Dragonica is a F2P 3D side scrolling fantasy MMORPG developed by Barunson Interactive and published by THQ*ICE (U.S. version). Players start their adventure as one of the following jobs: Warrior, Archer, Thief, and Mage. As players gain experience and levels they will eventually be promoted to their 2nd jobs allowing them to gain more skills and equipments. The game is comparable to the 2D side scrolling game Maplestory except Dragonica has PvP (Player v. Player) and GvG (Guild v. Guild) combat systems.

Requirements

• Pentium 4 2.4GHz
• 1GB RAM
• 2GB HDD Space
• GeForceFX 7 series or better

Installation

If you're new to Dragonica, then installing the game can be quite confusing (at first) since you must first choose a region to play Dragonica. See, I never knew that and I just type 'Dragonica' on Google and I just looked for the word 'Download' and downloaded the game. It turns out that I was wrong since I downloaded the SEA (South East Asia) version of the game...not the THQ*ICE or U.S. version of the game. So just letting you guys know that! If you want to play on the U.S. servers, download the client at THQ*ICE's Dragonica website.

First Impressions

My first reaction when I was creating my character was that I couldn't find a B.A. looking character! All of them seem to look like they won't be able to harm a fly. I wasn't disappointed though since I've played other 'cute' looking games like Ragnarok Online. I was disappointed at how you can't set your own resolution though as the game looks really small on a big monitor. If you turn on full screen, it looks stretched out (as far as LCD monitors are concerned).

As far as control keys go, I was having a hard time memorizing all the keys since for this game you don't really use a mouse. I know it'll go away soon once I get the hang of it so it wasn't really annoying for me.

Singleplayer

There's no single-player option for this game though you can just play all alone if you want too. But the thing is, they won't call it MMORPG for no reason right? So I'm skipping this section.

Multiplayer

I picked Archer as my first job and having played a ton of MMORPG games all my life, I know that going to 2nd job would be easy the first few levels and then gets significantly harder as your level goes up. However, I didn't find that trend in Dragonica since there's pretty much a lot of quests that you can do to boost your experience. I mean that's not just quests with useless exp, if you actually do all of them, then you don't really have to grind your way by killing monsters. Most players will tell you to just do the quests and sooner or later you'll be in level 20 ready to change to a 2nd job.

However, as your level gets higher playing by yourself definitely gets boring and then you'll eventually need to form or join a party with people to complete or finish quests faster. Partying is actually encouraged in Dragonica, you get friend points that you can then exchange for experience points (another thumbs up for Dragonica on that one). So just keep joining random parties! You get exp an friend points at the same time and you finish mission maps way faster than just playing them all yourself.

The moment you want to just hunt for items is the moment that you'll probably start to get frustrated. Set items are dropped in mission maps which means that you'll have to grind that map and hope that you get a set item that your class uses. I've literally played more than 5 hours straight just to try and get one of the set items in a mission map. This is the part where you either quit playing or you just keep on farming the mission maps. For the most part that's where players usually quit the game.

Final Thoughts

I kept on playing Dragonica until I got so frustrated about farming the set items (yes I don't want to buy one...no pain no glory!) that I literally quit the game and then uninstalled Dragonica. I mean that gameplay is awesome it's just that farming for your classes' set items breaks the game. Sure it's all based on your luck and if you're lucky than you could complete your item in a couple of hours. But you see, playing more than 5 hours to just try your luck for your set item is ridiculous. That was the point where I was like...damn that's it, I quit.

Ratings

Installer - Remember to check which region you want to play or else you'll never be able to play with your friends who are in that region. It was confusing at first for me but that was the only hard part. After that, it's all about leveling up.

Graphics - Meeh, sure you look cute but try playing the game in a big monitor and then you'll see just how much limited you are. I wish I could change the damn resolution. I don't like stretching out the game on my LCD monitor since it looks horrible.

Sound - I really like the background music for each map, it doesn't make you feel that you need to give this game all your best or you'll never get to the level that you want. It's more like just play the game whenever you want type of music.

Gameplay -I really like how Dragonica handled the partying system. I mean it never felt like I have to fight my way when loots drop and that made me enjoy the game a lot more. It's just that if you want the better items then you need to grind and I expected that too except that I didn't expect it to be that hard to get.