DragonSword: Awakening Review – A Dreamlike Notion

I despise gacha games. This format has been a central source of my negativity toward gaming as a whole for well over a decade. I could speak for hours about why this practice inherently disgusts me, but you’ve probably heard all the arguments against it by now. If I had to sum it up, I’d say my main problem is that any weight or attachment to the gameplay, characters, and storytelling is entirely negated by the real-life currency-infused random chance. The reality of the matter, however, is that the sheer profit they can rake in overrides all else.

Leaving my soapbox aside for now, though, one title that has naturally stood out to me due to my views is DragonSword: Awakening. This title has quite an interesting history: its original Korean version was a live service before developer Hound13 rebuilt it as an entirely premium, single-player-focused experience with no gacha involved. To say this notion is a dream come true is an understatement; I dearly wish that some of my favorite franchises that descended into the gacha mines followed a similar path.

Regardless, my innately positive inclinations aside, this is still a game worth judging on its own merits. In many ways, DragonSword: Awakening is a delight, despite clear issues with structure and storytelling.

Story and Character Writing

DragonSword: Awakening follows Lute, who, in the midst of traveling to the first kingdom mankind has built, Orbis, becomes unwittingly entangled in a mercenary group led by the chaotically energetic leader, Johnny. The narrative is the main area where DragonSword tends to struggle, but it’s not like it has no merits. The second half of the story, for instance, does boast genuine intrigue regarding Lute specifically, while the lore surrounding the world itself has no shortage of care poured into it. Strongly presented flashbacks and veiled truths regarding the setting’s legendary heroes not being all they’re presumed to be give the journey some weight.

However, the core cast and overall pacing leave much to be desired. Several characters are pretty one-note, leaving the journey to simply feel like you’re going through the motions at times. Johnny, in particular, can be fairly aggravating for much of the story because of his ego and the lack of meaningful pushback. At the same time, this leaves the rest of the core cast lacking presence. Long stretches prioritize moving the party toward its next objective without really focusing on their relationships, so it can feel purely functional. Still, the central drive is the gameplay.

Combat and Character Switching

Combat in DragonSword: Awakening primarily revolves around fast-paced character switching mid-encounter. You traverse and battle with three characters in the active party, each embodying distinct characteristics and strengths while directly complementing each other’s capabilities. Combos are smooth and responsive, with animations boasting weight and speed in equal measure, while character-switching can occur at the end of a character’s combo for follow-up attacks.

These cyclical actions also feed into status effects and other combat conditions, with their effectiveness becoming increasingly apparent as encounters continue. You have to always account for character synergy and which effects are worth building up. Your general goal is to break down enemy armor for free hits, but team composition is the foundational factor that influences the strength of your overall output. While combat in DragonSword: Awakening can come across as mindlessly mashy and repetitive at a glance, there is plenty more going on under the hood that’s at least partially determined before the battles themselves.

Above all else, I was impressed by how intuitive the fighting here is, with mechanics that are few in number yet dense in practicality. Battles can also become challenging if you go in unprepared. Enemies have clear, if a tad too forgiving, telegraphs, so fights always feel fair. Combo and character experimentation are where the true thrills reside. Everyone feels meaningfully different in terms of their combo speed and overall utilities.

Character Unlocking and Progression Systems

The method of unlocking playable characters in DragonSword: Awakening is one design choice that definitely echoes gacha-based design. Besides the mandated story characters, others are obtained through an in-game exchange shop using special items, namely Fate’s Invitations. These are obtained in a variety of ways, such as via story progression, and they let you pick the exact character you want rather than needlessly feeding into random chance. I’m not going to go into a whole discussion about how cathartically surreal it is to see this player-friendly approach in a UI clearly shaped by gacha design.

The mild downside to this design implementation is that the characters you earn aren’t all that tied to the ongoing story with the main cast. Still, that’s such a minor compromise compared to how this game could have been, so I really didn’t mind at all.

Another place the gacha remnants show up is in the character growth and achievement systems. As someone not used to how gacha games operate, these menus were initially confusing, but they gradually became easier to parse. Essentially, advancing your character levels and skill power relies on you spending materials, which can be obtained through the exchange shop. This is also where you get your additional playable characters, and taking advantage of this resource is paramount to keeping your nearly 20-character cast adequately outfitted. It doesn’t get too tedious either, since the battles are that enjoyable.

Equipment and special pieces of gear called Karma that enhance character traits work in the same way, as they’re tied to the exchange menus and upgrade systems. To put it succinctly, just playing around in the menus and shops will make leveling and character upkeep relatively painless. The UI could’ve used some more streamlining, but given this title’s efforts to move on from its roots, I can easily forgive some of the contrivedness.

Exploration, Side Content, and Visuals

One last major factor worth highlighting is the exploration. To be clear right off the bat, the world of DragonSword: Awakening is really nothing all that distinctive, both in terms of its visuals and mechanical implementations. You can see pretty obvious inspiration from the scale of other gacha games here, but at the risk of beating a dead horse, the absence of gacha makes engaging with this world substantially more inviting. At least personally, knowing this vast world is part of an experience with no predatory strings attached makes it substantially more compelling to traverse. Mounts are enjoyable to use across the various expanses, rewards are consistently useful, and you’re generally going to find yourself going off the beaten path out of curiosity.

In practice, the open world features various dungeons, caves, collectible materials, minigames, the works. The minigames, consisting of flying through rings or hitting specific enemies, can be overly simple, but given how large this world is, that simplicity makes sense. The emphasis on quantity leads into material gathering for equipment enhancement and crafting, which are relatively self-evident. While overly basic on their own, these components are strong because of how interconnected they are in gameplay progression. Sidequests are an area where I have slight critiques, particularly because the required actions are sometimes unclear due to poor direction, but that’s about it.

Visually, DragonSword: Awakening is a gorgeous game, boasting several alluring character designs and colorful environments that really pop, especially on higher settings. Besides a handful of frame drops, I don’t recall any standout issues in that regard. However, the elephant in the room is how AI was used for “the translation of certain in-game dialogue and external content, such as [their] Steam page and community posts.” When playing the game itself, you can definitely make out instances of unnatural wording and the like.

Knowing about this translation situation did sour my experience somewhat. Still, the team has been releasing updates to fix localization issues. None of this explicitly says they’re moving away from AI translations, though, and if that’s enough to turn you away from the game entirely, that’s fair. If this isn’t a dealbreaker, the story is still understandable; it’s just not really exciting.

Final Verdict

In a vacuum, DragonSword: Awakening isn’t a standout genre definer. Its familiar presentation and lack of impactful storytelling don’t help it stand out in the packed sea of anime-inspired open-world games. But the context of forsaking its gacha roots in favor of a friendly single-player experience makes the story around it all the more riveting. More importantly, with the title’s addictive exploration and gratifying combat design, what’s here is a well-earned success story that’s worthwhile not only because of the gacha model it discarded.