Dead Dragons Review

Dead Dragons is a pixelated fantasy RPG brought to life by developer MAGITEK and published by KEMCO, which offers a fresh twist on turn-based combat and an interesting, story-driven plot. After a century-long absence, dragons are rumoured to have returned to the lands. But why now? Enter Will, the sceptical protagonist, whose late father was a renowned scholar obsessed with proving that dragons existed, even on his deathbed. Will, dismissing his father’s life’s work as madness, sets out to uncover the truth behind these rumours, wanting to prove these people wrong: dragons have not returned. However, what he discovers will change everything he thought he knew about the world... and himself.

As you journey through the game, you’ll engage in random battles, which will afford you experience and Extra points. These Extra points are used to fortify your character’s stats to strengthen your hero with six areas to improve: Attack, Endurance, Magic, Healing, Special, and Support. In the beginning, Will’s Attack stat is at level three, making it higher than the others, but it’s up to you to build up the stats you want to focus on with these upgrades.
The menu offers more than just a way to track stats. It also features a Shop where you can spend Dead Dragon Points to purchase items that permanently upgrade your character or unlock powerful battle settings, like tripling your experience points or increasing your damage output. I always appreciate when you can permanently upgrade your heroes instead of relying on items that offer temporary boosts. Especially when I forget to use those items when I pick them up and they sit in my inventory collecting dust…

Now, while Dead Dragons may seem like just another turn-based RPG its battle mechanics make it stand out from the usual offering. You have the option to use a Rotation stance where once a character attacks they go to the back of the line as the turns go through the full party. This makes the hero at the front of the line more likely to be attacked by the enemy. If you don’t like this, you can change the battle type to Stay making them stand in the same spot so that you can put the strongest person in the front to take all the enemy attacks. Besides this, Will has an ability called Downshift, which targets specific weak points on enemies. Each enemy has three attack spots, and choosing the right one makes your attack critical, dealing massive damage. If you select the right spot, you’ll land a big hit; get it wrong, and you’ll still deal some damage, just not as much.

As you progress, Will unlocks the ability to use Ruin Mode that allows him to unleash devastating attacks on his enemy, like the powerful Dragon Ripple that costs zero Attack Points. When these moves are used, Will can summon an ally to fight with him, the first to being creepy, disembodied monster hands to help him fight. It seems a little weird but I will never turn down the chance to get some extra muscle for attacking in battle.

The visuals in Dead Dragons are what you would expect from a retro-inspired turn-based RPG. The character sprites are pixelated, and when they are talking, a stationary portrait of them pops up over the text box on the bottom. When in battle, there are some cool animations when attacks are used by both the heroes and enemies to add some excitement and action. This doesn’t look as impressive as titles on the SNES, like Final Fantasy VI, that used a lot of the space on the screen to create epic battles, but it is decent and gets the job done. I also found that there was a lack of enemy variety in the random battles. It felt like I was always fighting the same types of dragons over and over again, though at least the music was catchy and the location of the enemy’s weak spot would change, so it didn’t feel easy to predict.

Dead Dragons has a fun fantasy story that ties Will’s past family connection to dragons with his experiences in the present, making it interesting to see how his personal feelings have changed. You will fight some types of enemies repeatedly, but the unique combat system is full of strategy, making the random enemy encounters more interesting to get through. Constantly mashing the same button ad nauseam to defeat your foes can get repetitive and boring quickly! If you are a fan of RPGs full of exploration and random turn-based battles this is a good title to keep on your radar.