‘Reign of Dragons’ Review – A Slow but Polished Card Game

Reign of Dragons is a freemium card battling iOS game developed by Drecom that runs upon the GREE network. It follows closely the design paradigms and mechanics of other card games such as the popular Rage of Bahamut and Blood Brothers. At first glance, it might not seem to offer enough differentiation from other games in the genre, however it does contain more polish than many of these card games and a beautiful card art aesthetic as well.

Players begin their journey by choosing a faction to align with — either Justice, Genesis, or Chaos, each one offering bonuses and different types of hero characters to play with. The standard core loop is that players will quest in order to level up and start collecting cards with which to begin building decks with, then battle bosses and other players to increase their power and unlock new cards. It’s not a tremendously deep objective — you play the game so that you can get rarer cards so that you can continue to play the game. This is a carefully honed technique that many Asian companies are utilizing to dominate the Top Grossing charts on the App Store, and it’s certainly working. Reign of Dragons has been hovering in the top 50 grossing, so Drecom is doing something right!

Questing isn’t terribly immersive. Anyone who is familiar with the old php-based RPG games of olden days on Facebook & MySpace (Mafia Wars, Mob Wars) will recognize this questing mechanic as the same ol’ thing with a new coat of paint. A quest takes precious stamina which regenerates over time (you get 15 free minutes of questing per day), and gives you XP for completing it. Reign of Dragons doesn’t even try to involve much of a story — going through the quests is really just an exercise of tapping to fill up meters. Some card games give you loot each time you tap, but Reign Of Dragons saves up all of the loot for when the quest has been completed at the end. This is a welcome change, as it reduces the loading time substantially and allows faster progression through quests.

Card battles are only a bit interactive. Players can attack other players and choose which one of their decks they want to use against them. Attack scores are tallied against defense scores, and whomever comes out higher will become the victor and win treasure and XP. Naturally, like any good Asian game, there are leaderboards to encourage players to have some aspiration for (basically unattainable) goals that will keep them playing and paying money to rise up the charts. The battle itself mostly plays out independently, with a few abilities thrown in here and there. Other mechanics include Enchancing which lets you burn cards to raise the level of other cards, and Evolving which allows combining of like cards to increase the rarity level. These are the slot machineesque mechanics of these card games that make players continue to play to see what kind of rare cards they’ll get next.

There are two things about Reign of Dragons that I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention. The first is that this game is basically a complete clone of Rage of Bahamut – literally down to the UI placement, the names for features, the fonts and sizes, the buttons and interaction design, everything. I’d not be surprised if Drecom didn’t literally copy the source code from Mobage — either that or Mobage gave explicit permission for them to use their code with which to base Reign of Dragons upon. Players who are bored with games like RoB would not be pleased with the gaming experience that Reign of Dragons offers, as it’s an exact clone of the game. However, Rage is the most successful card battling game on the App Store right now, so many players who can’t get enough of the game might appreciate another option to start fresh and new.

The second negative aspect of this game is that the performance is poor. Similar to Rage of Bahamut, there is a loading spinner shown after almost every single action. This makes the gameplay unnecessarily lengthy and makes me feel as if I’m playing UI rather than an actual game. It can be frustrating at times, but it seems that none of the card battling games have great performance. However, the art is gorgeous and arguably better looking than Rage of Bahamut, which might make this an appealing option. It’s worth nothing that the art is very much anime-inspired, and almost every female card character is shown scantily clad with enormous breasts and standing in provocative positions. It’s pretty clear that Reign of Dragons sees its audience as a predominantly male one, and they’re probably accurate.

There are a ton of options for card games on iOS right now and it can be overwhelming to figure out which one to devote time playing. Reign of Dragons is a very steady contender in the running. The card art is beautiful and appealing, the design is standard and easy to understand, and it seems that Drecom will be keeping things fresh with tons of events and limited time promotions. It’s one of the best looking card games available right now. On the flip side, Reign of Dragons doesn’t bring anything new to the genre and is a blatant Rage of Bahamut clone – which could be a strike against or a mark in favor for the game depending on your personal tastes. At the price of free, it’s worth downloading to see if it’s your cup of tea.

Download from the App Store here:

Reign of Chaos (iPhone, iPad) – Free

‘Reign of Dragons’ Review – A Slow but Polished Card Game Cuppy Graphics Sound Gameplay Originality Summary: There are a ton of options for card games on iOS right now and it can be overwhelming to figure out which one to devote time playing. Reign of Dragons is a very steady contender in the running. The card art is beautiful and appealing, the design is standard and easy to understand, and it seems that Drecom will be keeping things fresh with tons of events and limited time promotions. It's one of the best looking card games available right now. On the flip side, Reign of Dragons doesn't bring anything new to the genre and is a blatant Rage of Bahamut clone - which could be a strike against or a mark in favor for the game depending on your personal tastes. At the price of free, it's worth downloading to see if it's your cup of tea. 3 Blatant clone



About the Author Cuppy Tami "Cuppycake" Baribeau is a freelance writer, blogger, lover of San Diego, equestrian, and dog-obsessed iOS gamer who loves to scour the App Store for something new to play.