Small and Mighty
As of late, Dungeons & Dragons has taken the zeitgeist by storm. Thanks to popular shows like Stranger Things, Dimension 20 and Critical Role, the iconic tabletop role-playing game feels more beloved and accessible now than ever. Apropos, video game developers have also seized on this opportunity and created some truly epic gaming experiences. Enter Dragonheir: Silent Gods.
Developed by Nuverse, Dragonheir: Silent Gods is a high-fantasy, open world RPG that incorporates autobattles and gacha elements. Like in D&D, players will create a character and set off on quests in the land of Adenthia. Along the way, they’ll encounter plenty of new faces to add to their party, via the gacha summoning system, and NPCs to interact with. While the game’s capabilities feel somewhat limited thanks to its mobile format, by and large, Dragonheir: Silent Godsplays like a console quality video game.
Bidding of the Gods
Dragonheir: Silent Gods begins with an epic cutscene of an adventuring party confronting the powerful Dragon Queen. After quickly realizing they’re severely ill-prepared for the threat, the members make a hasty retreat. While most make it out alive, one of them—the Child of Chaos—falls in battle. Twelve hundred years later, a new hero emerges as the Chosen One, aka, you.
At this point, players will create a character based on one of four main races—human, dwarf, half-elf and lizardfolk. As someone relatively familiar with D&D characters and lore, the very limited choice between these four races felt disappointing. I can only imagine how female and nonbinary gamers feel, since gender presentations can’t be changed, and the only woman in the bunch is a human. Beyond this upset, players will likely enjoy the freedom of customization for their character’s aesthetic. I was genuinely surprised with how many options I had for my dwarf, especially in a mobile game. I also appreciated that the game included a random name generator, since I often struggle with naming a character. Luckily inspiration struck with one of the randomly generated names, and I customized its suggestion to my liking.
After creating your character, you’ll awaken in the Chaos Universum, an underworld where sinners are exiled, with no memories. As it turns out, you were sacrificed by the Unstill (the followers of the Child of Chaos) in a ritual to resurrect their Lord. Fortunately, the ritual went awry and you’ve only lost part of your soul. In order to regain your identity, you’ll need to journey to the Material Plane and find the fragments of the Child of Chaos for the Dark Lady, who seems suspiciously like the human version of the Dragon Queen. Easy enough, right?
Roll for Initiative
True to its TTRPG roots, Dragonheir: Silent Gods often makes players pass skill checks by rolling a d20 dice. Before entering the Material Plane, you’ll assign points to your character’s traditional D&D attributes, like dexterity and charisma. These stats will sometimes add points to your dice rolls. D20 skill checks happen frequently in nearly all situations, including quests and sometimes exploring the map. You won’t always be able to roll the dice yourself, which feels a little disappointing, but when you do, it’s a nice touch that makes the game feel authentic to the genre.
In between quests, players will engage in battles. I particularly enjoyed the game’s battle mechanics, as they feel like the best use of autobattles that I’ve seen in a mobile RPG. Players will assemble a team of five heroes and arrange them strategically on the grid-like battlefield. Over the course of the match, your party’s individual skill meters slowly charge. Once fully charged, you’ll strategically unleash your party member’s skills to secure a victory. Occasionally, d20 rolls will automatically occur when unleashing skills and reward players with extra buffs and damage for successful rolls.
As you encounter new classes and species of enemies, the game will offer hints and suggestions as to the optimal strategy. Players can practice facing these enemies at their Camp via the tutorial robot. Your Camp also provides plenty of other useful operations including summoning characters via the Otherworld Horn, creating equipment at the Forge and crafting items by cooking. Players can purchase recipes in Dragonheir: Silent Gods from merchants they encounter along their journey. Recipes are revealed through NPC dialog or discovered by mixing and matching ingredients on your own. When cooking and forging equipment, you’ll roll the dice to gain extra portions and equipment stats, adding an air of excitement to each batch.
D&Delightful
As someone who passively enjoys D&D content, I’ve always wanted to jump in for myself, but like most high-fantasy games, the sheer amount of cannon and lore deterred me from embarking on my own journey. I’m happy to report that Dragonheir: Silent Gods presents players sharing in my predicament a happy medium. Sure, there’s plenty of rich lore, both new and borrowing from D&D cannon. However, the game presents it in a much more digestible way than traditional TTRPGs by focusing on quests and exploration. And there’s so much to explore. Dragonheir: Silent Gods’ expansive open world maps beckon the player to uncover every nook and cranny. While NPCs’ dialogue sometimes veered into the unnatural, by and large, the characters felt fully realized. Part of this is achieved through voice work, but mostly through interesting character design and story development.
My only major qualm was with the game’s experience/leveling system. A couple of times in my playthrough, I found myself out-gunned by my opponents. The only ways to increase your characters’ levels are by using EXP Potions or battling in dungeons. After using up all of my potions and still coming up short, that left grinding dungeon levels, which eventually got boring. However, after a day or so, I was back to fighting shape, and plowed through my enemies.
While Dragonheir: Silent Gods isn’t a perfect recreation of the D&D experience, newcomers to the genre will find a fun and accessible, free-to-play experience. Veterans of TTRPGs may feel a little cheated by the game’s limited customization options and gameplay mechanics but will likely come to enjoy the game.
