The game is bright and colorful, with a clear anime influence.
I've been playing in the closed NA beta for the last week, and I've really come to enjoy Dragonica. Although it is classified as a MMORPG, and does share the usual characteristics -- thousands of players, multiple classes, crafting, etc -- I would call it more of an Action-MMO or a MMORPG-Lite. However, I don't mean that in a negative way.
Gameplay:
I had skipped games like Maple Story in the past as I wasn't interested in the side-scrolling gameplay. After sinking in around 8-10 hours with Dragonica, I've come to love it. I changed to playing using a gamepad (which I mapped to the keyboard buttons) and the entire experience changed for me; the rapid gameplay and combo system lends itself flawlessly to using a controller. The ability to dodge attacks in real time - moving in three dimensions, as well as jumping and dashing - adds a great gameplay element. What I really enjoy are the ability to "juggle" enemies in the air via air combos, as well as execute alternate attacks when an enemy is on the ground.
I find the pace of the gameplay to be perfect, allowing you to dash through areas you want to skip and position yourself for attacks against enemies. Adding in a few party members makes the experience even more enjoyable, as the screen quickly floods with enemies flying through the air, being beaten with oversized hammers, exploding from fireballs, and more. The game is very casual friendly, at least through the first 15 levels where I've played through to date, allowing you to complete typically kill & retrieve quests while also playing through instanced mission levels with or without a group (although the higher mission difficulties do start to "require " a party as they become for more challenging).
On a side note, I've only hit lag spikes once in the last week, which was very surprising given some of the feedback I've seen on this forum so far.
Graphics:
The game is bright and colorful, with a clear anime influence. This isn't a bad thing, and there are many humorous elements you see early in the game (such as Mages with Cat heads). The four starting classes look iconic and are easy to pick out who is which class. Although there is no resolution slider, the game scales pretty well on my 24" monitor at 1920 x 1200. The graphics aren't going to raise the standard for online games, but they have a nice, cohesive theme and work well.
Classes:
While there are only four classes (which then split into new class choices at lvl 20), they do have relatively distinct playing styles. you can break each class down into two main concepts - ranged vs. melee - which each play very differently. I don't think this is a strong suit for the game, but hopefully they will expand the number of classes in a future release.
Each class has an independent set of skills and can customize their skill progression as they level up. This allows for specialization (do you want your mage to have strong heals, or better AoE damage?), although I haven't gone far enough in to verify how this changes at level 20 with the first class change choice.
Sound:
Sounds are amusing, although I typically play at a very low volume. Nothing impressive, but not detrimental.
Recommendation:
I think the game is worth trying out, especially given that it is free (cash shop). I haven't purchased anything from the cash shop, but most if not all items appear to be cosmetic and should not impact a player's ability to be effective in the game. Given the quick-paced action-oriented gameplay, and the ability to complete many mission levels in 5-10 minutes, the game has a great pick up and put down value for me and doesn't require a ton of time investment to have fun.
