Dragona Review

By Ange Perdu
Dragona is a 3D fantasy themed F2P MMORPG where players become legendary dragon lords on a mission to save their cursed world. Begin as brave recruit and work your way up to a hero with the power to change history. Choose from four different races ranging from humans to aliens known as Catchas. Fight giant dragons gathering their soul essence. Complete various quests. Craft magical items and transform your hero for an edge in combat. Participate in random player killing to mark your territorial stumping grounds or wage war in arena style PvP battles. Trek through a vast world inhabited by hordes of dangerous mythical beasts and even zombies. Raid dungeons, learn enchantments, and aid your chosen race in their efforts to reverse the spell corrupting Magic Earth.
Sea Turtles on the Beach, the Gameplay

Most of the gameplay in Dragona consists of tackling quests and monster slaying. Players start out on a beach crawling with giant sea turtles. A flashing icon at the top of the screen indicates an available quest and prompts a remote chat with an NPC instructing recruits to kill several turtles. Throughout the game instead of searching for stationed NPCs to receive a task the convenient NPC icon guides soldiers through their journey. Combined with the auto-walk feature it makes navigating through the massive world relatively easy. Quests vary from relaying messages to battling boss characters. Kill zombies roaming the fields, hunt dragon hatchlings, or gather the meat of fat saber tigers. Players use the WASD keys or their mouse to maneuver through the cursed land. The boss characters are challenging. Players have to do a significant amount of grinding to level up their hero and unlock new skills. The animations are quite impressive players will often find themselves fighting a flock of gigantic fire breathing dragons which beats slaying standard gray wolves any day. The graphics and repetitive grinding is somewhat similar to Aion. Players can form parties with friends and enter dungeon instances as they level up.
Transforming During Battle
At level 15 players can participate in PK and PvP Battles. Areas outside of any village or city are fair game. The only downside to this feature is that most of the time the world isn’t heavily populated. Players that live to take down unsuspecting newcomers will be disappointed with the slow traffic influx. During a PK match the winner can take weapons or items from the other player if it’s not bonded to them in an enchantment spell. Arena battles are available every two hours. Players can participate in the Battle of Might or the Battle of Celebration. Both utilize a match system and automatically divide players into teams. During Battle of Might heroes must destroy all the opposing team’s members while trying to stay alive. It’s much like any other PvP arena battle. In the Battle of Celebration guardian stones are strategically placed in the environment. Each team must defend their stones while trying to destroy their opponent’s stone. Special war gear and large amounts of XP is rewarded to the winners.
In Dragona players can also alter their character with a dragon transformation during combat. This is a unique and fun feature which gives a hero the power of a mighty dragon temporarily. Transformations can manifest as partial or full. During a partial transformation a particular body part morphs unlocking higher damaging hits, speed, magical bursts, or stellar defense. The appearance of the character’s head, arms, upper body, or lower body changes upon activation. Although the transformations is reminiscent of the Transformers series players get to experience major boosts and special skills. The full transformation changes a hero’s entire appearance. During full possession previously learned skills and weapons cannot be used. Players have to perform a completely different set of active and passive skills while in this mode. All of the animations are intensified making the combat more exciting. Similar to SilkRoad Online there’s a nice variety of skills that can be performed such as the Incendiary Shot, Gaze of Destruction, Catalyst, or the Resilient Medium. Collapse an enemy’s body from within or apply poison to a weapon to execute a critical hit.
Gear of a Dragon Lord
All the weapons, armor, and accessories can be purchased in any of the stationed NPC shops. There’s not much of a selection. Much like Lineage 2 the character customization options are limited. Most of the gear looks identical. Buy basic tunics, trousers, robes, and boots. Players can stock up on HP or mana. Purchase accelerators in the form of potions that boosts attack, movement, evasion, and protection during combat. Weapons vary depending on a hero’s class. They’re somewhat generic in name and appearance as well. Equip your character with the Lycan Tooth Crusher, the Army Sword of the Hunter, the Fanatic Sword, the Jewel Shuriken of Punisher, Sentinel Bow of the Hunter, and the Guardian Staff of Heretics. There is also a crafting system that players can use to create magic embedded weapons and armor but in order to collect the ingredients heavy grinding is required. Gamers like to spend a little real cash for an advantage over others will not like the mall shop in Dragona. It’s pretty bare. Other than a few expensive mounts and an extra storage pass there’s nothing worth buying. Only skill resets, binding oils, and the Goddess’s Grace which prevents loss XP is available.
Final Verdict: Good
Overall the only thing keeping Dragona from being a really great MMORPG is its small community. The lack of players can stifle forming parties to storm dungeon instances, relishing in PK, and participating in PvP battles. However it’s still an entertaining game. Players that enjoy the lore of dragons and the walking undead will find this world to be very cool. The graphics are beautiful making it easy to become totally absorbed in the storyline as your character progresses. Battle dragons, face-off with challenging boss characters, craft magical items, explore, transform your character, and become a legend in a land known as Magic Earth. This fantasy adventure might be worth checking out if you’re a fan of Aion, SilkRoad Online, or Lineage 2.