The publishing powerhouse Nacon are at it again. This time with the early access of an isometric ARPG dungeon crawler Dragonkin: The Banished. Developed by Eko Software who have released other solid games of the same ilk, Warhammer Chaosbane and most recently Welcome to Paradize I couldn't wait to sink my teeth and claws into another ARPG.
Let there be Dragonkin
Let's get started with the prologue. The prologue is roughly an hour long and lets you play with fully upgraded versions of each of the classes available as well as a glimpse of the new class being added in Summer. This gives you a quick rundown of how combat works and sets the story of the Draconic threat.
As this is an early access build, Eko Software have made it clear there are things missing and this is not a finished build. There is a full roadmap available that shows Spring, Summer and Autum additions including a new Hero Class, new skills and features
With that being said, there is a lot going on with Dragonkin: The Banished some of it is exciting and others miss the mark. So, let's get stuck in.
Three Heroes Ready to Hunt
For the early access release of Dragonkin there are 3 heroes to choose from.
The Knight uses his fire lance and unwavering faith to carve his way through the hordes.
The Oracle aspires for a world where dragons and humans live in harmony. Until then she zaps and pops her way through cultists with her electrical magic.
Finally, the Barbarian, from far away lands has become a dragon-blood: half-man, half-monster. Armed with his supernatural strength and ice powers combined with a legendary rage allows him to defeat the toughest enemies.
Each hero plays very differently and after my time with each during the prologue I decided to dive fully into the Oracle.
The Good
Before we go any further. Yes. You do get your own Dragon called a Wyrmling. There are currently 4 to choose from and each one has their own experience bar and abilities. Which can be combined with your abilities to create some incredible synergy.
The Dragon in the Room
Now for the crux of Dragonkin, the Ancestral Grid of skills. Which at first glance seems excessive. After spending a few hours trying to wrap my head around it, it makes for some truly exciting customization. Each hero has their own unique shape made up of hexagons. The grid will slowly be unlocked as you progress levels.
The Hexagons or Hexes are broken up into 3 separate types.
Character skills. These are your abilities. You can only have 5 equipped at once.
Wyrmling Skills. These are skills for your dragon that can be combined with your abilities. Like Character skills you can only equip 5 at a time. Be aware that there are also wyrmling class specific abilities so even if you have it equipped, if you're using the wrong element it's wasted.
Finally there are Modifiers. These can be combined with both Character and Wyrmling abilities to enhance their strength. Again, like the Wyrmling skills you have to read everything carefully because some of them are not compatible.
On a side note, there are no prerequisites for abilities and everything can be moved around when ever you want with no downside. Meaning if you get a cool new skill you can implement it immediately.
How to Get Hexes?
Hexes are dropped from defeating enemies and come in all shapes and sizes. You can get a single Hex, or it can be 2 or even 3 randomly joined in a shape. Like everything in Dragonkin: The Banished is purely RNG and I found myself being forced to use anything I had.
How to get the Most out of the Ancestral Grid System
First you need to place down an ability hex. Then anything touching it is connected. So, you can surround it with modifiers to enhance it. Then beside your modifiers you can place another ability or a Wyrmling skill to enhance it further, you get the gist. Just keep piling on and experimenting. If you hover over a hex it will light up with different possibilities.
One thing I'm not used to is being able to respect at any point at no cost. So there is no excuse, not to experiment.
As you level up you will also get experience points to spend on attributes to further your strength.
Upgrading Your City
Finally, you will be spending a lot of your time in the City of Montescail. The hustling bustling capital of Free Lands of the Kingdom of the Eternal. Yip mouthful I know but get used to it!
The entire city can be upgraded and customised using another experience gathering system that I think is tied to completing quests. A lot of the upgrades are marked as "˜coming soon in future update' but you can do a few simple upgrades like increasing xp gain and having somewhere to sell your goods to. I know that Dragonkin: The Banished is in early access but there is so much you can't do. There is nowhere to upgrade or even buy new gear.
World Building
Eko Software have created an incredible world to base Dargonkin: The Banished in. The environments are gorgeous with each area feeling totally different. From Vast forests to barren Deserts full of horrors that need to be destroyed, there is even a completely under water area where you will fight fish people.
Performance
Bar a few frame drops when there was a lot happening on screen I had no major performance problems with Dragonkin: The Banished. It ran smoothly on my 3080.
The Bad
While I had a lot of fun figuring out the Ancestral Grid System, there are a few things that didn't quite hit home.
Leaving It Up To RNG
My biggest concern with Dragonkin: The Banished is everything is left up to the RNG Gods. From loot to abilities and the ability shapes. I eventually was able to craft a ring but it had huge resource requirements and gave negligible improvement.
Combat
First and foremost, the combat feels very lacklustre and has no weight behind it. I was using a sorcerer throwing all sorts of spells and explosions of flashing colours however they all felt samey.
Your basic spell is just a blue fireball which if you hold down attack just keeps them at bay. This attack is used to charge up your magic pool which allows you to cast a lightning storm or some chain lightning to add to the damage.
I know that this is how ARPGs work but the combat loop is not satisfying. Paired with the randomly dropping abilities having to rely on RNG to change up a build that isn't working got quite annoying and by the time things were starting to click I had reached endgame and had to up the difficulty which made the RNG grind happen all over again.
Loot and Lack of Power Creep
Dragonkin throws loot at you like its going out of fashion. Unfortunately, more isn't always better. While there is a lot, almost all of it is useless and give such small increases in tats its more for aesthetics. I didn't find any gear that gave me significant aadvantage.About halfway through the campaigni stopped even looking at what I was collecting. I would browse over it equipping anything that had a better stat and scrapping everything else. This became a chore to the point where I stopped picking stuff up.
End Game Hunts
The story revolves heavily around Dragons and their blood corrupting the earth and its inhabitants, and its your job to stop it. It took me around 8 or so hours to reach end game or Hunts as they are called.
A hunt is exactly that. You need to go to said location and kill your way to a dungeon. Wipe the dungeon of all living things then defeat a boss. All while modifiers are active making your job harder.
A Hunt can last from anywhere north of 45min. You have 5 lives and can not leave once it has begun. So ifyour nventory is full, tough. It can also be cut short but never ending spawning enemies that just swarm you and if you die you respwawn exactly where you fell, in the middle of a giant swarm just to die again. Then game over, back to town. 45 minutaes wasted with nothing to show for it.
Again, being let down by RNG I completed my first Hunt and wasn’t able to make any changes to my build. So, expect slow progress.
Overall Experience
Dragonkin: The Banished has a lot of new things to offer and I had a lot of fun experimenting with the Ancestral Grid system and different ability combinations. However, the core of any Dungeon Crawler being the combat and loot system was a letdown. I understand the need for RNG to keep things spicy, but to have every drop rely on it became crushing when you complete end game content for little reward.
Nacon and EKO know how to make a great ARPG so I have every faith that they will update and change things as they recieve more feedback.
I will be keeping up to date with all the updates and news regarding Dragonkin: The Banished. So keep in touch.
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