Dragalia Lost was a bit of an odd game for me to get into – I’d never been the biggest fan of ‘gacha’ games such as this, but I had near-religiously played a very similar gacha game, Bleach Brave Souls.
So hopping from the somewhat harsh lack of generosity in Bleach Brave Souls to the ferevent gratuity of Dragalia Lost was a total shock to the nervous system for sure – Having recently been released in the UK and some other global territories (Previously having been exclusive to Japan, China and the US), developers CyGames have been laying down gift after gift after gift… And the game’s only been out for 6 months in those previously mentioned countries! The game revolves around a magical land known as Alberia, where you – heir to the throne and seventh in line to do so – Euden, adventure throughout the world to prevent his malicious brother, Emile, and his seemingly posessed father, King Aurelius, from forging ‘pacts’ with a set of legendary elemental dragons to dominate the country.
Suprisingly the story is extremely dense despite it’s short-lived nature, spanning over 7 chapters; regardless, the game has been out for only 6 months so the lack of current story can easily be excused. In terms of gameplay, you’re able to summon a set of up to 10 characters at one given time, opting for single or tenfold summons to attempt to get some cool-looking units and dragons to accompany them; every unit in the game has their own unique design, voice lines, moves and backstory that can be viewed once you upgrade them past a certain point – This not only helps you differenciate them, but helps you easily pick out a favourite based on utility, backstory, personality and more. Additional to this, you’re able to ‘promote’ 3 star and 4 star units up a star rank, with the max rank, 5 star, being unable to be promoted – This enables nearly any character to have relevancy no matter what, ensuring that if you do find your favourite waifu or husbando, they’re not stuck in the mud unable to be used as much more than eye candy.
Updates are another excellent part of this gacha game, and appear with a rapid frequency that I honestly was surprised by – An in-universe comic strip gets updated once every few days or so, with a larger content update once every 2 weeks or so – Couple this with constant communication from the developers and taking on-board fan feedback, and you have a match made in heaven.
This is nothing to say of the additional features within this game, however – There’s town-building elements similar to something like Clash of Clans, raid battles to partake in with 3 other players, culminating in up to 16 units on screen at once, co-op quests and special story events as well! The only thing this game lacks, I feel, is a sort of PVP mode similar to Bleach Brave Souls, to be able to duke it out with friends or strangers online to test your mettle. Speaking of combat, that’s another area that I found myself praising the more I played – With around 10 different classes of weapons, dozens upon dozens of skills and upgrades and a variety of status effects, this game isn’t simply ‘press auto and blitz every raid boss’; no, instead proper planning, positioning and understanding of these harder bosses are required to even be able to survive them; take High Midgardsormr for instance, one of the late-game raid bosses – He requires you to understand animation qeues, analyse differences and gaps in attacks and bait him in certain directions to protect less-protective party members; definitely a step up from Brave Souls where you could just ace a mission with a maxxed-out unit and go nuts on auto…
All in all Dragalia Lost has been a breath of fresh air from me after I gave up gacha games all-together. I’m extremely excited for the games future, extremely thankful for CyGames’ generosity towards the newly introduced regions, and am still salty I didn’t pull Gilgamesh.
I give Dragalia Lost: