I love beat em ups, I love RPGs, and I really love beat em up RPG hybrids, so Heroes of Mount Dragon is something that should have appealed to me right away. A new IP that takes influence from fantasy franchises like Dungeons and Dragons and developed by veterans from studios like Beenox, and Ubisoft, and Crash Bandicoot, this side-scrolling beat‑’em‑up should have worked. It looked to combine arcade-style brawling, vibrant hand-drawn visuals, and of course RPG mechanics, narratives and storytelling with some interesting character designs and the characters all had neat dragon-morphing powers. So what went wrong?
Well to be blunt, while Heroes of Mount Dragon has flashy visuals and the combat looks nice, it just does not feel fun. The combat feels like it needed a lot more time for refinement and polishing and hit detection was consistently an issue. I really wanted to like Heroes of Mount Dragon, and I thought the world in the game was great and well thought out, but that was not enough.
In many ways, Heroes of Mount Dragon feels like a throwback to the PS2/Xbox/GameCube era with wildly inventive games of all genres that had great ideas, but many times failed to stick the landing. Transforming into a dragon is neat, but landing the attacks was a chore and I kept finding myself frustrated the more I tried to play. The jankiness of the controls, and camera did not help at all, and the result was me throwing in the towel after a few stages.
The stages themselves look nice, but all end up feeling like the same stage, just with a new coat of paint. And this is the same with enemies and level hazards; it all becomes super repetitive and dull and a beat ’em up that bores you, is not one you want to keep playing. I contrast this with other beat em ups released in the last few years, and note that many others were trying to throw in new things all the time to keep things fresh. Heroes of Mount Dragon just felt like it was all style and no substance.
The voice acting was well done, and I liked the story as mentioned. The story is based on a pre-existing franchise of board games and books, and I wanted to see Heroes of Mount Dragon be a great adaptation. But with numerous bugs, UI issues and online not working right, I just do not think this title from RuniQ is worth checking out. It has a lot of content, but it is quantity over quality here, and I just find Heroes of Mount Dragon to be a mess.
There are better beat em ups and beat em up/RPG hybrids out there. Play one of those instead, and save yourself from the frustration of an unsatisfying experience that leaves you feeling like you have been cheated out of a better experience. I’d talk about the characters, but at this point, I just am tired of talking about Heroes of Mount Dragon, a game that had potential but just fell far short of it.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
