Info about Dragon Is Dead: Official game description: **Prologue** ------------ The black dragon \[Guernian\], who once faced down the gods, has fallen. From the rift he fled before his death, an unholy energy has spread across the world, and life is undergoing a bizarre mutation. People call it Corruption and live their days in fear, but few know its trustworthy source and full extent. **Player = Successor** ---------------------- You are an immortal warrior, a so-called Successor, chosen by the God of Light \[Lu\], the God of Fire \[Ashuran\], and the God of Water \[Harnia\]. When you die in battle, you return to the source of your lineage and are resurrected, growing stronger through the experience, equipment, and rune power you accumulate along the way. Arriving in Cliffshire, a town of light, the Successors must head to a burial ground where demons are said to be manifesting and follow clues to cleanse the distorted world. **Core Gameplay** ----------------- The game plays out as 2D platformer action requiring precise dodging and pattern-breaking. Each area is a vertically and horizontally intertwined, multi-layered structure that regenerates in a rogue-lite fashion with different terrain, monster placement, and loot composition on each exploration. When you die, you lose your gold and temporary buffs, but your gear and runes are permanently preserved and become the basis for the next cycle. Defeating bosses yields rune stones that can be used to craft or awaken legendary gear, and artifacts found during exploration can bring both powerful blessings and dangerous curses depending on the combination, providing new tactical tension each time. **The current situation** ------------------------- Corrupted enemies are gradually expanding their territory, threatening neighboring regions. In this chaos, the Black Dawn is leading the Corruption from behind the scenes, but their true purpose is shrouded in mystery. Lore says that only by destroying the \[Guernians\] will the lost order return, but the deeper you explore, the more you question the truth of even this belief. The closer you get to the citadel, the more you'll come face-to-face with the greater secret that brought the world to its knees. Release date: 6 Jun, 2025 Categories: Action Platformer, Roguelike, Real-time Combat, Character Progression, Build Crafting, Meta-Progression, Single-player - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Appealing and well-crafted art style (weight 0.86): The game features a visually appealing art style, often described as beautiful, with well-crafted pixel art and animations. Many reviewers compare the aesthetic to games like Blasphemous, Castlevania, and other 16-bit classics, praising its unique and dynamic elements. - Enjoyable and addictive gameplay (weight 0.86): Many reviewers express overall enjoyment and find the game addictive, noting its replay value and satisfying gameplay loop. They also look forward to future updates and content additions, indicating a positive outlook on the game's development. - Deep build customization and synergies (weight 0.81): The game offers deep build customization through its gear, skills, and artifact systems, allowing for diverse playstyles and experimentation. Synergies between these systems can lead to powerful combinations, enhancing player power and replayability. - Fluid and responsive combat (weight 0.77): The game's combat is praised for being fluid, responsive, and impactful. Reviewers note the controls feel tight and that the combat is both simple and engaging, contributing to a satisfying gameplay experience. - Keeps equipment after death (weight 0.76): A key feature is the retention of equipment after death, which eases the roguelike experience and provides a sense of progression. Bosses drop special loot that is also kept, further rewarding progress and making subsequent runs easier. - Well-designed and enjoyable boss fights (weight 0.75): The game features well-designed and distinct boss fights with intuitive patterns that become easier to recognize with practice. Defeating bosses is satisfying and contributes to the overall enjoyment of the game. - Varied character upgrades and skills (weight 0.71): The game offers various character upgrades, diverse item options, and a sprawling skill tree, allowing for different builds and experimentation. These systems contribute to the game's depth and replayability. - Genre-blending side-scrolling gameplay (weight 0.68): The game blends elements from multiple genres, including roguelikes, ARPGs, and Metroidvanias, within a 2D side-scrolling perspective. This combination creates a unique and engaging experience that appeals to fans of these genres. - Compelling and immersive atmosphere (weight 0.64): The game creates a compelling atmosphere, often described as gloomy or gothic, enhanced by a haunting soundtrack. This immersive environment contributes to the overall sense of challenge and engagement. - Challenging but fair difficulty (weight 0.64): The game is noted to be difficult but fair, providing a challenging experience that feels appropriate once the game's systems are understood. The difficulty is seen as a positive aspect for players who enjoy a challenging experience. - Satisfying legendary item progression (weight 0.64): Finding legendary items is satisfying and significantly impacts build creation and character power. The game's pace picks up as players acquire these items, enhancing the overall experience. - Substantial early access content (weight 0.64): Many reviewers note that the game offers a substantial amount of content for an early access title. This suggests that the game is well-developed and provides a good value for its price, even in its current state. - Significant improvements from updates (weight 0.64): Recent updates and patches have significantly improved the game, addressing inconveniences and enhancing existing systems. This indicates that the developers are actively working to improve the game based on player feedback. - Unique mechanics and engaging playloop (weight 0.08): Reviewers appreciate the game's unique mechanics and well-integrated playloop, suggesting that the game offers a fresh and engaging experience. The game also respects the player's time, indicating that it is designed to be efficient and rewarding. - Improved experience after first boss (weight 0.05): The game becomes more enjoyable after defeating the first boss, and the magical skills and abilities are fantastic. This suggests that the early game may be less engaging, but the experience improves as players progress. Common complaints: - Lacks content and variety (weight 0.56): The game lacks sufficient content, including limited enemy variety, weapons, and level design. Players feel there is not enough to do, and the game feels incomplete, even for an early access title. This lack of content hinders experimentation and reduces long-term engagement. - Numerous game-breaking bugs (weight 0.48): The game is plagued by numerous bugs, including game-breaking issues that erase progress, prevent item acquisition, and cause items to disappear. Players also report inconsistencies with health regeneration and enemies failing to spawn. These bugs significantly impact the player experience. - Poor translation and excessive dialogue (weight 0.46): The game suffers from poor translation, numerous grammatical errors, and confusing dialogue. NPCs are excessively verbose, with lengthy, unskippable conversations that disrupt gameplay. This makes it difficult to follow the story and understand key information. - Limited control remapping options (weight 0.09): The game lacks proper control customization options. Players are unable to remap keys or use preferred control schemes, such as WASD, which significantly impacts accessibility and player comfort. - Punishing death and progress loss (weight 0.09): The game features punishing roguelike mechanics with significant loss of progress upon death. Players lose skills, levels, and artifacts, forcing them to restart from the beginning. This can lead to frustration and discourages experimentation. - Poorly balanced RNG and loot (weight 0.07): The game's RNG elements are poorly balanced, leading to repetitive drops and hindering player progression. Players report receiving the same legendary items repeatedly and a lack of meaningful item variety. - Early access state (weight 0.05): The game is in early access, with some features still under development. The early game is more polished than later stages, indicating that the game is still a work in progress. - Subjective difficulty preference (weight 0.05): The reviewer expresses a personal preference for easier games and more character selection options from the start. This point is subjective and lacks specific, constructive feedback. Gameplay feedback: - Roguelike with genre-blending elements (weight 0.28): The game is a roguelike that incorporates elements from other genres and games, such as Metroidvanias, Diablo, Skul, and Dead Cells. Players embark on runs, battling through areas, collecting loot, and facing bosses, with death resetting progress but often allowing some form of persistent progression. - Build-focused loot and skill system (weight 0.21): The game emphasizes build creation through loot, skills, and artifact synergies. Legendary equipment dropped by bosses significantly impacts builds, encouraging players to experiment and optimize their character's abilities and stats. The current meta emphasizes gear and its impact on playstyle. - Mix of persistent, run-based progression (weight 0.05): The game features a mix of persistent and run-based progression. While levels, skills, and some resources reset upon death, equipment and other items are often retained, allowing players to gradually become stronger and progress further on each run. - Multiple unlockable characters (weight 0.04): The game features multiple playable characters, each with unique weapons and abilities. Unlocking characters requires progression, encouraging players to experiment with different playstyles and master each character's strengths. - Skill tree inspired by Diablo 4 (weight 0.04): The game's skill tree and itemization draw heavy inspiration from Diablo 4, with some reviewers noting similarities in aesthetics and mechanics. Mixing and matching powers is possible, reminiscent of Diablo IV's sorcerer builds. - Simple maps, challenging side-scrolling (weight 0.03): The game's map design is simple, lacking exploration elements. The side-scrolling perspective can make movement and evading more challenging compared to games like Hades, and some players found the enemy positioning display awkward. - Elemental-based combat system (weight 0.02): The game features elemental-based combat, allowing players to create builds based on fire, ice, and lightning. Weapons can alter the spells cast, adding another layer of customization to combat. - Limited movement options (weight 0.02): The player can attack, double jump, and dodge forward (only forward dodge available). Attacks can be canceled anytime, providing flexibility in combat. - Underwhelming passive skills (weight 0.01): Passive skills are underwhelming, offering minor benefits compared to directly increasing active skill levels. This suggests an imbalance in the skill system, where active skills are significantly more impactful than passive ones. - Weak narrative integration (weight 0.01): The reviewer questions the narrative justification for certain roguelite mechanics, such as receiving two chests after each level. This suggests a lack of integration between gameplay and story. - Potential copyright issues (weight 0.01): The Berserker class is very similar to the Aman Warrior in terms of skill names and concept, raising concerns about potential copyright issues. This could indicate a lack of originality in character design. - Slow gameplay pace (weight 0.01): The gameplay has a slow pace. This may not appeal to players who prefer fast-paced action. - Unvoiced dialogues (weight 0.01): Dialogues are not voiced, requiring the player to read text. This may detract from the immersive experience for some players. - Unclear upgrade mechanics (weight 0.01): There is a blacksmith in the game, but the reviewer couldn't use it to upgrade equipment, possibly due to not meeting the required conditions. This could indicate unclear or restrictive upgrade mechanics. Performance notes: - Inconsistent bug reports (weight 0.07): Some players have reported minor bugs such as enemies getting stuck, texture glitches, and UI issues. However, many players are reporting a smooth experience with no bugs or performance issues. - Runs well on Steam Deck (weight 0.03): The game appears to run and control well on the Steam Deck, making it a suitable platform for playing the game on the go. - Optimization issues, lag, stuttering (weight 0.02): Some players are experiencing significant lag and stuttering, even on high-end hardware. This suggests the game may have optimization issues that need to be addressed. - "Press X to talk" prompt bug (weight 0.01): A specific UI bug causes the "Press X to talk" prompt to persist on screen after interacting with a character, obscuring other UI elements. - Unpolished UI (weight 0.01): The UI is unpolished and may be a placeholder, suggesting it's not in its final state and could be improved. - Extra animations with legendary gear (weight 0.01): Legendary gear unlocks extra animations for characters and spells, adding visual flair when specific abilities are modified. - Unremarkable BGM (weight 0.01): The background music is considered unremarkable, suggesting it doesn't significantly enhance or detract from the overall gaming experience. - Impressive visuals on LED/OLED (weight 0.01): The game's visuals are particularly impressive on LED/OLED screens, indicating vibrant colors and deep blacks. Recommendations: - Wait for updates/sale (weight 0.57): Several reviewers recommend waiting for updates or a sale before purchasing, citing bugs, balance issues, lack of content, and the game's rough state. Some suggest wishlisting the game and monitoring its development, indicating that the game is not currently worth the full price or a purchase at all in its current state. - Anticipation for future improvements/content (weight 0.56): Many reviewers express excitement for the game's future, citing its potential and the developers' dedication. They anticipate future updates, new content, and overall improvements, indicating a positive outlook despite current shortcomings. This suggests a strong foundation that could lead to a more polished and complete experience. - Recommended despite flaws (weight 0.49): Despite flaws, many reviewers recommend the game, especially to fans of roguelikes, action RPGs, or Metroidvanias. They find the game enjoyable and worth the money, highlighting its potential and unique aspects. - Compared to similar games (weight 0.13): Reviewers frequently compare the game to other titles like Dead Cells, Diablo, Castlevania, and Blasphemous, noting similarities in genre, gameplay mechanics, or overall experience. Some suggest alternative games, while others highlight how this game differentiates itself or falls short in comparison. - Control/camera issues (weight 0.08): Some reviewers mention control and camera issues that detract from the overall experience. Addressing these issues is crucial for improving player satisfaction and engagement. - Needs key remapping (weight 0.01): A key remapping feature is desperately needed. This severely limits accessibility and customization for players. - Add unique equipment characteristics (weight 0.01): Reviewers suggest adding unique characteristics to ordinary equipment in later stages to enhance build diversity and player engagement. This would provide more strategic options and depth to the gameplay experience. Other player notes: - Game in active early access (weight 0.11): The game is in early access, which is frequently mentioned by reviewers. The developers are actively updating the game and communicating with the community, which inspires confidence that issues will be addressed and content will be added. This context is important for understanding the current state of the game and managing expectations. - Similar to Diablo/Blasphemous/Dead Cells (weight 0.07): Reviewers frequently draw comparisons between this game and other popular titles like Diablo, Path of Exile, Blasphemous, Dead Cells and Children of Morta. These comparisons highlight the game's art style, atmosphere, and gameplay mechanics, providing potential players with familiar reference points. - Roguelike with Hades-like elements (weight 0.02): The game incorporates roguelike elements with character building and progression systems, drawing parallels to games like Hades. This suggests a gameplay loop centered around repeated runs with incremental improvements and varied abilities. - Unappealing game name (weight 0.01): The game's name is considered unappealing by at least one reviewer. This is a subjective point that may not be representative of all players' opinions. - Save/load resets chests/shops (weight 0.01): The save/load system can be exploited to reset chests and shops, allowing players to potentially acquire desired items more easily. This is a specific, actionable point that could impact gameplay balance. - No key config, PS4 controller works (weight 0.01): The game lacks key configuration options, but it is compatible with a PS4 DualShock controller using Steam Input. This information is useful for players who prefer using controllers. - Reviewer believes in development team (weight 0.01): The reviewer feels a strong need to leave their opinion despite not playing the game much. The reviewer believes in the development team. The reviewer finds the nonsense fantasy lore to be a positive, but acknowledges it depends on individual preference. This point shows signs of review bombing. - Open spaces suggest future content (weight 0.01): The presence of open spaces in towns and at the end of chapters suggests potential future content additions or expansions. This could indicate that the game world is not yet fully realized and may evolve over time. - Word coloring helps track names (weight 0.01): The use of word coloring to highlight names is a minor but appreciated feature that helps players keep track of characters and information. This detail contributes to the game's overall user experience. - Game saves on quit (weight 0.01): The game saves progress when the 'Quit Game' option is selected, which is a standard feature in most games. This ensures that players do not lose their progress when exiting the game. - Features a cat named Oreo (weight 0.01): The game features a black and white cat named Oreo. This is a minor detail that may appeal to cat lovers. - Class change unclear (weight 0.01): One reviewer reported not knowing how to change classes. This could indicate a lack of clarity in the game's tutorial or user interface. - Top-tier equipment listed (weight 0.01): The reviewer provides a list of their personal top-tier legendary equipment. This is a subjective point that may not be representative of all players' opinions. Emotions: No emotions}