Rawr! – Dragonflight Review
Aabicus, being the awesome person he is, got me Dragonflight for my birthday. It’s a game that’s been sitting on my wishlist for a while, and, like the other dragon game on my wishlist, has been in Early Access for a while. Being the grateful content creator that I am, I decided to review the game.
Dragonflight is a game in which you fly a wyvern (a two-wings, two-legs dragon) around and destroy things. The story is your standard stop-the-bad-guy-from-being-freed nonsense, where you steal the bones of an evil dragon before the enemy does. A bit like National Treasure but with dragons and castles.
The gameplay is what we really want to talk about. The game plays like an arcade flying simulator. The controls are very sensitive, but the flight is incredibly smooth, and the dragon looks like it’s genuinely flying. You can’t land your dragon, but you can hover, do back flips and all sorts. It’s very easy though to fly into another dragon and start pinwheeling all over the place. Losing control and crashing is pretty much a death sentence if you crash at the wrong angle, since it’s really hard to get back up..
When it comes to levels though, there’s sadly not much to talk about. There’s three levels, one of which is only in the beta and is a sandbox mode, where you can’t die. The other two levels involve a tutorial which gives you the basic controls and an actual mission in which you need to destroy a castle to steal the remains of the bad guy. There’s also Balgon enemies that increase in number as the game goes on, flooding you with enemies after the 10 minute mark. I know I’m supposed to be stealing these dragony bits by destroying the big castle, but there’s no indicator as to how much damage you need to cause to complete the level. The landscapes are sparse, with only one type of tree and all the fortresses look similar and fire the same arrows at you. You also look identical to the Balgon and you all have the same breath attacks. The particle system is basic but not bad. It looks incredibly Early Access-y.
Worst thing though is the menu. Your options are very limited and the menu appears unresponsive at times. I’ve also found myself too often accidentally starting the only actual mission, or activating the lore slideshow despite not clicking on anything.
Overall, I like it. The flying is great. The enemy dragon AI is actually not bad either. The volleys of arrows can be avoided and hurt if you’re dumb. I wish there was more to do though. Doesn’t have to involve crafting and inventories and anything like that, just more enemies, missions, attacks and maybe character customization too. Let’s hope it doesn’t get stuck in Early Access Purgatory, like so many other games, but considering how long the game’s been in Early Access, I feel the game’s fate is VERY uncertain.