Dragon Nest

Dragon Nest Review

At this point, it’s fairly safe to assume that most games published by Nexon will get a fair amount of hype, and it’s definitely the case with Dragon Nest, with attentions such as its own theme song written by Gackt for its Japanese version. J-pop aside, this is actually Eyedentity Games’ very first title ever even though it bears a striking resemblance to other free MMOs out there such as Vindictus. That said, does Eyedentity Games make good on its first shot, or does Dragon Nest fall to the dust amidst an increasingly high quality free to play MMO market? Read on!

Those Monsters Deserve A Poke With A Sharp Stick!

One of the first impressions one is most likely to get is how smooth the graphics look. It’s worth sayjng right now, it’s a fairly polished title, and it has definitely profited from the time it has been out in Asia. A few things have been redone, such as the voices, and you’ll be pleased to know that your days of trying to understand sentences with total disregard for syntax are over, for the moment at the very least. Unfortunately, even though the game installs almost 2 gigs of data on your computer, you need to access it by using the web site, quite like a flash MMO. Even when you click the game icon, it leads you to the web site rather than the actual game. Why not just link it straight to the patcher? Moving on; the character creation is as simplistic as most free to play games, with the most unfortunate feature being that classes are gender locked, and the most you can get out of it is to make a manly sorceress, or a very girly cleric(Go ahead, try it). There’s a decent selection of haircuts, attires and starting weapons, which does allow for a bit of customization, but nothing to write home about. Type in a name, confirm, and you’re sent straight into the game.

Go Forth And…. Spank Those Monsters!

Or almost. You’ll first be treated to a cinematic, which is quite a surprising feature for a free to play dungeon crawler, leading to one of two starting areas (Clerics & Sorceresses, Warriors & Archers), each with their own story and environment. First you’ll go through a sort of tutorial mission introducing you to the basics, learn of X girl in distress (I didn’t say it was original), and proceed to do your heroic business before being sent to town. For the most part, non player characters have voices and various lines of their own (bad accents are avoided this time around), a lot of them quite light hearted, a few of which were chosen for the headers of this review. This encourages the player to read the quest stuff, most of which is interesting. Eyedentity Games takes advantage of the linear nature of the game by giving it a firm storyline, punctuated by interesting boss fights and occasional cinematics. The whole process has a very vague feeling of console single player gaming. It’s a simple system that most definitely will feel familiar to experienced MMO gamers; get quests, go out into an instance alone or with a group, whack your way to success and then come back for rewards.

Did I Say Spank?

The combat is satisfying and much less repetitive than for most F2P MMO games. A good touch is that you get to choose your difficulty level if you feel like higher risk/higher reward. For the most part, it’s not actually very hard until you get to the top two difficulties on solo, and some quests can only be done on certain difficulties. The spells and effects are nifty, things get blown back, paralyzed, poisoned, and smashed to smithereens. Classes each specialize in a type of combat; warriors get down and dirty, clerics will fight close but mostly play a support role, the sorceress will try to stick at mid-range while the archer wants to be as far as possible. There is no targeting, so you’ll be actively whacking away while alternating abilities assigned to numbered hotkeys. There’s also no mechanic in Dragon’s Nest to limit play, like fatigue, which is a very good thing. There’s even the opposite, called Empowerment, which gives you more experience the more you play, up to a certain limit. The progression consists of a skill tree whose abilities you buy with skill points gained when leveling, with the capability of gaining one of two advanced classes being unlocked at level 15. Instances are straightforward, even if randomized. You beat stuff up, encounter a boss, pick one of three chests for a randomized reward, and head to town.

I Can Teach You Many Techniques For Dealing… Discomfort!

In town, you repair, get more quests, sell your unused items and look for groups to adventure with. The grouping system is one of the game’s least entertaining aspects, lacking an automatch feature, and leaving you to browse through a list of groups looking for the right one. While the steady population of this game means you’ll never really be lacking players to play with, the time it takes to find a group, clear away the AFKs, get to the instance entrance and finally play, makes it easier to sometimes just solo your way through. The items are separated between normal and costume items; normal ones give you most of your stats while the costume items give you your appearance, and have a duration limit. The money store, as of the writing of this review, contains very few items, most of which are consumables used to speed up the progression. There are however a few aesthetic items can be found such as different skin and eye colors, and it’s very likely that they’ll eventually be joined by costume items in the future.  Titles in Dragon Nest also award certain stats, and so do a special type of items called Crests, for which you unlock more slots as you play. Finally, you’ll also encounter the friendship mechanic which consists of doing certain quests to get in good standing with certain NPCs, which in turn give you discounts at the local stores; an interesting feature, but nothing game changing. Dragon’s Nest many small features, while not game changing on their own, contribute to lessen the repetition normally found in such free to play MMOs.

Final Verdict: Good

Dragon Nest is a very good game with super production value; it has cinematics, voice acting, great storylines and entertaining skill-based fighting. In a way, it aspires to bring a quality and polish normally only found in traditional MMOs to the F2P market. Though some people will be turned off by the cartoony graphics and the game’s light hearted tone, it has all the right ingredients for addictive, long-term gameplay, even with its minor flaws. Moreso, there is content down the pipe for post-release patches, such as brand new advanced classes. Keep an eye on this one!

Dragon Nest Screenshots

◄1234►

Dragon Nest Videos

Dragon Nest Feature Video

Dragon Nest Online Links

Coming Soon…

Dragon Nest System Requirements

The System Requirements Below are Estimates. The game has no official system requirements yet. We will update the information below when we learn more about the game.

Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows XP / Vista / 2000
CPU: 1.4 GHz Pentium 3
RAM: 512 MB Free
HDD: 3 GB Free
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 5200 or better

Recommended Specifications:
OS: Windows XP / Vista / 2000
CPU: 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo
RAM: 1024 MB (1GB) Free
HDD: 3 GB Free
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 6600+