Dragon Valor is a bland hack n' slash game. I went into this game with a curios mindset, but I quickly became bored with everything. The mechanics are so poorly executed to the point that they're almost useless. The game is made even worse thanks to the game's abysmal story and characters. Basically I hate this game, but I am going to tell you why I hate it.

Story

Dragon Valor's story is like every story that we've seen in fantasy. It hardly tries to be original, It just sticks to the story of evil dragons and their human minions. While I thought it could be appealing It quickly became a poorly done storyline, so poor that include the tradition of a greater evil killing the lesser evil. In fact that is every minor villain in this game, some power hungry moron who works for an evil entity to only be killed by their master. None of it is surprising at all. What's worse is that none of the characters that you barely get to know, even the player character, are in the next chapter. That just kills any sort of character development that the story could've had. It even shoehorns romance that is obviously forced to give the story more meaning. I hated this story so much that I stopped caring halfway through chapter one.

Sound

The music in this game is very bland. There are only three musical track, all of which are very boring to listen to. In fact all of the sound in this game is bland, with hardly effort to make it better at all.

Graphics

This game has ugly graphics with a fairly low polygon count. It should be understand that this game came out on December 2, 1999 while Spyro 2 came out on November 2, 1999, and Spyro 2 had superior grahpics. The environment are very dull to look at, with the rooms in a section looking the same with only deviations being different arrangements. Characters aren't much better with all of them reminding of those ugly character models for Final Fantasy VII when you were walking around.

Gameplay

Dragon Valor is a hack n' slash game with new additions and much of the old school fair, such as health pickups. You can use magic, which are learned and upgrade by picking up magic tomes. However, the only magic that you would actually want to use would be healing, as this game is easy enough that all other magic becomes worthless. In fact, compared to other hack n' slash games, Dragon Valor has Kirby level difficulty. I had trouble with only a couple bosses due to mostly a lack of understanding. There's also shops you travel to before going into a level, but these just suck. You can buy restoration items to restore lost hp and mp, purchase items to increase your hp or mp, or sell stuff for money. However, the shops will only sometimes let you do any of the things I just said, which makes picking money almost worthless. Shops are also made more painful by how long it takes to even buy an item further down the three item list. Dragon Valor also apparently offers branching paths, which will change who you'll play in the next chapter. But that doesn't matter at all since the characters all play the same.

Dragon Valor is not good in any measure. The story is poor, the presentation is dull, and the gameplay is bad. It could have something if the story wasn't so poorly done, and if the mechanics weren't so poorly designed. Dragon Valor is a title that is absolutely not worth your time.

Sounds like a great game! Yeah, not so much. lol

So some people will argue that you should only review games that you like: I must disagree. When bad reviews are handled properly they're fine. And while I can easily tell you were a bit biased against this game while writing, you explained why you felt how you did instead of just raging. I can respect that. I absolutely loathe rage reviews. They aren't funny and they inform no one. They're just a waste of everyone's time and disrespectful to hard working people. This review isn't like that. I appreciate that. Though I actually want to play this game now. xD

Eirinn : Thank you, i guess. But I am going review games here that seem interesting and I have never played myself. Currently I am playing Akuji the Heartless, and will write review on it when I'm finished with it. Though I will eventually review games that I've played before like Tai Fu, which I still need to finish.

I agree with you that people should review games that they like and dislike. If you just review games that you only like, then you are very biased. I think people should play games that interest them, then write a review based on their actual thoughts and experiences with the game. However, I will say that I will absolutely not review fighting games or racing games, as I am just plain old terrible at those and probably won't get through them.

Oh, to make sure I was clear, I DID think you did well on the review. It was well thought out and nicely done. I hope the use of the word "biased" didn't come across the wrong way there.

And yeah, you're exactly right when you say only reviewing games you like will make your work biased. And it's a good strategy to play what interests you and be honest with yourself while writing the review on it.

Finally, I really like how you said you wouldn't review a fighter because you probably wouldn't finish them. I really don't like when people review games that they haven't finished. I don't believe you can rightly judge graphics until you've seen the entire game, the audio until you've heard it all, the story until you've played through it all, or the difficulty until you've beaten the entire game (difficulty can spike significantly).

I really look forward to seeing more of your reviews.