“By Fortune's adverse buffets overborne
To solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,
And not in utter loneliness to live,
Myself at last did to the Devil give!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
Anime. What a treacherous and precarious thing. At first it’s all fun and games, but then a month later you’ve watched 30 different rom coms all of which are akin to the strange smelling juices you find at the bottom of a garbage can. Anime, in many ways, is similar to dumpster diving. Most of the time you find what you’d expect in a dumpster, garbage, but sometimes you find an untouched baguette from an artisan bakery, or perhaps treasure. While anime is a genre of television, the broad idea of anime extends much further. It incorporates music, art, styles, and so much more. Within a second of viewing a piece of media you can immediately tell if it’s anime or not. Dragalia Lost is the newest form of anime I have consumed, and I had no idea what I was getting into when I started.
Dragalia Lost can be boiled down to many a funny sentence. “It’s a game about horny dragons and lolis fighting each other.” “You power up your scantily clad women and sexily dressed men and make them fight two little girls.” “It’s a gacha game made by Nintendo.” These sentences are all true. But somehow it makes sense in game. I have a friend who I would play League of Legends with in high school who would buy the worst possible items on the best champions and still win the game and do well. When we would ask him why he thinks his strategy was good, he would say, “It works in game.” And that’s kind of the mantra of Dragalia Lost. For all of its strengths and weaknesses, its oddities and normalities, for some strange reason it just “works in game.” In this essay, or whatever this would be classified as, I’d like to first overview my experiences with the progression of the game and my experience with it and then rate it given my experience.
The Early Game
The first thing that you see when you boot up the game is about a thousand additional downloads you have to complete. Most of these are probably background bitcoin miners, but I digress. That’s simply a theory. After that, the game lets you do 50 character summons, which you can reroll infinitely. There’s guides online about who to look for, as you can get any character in the game in this 50 summon, but I had a seasoned veteran sitting next to me who guided my choices. I’d get summons with 7 5-Stars, the highest ranking a character can get, and ask my friend if this one was worth it. I, of course, thought getting 7 of the best caliber of character would be amazing, but he’d say, “No, those are all garbage, go again.” I rerolled at least 50 times before getting 2 of the best characters in the game, Gala Audric and Gala Mym, and some other decent stuff, which was apparently acceptable according to my veteran friend. It was finally time to start the game.
Your only option when you start the game is to do the story, which will progressively unlock more of the game as you go along. This gives you a taste of your characters kits and mechanics and how combat works in the game. I found the first few missions I did to be, well, rather boring. As I had some of the best characters in the game already, I steamrolled the first few chapters with little to no pushback from the enemies. Each level in the story has a boss at the end, but to call them a boss is an insult to the video game industry as a whole. These are just larger basic enemies that have 2 moves, but you don’t even see the two moves because you kill the “boss” in one hit anyway. The final level of each chapter of the story has an actual boss that is way stronger than the previous bosses of the chapter. In the first 5 chapters of the story, these are the 5 elemental dragons who will be major players in the story in chapters and missions to come. However, I did not care about the story, so these were just colorful dragons to me. I defeated them with ease and unlocked some new content.
It’s worth mentioning a major mechanic of the game at this point. Each adventurer, dragon, and enemy is assigned an element: fire, water, wind, light, or shadow. Fire beats wind, wind beats water, water beats fire, shadow beats light, and light beats shadow. The idea of the game is that you assemble teams of 4 of each element to defeat foes of the corresponding element. The two characters I got who were some of the best in the game from the 50 summons were fire and light, and I’d also gotten some decent fire characters along the way. Initially, my A squad was fire, so I naturally gravitated to defeating wind content. The newest pieces of content I’d unlocked were Dragon Trials, the Imperial Onslaught, and Void Battles. So off I went to beat the wind versions of those fights.
My first major boss fight was against Midgardsormr, who was the final boss of the first chapter of the main story. With Mym, Verica, and Gatov(who I’d randomly picked up from a tenfold summon, who is apparently one of the best characters in the game), the easier fights of Midgard didn’t stand a chance. I cleared them with ease and was ready for a harder challenge. I moved onto the Void battles and fought the wind Catoblepas. I barely had the might (a rating system that tells you around how strong you are, which also locks you out of certain fights until your might is strong enough) to fight it, and I was terrified. I was shocked when I beat it on my first try. I immediately gloated about the success of my fire team to my veteran friend, who told me to try fighting the Tempest Chimera. Chimeras drop materials that allow you to build the strongest weapons you can craft at the time: Chimeratech weapons. I fought the easiest version of the Tempest Chimera, and for once was up against a foe who matched my power. I lost my first fight. And second. It wasn’t until the third fight where I was victorious.
