Thursday, October 4, 2012

Dragon Nest (Part One)

Ever since Dragonica got shut down, do you ever miss playing it?

Dragon Nest
If your answer is yes, then perhaps you can try out this new game that I came across called "Dragon Nest". The game client is only around 2.45 GB to download and after installation and patching, the game client's folder size comes up to roughly 2.94 GB.

Character Creation
Dragon Nest - Class SelectionDragon Nest - Character Creation
Unlike the extensive and detailed character creation system we see in Phantasy Star Online 2, Dragon Nest's looks very primitive and simple.

First we have the player choose a job class and then from there you are given a few simple customization options. By simple, I mean only three to four styles per option. And since there isn't much to talk about here, I guess we'll just skip to the gameplay part.

Gameplay
Dragon Nest - InterfaceDragon Nest - Dungeon Clear
Generally, the look and feel of the game gives off an aura of being Dragonica's clone, but it does have its differences. First of all, Dragonica's somewhat more of a side-scrolling type while Dragon Nest is three dimensional.
Dragon Nest - Leaving TownDragon Nest - World Map
Secondly, Dragonica has monsters all over the places linking between towns and cities, but Dragon Nest doesn't. Dragon Nest's style seems to be more like dungeon-crawlers such as Divine Souls.
Dragon Nest - Frost HillDragon Nest - Instance Creation
Once you exit the town, you go into a map area where there are some interactive objects, some NPCs, dungeon entrances and also portals leading to other areas. Just for your information, dungeon entrances have red colored portals while those leading to other areas are blue in color.

Overall, from the first few hours of playing, I get this feeling that what the game has to offer is most probably its story-telling quests. Take for example the storyline quest of my job class (Academic/Tinkerer). Apparently, my character had time-traveled back to the past in order to change the future. And quite frankly, following this storyline had occupied the bulk of those hours I've spent playing the game. But nonetheless, I felt this experience to be quite interesting in my opinion and kindda like reading a storybook.

And with the following of this storyline quest, I felt that the leveling of my character wasn't much of a grind like in other general MMOs. Well in fact, in just a mere few hours of playing, I had almost reached level 15 which is the point where I perform my first job class change. And from what I've heard from another player, she only took a week to get to level 21.

But since I have only just started to play this game, it wouldn't be too fair to end my opinion of Dragon Nest with just that. I will probably have to spend more time exploring the other features of this game. So stay tuned for the next few articles which will introduce to you the other aspects of Dragon Nest.


Next: Dragon Nest (Part Two)