A Review of I of the Dragon for PC
A Review of the I of the Dragon
Overview:
I of the Dragon is an Action-oriented RPG with a decent twist. Instead of running a human or a bunch of humans in a party, you solo as a Dragon. That's right! You get to choose one of three dragons: Annoth, a Fire Breather, Barroth, an Ice Breather/Magician, and Morrogh, a Necromancer with the ability to raise mountains and undead creatures to fight at his side. Your mission is to defend the humans from the evil forces of Skarborr and rid the world of Nimoan of his minions forever. For this review, I chose Morrogh.
Plot: 2
The original plot by Primal was actually decent, but the rewritten one by Strategy First feels like it's been cookie cut. In the original, the intro says that after the evil forces were destroyed the dragons and humans were friends for a while, but they eventually went their separate ways. In the Strategy First Version (the one I played) a group of "Zealots" rose against the dragons and drove them away. To me, the Zealot thing has been done --overdone-- to death. I liked Primal's plot better. Since I played the Strategy First Version, I had to mark it down for lack of originality in most cases and for an ending which left much to be desired.
Controls: 2
A major game killer here. While I could set the camera to follow the dragon with free looking, and that worked for me after customizing other controls, the controls still felt very clumsy. Half the time I felt like the dragon was flying drunk and the auto-targeting system left much to be desired. I would get an enemy down to 10% health and suddenly the target would switch and send my dragon flying into a Mob of Monsters. The only thing that saved me was Morrogh's awesome crowd control spells and ability to regenerate health when I could get away. Fortunately, the monsters rarely follow more than a couple of screens and when I returned to the creature I was originally going for, his health had only regened a little bit, so I could finish the job and toast the bugger.
On the plus side, I could hit my fire key rapidly and I could actually break stuff with every key stroke! That was the redemption of the controls; it's a far cry from World of Warcraft, where I see my Priest hitting something with a stick every three seconds while I have to sit and watch. When I hit the ctrl key (my standard firing key), I want stuff to break and wicked combos to happen, not a woman waiting for 3-4 seconds and smacking the creature with the force of a feather while I sit back and act like a bored sports announcer. This game gave me that, not in the form of a stick, but in the form of Acid Blasts with a slight delay, which is workable, and of course, no combos, but that's also to be expected of an acid-slinger. Granted, I could charge my breath if I wanted, but I'm more of a short-burst and rapid fire player.
Gameplay: 5
Despite the controls, the game play is actually very decent. You actually have to purchase your spells or upgrade your dragon's abilities every time you level with the points you earn in pockets of 25 per level. Nothing automatically rises, so you can dedicate your points to whatever you feel is necessary. My dragon, in the end, was moderately fast with a decent spell charging time, and was built more as a ranged fighter (though in sticky situations he can get up close and personal), with crowd control capabilities and a nice protection spell to reduce damage a major amount. It took him some time to kill the final boss, but he was strong enough to take the punishment and throw in a few "distractions" to keep him occupied while I toasted him from behind. I felt like the dragon was customized to me, and that was one of the things that redeemed the game for me.
Graphics/Level of Detail: 5
Honestly, for a game made in 2004, when 3-D graphics were still in their rough stage, the graphics for the game are actually very well done for their age. The humans looked and ran like lego men, but I could understand that. But the detail they put into the dragon took my breath away. When you start off, your dragon looks more like a baby lizard with wings, but as you level, he "grows" and becomes darker, larger, and grows spikes, tail fins, and other minor details. I at first didn't notice it, but when I started a new game to compare suddenly became clear. The detail of a dragon growing up like that is not common. In most RPGs, the character remains the same throughout unless you change uniforms. Therefore, that is what made the game's graphics and details very enjoyable for me. The landscape wasn't also that bad -- a little patterned in some places, but not bad at all. But the real fun part came when you ate a monster to keep your Hunger level up for regen purposes: if the creature wasn't dead, it was struggling and screaming. That was gruesome, but so cool.
Sounds and Music: 4
The sounds had an even mix of both original and public-domain sounds. Again, this could be a Strategy First move, but they added to the atmosphere nicely so I can't really complain. It would have been nice if they replaced the animal based sounds with more monster-like ones, though. It would have made the game more unique. The music was obviously changed, as I have two BGM pieces from the original Primal Version that seemed to fit the game better. Strategy First changed at least some of the music to more of an African-Tribal sound. It wasn't a bad change, but I would have been happier had they kept the original score. On the other hand, the "Ambience Heavy" piece was breath taking, and I would like to keep a copy of that on my computer just to play for fun. It was a haunting piece which always brings tears to my eyes for some reason.
Overall Score: 3.5
Overall, I of the Dragon is a decent game, and for $9.99 at Target or Amazon.com, it's not really all that bad as far as pricing. I know the original release is out there somewhere, so I might take a look into it, but from what I've heard it was much more buggy than this version. Nonetheless, it's a good time killer and a great stress relief, but for a hard-core gamer this may strike them as a little slip-shod in both plot and controls.
- Cougarmint.