D.N.Age

Hey, boys and girls, do you want to have fun playing a game where you capture and breed cute monsters to create even stronger monsters and win battles? Then play Pokemon, and stay far, far away from this game. It's one of the most frustrating and tedious grinds I've ever played, and unlike some 300+ hour RPGs in the running for that title, this is a game that grates on the nerves only 2-3 hours in. I suppose I should start with the good: The art is kind of cute, and you can EVENTUALLY grind up levels to play pretty princess dress-up with your assistant lady, which is about the only actual gameplay or fun in the game. D.N.Age is pretty clearly a translation of a port of a free-to-play mobile game which didn't get all the stupid "energy bars" removed after no longer being free-to-pay. Thus, you have bizzare "time to completion" bars on things like crafting the potions you ordered that were clearly made much shorter, to the point of seconds, but still have a "pay gold to get it now" button. There's never really any reason to do that, but it's still there, and it's bizarre. Gameplay consists of forming a party, then sending it at the enemy and hoping for the best. You have no control over battle except for a "skip" button, which you will use EVERY time, because this is the slowest, most boring grind you will ever experience. Balance is terrible, with cakewalk missions suddenly slamming into a brick wall when a new super-powerful enemy is introduced. There are no levels for your fighters, so to get stronger, you need new monsters. The problem is, they drop randomly. As in, if you still need to grind for the best monsters for your area, you have about a 50% chance of losing on the first node in an outing, and a 50% chance of destroying the enemy on the first round before they move. This isn't just because battle is super-random - although it is, with who goes first random, and randomly-activated skills that can wipe out whole parties with one move - who you are fighting is totally random, with the battle on the same node either being against 4 sheep you can easily slaughter one time, and 4 hulking, flaming minotaurs that one-hit-kill your units the next. Praise RNGesus! Each outing takes 3-4 battles, with a 50-50 shot at each of them of losing, then, there's about a 75% chance there won't be ANY monster eggs for you to raise, and even if there ARE, there's a 75% chance it will be a different monster that you already have. All-in-all, expect to spend 64 grinds on the same "map" to find one monster... and you need two to breed... and you need to have more than that if they don't have the full range of genes you need (and it's entirely possible to get four or five monsters in a row that are clones that don't have crucial genes). For that matter, "map" is far too generous a term for it - they just have a purely linear string of nodes that either have fights or some random other thing like a treasure chest that will always either be empty or filled with the potion ingredients you have to sell because they clog your inventory. Your sole interaction with it is punching the "get on with it" button as fast as you can. This wouldn't be so infuriating if there were any fun gameplay at all in this game, but it's literally just punching a "get on wth it" button over and over again. Worse, the developers absolutely loathe the idea of a good interface, and make it so only left clicking does anything, makes half their fonts eye-strain-inducingly tiny, and the buttons tiny, strewn randomly around the screen, and require clicking on that one and only button to continue. EVERYTHING takes far too many clicks. Simply picking up the potion you already ordered and have waiting for you takes 6 clicks, including an absolutely MYSTIFYINGLY long 5-second pause when actually adding it to your inventory. It's literally just adding 5 to the number in your inventory, why does it take this long?! Again, I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to do it roughly a million times and there were any gameplay to break up the monotony. After every single mission, you need to go back and turn in, then re-accept a quest, sell trash monsters, order more potions, then accept them, which, again, takes far too many clicks and has bizarre pauses before you get awarded your rewards. Worse, they never put things you need to do in succession in the same menus. For example, you cannot order a pair of pants in a color, you have to order it at the tailor, pick it up some minutes later at the tailor, then go back home, put the pants on, then go BACK to the tailor to dye your new pants because she can't dye them unless you are wearing them. You know, because of course that's how tailoring works. Also, you can't order more potions made and look at how many potions or ingredients you still have in the same menu - you need to leave the store go to your lab, then look in your inventory to find that stuff out, then go back to the clinic, select making a potion, select the potion you want, click again for no good reason, then tap the + button until you get the number you want because there's no simple ability to just punch a number in with the keyboard, even if you want 50 of the stupid things. There's also no inventory sorting, and if you have more than 99 of something, it creates a new stack, and if you take from the top stack, there is no way to merge stacks. You can actually have multiple stacks with 40 or so of the same item, and no way to merge them. It's maybe not a deal-breaking mistake, but that is an interface failure I have NEVER seen before. They must have stayed up late at night coming up with new and creative ways to ♥♥♥♥ up something so simple and rote. The DNA mechanic that looked so interesting is just another pointless random grind until you get what you want. See, they call it "DNA", but it's nothing like it. The monsters have "Dominance"(sic) and "Recessive" genes, but the dominant genes aren't actually dominant, and you often need two dominant genes because one recessive gene will cancel out the dominant one... you know, because apparently "dominant" doesn't mean anything... Oh, wait, no, it's a "DominaNCE" gene, not a dominant one, my mistake! To breed monsters, you just punch a "breed" button, sigh, and punch it again because you just made a child with all the wrong traits. Also, there's a finite number of breeding a monster can do, then it dies for some reason. You make up for this by constantly feeding it more breeding juice, which helps for some reason. You get tons of breeding juice from quests, but if you ever need to buy more, it is [b]ludicrously[/b] expensive. You basically just keep going until you get lucky and get a "perfect" monster, then after that grinding of an RNG is through, congrats, go back to grinding the regular level RNG. Oh, and do you like all those images of mermaids, centaurs, and other cute humanoid monsters? Well, enjoy your platypus, suckers. You're stuck with straight-up animals like a hamster or a sheep or the "ugly" monsters like zombies and goblins for the first half of the game, and can only unlock the cute people monsters after many hours of grinding. Oh, and did I mention the translation was bad? Yeah, it's bad to the point of confusing. For example, potions are under the "Reagents" tab, and reagents are under the "Msc" tab. In short, you basically are grinding for hours, praying to RNGesus just to get a chance to buy a new skirt for a paper doll secretary. Even for as cheap as this game can be on sale, it's just not worth your time and frustration even if it's free.

