Dragalia Lost Review

   As a Nintendo fanboy, when I saw they tagged their name on another mobile game I still got excited. I am not sure why as most of their other mobile games like Mario and Fire Emblem have been okay.  Okay to the point Fire Emblem isn't on my phone anymore.  Nonetheless, I saw Dragalia Lost by Cygames Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development and took my chance.  What this game is, is just another generic isometric hero collecter, but at least it's high quality.

High Quality but We Have Been Here

  When you get into the game the first thing you notice is this game has some pretty good production value. The opening scene looks good there is a decent score.  There is actually a story in this game too with writing that isn't terrible.  It's all there.

  What is also there is a party system backed by microtransactions and the star rating system like in all of the rest of these mobile games.  Your party is formed by summons that you can do once free a day or spend the freemium currency you get through achievements and daily rewards to summon better ones.  There is also a premium currency that can only be bought and this is all on top of in-game gold.  It's like the rest of the mobile market, the more money you spend the better your team.

   I love the options menu!  If anything this is where the game has distinguished itself from any other mobile game.  As a mainly PC gamer I love my options.  I love to mess with the game settings to get the level of graphics or gameplay that I want.  This game's option menu has so much and even though it has nothing to do with gameplay it adds a lot to the face value of the game.  The game also gives you the option to download levels one at a time or a bulk download for data purposes.  These should be standard in every mobile game ever but I never see it!

The Actual Gameplay

  The actual gameplay is an isometric hack-and-slash with a party of four that you can switch through in the brief levels or set on auto.  If the game plays itself for you then you gain nothing by interacting with it but the auto button in Dragalia Lost will only get you through the level in an optimal path.  The downside is it skips all of the side loot and enemies.  While convenient to go auto, you are rewarded for interacting with the game.

  A pretty unique aspect is the existence of a co-op.  While  I have only played with bots there is a co-op mode where you can actually play with friends. What I have seen so far is pretty basic levels but it's a cool thing to have.

  You can switch between heroes within the level and you can arm each one with a dragon form that is powered up through the level.  Unleashing these dragon forms allows you to do a lot more damage and also destroy in a level object that you couldn't do regularly, opening paths and sometimes revealing loot.

  The dragons are like pets that you can take care of in another screen.  Feeding it levels it up.  There is also a castle that you will be working on and can build some building like a mine in front of it, which will generate gold for you.  So beyond just the hero, they give you a town to upgrade adding some decent depth to the game.

  The game isn't bad and if I wasn't already so burnt out on these games this one would definitely stay on my phone.  It might anyway because the story seems like it might go somewhere.  I just wish it wasn't behind pay-to-play.  I wouldn't mind spending actual money on a game like this if my loot wasn't randomized and I could just play the game through.  I don't necessarily like what Dragalia Lost is but it's one of the best examples of this genre.

TL;DR:

  Dragalia Lost is a mobile game packed full of mobile crap but its at least high-quality mobile crap.