Dragon ForceReview by: Yan-Fa LI
Okay, this will be a technical sort of review. I've played RPG's
before, Final Fantasy 3 and a mech strategy game called Earth Light or
something on the old SNES, & Secret of Mana. I've been playing it for
about 40+ hours and I'm close to meeting the bad guy Madruk.
How the Game Works (Mechanics):
The game has 8 kingdoms. Initially the player may only choose to play 6
of the 8 kings. If you complete the game you get access to the last 2
kings of Tradnor, Fandoria. The characters are varied and have
individual different plot-lines. They are mostly warrior types. My
favourite so far has been the kingdom of Izumo. Samurai are kinda cool.
I've played through with Tristan so far and am close to the end.
Each king starts out with 4 or 5 generals. Only generals can command
troops. A general can command up to 100 troops of a particular type.
Initially they can only command 20 or 30. As they begin to win
battles you may promote them by awarding medals. Each extra medal
for a particular troop class adds 10 more troops to the characters
abilities.
Like a regular RPG, each general has Hit & Magic points, and a level.
The more fights you send them into the more experience they earn and the
tougher they become, gaining fancy titles, more magic and hit points.
The manual claims that there are around 200 generals in the game. I've
personally seen about 150 or so of those.
You get access to more generals by defeating & then capturing them in
combat. An alternative is to search for them during the weekly domestic
affairs phase. Once you capture a general, you can offer to hire them.
Certain generals are "vital" and will not join you until you've captured
the king of their kingdom. Others will refuse to join you until later.
Some of them have personal conflicts and have to managed, but generally
they do what you say.
The generals each have a character class, varying from thieves through
to spirit users. This doesn't appear that important to the game play
and only seems to affect the spells and types of units they can
control. Generally, only kings can command more than one type of unit
of which there are Soldiers, Cavalry, Monks, Mages, Archers, Zombies,
Samurai, and Dragons; I may have missed one or two others.
Using Magic effectively is really key to winning battles and generally
those with good combat spells and high MP win. The strategy in battle
comes from managing the different attack modes, using spells at the
right time, and matching the correct kind of troops. Certain troop
combinations are poor, for example Monks have a combat advantage against
Cavalry. Samurai kick Dragons and Zombies kick everything except Mages,
Monks and Dragons.
Terrain effects also come into play, but usually are not significant
unless you are in a castle. Combat works like this. When 2 armies meet
you go through a number of rounds, where you match generals. The
computer selects his general and then you pick your best match. The
combat takes place on a pseudo 3d battlefield using pretty good sprites.
You each start off on opposite sides of the screen and have 90 seconds
to kick the living crap out of each other. To win you must force the
opposing general to either retreat or zero hit points. You do not have
to kill all the generals troops, knocking out the general is an
automagic win. Running out of time is an automatic draw. Retreating is
considered a loss. An interesting feature is some of the generals will
chicken out if the odds look bad and refuse to fight. You can override
them, but I'm not sure what the consequences are.
Spell casting is done through a spells menu. You have a limited number
of Magic points and a recharge period for casting those spells. Beating
the computer to the punch is also part of the strategy. Spells
generally target the opponents army, the general, yourself or your own
troops. They start out small, such as sonic waves and end up big like
at the end where you get a sonic dragon (believe me this one kicks
butt).
Each general can only have 3 spells, and the character class determines
what kind of magic they receive. The most useful fighters in a group
generally have spells which cause mass destruction quickly or more
subtly prevent the opponent from using magic.
Battle strategy is split into 5 different options. Special, Offensive,
Defensive, Retreat and Character Dependent (Raid, Protect, Breach).
When you begin the battle you get to select which of the options you
want. Then you remain in that menu for the remainder of the battle.
Within that menu, you have different sub commands such as advance,
retreat, etc... This bit is fun, and managing your troops is crucial.
It's quite addictive at times.
If you both run out of troops, then you get to duel. This can often be
one of the most frustrating and yet satisfying parts of the game. Once
it begins you cannot retreat and both generals begin duking it out. Fun
to watch, especially since they throw insults at each other. It would
have been nice to have the option of pulling out of duel if you are
losing, but overall I like what they did here. Some of the characters
are unpredictable and will fight like a cornered she cat if you let
them. Watch out for the generals that insult during combat. They are
generally the most effective during duels.
