move your character, you'll instead be locked in place while you direct the special attack. All told, I'm not a huge fan of the controls. There is an auto-battle option and with a recent update to the AI to better avoid enemy specials, it's really nice for single-player quests, but it doesn't work for multiplayer battles. When auto-battle is on, the only thing you have to control is the dragon transformations.

Let's talk about the core mechanics. Characters and enemies alike have elemental alignments, a fire-water-wind triad and a light-dark dyad. Usually a particular zone is exclusively a single alignment, so you'll typically want a single-alignment party. Your party consists of four characters. You only control the lead character but you can swap characters freely by tapping their icon. The main feature of this game is the dragon transformations, where you can transform into a dragon for greater damage and other effects. Characters, weapons, dragons, and wyrmprints (cards that boost your stats and give certain buffs) all have rarity that affects their level caps (three- to five-star for characters and dragons, one- to five-star for weapons and wyrmprints). Besides your characters' base stats, weapons, dragons and wyrmprints provide boosts. Also, there is the Mana Circle, where you can further develop your character (primarily by spending Mana, but also other materials to open up the successive circles and higher-level skills). Speaking of skills, you have both active and passive skills, the former being special techniques you can use in battle (with a gauge that fills as you rack up hits) and the latter being such things as resistance to certain status ailments. Dragons, weapons, and wyrmprints can be merged to up their level caps while characters can have their rarity upgraded by spending Eldwater.

Your castle is where you build and upgrade various structures to either provide stat boosts or generate resources. Perhaps the most important reason to upgrade your facilities is so that you can upgrade your smithy to craft and upgrade weapons. (While you can get some decent weapons from battle or as event rewards, properly outfitting your team is going to require you to put the work in.) There are some merely aesthetic structures, but you're probably going to be too busy using the space to pack in as many functional buildings as possible.

Besides the main questline, there are side events for grinding materials and special story events. Usually these story events will have raids tied to them. With the exception of raids, all missions can be ran single-player or multiplayer. In the latter case, your lead character will represent your team. I personally find it easier to let the computer do the matchmaking as you tend to click on groups that are already filled or abandoned in the lobby. Single-player quests or hosting multiplayer uses your stamina gauge while joining a multiplayer group uses Getherwings. Both of these can be restored with items, Wyrmite or Diamantium.

This is a gacha game and you will have banners with certain featured characters and dragons. The drop rate for dragons is higher than that of characters. You can either spend Wyrmite or gacha tickets for draws. The drop rate is fairly generous as gacha games go.

Story/Characters:
The main story is fairly standard JRPG fare. The protagonist is rather vanilla, to the point where he might as well be an old-school mute hero for as little flavor that he brings to the story. This is offset by the rest of the core characters being fairly interesting. As far as the rest of the cast goes, it follows the typical pattern of some being rather well-written and interesting and others being little more than a basic gimmick and nothing else. For the characters that are done well, they're quite good. Typically, the higher the rarity, the more effort is put in the writing.

Besides the main quest and story events, we get five-episode character stories for each character, dragon stories (told in storybook format), and castle stories featuring the antics of multiple cast members.

Graphics:
The overall look of the game is bright and colorful. It definitely feels like it's geared for a younger audience, like the preteen set. This holds true for character designs by Naoki Saito, which are appealing but a bit on the kiddie side. It reminds me a bit of Grandia. At least Saito is the sole character designer, so there's a strong overall sense of unity to the aesthetics.

In combat, we have fairly simple 3D graphics. The SD character models are low-poly but look appealing. Standard monsters aren't particularly imaginative, but major boss monsters look pretty good.

Music/Sound:
If you're expecting an epic orchestral soundtrack, this isn't the right game. Much like the artwork, it tends to be rather cheery and geared toward a younger audience. It's not bad, but if more of a light, poppy score isn't what you think belongs in a fantasy setting, you won't be happy. That being said, the music grew on me, including the songs by primary vocalist Daoko.

This being a Cygames title, there's extensive voice acting. The main quest, story events, and character stories for 5-star characters are all fully voiced, featuring a number of prominent seiyuu.

Conclusion:
I have a pretty good history with Cygames, but it wasn't until they had a collabo with Fire Emblem Heroes that I picked this game up. While I have some issues with the controls, I'm overall quite pleased with it and definitely recommend giving it a shot at the very least.

Rating:
Play It