Dragonhold Review Summary

Strong Potential, Fun Gameplay: Players consistently praise the game's core concept, foundation, and early access state as highly promising and enjoyable. Many express significant anticipation for its future, highlighting its unique blend of fantasy/sci-fi, visual appeal, and engaging design.

Active, Responsive Developers: The development team receives widespread acclaim for their exceptional activity, responsiveness to player feedback, and prompt bug fixes. They are perceived as passionate, communicative, and dedicated, frequently engaging with the community and releasing timely updates.

Excellent Dragon Riding Mechanics: A core highlight of the game is the smooth, fun, and satisfying experience of dragon flight and combat. Players deeply enjoy the unique ability to play as a dragon, praising the intuitive controls, animations, and the overall concept of a dragon-riding RPG.

Smooth, Engaging Combat: The combat system is generally well-received, described as smooth, snappy, and engaging. Players appreciate the variety of enemies and find both ground and aerial combat encounters to be fun and challenging, with functional dodging mechanics.

Enjoyable Extraction & Loot: The game's extraction loop and loot system are found to be satisfying and engaging by players. This feature contributes to depth and replayability, adding a compelling element to the gameplay experience even in Early Access.

Unfair Difficulty & Balance: Players experience an unforgiving difficulty curve with no scaling options, encountering overpowered enemies, broken spawn systems, and a harsh death penalty that erases all progress. This combination creates a frustrating and unfair experience that discourages continued play.

Game Lacks Polish & Stability: Players report a vast array of bugs, clunky mechanics, and an overall unfinished feel, making the game frustrating and at times unplayable. Many systems require significant polish and refinement before a 1.0 release, even for an Early Access title.

Combat Lacks Polish & Flow: Combat, both on the ground and in the air, is widely reported as clunky and lacking fluidity. Issues include forced stagger, unresponsive controls, and an overall uninspired design that feels simplistic and repetitive.

Monetization Practices Are Unpopular: Players are critical of the decision to charge for an Early Access game while also including microtransactions, particularly for unlocking additional character classes. This approach is perceived as exploitative and inappropriate for an unpolished title.

Dated Graphics & Models: Many players describe the game's graphics as poor and dated, comparing them to older console generations. Dragon and character models are also criticized for lacking unique design and visual 'soul,' impacting aesthetic appeal.

Extraction-Looting Core Loop: The fundamental gameplay involves exploring dungeons or ruins for resources like weapon cores, flying home to store loot, and undertaking 'hunting' expeditions. This core loop emphasizes extraction mechanics where players can leave runs early to keep their gear, and dungeons are repeatable for farming specific cores.

Game is in Early Access: Players understand the game is an unfinished work-in-progress, consistent with the Early Access model's goal of gathering feedback for development. This sets expectations for the current state of the game.

Cooperative Multiplayer Modes: The game supports cooperative play, including the option to team up with random players, and features a general multiplayer environment with PvP. Developers are actively working on scaling enemy populations to accommodate varying player counts in these modes.

Diverse Character Classes & Combat: Players can choose from three distinct character classes: Rogue, Knight, and Mage, each offering different playstyles. Ground combat includes light, heavy, and pounce attacks, alongside specific skills for the Mage, with an emphasis on dodging and parrying in both ground and aerial fights.

Central Dragon Riding with Restrictions: A defining feature of the game is riding and controlling dragons, both on the ground and in the air, within an RPG framework. However, dragon summoning is intentionally restricted in specific areas such as dungeons and other locations.

Frequent Crashes and Freezes: Players are experiencing frequent game crashes and system freezes, even with adequate hardware configurations. There's also a report of the game crashing external recording software, indicating significant stability issues.

Inconsistent Performance Noted: Feedback indicates fluctuating performance, suggesting that framerates are inconsistent or that the game experiences sporadic slowdowns. This points to general optimization challenges.

Unspecified Bugs Present: Generic feedback mentions the presence of "bugs" without providing any specific details or examples. This limits the actionable insight derived from this point.

Strong refund sentiment: A notable number of players have decided to refund the game, indicating that its current state does not meet their expectations for continued play, even in early access. This suggests significant friction points that deter immediate engagement.

Recommend for niche players: A segment of players strongly recommends the game to those who enjoy its specific genre elements, particularly playing as a dragon and exploration, and are comfortable with the challenges of an early access title. They encourage immediate purchase to experience the unique gameplay.

Specific gameplay improvements needed: Players provided concrete suggestions for improving core gameplay elements, such as how the narrative is introduced, the addition of a codex for lore, refining combat targeting mechanics, and adjusting early game difficulty. Feedback also touches on managing expectations regarding genre comparisons.

Small indie team: Players frequently acknowledge that the game is developed by a very small, independent team, often just two people. This context influences player expectations and fosters a supportive environment, sometimes including direct engagement from the developers with the community.

Desire playable dragon: Several reviewers expressed a strong desire to play directly as the dragon rather than its rider. There's a particular sentiment of sympathy for the dragon, suggesting a wish for more agency or a different perspective on gameplay.

Customize camera view: Players want more control over the game's camera, specifically requesting options to adjust distance and orientation. This is particularly relevant during riding sequences, suggesting current camera settings can be suboptimal.

Paid items for support: Players perceive purchasing in-game items or other monetization options as a direct way to support the small development team. This indicates a positive reception towards monetization as a means of contributing to the game's growth.