Dragonborne

I really wanted to like this, but it just isn't for me. I'm two hours in and while the game isn't bad by any means it's just...dull. I'm having a very hard time convincing myself to keep going. There's a lot of moving boulder puzzles and fetch quests to find multiple items like dragon scales to enter a cave or golden dragons. There are also fetch quests like finding a cat that ran into a forest or bringing a guy and sandwich to receive an item, that when combined with other fetch quest items, will help you to advance. I got a raft this way. Battles are the weakest part of the game as they may be laid out by Pokemon style turn based combat, you really can just hit attack and win the battles pretty easily. Win a battle, chug a potion, and repeat until the area is cleared. Often you HAVE to kill all the opponents in an area to proceed, like getting a door in a cave to open or to save a girl from Trolls. However you get nothing but a tiny amount of coins for your time and (little) effort. It's very repetitive, regardless of opponent type, and I just got so bored from the combat alone. The music can also be very grating and hard on the ears pitch-wise. There is no experience or leveling up, so I don't think the RPG or even the turn based tactics are correct tags for this game. When I think tactics I think Shining Force or grid based party combat. This is "choose attack and that is it for the first hour of the game and nothing else." Once I received a healing spell, my reliance on potions shrank. That was something. So what did I like about the game? Well the coding and GB emulation is solid. Technically the game is quite good for what it us trying to achieve. The graphics are nice and I like the character designs. I'm not sure who the target audience is for this, and I'm the type of guy that has purchased new Game Boy games, new Dreamcast games and even Neo*Geo carts. It has some RPG elements, but it definitely doesn't feel like one in a good way. it's a weird cross between a RPG and a strategy game, with the worst elements of both. It's technically sound but aesthetically it just turns me off in multiple ways. Clearly this isn't going to be the next Crystalis, Legend of the River King or Azure Dreams. It's great to see someone repping an old system like this, but it's just not something I enjoyed or could recommend. I'm only about 25% of the way in and I might consider giving it another go, but I can't see myself slogging through this to the end.I wish i could give this a thumb's in the middle because I'm sure some people will enjoy this. It's just I'm not one of them.