Dragons Rage 2

In the gaming world, dragons get a pretty tough gig, they’re always the bad guy and we spend a lot of time hunting them down. Dragons Rage 2 turns the tables and puts you in the role of the dragon as hordes of warriors do their best

to slay you. Armed with only your fiery breath, take down the hunters before they can make a handbag from your hide.

If you played the first instalment, there’s no surprises here, in fact, everything look and feels pretty much the same, maybe too much so. The graphics don’t seem to have any significant improvements, they look almost identical to the first title and it looks as if the same level layouts have been used. Even the same sound board has been used, the only improvement over Dragons Rage it seems is that a stat improvement system has been added along with a handful of consumable items an skills.

There are 2 control methods and by default it’s set to a virtual button system, do yourself a favour though and head to he options to switch to tilt controls, it gives you far better reactivity and unclutters the screen a little. Gameplay is easy enough, turn left and right and breathe fire at anything that moves, unleash your fire with a button on the bottom right of screen but don’t overdo it, your also need to watch your stamina bar as when this is depleted, you can no longer defend yourself. It sounds easy but with such a wide play field it’s easy to miss an enemy sneaking up quietly sapping your health, even early stages can offer quite a challenge just to survive let alone score enough to earn 3 stars.

Enemies will drop a variety of items, mostly gemstones, which count towards your score but keep a sharp eye out for coins, you need these to power up your skills and buy items and later to open new levels. I found out the hard way it’s best to fail a level a few times before moving on, this lets you accumulate some coins because once a stage has been completed, the enemies no longer drop coins and if you’re caught short, the only way to open the last few stages will be to buy coins.

The new skills can be pretty handy in a pinch but they also chew up your stamina quickly, so strategic use is a must. The laser breath is great for catching a breather, it just instantly incinerates everything and the flame wall is handy when you’re surrounded and overwhelmed, it sends out a flaming aura in all directions protecting your flanks and rear. if you use them regularly, it’s important to note that they are non replenishing so you need to buy them again to refill. You can also purchase single use items like an instant health boost or bombs which are helpful when you have low stamina but I rarely felt these were necessary.

If you haven’t played Dragons Rage, this title may be a good diversion but if you’ve played the original title you may be shaking your head, the minor improvements could have been implemented in the first title as an update as all that’s changed is a few gameplay tweaks. There’s no improvement to graphics or sound and the same stages have been reused, there’s still no story so each stage just runs into the next, basically, it feels like the developers haven’t really tried and that’s a shame because there’s potential for a great title here. I’m rating Dragons Rage 2 two stars.