Drancia Saga

Genre: Action-Platformer / Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Drancia is an Arcade-style Action-Platformer originally released on mobile devices in 2014 and ported to Nintendo 3DS in 2017 as Drancia Saga with expanded content including a much wider roster of playable characters. This game has you moving left and right on a single screen, moving into enemies with your weapon to defeat them and collect the loot they leave behind.

The presentation here is decidedly retro, using 8-bit-style pixel art for characters and backgrounds that seems reminiscent of classic RPGs. This is backed by a pretty catchy chiptune soundtrack that fits the game’s aesthetic perfectly.

While the presentation here puts players in mind of classic RPGs, the gameplay itself feels very much like a classic Arcade title, with players moving their character back and forth to attack enemies, occasionally jumping to hit flying enemies or dodge attacks. Players needn’t press any button to swing their sword – their weapon is always out and merely colliding it into an enemy will damage them.

This makes the action in Drancia Saga a bit simplistic, but it manages to get some degree of nuance thanks to it leveling system that allows you to choose which stats to upgrade, its Roguelite-esque mechanic that allows you to upgrade equipment in-between runs, and a wide variety of player characters and enemies to fight.

There are a few elements that do make the game more frustrating than it needs to be, though. Firstly, your character is always in motion, and you can only stop them from moving in one direction by pushing them to move in the other direction, which robs you of some degree of control over your character. Also, the hit detection here isn’t very good, and this is especially noticeable in the treasure that it’s vitally important you pick up (as it doubles as a health pickup), since it will often pass right through you.

Still, for only $5, Drancia Saga is a fun little time-waster, and one that’s compelling enough to keep you entertained for a while. It’s a shallow game and it could have benefitted from a bit more nuance and better hit detection, among other things, but for a simple Arcade-style Action-Platformer, it manages to remain fun and interesting through multiple runs at the game.

tl;dr – Drancia Saga is an Arcade-style Action-Platformer with a medieval fantasy aesthetic that has you fighting enemies by running into them. It’s a simple game and it has a few issues with things like hit detection, but it’s enjoyable enough to be a decent time-waster that’s worth the $5 asking price.

Grade: C+

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