KMGR of "Dragon Sword" by Minoraxis

Minoraxis is best known for bringing Imprisoned!, one of the best mobile games ever (it's huge, even by mobile standards... Think of it as part Lost, part Battle Royale, and part Count of Monte Cristo, in 2D isometric, complete with crafting/synthesis, semi-real-time combat system, and a HUGE island and base to explore.). Dragon Sword is nowhere that ambitious, and is very reminiscent of simple 2D console RPGs where the characters wander around a 2D isometric map, randomly encounters monsters, and go into a 2D battlefield and do the fight in real-time. And that's really all there is to the game, really. There's mumbles about multiplayer, and such on the website, but I'm a dozen hours in and no end in sight.

At start, you can name and choose among three characters... warrior (male), assassin (female), and paladin (male). You only have ONE character, remember. The difference? Different folks gets different equipment later on. And there are some starting differences, but otherwise, nothing too special. If you don't know, pick warrior, who's middle-of-the-road bland.

You start at a town, with randomly sprinkled houses, and two special houses: an inn, where you can sleep for free and regain your HPs. The other is the armory, where you can buy better equipment, and/or upgrade the ones you have with appropriate "gems". Basically, all equipment can be upgraded with appropriate gem(s) and enough gold. The upgrade costs goes up exponentially. First upgrade is 50. Next level is 150, and goes higher and higher from there. You can sell extra equipment at the armory as well. Finally, you can buy some heal potions from the innkeeper, and those can be taken in real-time during battle.

Each town has a bunch of "badlands" surrounding it, full of various nasties. However, the fights always features 2 group of 4 nasties. Each group has one or two kinds of nasties, either fighters or shooters. Sometimes, the paths outside town leads to caves, which has teleporters and more stuff inside.

The town's inhabitants have various quests. Usually, it's to bring back X items (usually 5) from a certain location's fighting. The fighting can also yield colored gems (which are used, along with gold, to upgraded the equipment), gold, and lots of experience. As in typical RPG play, your ratings go up. MP, or magic points, can be used to "zap" all enemies on screen once until you rest to replenish the MP and HP.

During combat, things can get a bit hectic, as the shooters can shoot all the way acros the screen, and you need to move up or down to dodge them, while get close to other enemies and hit them with your weapon(s). There are certain combo moves you can make, such as "stun", "hard hit" and "hit into air" as you gain levels. However, it's hard to pull off these moves except by accident. Usually it's easier to force the enemy into the wall and try to hit them before they hit back. Oh, and be well-stocked in heal potions.

Equipment comes in 6 types: ring, necklace/amulet, body armor, weapon, leggings, and boots. Each of which can be regular, magic, rare, and legendary. Each can be upgraded with appropriate gem(s) and gold (white, green, yellow, red). You may not want to upgrade the first thing you come across as you may find something more powerful later.

While all this sounds exciting, vast majority of battles are worth nothing except some minor amount of gold. It takes a LONG time to accumulate large amounts of gold, mainly by selling items. Once you got items that "steal life", you will no longer need heal potions except in boss fights. So you can sell stuff for money.

The problem of the game is it's difficult locating quests. In a game like Diablo, at least you have an overall quest like "kill Diablo and his lieutenants". There's nothing in Dragon Sword. Your quests come from village inhabitants, such as "please deliver this letter to next village", or "please bring back X items from dungeon Y" or "please kill boss in dungeon Z". The problem is, each village is a little different, and you pretty much have to check each and every corner of town, including individual rooms to find some of these quests, even though you have spoken to some of these people before.

For example, I was in this sea-side town and was killing nasties left and right. I have found the two inhabitants in the "inn" besides the innkeeper, but neither have said much. Then all of a suddenly, I'm level 24, and one of the inn residents suddenly have a quest for me! They could at least have the guy says "come back later when you're stronger" or something like that so I know where the quests are! Argh! As is, I have to re-explore the town over and over!

Graphics and sound wise the game is below par. Sound is monotonous and music is boring. Graphics is simple console style with little if any flair to it. I find "Dungeon Fighter Gunner" to have superior graphics and gameplay.

Thus, with all these problems, I am afraid it's rather hard to recommend Dragon Sword, unless you can actually stand the "level grind" to obtain some of the truly RARE equipment and have some epic fights, but then, it'd just be some numbers. The game mechanics would still be the same.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: easy to get into, action-y
Cons: repetitive and boring gameplay, can't tell where the quests are

UPDATE: I have "finished" the game, as far as the game's concerned. I got a level 36 and level 37 quest, one of which is considered "final quest". That's in the town of Ceskin, where devil worshippers have taken over, and they're trying to awaken Bajamos, a boss demon. One of the quests is to kill Bajamos, and you can do this if you're level 30 or so if you use the border trick and have lots of heal potions. After that, nothing. You can keep playing, but there are no more quests, and no point to it. Extremely boring game.