Dragalia lost is a fair gatcha game that is fun to play
Indeed like a lot of the population of earth I have a smartphone. Yet mobile games rarely get installed since it is mostly a podcast device. Yet when Nintendo does a collab with Cygames it got my attention. Dragalia Lost follows the Euden a prince of Alberia as he goes off to reclaim his birthright. Which just so happens to be a wind dragon that he can form a pact with if he proves himself worthy. Yet all is not well in the land and it soon becomes obvious that a great evil has awoken to reawaken the darkness that dwells within the earth.
Upfront this is indeed 100% a gatcha game. All of it is set up to make you want to summon up a cool new unit. Although the rate for summoning a 5 star is very low ( Plus it is split between 3 different types of units.) I was pleasantly surprised at how many I’ve managed to summon in the few weeks I’ve been playing this game so far. 4 5 star characters, 4, 5 star dragons and 2 5 star skills. All of these are used in buffing up the different team types. Since each unit has a different element it pays to have at least a full team of each of the five elements.
Even if luck isn’t on your side the game does a good job of giving you at least one good unit of each type that can easily be used to finish the storyline. As for the gameplay this is a top down action game. You can tap on the screen to do a basic 3 hit combo or swipe to dodge roll out of the way of attacks. A special attack can be used by holding your finger on the screen for a few moments and then letting go to break though shielded enemies. Flashy specials can also be used after charging them up. Most of the game is pretty simple but by the time the end game comes around I needed to time special moves to use the invincibility to protect my entire team. What element you have is also important at that point since it doubles and halves damage from the weaker element.
Whenever I wasn’t fighting the multitude of upgradable things does indeed promote grinding. Like the castle that lets players build buildings to upgrade units or earn money over time. Yet the strangest thing is that it wasn’t possible to run out of stamina at all. Being able to team up with players even when your stamina is low means it literally impossible to not be able to continue until you hit player level 55 or so. Which seems crazy to me since this is a game built on making players spend money. Sure i could certainly see the huge grind weapons will be in the future yet in generally this is a extremely fair game on that front.
Overall I’ve very much enjoyed my time playing this game a bit each day. While the story is super cliche, I still enjoyed making my way to the current conclusion. Already they’ve added a raid event that is neat and let me see what cool moments might show up in the future. Unless you really just don’t like gatcha games this one is certainly worth playing.