Dragon Loop

• Genre: Action Platforming (Metroidvania)
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much, normal allusions to progression.
• Time Played: ~24 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It may run just a touch too long, but that could have been my fault for being obstinate about trying to get stuff and apparently pseudo-sequence breaking rather than wait for the easier methods to do things.
• Did I cry: Almost got me.
• Soundtrack: This is actually the weakest part of the game, to it's detriment just a little. It's not that the music is bad, but the... loops are a little short and it gets to feel a bit repetitive, for a game of this length.
• Why I played: I just thought it looked really cute. I think I added it to my Steam wishlist before it even had an english version and had just been kind of following it for a bit. It was released on Switch so I grabbed it immediately.
• Jank: Not gonna lie, this is a janky ass game. If there is a type of bug, this game has it. Times where I couldn't use certain moves, times where I can't access the menu. Weird stuck collision with game objects. Lines missed in localization. There are times when you can't actually navigate the menus you bring up. Most of the time going to a checkpoint will resolve these issues(except for the neglected translations), but there are a couple areas this seems to be consistent issue with. Maybe it's not as bad on the Steam version, but that's not what I played. It just came out on Switch so hopefully they release a patch.
• Difficulty: It's pretty much just right, with a caveat. There are times where things seem to hard, times where they seem to easy, overall it's well balances enough. There is a problem with it's attempt at balancing the game I guess to prevent it from getting boring, and that's basically done by tying how much damage you take to your overall progression. This means even weak early game enemies can take a good quarter of your health away late game - even after you have 15 upgrades to your HP! It can be a bit frustrating that basically you always have to focus a certain amount of upgrades on your HP or else you'll be one shot by even early game enemies. It kind of makes sense why they did it this way because of how you can progress in the game, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Despite the jank and the weird choice for game balance, I actually loved this game. I wasn't so sure in the beginning and thought I may just play a little to try it out and move on, but it ending up grabbing me not too long. I just wish I didn't replay the first hour thinking "I skipped stuff", whoops.
• Recommend to others: It's a tough recommend because it's so janky, but it's very clever, has a lot of cool abilities that are utilized in interesting ways, and how it handles navigation is unique - seems tedious at first, but I actually found it pretty clever as I moved on and learns how to navigate better. I want to recommend it, but you have to be tolerant of issues. Maybe it has less of them on Steam? That might be the way to go.
  

For awhile I was on a bit of a roll with metroidvania-style games and could confidently say I played more than most people, but I feel like in the past couple years I've fallen behind a little. A lot of games that have come to be some peoples favorites are ones I haven't even touched - or barely have, if I started it.

Something about 2024, I guess. It looks like I played no Metroidvania's that year. I guess I got burnt out. 2024 was also a record low in game completion numbers in recent years as well. To be fair - I finished a lot of RPGs that year. 3 full Final Fantasy games, a Xenoblade game, Metaphor, Fantasian, and a number of others. Several of which I know were at least 100+ hour games.

Anyway, so I've fallen off of what at some point I may have said was my favorite genre. It's still very up there for me, but I guess they've become a pretty popular genre for indie devs, and modern games I didn't entirely love like Hollow Knight have been a big influence on that market. That along with them trying to stick souls-like or rogue-lite into as many games as possible. I just felt tired of the formula. It was feeling repetitive, or at least not what I like out of the genre. A lot of them really want to be combat focused but neither Metroid or Castlevania really are outside the boss battles. You shoot or stab something once or twice, it's gone you move on. You're just trying to get from point a to be as quick and efficiently as possible.

I understand "metroidvania" is far removed from either of those games at this point. I constantly see social media threads from the youngins, mentioning how so many of them have never actually played a Metroid or Castlevania. Heck, a recent interview with a producer of the upcoming Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was cited saying he wanted to develop the game for this exact reason.

Tangent aside, Dragon Loop just felt fresh. It doesn't entirely bring anything super new to the table, but it felt new and nostalgic at the same time. It's a bit more quick paced - most enemies take a hit or two to take out, and your aim doesn't have to be perfect. It's a bit more about not getting hit than deftly attacking, and while combat can be both chaotic and fun, it's not the main draw. The main draw is how well designed the game actually is - in design that is. It could use a bit more care around the edges, but if I'm not mistaken the game is made by exactly two people? I think there were a good bit of testers - buuut maybe they were just people they dev let play early and gave feedback rather than formal QA. Or the dev just had issues with trying to fix all the... issues.

Regardless, if you can get passed that, you have something really great here. Dragon Loop, has you looping through time, on a cycle of a few days. You always know what day you're on, and time specifically only passed when you go through a check point. As you progress you find alternate paths or maybe even ways to bypass certain checkpoints, making better use of your time. You need to use that in order to resolve the scenarios happening in each main area that are time sensitive. You'll often find the first time you go to a new area it's "a day too late" and you'll have to find a more efficient way to get there.

There are a ton of abilities in this game. There are abilities inherent to your character, abilities that technically come from your little companion, and then there are summons you collect from the majority of bosses/mini bosses. There are also this artefacts, that are basically just an alternate way to boost your stats to the main method, but can also be used to adjust some aspects of the game play. It seems like a lot, but it really isn't. Maybe because they take so long to introduce so many of the main abilities to you.

Because of this though, it makes for some really neat/cool platforming challenges and puzzles. Some very difficult requiring mastery of 4... 5 different ways to jump/ascend/keep aloft. There are more than that, but you can't use them all mid-air. That is to say - early on and throughout the game you constantly find areas you can't access and by the end, going anywhere is a breeze. That's a proper metroidvania in my book.

Oh and there is a little bonus of about a dozen or so mini-games. Talking Breakout, Flappy Bird, Memory Game, Crane Game, Paper Rock Scissors, etc. etc. Any of the ones where it doesn't have you directly control your character definitely feel like thrown together overnight flash games - but they're not terrible and I always think it's fun to mix it up a bit. They don't wear out their welcome either as you only have to win each once and none are terribly difficult. You can come back to play them in a different loop/day just for a little currency reward, but it's not really the best way to grind for money and you'll not really need to grind for money that much - if at all, anyway.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time with it, even if I got a little frustrated at the health shenanigans, repetitive music, and had some issues with bugs throughout the game, and the art is cute as hell too, so that's a pretty big bonus as well there. I also want to mentioned that I liked it's take on an end of game gauntlet, both the navigational/puzzle one and true final boss.