There was a catch, however. Defeating the Tempest Chimera dropped materials that let you build weapons suited for wind units. My wind team was decent, containing Shingen (a top tier character) and Izumo (a decent character, but through an event I was able to max her[Izumo is a girl and you can’t tell me otherwise]) I built Chimeratech weapons for my wind team and the power level of the squad skyrocketed. What was my B team quickly became an A team. And with some lucky acquisitions of some great Light units, Gala Luca and Isaac, I now had 3 great teams. These teams dominated any foe in their path, whether it be the Dragon Trials or Void Battles(or the Imperial Onslaught, but let’s not talk about that). With some help from my veteran friend farming chimera materials for my fire team, I now had 3 state of the art teams ready to take on the world. I was ready to take on the next challenges of the mid game.
The Mid Game
The next fights on the chopping block were the Advanced Dragon Trials. These were boosted versions of the dragons from the Dragon Trials, and they proved to be far more difficult. Advanced Midgard on prelude difficulty was fun and challenging for my fire team, but was still an easy victory after a few attempts. Standard difficulty was a whole other beast. This fight easily took me 20 tries to beat, and the pure ecstasy I felt upon beating him was a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. I knew expert difficulty was far away from the realms of possibility, so I instead opted to fight prelude difficulty Zodiark, the shadow dragon. He proved to be an impossible foe. His curse affliction negated my healer’s healing abilities and I wiped within a minute of fighting him. And upon fighting him another 10 times, I was never able to last more than a minute or two. I would need a healer who resisted his dastardly curse. I then decided to instead fight Mercury, the water dragon, who proved to fall with ease. Shingen cleaved the dragon with his massive axe and sliced through the foe as if it were butter. I even beat Mercury on expert difficulty, a task I thought I would not complete for many more weeks. Soon after I defeated Midgard on expert, though Zodiark on prelude was still far away from being possible.
With maxxed Chimeratech weapons on my 3 A-teams, I returned to the story to unlock more content. Missions took no more than a few seconds as I had become far stronger than I should have been for the story. I unlocked the Agito Uprising. My friend had said these guys were the real deal, and beating them would be no easy task. My might wasn’t quite there, so I continued getting better units and dragons until I had reached the minimum might requirement to fight them. I then attempted to fight my first Agito fight. Well, not quite.
I’d fought the Agito in another game mode: Enter the Kaleidoscape. This is a roguelike-esque game mode that you can fight in at any time of your play. The final bosses of this game mode were the Agito bosses, so I was aware of some of their mechanics. But in the Kaleidoscape you are ridiculously powerful, and fighting them was relatively easy. In the normal game, they were much more challenging. I queued up against Volk with my fire team and attempted my first fight. I expected to lose, and I did. Though, I must say, I did better than I thought I would have. I knew I had the DPS, I just needed to survive. Gatov and Mym were exceptional in this fight, with Gatov’s insane DPS and Mym’s burst damage in dragon form. After a dozen or so tries, I beat Volk.
Throughout this time, I’d been building up a new water team which was almost combat ready. I’d picked up Emile and Catherine through sheer luck (and about 200 summons), two excellent DPS units. I’d also gotten Forager Cleo from an event, which meant she was fully maxed. Aeleen, my healer, was weak, but with some omnicite, a treasure from the Kaleidoscape that instantly maxes your character, she was ready. I also used an omnicite on Catherine, and suddenly my once weak water team was my strongest team. I fought Ayaha and Otaha, the fire boss of the Agito, and won on my second try. I felt confident. I knew I was ready. I queued up against Abaya and Ochota on Expert difficulty. On my first try, I almost beat it. My confidence was through the roof. On my third attempt, I beat it. My first Agito on Expert. I’d told myself that beating expert Agito would be the end goal for me, and that was one of five down.
From here I did a lot more of the story and tried to pick up some more units. I got a great dragon for my light team, Elysium. Twice. I got Hildegard as a healer for my light team. She could resist curse. Prelude Zodiark now took 2 minutes. Expert Zodiark fell quickly after. Very nice. (I also beat standard Tartarus but that was a cakewalk so that can be glossed over) And finally, I picked up Sheila most recently. According to nerds, she is the best DPS in fire. I now had 3 of the best DPS’s in the game on my fire on my team. I attempted expert Volk, who becomes much more powerful in expert. I could immediately feel Sheila’s damage. Volk is difficult because of his first phase, but my team’s damage whittled down that phase in a minute. All of my units were alive and the second phase began. He went down with ease. I felt like the king of the world. I felt like I could do anything. And when the screen went back to the level select, I saw what was above expert: master. With a devilish grin, I queued into it. And… Well… I beat him on the first try. What can I say? When your team’s good, your team’s good. My wind team is almost at the point where it can beat Ciella on expert, not quite there yet. I just need a better healer. Expert Tartarus, the shadow Agito boss, is a bitch. He sucks and I hate him. I once fought him for 10 minutes straight without wiping and lost on time.
The next challenge in the mid game is the Sinister Dominion. However, I do not respect this content. The bosses’ designs are lame and they have a bad mechanic: Curse of Nihility. CoN negates all buffs except certain buffs from certain characters. This is a blatant way to make only new characters playable and it's a bad practice.
