Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Read that 10x faster and that's the sound my fingers are making while they land on my phone screen.
If my phone were alive, it would probably slap me hard and say, "Would you chill?! You're killing me here!"
And I probably would shout back, "Can you dodge this big fat snake, then?! I'm dying here!"
At least, my character in-game was.
Anyway, I just played one of the best games I played in my life and let me tell you some things about it.
Dragon Raja is an open-world, mobile Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) developed by Loong Entertainment in China using the Unreal Engine 4. The story is based on Jiang Nan's novel of the same name.
If you want to learn more about some of the technical stuff then, please visit MMO Culture's post.
So, onto my experience with the game.
Character Customization
At one point in their lives, everyone must have tried online shopping, right?
You may or may not have experienced buying a smartphone then it turned out to be a brick. Well, what you felt after experiencing that moment is what we, gamers, feel when we play a game and then realize it is not like what you expected at all.
One game feature that is not important (game mechanics-wise) but still very critical to captivate the players is character customization.
If you want to know how important character customization is in a game, then you can read Pioneer Project's and Sillicur's opinion about it.
Freedom in customizing your character has always been one feature in MMORPG that gamers expect but games often disappoint.
Dragon Raja (DR) is a game that delivers the promise of freedom in character customization. With limited, but several choices to choose from in creating your characters from head to toe, it won't be an exaggeration to say that DR embodied what "sky's the limit" stands for when it comes to this feature. Each character in the game probably has an aspect that makes them unique. Needless to say, if you are one of those people who got disappointed over and over by inadequate character customization options, then I promise that DR will not disappoint. Take that opinion from someone who spent hours trying to make their character beautiful.
Gameplay Graphics
Of course, if their 3D character customization feature breaks the sky's limit, DR's gameplay graphics even breaks the common sense of mobile games.
As someone studying the field of software development, I know how hard it is to create a PC game with amazing 3D graphics. It is even harder to create one for phones. PCs have more sophisticated hardware and memory components than phones so, normally, it is easier to create a beautiful game graphics-wise. Trying to achieve the same thing with a phone of lesser quality hardware and limited memory is like trying to fit a dozen clothes in a closet that's ready to burst. Well, well, Dragon Raja probably lost a few buttons and threads on their clothes along the whole process but they prevented their closet from bursting.
Let's try to pry open that closet, shall we? Dragon Raja's graphics are—there's no other way to say this—stunning. From the bustling city of Tokyo to the deep, icy waters of Siberia Harbor, the game's scenery would leave you with your mouth hanging open. Every location available in the game is so delicately beautiful that if this existed in the real world, they would become well-known tourist spots.
After taking a dip in the pool or accidentally slipping on the fountain, the game clearly shows that your character's clothes are wet. Footprints can be seen when walking on the snow and beach and the way the moon shines on the ocean waters at night is breath-taking. How they displayed the weather is jaw-dropping and the way the character reacts when caught in a blizzard or rain is very funny to see.
Taking what is normal in PC games then having the ability to do the same thing for mobile games is borderline insane—yet that's what makes this game amazing.
Dragon Raja probably will or may have already set the standards of what an MMORPG, open-world mobile game should look like. Dragon Raja's beautiful graphics is praiseworthy. It's hard not to expect that the next time someone tries to accomplish creating a game of a similar genre, their newly released game graphics should be up-to-par or better than DR's current one. Good luck with that, game developers!
Solo Play or Team Play
Of course, it wouldn't be an MMORPG if it's just about aesthetics and beauty, right?
Beautiful sceneries and characters are some of the things that make people try out a game. I, for one, am guilty of the sin of only trying to play a game if the design is beautiful enough to catch my attention. If you already have players who are willing to play the game, then what do you need to do to make them stay?
Make them addicted of course—yeah, no. Addiction is a state that gamers reach when they're already sunk deep into the game's world—at least that's what I believe. All kidding aside, to make players keep playing a game, you need to introduce things that they might enjoy.
As an MMORPG, it's not surprising that DR would have the cliche features of having a guild and finding romance.
I think it's funny that what the game considers as "deepening" your relationship with others is fighting monsters and completing errands for NPCs. In all fairness, this is probably the only game you may find someone who would willingly slay dragons for you to deepen your bonds.
It may also be really weird to compare the relationship system to real-life situations because a player can be bonded with 9 others and have 3 soulmates in total—ok, if this was real life, with how messy relationships are, having this many significant others might just lead you to your death.
Seriously though, you need to consider befriending others in-game. I, for one, know that those Oath Berry Buffs, harvested from Soulmate Oath Trees, are used by every player in both PVE and PVP events. Surely, if two people engage in a one-on-one battle with the same rating, the player who consumed the buff has a higher chance of winning.
Events
Since your character is a student of Cassel College, what others commonly call a guild is called a Club. Sure, it implements features like club quests and donations that make the club level-up and grow but it's not just that. If you play the game and go solo, then there's a big chance that you would be left out—especially when you want to level-up because there are a lot of club-exclusive events going on.
There are also some cross-server PVP events. I won't elaborate on all of them in this post but let's just say that there are events that can make you rage quit out of frustration.
There are "dailies"—events that the player can attend every day to gain experience points (exp). If you hate grinding, this aspect of the game will probably bore you very much.
I'm not kidding.
Dailies are probably the events my friends and I are very reluctant to do but need to if we want to level up faster. There are also team events that would reward you with various items and some LUCKY people might get VERY RARE rewards (cough, cough).
All in all, a day in Dragon Raja is very eventful. On a lucky day, you might even encounter some drama on world chat (snickers). You don't even need to worry about getting bored with events because the limited ones are changed every two weeks. The servers are even maintained weekly.
Even if you don't like doing events or dueling with others there are still lots of things to do inside DR—like:
building your own house
focusing on your career—cook, acting
collecting pets and allies
unlock vehicles and show off their stunts
Take care of children
DR as a whole
Honestly, Dragon Raja is like a magician's hat that never runs out of bunnies. Once you pull out one bunny, you realize that there are some more left in the hat to take out.
Some people are saying that the game is dying because a lot of players are quitting and server merges are happening.
To be honest, the friends I've known (a lot of them, in fact) quit because they said they can't keep up with the other players due to being busy with work and school. Some just played because they wanted to try it out then stopped after a week or two.
By now, on the old servers, the people left playing are probably those who spent some money on the game and the people who love the game.
Now, I know that in every game there is a lot of heated topics about whales (people who spend in the game) dominating the server rankings. Uhm, hello? If no one spends, then how would the developers live?
I assure you, that DR is probably one of the most “Free to Play (F2P)”-friendly games out there. Yes, I said it. Bite me, why don't you. I am an F2P player in DR and I am proud to say that I am in the top 30s in DR's class server ranking. I am even the top chef on our server.
You don't even have to focus on PVP when playing the game. I have friends who focus on beauty over strength and they always post their new outfit combinations on Moments.
By this point, I am just trying to lure you into playing the game. Honestly, there is a lot to do in the game and what I've mentioned is not even half of what you can discover if you play the game yourself. DR is so beautiful, stunning, and fun that you can't find many mobile games out there that could beat it.
I know some people who quit would probably disagree with most of what I'm saying. I can't do anything about that.
As someone who loves the game and is still playing it for over five months, DR is a lovely game and it's the best one I've played to date.
Just give it a try. You may or may not love it as much as I do. See you there, fellow students!
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