It’s been a while since a game has caused as fantastic of a first impression as Dragon is Dead, but sadly it hasn’t been that long since one has left me as disappointed. Beautiful with its incredibly detailed pixel art but shallow when it comes to content, developer TeamSuneat left a lot to be desired in this game.
A mix between Diablo, Dead Cells, with a little Dark Souls thrown in for good measure, Dragon is Dead sees you playing as the Successor, a mercenary in a long line of warriors that cannot die. Why she is a successor when the others can’t and didn’t die is beyond me, but that is the lore of the game. It’s your mission to save the world from the ultimate evil all the while discovering its deepest secrets – they have to do with dragons!
Basic gameplay takes place from screen to screen, as you fight your way through hordes of enemies while holding the attack button. You can level up, gain new skills, get some gold (accompanied by what could otherwise be considered a ripped off sound file from the original Diablo as the coins drop on the ground), all the while having to deal with the fact that yes, you lose it all upon each defeat.
While the game’s world could be considered big by looking at the in-game map during your travels, you wouldn’t be able to tell it through the level design. Every screen is basically the same set of platforms you have to jump and defend yourself in, which makes progression feel basically non-existent. And while the basic attack can be pretty easy to pull off thanks to it being simply a matter of holding a button down, it makes it all the more boring to play.
Boss fights, on the other hand, can be quite challenging, with lots of elements going on at once, making them tricky to deal with. Sadly, you do have to grind somewhat in order to be strong enough to defeat them, otherwise it’s a battle of attrition every time you come face to face with the aberrations that Dragon is Dead throws at you. Sadly, while these encounters could be considered exciting, the rest of the gameplay is so dull that I couldn’t find the will to power through it yet again when I died for the tenth time to the same monster.
Dragon is Dead tries to add in some Souls-like lore delivery each time you restart by having you talk to a number of characters that talk in a very From Software mysterious tone full of references you don’t quite know what to make of. While that could be cool in one of their games, where the ambiance and worldbuilding is second to none, here it just feels like that the developers tried to ape upon that idea looking in from the outside, without the depth that Miyazaki and his team take years and years to build up to.
This is indeed a gorgeous game at first. Characters animate incredibly well and there are some very, VERY lush backgrounds to look at, but even that becomes repetitive by the third, fourth time you run into the same soldiers sitting by the intricately drawn firepit talking about life as monsters roam about 1-2 meters away from them just waiting for you to cut into them. The same can be said about the music, which also seems to have come from the first Diablo game, through and through.
Sadly, it’s hard to recommend Dragon is Dead. While I do appreciate the attempt at delivering a dark fantasy experience as a side-scrolling game in the mold of Blizzard’s best series to date – sorry StarCraft and WarCraft! – having it be a roguelike and its lack of variety just hamstring the overall experience.
