Yesterday I wrote an article discussing my concerns with the pay-to-function-properly approach with Sony Online Entertainment’s Dragon’s Prophet, but today I thought I’d cover a more positive topic. Dragon’s Prophet is all about dragons. You fight dragons, you catch dragons, you train dragons, hell you can even feed dragons to other dragons. There’s dragons everywhere. Many historic games have shown collection mechanics can be a huge seller and Sony have managed to duplicate that almost perfectly.
I have no idea how many types of dragon there are in Dragon’s Prophet but there are thousands of unique kinds of dragon. I caught 12 types of the same dragon and the stats, abilities and potential of each dragon varied enough to warrant catching further dragons to ensure I had the best possible.
It mimics the recipe that has made Pokemon so successful but adds the more mature appeal in the dragons. These aren’t cute and fluffy creatures with a bubbly personality and an electric temper. These are monstrous beasts that could rip your head from your shoulders without a second thought. Now, jumping on the back and taming one of these boys is satisfying, it definitely tops throwing a shiny ball at an unimaginative fantasy adaptation of a real life critter.
I’ve encountered 8 different types of dragon so far and have caught at least 10 of each type. Although there are quite obvious common similarities with the same dragon types, there’s more than enough variation to make it worthwhile.
It’s not quite a Pokemon MMO but it’s great to see a developer acknowledging the appeal of collecting among gamers and it’s even better to see them deliver a system that’s been well thought out.
Dragon’s Prophet may be suffering from other issues but this is one aspect of the game they’ve managed to get right.