I’d love to make a whole other part about the Late Game content of the game, but truthfully there isn’t much and I have not gotten to it yet. I’ve unlocked Legend Difficulty Agito but I don’t have the might for it just yet. I don’t want to play Sinister Dominion and I don’t even know what Forgotten Truths is. Instead, I will now focus on my review of the game.
Pros
There is a lot of good in this game. The fights are engaging and fun, especially when you go into them blind. Some attacks and mechanics require some studying or outside help if you don’t want to die immediately, but that goes for any boss fighting game (such as World of Warcraft or something). The combat is the defining feature of the game and it is done well. The game feels fair 95% of the time and the addition of each attack being telegraphed helps a lot. Furthermore, the kits of the adventurers are very enjoyable. Sure you get some guys like Shingen who just has one big hit as his skill or Aeleen who just has two healing moves, but characters like Full MC Catherine, Gala Audric, Gala Luca, Gala Gatov, Sheila, and even Gala Mym are all very fun in their own rights. Most fall by the wayside and are forgotten, but there are a lot that really stand out.
An impossible scar on this game is the type of game it is: a gacha game. Gachas are inherently predatory and maliciously designed, as they will powercreep old units and force you to buy the new characters. However, this one seems pretty good compared to some others. Granted I’ve only played this one, but I’ve heard of the rates in other games and this one is rather benevolent. Banner rates are pretty high and the guaranteed spark after 300 summons is pretty generous. I usually get a five star every 3-5 pulls, and have gotten 3 in one tenfold before. While what I’m saying may seem like praise, that is not to say there are not flaws.
Cons
As I was saying, the game being a gacha game is also a flaw. Just because it is good for a gacha game does not mean it is not predatory. 80% of the characters in the game are unplayable, and each time an update comes out that number goes higher. I currently have 112 adventurers and 151 dragons, most of which are useless. I’d say of those, I have 9 great adventurers and 4 great dragons. While the summon rates are generous, if you want the full experience you will have to pay money, and depending on how “full” you want that experience to be, that amount could be in the hundreds.
On the other hand, the combat also has some flaws. Some afflictions are kind of toxic. For instance in the Advanced Brunhilda fight, you basically cannot survive unless your team is entirely immune to burn as there is an auto hit at the start of the fight that burns you for a lot of damage over time. And that's the main thing I want to touch on: auto hits. Auto hits are not fair in a game centered around boss fighting. The fight should always feel like it’s in your hands, but when 3/4 of your team is controlled by an AI and some attacks automatically hit you, it doesn’t always feel that way. While the bones of the combat system is amazing, some of the finer details are not all that great.
Another point I would like to touch on is the lore and story. I don’t even know where to start with this one, as I frankly know nothing about it. I immediately wrote it off as some anime garbage story, and from what I can tell it is exactly that. From what little I’ve garnered from the story, it’s a boring, two dimensional story about friendship and overcoming hardship. While there are some arcs about intersibling conflict and other difficult subjects like that, it ultimately seems like a generic good vs. evil tale with moral themes like friendship and overcoming adversity. I was told in my early days of playing this game that skipping the story would dampen my enjoyment of the game, but I truly believe that skipping every story cutscene has made my experience better so I can focus on the fun fights and cool kits of the characters.
While this isn’t necessarily a flaw, a lot of the content in the game seems entirely superfluous, such as the Alberian Royale, the Imperial Onslaught, and most of the Void Battles. Alberian Royale seems to only exist for the most diehard fans who want every collectible in the game, the Imperial Onslaught only needs to be done 5 or so times and you have all the materials you need from it, and the void weapons you can make from the early void battles are entirely useless as you can just skip straight to chimeratech. I feel like this could have been done in a better way, but optional content isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And that’s not even talking about the Wagabond Pupper.
Conclusion
I did not think I would like Dragalia Lost going into it. I had no idea what the actual gameplay was, and the idea of a gacha game disgusts me. However, I quickly found myself getting sucked and trying to strategize ways to beat the next hardest boss. Despite knowing nothing about the characters in terms of their actual lore, I fell in love with the designs of characters like Gatov, Audric, Luca, Catherine, Emile, Ciella, Volk, and Midgard, my mortal foe. I found myself playing the game at every free moment, whether it be in bed, in the cafeteria, or on a couch in the academic building. It is truly a fun game.
Rating this game is difficult, as I have no idea what to base it on or what to compare it to. Weirdly enough, World of Warcraft and Archero are the only things that come to mind. I’d say it’s somewhere between those two in terms of gameplay. In terms of the merit of the game, it is far more fleshed out than Archero and, despite being a gacha game, less predatory than World of Warcraft. Overall, I would rate this game an 8.5/10. While I won’t play it for too much longer, I had fun with it while it lasted.
Edit: I guess everyone will only be playing this game for so much longer. The news hurt, and I know how many dedicated fans there are of this game. I loved playing this game for the little time I did, and I wish I could have gotten further(I know I can still keep playing, but I'm a little burnt out and this seems like a good stopping point).
