Dark Dragonkin is one of the first games that I have had the pleasure of redeeming from Lurkit. Being one of only 4 games that I was eligible to redeem, I poured all my hope into the one and only Lurkit games available to me that didn’t look like a mobile game port.
This description does, however, come with my personal acknowledgement that, as a brand, Lurkit is better than Keymailer in terms of interactivity and user engagement. However, on the other hand, for smaller channels like myself, in comparison to bigger streamers, have such a limited choice on Lurkit due to access to games being behind an “Avg Viewer” wall.
On Keymailer I can walk up to any brand, developer, or publisher and slap a request on their game, believing that I compared to anyone else, will have a “good chance” of redeeming a game. Although this is the case, a lot of the time I will be “left on read” by the places I request from.
Lurkit on the other hand, pretty much has a 100% chance of being accepted if I meet the criteria, if I can actually find anything I want to review in the small pool I’m limited to. Although I appreciate Lurkit’s approach to allowing developers to choose their audience, I find that, given my smaller size, I am severely disadvantaged and limited.
Dark Dragonkin is a weird little game, top down, JRPG-like game that’s more about solving room puzzles endlessly than any actual RPG features. You go room by room, level by level, using 4 different characters with 4 different abilities. You have the Tank character (who is assumably female, love that) who can kick boulders out of the way and smash things, and the ability to use her shield to block attacks. Not only that, but you have the ninja guy who is great for backstabbing people and can jump over large gaps. Next is the druid-type who has the ability to turn into a fairy and fly through cracks in the walls, also having the ability to heal your team. And lastly, you have the mage who shoots fireballs which can light torches and kill enemies as well.
As said before, there is not really much of a story to this game, there is a little starting story to give your characters reason to exist and reason to be doing what they’re doing, but that’s about it.
From the start, what you do is go level by level, learning the mechanics of each individual and continue on through each dungeon.
I did play this game for roughly 50 minutes, so I almost met my hour quota. It’s not unbearable.
It’s a basic game with an interesting premise which I’ve seen similar things done before by Elmarion: the Lost Temple (but that was in 1st person, and you simultaneously controlled 4 characters with the numbers 1-4), and it’s not completely lost on me, it’s just a bit boring.
It’s a puzzle game and there’s not much else to it. There’s no fear aspect, tension, excitement, or anything of that nature, it’s completely about solving puzzles in an RPG-like fantasy environment.
Pros:
- The game works, and has no audio or visual bugs.
- The game provides a unique and intriguing mechanic to managing 4 people at one time. Making solving puzzles more appealing due to having to control more than one element within the puzzle-dungeon.
- All the mechanics of each character are explained to the player, on how to use them and when is best to use them. Not much room is left for mistakes made via the game being stingy with its hints.
- Despite the game being simple, a few puzzles did stump me a few times, but that was partially down to me having trouble keeping track of who can do what.
Cons:
- While the mechanic is interesting, there’s not much else that really draws the player to stay for a while. The games’ music is repetitive and monotonous, and the control of four players is limited to singular, slow movement. I’m aware that this is a puzzle game, and I can appreciate that, but it’s RPG styled, surely that warrants a bit of excitement?
- The game is a little weird with the walking and placement of things. It would’ve been better if the movement was gridded, or on rails. Walking forward moves the character forward 1 square at a time, leaning towards a more move-based puzzle game. This is due to the difficulty of aiming things correctly, the rock being kicked 2 pixels too far, the fairy getting KO’ed because I couldn’t fit her in the hole… I could go on.
- Looping back to uninteresting, the game is nothing to look at visually. The characters are nice enough and are unique looking, but looking at the game itself as a whole, it does nothing to maintain my interest visually either. There’s a lot of empty space, both in the map and the black void outside the map.
Price: £11.39
Time To Complete: N/A (The only entry is me LMAO)
Achievements: 14
Cards: No
Worth The Money: IMO, not really. It does have 80ish levels, but there is no way I could withstand the game for that long to get my money’s worth.
In conclusion, this game is something that I’d like to see more of, just with more “umphf” or however you spell it. It is an interesting concept to have a puzzle game like this use 4 different characters that you can control separately. But as much as they spent a lot of time on making an insane number of levels, I think more should’ve gone into making it a fun-er experience.
Zesty Rating
4 Out Of 10. There’s a hint of flavour, but it’s gone before I can enjoy it.
A genuinely appealing concept for a game, let down by boring level design and no real excitement, tension, or fun really. It is a puzzle game, but due to the RPG skin, it’s misleading to those who think they’re here for an “adventure”. 80+ levels of the same song on loop, barren hallways and the call of the black void behind the dungeon map.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again. Not only that, but being more Lurkit-focused in my new era of streaming. NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
jinxlgamez
Doubtful Player 
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