Dragon Marked For Death (PC) Review

Dragon Marked For Death tell the story of a clan of dragon-worshippers that are almost wiped out by an evil church, and the last few get forcefully taken over by a dragon spirit and sent on a quest of revenge across the land. It all starts in a pretty cool way, but doesn't really go anywhere, which is unfortunate, as Inti Creates is capable of some pretty neat plots and good twists. It is interesting you are playing a character that gets forcibly taken over by your dragon god, but this plot point is never touched on which seems like a large waste.

The actual gameplay feels like a clone of various popular MMOs, like Maplestory or Elsword, or maybe a very passing similarity to Dungeon Fighter Online. Players have a core town where they change gear, and get the latest quest, then head out to the dungeon. There is no overworld map or anything like that, and many of the levels replay the same dungeon, but with some minor differences. In some regards it feels small and very repetitious. Like many games that are multiplayer focused, it lives or dies based on the online community. Admittedly, athough there is a strong Discord group for this game, a casual gamer is going to have serious problems trying to find a group to play this with, unfortunate as this has the framework to have been really good.

With the six classes there is definitely variety in how they play, but unfortunately there is only so much to them. At first glance the characters are pretty different and fun. There is the empress who attacks quickly and has some ranged moves, a warrior who is a type of tank, a witch who casts spells, and so on. At first there is a lot of difference between them, but a dark fact becomes clear pretty soon: there is not that much to a single character. Each one has around five moves total. Most of them revolve around very repetitive combos, and there is nothing that changes for the duration of the game.

This is a very badly missed opportunity as it would have been so easy and so great to give a bunch of moves and skill trees to the various characters. Unfortunately what happens is that every map, and every fight feels the same. The character will have some idle combo, usually involving various short-hops and air attacks over and over, and will plough through all enemies until the boss. Nothing really changes, and it doesn't matter if the background (as pretty as it is) is a swamp, a forest, or a frozen wasteland - it all feels the same.

Recruiting and befriending is absolutely awful, which for a multiplayer title is hard to forgive. There are two options, one is to try finding a room, and it searches for literally about five seconds after which it gives up. The best option is to create your own room, and wait 5-15 minutes before someone joins. Sometimes there will be a hardy soul that sticks with you, but largely most players seem one and done types. The worst is you have to disband your party before selecting a new level - given how hard it is to find someone to begin with, this is another negative mark. Lastly you cannot chat beyond preset commands, and there is no way to add a friend in game, so even the friendly player disappears into the abyss when it is all over.

In all honesty, there is nothing bad about the game, but it barely gets above average. There is just so much wasted potential here, which is tough to look past. Making the characters deeper and fixing multiplayer would go a very long way to making this title a far more popular one. As it is, it's a fun romp, but you absolutely must have a crew ready to do it with you or its going to be much more of a drag.