Yassitron✧

Okay, for starters, the devs clearly CARE about the game being nice to play. I mentioned it has weekly updates, but not all of those are new quests or stuff, but quality of life or balance changes to keep the game interesting and fun. Like, they are even going back and revamping the original questlines just to add a bit more polish, like adding music to stuff from before music was even in the engine, or cleaning up dialogue. They make nice interfaces to help you find your way around the story, they give exploration, they ease the player into the complexities of the battle system, ect.

And it's also very friendly in other ways. LGTBQ+ friendly, and they mean it. Pride stuff up always, gender changes easily accessible and including NB options (not body types YET but considering they would have to make a new variation for every single armor type in the game to do so I don't blame them). Very accepting, nice community from what I've seen, both in and out of studio.

And the story. GODS I love the story. And the world. You start out as a fairly classic hero, saving the world from the evil bad guy, with prophecy on your side (Kind of?), things are a lovely mix of serious and silly that hits just right.... And then, after you've won? It keeps going. Because the world wasn't magically fixed. Because the battle has consequences, on both you and the world. What was once a playground becomes obviously more serious BECAUSE you won. The world is fleshed out, always HAS been, but your character never payed attention to it before things fall apart and running along with prophecy and skill no longer cuts it.

And god that's not even going into the absolute JOY of how it handles it's tie in's with other games. You don't NEED to play the other games but... Short answer is that the game is technically a form of post apocalypse from the Sci-fi spacefaring game, because you RESET REALITY and you start Dragonfable technically thousands of years after that one, in a whole other reality, and THE INSTANT AFTER IT ENDED. All at once. And it's not entirely gone. It's kinda still there. And you... you were the hero of that one too, and you don't remember. (Or do you? some things feel... familiar...)

Also it's art SLAPS. Both it's visuals (a 2-d sidescrolling game on a small crew is normally hard to pull off but Dragonfable is fucking beautiful) and it's music. I use dragonfable music for Symphony in Crimson for a REASON. There's SO MUCH OF It, and it's a lovely music of royalty free stuff from good artists, and in house music made across the entire Artix entertainment studio. And 90% of the time, Dragonfable uses it the best, across the various games.

Now, it IS technically a free to play game. and that comes with some connotations. But uh. I've really never seen a game handle it better then them? Free version covers the entire story and 83% of the gameplay, the 'full' version is a one time $20 purchase, and it's paid currency is mostly for cosmetics. Honestly? I wouldn't be surprised if the game is barely kept afloat with how generous it is. You can beat endgame bosses without paying a penny.

Overall, Dragonfable is one of those games that... feels like it would have died out years ago. Or wouldn't be able to exist in the modern market. But it's not, it's still here, and better, and gives me just... that little bit of hope? for stories and games and everything.