Dragonkin: The Banished has decent voice acting, good music and sound effects, nice visuals and animations, and familiar gameplay if you're used to games like Diablo and such. There's some pretty cool camera angles as you progress through the cities and environments as well.
I did find the gameplay much more fun and easier to get a feel for starting at level 1 in the Early Access version. The Oracle felt much more "normal" to me and doesn't feel underpowered at all like she did after the Prologue in the demo.
While I enjoy the general coolness of the game, the number one thing that stands out as problematic is the same I find in all of these newer isometric action-rpgs: bad balance between enemy types. All of these new ARPGs are too easy. I just run through the environments and pretty much one-shot every enemy on the screen constantly until sometimes there's maybe an enemy with more health. This same thing happens in Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, Torchlight Infinite and the list goes on and on. Heck, even Diablo IV is poorly balanced but it is better than these others. I'd say Diablo III is a good place to look for balancing of enemy types. Of course you could go further back to even Diablo II to get a better idea of how it could be.
Basically, these games need more Elite and randomized enemy encounters. For whatever reason, they seem to be 99% easy spamfest and then there's a boss. There's no real balance here so it lacks a rewarding feeling of any kind for the most part. Specifically in this early access form of Dragonkin: The Banished, it also lacks caves to explore.
Features I would like to see improved or added in Dragonkin: The Banished:
- would like to be able to zoom out more, doesn't have to be a lot but more would be nice
- would like a keybind to change camera mode (without having to go into the system settings)
- would be cool if the wyrmling looted gold
- treasure chests could use more visibility - easily shows up on map but not in-game - blends into background
I'm also finding the skill system a little boring. It's similar to games like Path of Exile where you loot skills rather than earn them from leveling up. So, they're not locked to your class and all which can be neat but I just don't find that it really adds anything. It won't stop me from playing and I wouldn't be surprised that I'd like it more the more I played and the more builds I end up finding. I'm just not impressed by it and not finding it too enjoyable yet. I prefer and really liked the Rune system in Diablo III but I am interested in seeing where this system goes.
There's also still an issue with the Graphics Settings not working properly, or something. The game literally requires you to use the built-in Upscaling settings or the game will look grainy and terrible. That was an issue in the demo as well that I was hoping might have been fixable before the Early Access release.
Mostly what keeps me from wanting to play more Dragonkin: The Banished as well as similar new games like it is they're just too easy. It's cool to pass time and mindlessly slay simple enemies but it's a lot more fun when there are more random enemies and random "named" mobs with special effects rather than a constant flow of nothings that just die really fast. Remember "Rakanishu?"
So, anyways, overall Dragonkin: The Banished seems like a pretty cool game and has a lot of impressive things about it but for me it has the same problem as all of the others. It's too easy with no real balance between enemy variety types. It is in Early Access and I look forward to seeing how it updates.
Thanks for reading. Game on.
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