The Princess's Dragon

I just didn't like this one. It had a few things going for it: it was pretty short. it was pretty cute, and it was pretty easy. I liked the pixel art, at least the in-combat art, and I actually did like the story for the most part, the ending was sweet. The real issue is the fact that the game... just kind of sucks. I said that it was easy, and oh boy do I mean that. I'm not even sure if you can fail the game, the few times that I died, I just respawned with full health and mana, and kept right on going. The whole thing is EXTREMELY basic, from the story, to the presentation, to the combat. You don't level up or earn xp, there are only a couple of upgrades that you find along the way. It was underwhelming from start to finish, besides the positives that I mentioned earlier. I know that this is a student game, and that I shouldn't be too harsh here, but I just didn't enjoy playing this, and I was very happy when it was over before I had even played 20 minutes. I'll give it some points for heart. 3, maybe a 4 out of 10 for the ending.

Well made art and mechanics met with, unfortunately, a horrible story telling but it is acceptable as it is nothing but a student project after all. It will remain in my library for family and friends' toddlers to spend time with. Good luck in your careers!

"The Princess's Dragon" is a student project from DigiPen. One of the first things students should be taught in game development is that 3D graphics became mainstream in the mid 1990's with dedicated 3D cards like the Voodoo3 and the ATI Rage. But the students were deliberately mistaught that's it's okay to release obsolete 2D games in the 3D era of gaming... certainly any professional developer seeing a prospective new hire who doesn't even know about 3D gaming probably isn't going to give them a job. Needless to say if an educational institution taught me incorrectly on purpose, I'd ask for my money back. We also have to question what value there is for gamers on Steam when institutions flood the store with low quality 2D video game homework assignments... sure, it might make the students feel good about themselves, but this has no benefit for gamers who have to wade through this stuff to find professionally made 3D games. So this is a rather poorly made JRPG that covers a princess cursed by a magical sword, forcing you to traverse a dragon's dungeon to reverse the curse. Gameplay involves traversing three dungeon levels, engaging in turn-based combat against only eight uni…

Nothing about this game is good other than it technically runs and is beatable. Gameplay is not great. Art is not great. Music is not great. Story is not great. Kudos to making something and finishing it, but this is just not good.

An okay and simple RPG—very reminiscent of old RPG Maker games you see on Steam. It’s short and straightforward, which is fine, but I was disappointed that you can’t continue from the middle. I quit halfway through and had to restart from the beginning. Since the game is short, it wasn’t a huge issue, but still inconvenient. I also ran into a bug after the ending where you can’t quit the game properly. Restarting puts you back into the ending loop, which breaks immersion a bit. Overall, it’s average—nothing amazing, but not bad either. As a student project, there’s clearly effort and potential here. It could definitely be a stepping stone to better games in the future.

I grew a quick attachment to the story and banter mechanics since writing is such a difficult thing to put out confidently, yet when the first floor taught me that most items have a randomized pool of dialogue, all of the burden of intrigue was placed onto the before-and-afters of each combat encounter, as well as the ending, which did reinvigorate the charm, despite being inescapable since 'Restart' only placed me at the start of the ending and 'Quit' did nothing. The game is a dungeon crawling mazer wrapped in the affectations of a Mind-Heart banter, yet these sections are too easily winnable to claim mechanical prominence. Implementation of the mazer elements such as the locked doors and repeating projectiles derive a simple and pleasing flow; however, the paths of magma are an odd element, since I'm able to be damaged by them but not cross over them. Imagine further incorporation into the mazer such as an item or upgrade that allows me to traverse the magma, or allowing me to do it at the risk of damage and the reward of a correct or quicker path. Pokemon's dialogue strikes a delicate balance against its text based combat in being largely inconsequential, which places more te…