The game is a nice idea, but the breeding gets tedious quickly. As soon as the monsters get more traits it can take forever to get the combinations you want and since there is only one objectively best combination for every monster its not really "create your own creature". The rest of the game is mostly automated, which would be fine, if the core mechanic would not be as weak.

A strange game. Gorgeous, well polished assets stretched over a mere skeleton of a game, to the point where I have to wonder if it was just something quickly whipped up as not to waste the assets of a cancelled project or something. I can't recommend it as it is now, but it's a shame because I think it really could have been good if it had anything to sink your teeth into. 2/10

The epitome of a mobile app port, this game actually showed hintings of promise. Unfortunately, the complete lack of a combat system and the sheer amount that is left up to RNG ruins whatever potential this game had. In addition to that, the DNA system, while yes it sounds innovative and was the reason I decided to purchase this game for review purposes... ended up being horribly underdeveloped and lacking any player choice. Here is an excerpt from my First Impressions Review of the game: "Sporting an interesting premise that could have been a great game mechanic, the game ultimately suffers from a complete and utter lack of depth and forces the player into becoming a spectator, which is a cardinal sin. As a mobile game I would say it’s decent, but could have been great had it had an actual combat system instead of leaving the entire game up to RNG. As a PC Game it fails in pretty much every area except for stability and graphics. A prime example that games usually do not translate well when ported from mobile devices to PC or console. Unfortunately, this game just isn’t worth it despite the promise that it had. Again, if it had an actual combat mechanic and more depth to the DNA mixing and matching, this would have been an interesting and innovative game. But without those it’s just boring and pointless." See my full Critique here: https://youtu.be/ODQ0ERzHHE0

I am going to play this game a bit more later on to see if it suddenly changes and gets better. The first half hour I've played so far feels like a free facebook game, just with obnoxious wait timers removed. When I say it feels like a facebook game, I mean from the aesthetic and the automated combat all remind me of some of the 'monster gatherer' style games on that website. It's not terrible, but I can't say it's with the $5 price tage ($4.50 with the 10% sale I got). Give this one a pass unless it goes on a significant sale.

[h1]Gameplay[/h1] [b][u]Zucht und Auslese in der Anderswelt[/u][/b] Das Kernelement des Spiels ist das Einfangen und [b]Züchten[/b] von Monstern. Jedes Monster hat ein oder mehr verschiedene Merkmale wie Haarfarbe, Flügel, Tupfen und der Gleichen. Je nach dem, wie viele Merkmale der Vorgabe gleichen, ist das Monster stärker oder schwächer. Um also ein möglichst starkes Monster zu bekommen, müssen alle Merkmale der Vorgabe entsprechen. Also durchkämmt man die Gegend und findet Monster, die jeweils randomisierte Merkmale haben und paart diese gezielt mit anderen Monstern, damit die Nachkommen bessere Merkmale haben. Im Grunde wie bei der Zucht von Tieren, die dann Preisrichtern vorgesetzt werden und Punkte abhängig ihrer Eigenschaften bekommen. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385054930 [b][u]"Dungeons"[/u][/b] Die Welt besteht aus verschiedenen Bereichen, die man erkunden kann. Diese bestehen aus einer Reihe von von Ereignissen, die nacheinander abgespielt werden und neben Kämpfen auch Loot und Heilung beeinhalten. Zwischen den Ereignissen kann man seinen Monstern Tränke geben, um ihre Kampfkraft zu regenerieren. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385055484 [b][u]Monsterkämpfe[/u][/b] Kämpfe laufen komplett automatisch ab. Abwechselnd schlagen die Monster des Spielers und die Gegner aufeinander ein. Hier haben Monster neben dem Autohit auch Spezialfähigkeiten wie Heilung, die zufällig eingesetzt werden. Zusätzlich haben Monster eine Elementzugehörigkeit, die nach dem "Schere- Stein- Papier- Prinzip" funktioniert https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385056892 [b][u]Dress- Up Spielchen weil ja[/u][/b] Man bekommt zu Spielbeginn eine Assistentin an die Seite gestellt, die man selbst einkleiden und frisieren kann. Das hat ausschließlich kosmetischen Nutzen. [b][u]Meckern auf hohem Niveau[/u][/b] [list] [*] Das Abklappern der Dungeons bringt nicht immer Monster für die Zucht hervor, noch seltener die gewünschte Spezies und noch mal viel seltener einen Vertreter mit Eigenschaften, die ihn für Zucht geeignet machen und man muss jedes Ereignis in den Dungeons mittels Mausklick bestätigen. Keine Möglichkeit, das als Automatismus laufen zu lassen [*] Alles sehr vom Zufall abhängig [*] Mit steigender Anzahl an Zuchtversuchen sinkt bei den Monstern der "Mergefaktor". Wenn dieser Erschöpft ist, verschwindet das Monster nach der Paarung. Das kann zwar mit "Mergepotions" verhindert werden, die einem regelrecht hinterhergeworfen werden, allerdings ist dieses Element ansich sinnbefreit und steigert nur potentiell den Grindfaktor.[/list] [h1]Schwierigkeitsgrad[/h1] Der Schwierigkeitsgrad ist sehr gering, da man selbst nicht viel machen kann [h1]Soundtrack, Grafik, Steuerung[/h1] Der Soundtrack ist okay für diese Art von Spiel. Die Grafik ist niedlich anzusehen und macht auch etwas her. Für die Steuerung wird die Maus verwendet [h1]Zusammenfassung[/h1] [b]Pro:[/b] [list] [*] Niedliche Optik [*] Niedrige Lernkurve [/list] [b]Kontra:[/b] [list] [*] Auf Dauer extrem stumpfsinnig [*] Vieles hängt vom Zufall ab [*] Die monotone "Erkundung" läuft manuell ab[/list] [b]Achievements[/b] [list] [*] Alle Achievements erfordern Grinding [*] Kein Achievement ist verpassbar[/list] [b]Fazit:[/b] D.N.Age wäre mit einigen Optimierungen sicher ein passables Mobilegame, allerdings ist es als PC Spiel erschienen, was dem Spiel nicht gut getan hat. Der stumpfsinnige Grind ohne Möglichkeit, einen Automatismus zu etablieren bricht jedem eventuell aufkeimenden Spielspaß das Genick und bereits nach drei Stunden hatte ich keine Lust mehr. Keine Kaufempfehlung. [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------ [i]Wenn ihr weitere ansprechende Reviews lesen wollt, dann folgt doch der [url= https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32139821/}]GermanReviewGroup[/url][/i] oder [i][url= https://store.steampowered.com/curator/875292/}] GermanSteamCommunity[/url].[/i] ------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]

Well it is a grinding game with a simulator of genetics... If you expect it to be anything else than simulator of genetic with a built-in dress-up minigame then turn away now... Combat here is not really interesting, if you evolved the best possible variation of current star rating you are probably winning without any problem, though when star rating upgrades I had to grind the same map over and over again in order to get a second specimen to evolve with... But that is about it, you just grind until you get something to breed, then you do lots of genetics... genetic part was fun for me, but genetics is my favorite part of biology...

I thought i would like this game... tbh the DNA part of it is good... its correct and everything.. but it can get old and annoying.. and the ACTUAL game play.. is nothing.. you just watch your critters fight... you can't control them at all...

overall alright.

You can find the full review at [url=http://thejrpg.com/dnage-pc-review]here[/url] As a mobile game, D.N.Age is a good time waster. You can spend 5 minutes at a time on it, and slowly make your way through the game. That’s why it has good reviews. As a PC game, it falls into the trap that most mobile ports tend to do. The resource collecting is sped up to make things slightly easier, but there isn’t any actual additional content. The monster merging mechanic is interesting but feels poorly done due to the sheer randomness. It’s basically just like breeding for EVs in Pokemon. The fact that they can’t gain better stats or abilities in any other way is really frustrating and it often feels like you’re just wasting your time. With how limiting everything else in the game is, it feels like the whole game relies on this mechanic. It doesn’t feel like it’s done well, despite being a really interesting idea, and that’s a shame. Ultimately, D.N.Age‘s PC release feels like a money-grab to capitalise on the mobile version’s success. Considering that you’re paying £3.99 for this, and it’s a fair bit cheaper on the mobile, it just doesn’t feel good. Having said that, there are some really interesting ideas in the game, and I wouldn’t complain if they made a sequel and put some real effort into it to make it playable on the PC. But this is about what we currently have. Sadly, D.N.Age just doesn’t cut it.