Taking over castles is how you win the first part of the game. You need
to defeat each of the other 8 kings and get them to work for you to
complete the game. Each castle lets you increase the number of troops
you can hold in reserve. You see after each combat, you generally have
to recruit more troops. Each castle has a limit on the number of troops
they can have on hand. By fortifying castles you can improve combat
bonuses for those in the castle and increase this limit, but the castle
must have a general in it so that the troops will begin to accumulate.
Unoccupied castles accumulate no troops.
The game runs in phases of a week. A small hourglass runs in the top
right hand corner denoting the passage of time. During the week, you
are on the game map, where you direct troops get attacked or attack. At
the end of each game week you enter a Domestic Affairs phase where you
can convince captives to come work for you, award generals with more
troops, look for items or generals, hand out magic items, and save you
game.
The game understands how to use carts and that's where I tend to save my
games. The management phase is one area I have a complaint. It's very
difficult to manage 100+ generals and I wish there was some way this
could be made easier. Scrolling through long lists of generals is a
pain. It's the same with managing the castles. Pictures of each
of the generals besides the names would have been nice.
You may only fortify or search a castle if a general whom has that
ability happens to be stationed there. Now this bit is fun at first,
but becomes a right royal pain in the arse when you have to do it for
the 20th time. I think that they should have had some kind of default
button and just do summaries. This bit needs work and I hope if dragon
force 2 comes out they will fix it.
Okay that's how the mechanics of the game work. I think I got most of
the major points. Now for the score break down.
RPG Elements: 7.5
the graphics are great anime' style, but I would have liked
a little more action rather than stills. The story lines
appear to be the usual suspects, but they are enjoyable
nevertheless. Finding magic and weapons if fun, but
repetitious.
Combat System: 8.5
I think the manual needs to be a little clearer on the sort
of things you can do. It took me ages and ages and ages
to figure out how subtle the system really was. Still
I generally use defense mode against most enemies so
go figure. It definitely is deep, and you learn stuff even
after playing it for 40 hours.
I don't think you can compare combat in Dragon Force to
either C&C or Warcraft. It's quite unlike anything
I've played before, sorry I didn't see Ogre Battle.
It's more like a simplified realtime version of Chess.
Positioning, timing, & forethought are required to win
later battles and it has some subtle things which you
only really learn through play.
Love the braveheart battle cries though! Wish they
were more varied. It's always the same. I don't
think dragons sound like Humans when they roar...
It might have been nice to have an option to turn off
the mud slinging that occurs before every match, but
well what the hey.
Character System: 7.0
Very simple. Only fleshed out for the lead 8 kings.
Still quite satisfying. I particularly like the titles.
Very easy to get levels, and good feeling of progression.
I wish there was more information about each of the character
types, but it's sort of going back to the chess analogy. All
the pieces are fixed at the start of the game and which ones you
use and how you use them is important. There is no feeling of
really controlling the destinies of the characters, just
managing the individual battles and character elements.
Graphics: 8.5
Good, bright, clear and attractive Japanese style anime'
graphics. The sprites are fun looking and you feel sorry
for your troops when they are getting killed.
Sound: 8.5
Good orchestral type stuff, but after 40 hours I'm bored.
It would have been nice to have some more tracks. It's
always the same. Also the wacky cheering and booing
that goes on when you succeed or fail would have been nice to
turn off after a while.
Overall: 8.5
I think that this game is very good overall, but they
need to fix the pedantic menu system. I don't need the
same text being spewed at me everytime I enter the same menu.
Make the menu systems faster and this will help a lot.
They've made some good control changes in the US version in
the combat, and I really appreciate them. I wish they
could have done something in the castle menus too.
I think they need to work on making the game easier to manage
when it becomes large scale. Like a list of castles
that are undertrooped. Sometimes the map is a pain. It
scrolls around when it has to show you things and it's a major
pain in the butt from time to time. Perhaps a feature where
you can set a castle to auto recruit troops when the
generals have completed a battle ?
However, this is a fun piece of software. If the idea of
commanding large armies (upto 100 troops) of various types
against other armies appeals to you and you like to make
macro-strategic decisions rather than the micro-ones fostered on
you my warcraft or C&C, I think you'll enjoy this game.
The RPG is really a background filler, the main game is
the combat system and managing the generals and castles.
In the end the game hangs off the combat system and I think
that's why it succeeds, because the combat works. I'm
looking forward to seeing Suikoden on the PS-X now as
that is supposed to have an army vs. army feature.
Notes: Okay, I've seen the army feature in Suikoden.
Dragon Force is superior in that respect.
Suikoden uses a variation of paper, scissors, rock
and is not as much fun as Dragon Force.
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