Dragonkin: The Banished

Did the intro to learn the controls. With there being only four actual abilities to use and one of them being a jump, it has no complexity and was very lackluster. Had to double check my graphics settings to see if I had them low or if it really was just bad as well. The actual new character beginning has so many weird little annoyances, it doesn't make sense. You can see enemies spawn out of nowhere and then group up in a nice circle to wait for you to show up and one shot them. You have gear before actually equipping anything. You meet up with the legendary heroes who struggle to fight the beginner mobs. Then you get sent with one of them who ditches you immediately to run ahead while you fight a boss, which didn't matter, because nothing poses a danger. The hex skill system has some potential, but meh. Not worth it.

Overall Verdict: Dragonkin: The Banished has an incredibly solid foundation and is a ton of fun to play, but it is currently held back by systems that need serious improvement. It is a game with immense potential that just needs the right design updates to truly shine in the endgame. The Good: Exceptional Combat FlowThe single best element of the game is its second-by-second gameplay. The combat feels incredibly smooth, fluid, and responsive. Navigating encounters, casting spells on the Oracle, and maneuvering on the Tracker feels great. If a solid mechanical loop is the hardest thing for an ARPG to get right, the developers absolutely nailed the foundation. Because the core loop is so satisfying, it keeps you hooked—which is exactly how I managed to fully max out two characters. The Progression: The Illusion of DepthWhile marketing pushes the Ancestral Grid as a complex, puzzle-like innovation, the reality is incredibly basic.Pure RNG, Zero Strategy: Progression is a digital lottery. If the exact geometric shape or fragment you need drops, you win. If not, you are stuck farming indefinitely. It acts as an RNG puzzle rather than a strategic skill tree.Shallow Modifiers: The grid fragments only offer basic stat adjustments (e.g., +to projectiles, +to beams, +to AoE, cost reduction). It lacks any mechanical modifications that fundamentally alter how a skill behaves. Because skills are strictly class-bound and modifiers are uninspired, build variety is completely dead. Every endgame player of the same class inevitably runs the exact same setup. The Math: An Impossible Defensive PuzzleThe game features a massive balancing oversight regarding itemization and survivability. The math simply does not work in the endgame:Too Many Stats, Too Few Slots: The game features roughly 10+ defensive metrics, including 7 separate elemental resistances, barrier, reflex, and evasion.The Gear Deficit: Players only have 7 total equipment slots. Because 2 of those slots are dedicated to weapons (which roll offensive stats), you are left with just 5 armor slots to cover over 10 competing defensive stats.The Result: It is mathematically impossible to fully optimize a defensive archetype. You are forced to spread your stats so thin that you cannot feel truly "tanky," leading to frustrating endgame scaling. The Chase: Dead-on-Arrival Draconic LootThe ultimate endgame hunt relies on "Draconic" gear, but the mechanic is fundamentally flawed. Each piece of Draconic gear features only one hard-locked modifier variation. If that specific variation does not make sense for your particular build, the item is completely useless. Instead of an exciting chase item, it is a disappointment. Draconic modifiers desperately need to roll random stats just like normal gear to give players a reason to keep chasing loot. The Endgame: Punishing Player PowerThe ultimate flaw of the endgame—especially during Hunt Maps and Chaos Hunts—is the heavy reliance on time-locked objectives. Nearly every map forces you into a "defend the area for 1:30 to 2:00 minutes" scenario.In an ARPG, the ultimate power fantasy is min-maxing a character to clear content faster. Hard time-locks completely destroy this. A god-tier character pushing 10 million DPS is forced to stand around waiting just as long as a budget character doing 15,000 DPS. It acts as an artificial roadblock that makes your hours of hard work and optimization feel completely meaningless. Final Thoughts & RatingI really like this game, and the smooth combat foundation makes it well worth playing. However, it feels like it is just a few major balance patches away from being truly great. If the developers can randomize Draconic gear, deepen the fragment mechanics, and remove time-gated missions, this could easily become a top-tier ARPG.Score: 6/10 (A very solid, enjoyable foundation that just needs some post-launch love to fix the endgame loop).