Thematically, Time of Dragons is a weird game. The free-to-play game caught my attention when Steam recommended that I may like it. After a quick glance, Time of Dragons reminded me of the flying missions in Turok: Evoloution; futuristic technology stuck onto the backs of prehistoric (or in this case: fantasy) creatures for no real reason other than that it looks cool. There are humans in Time of Dragons, but they’re only seen on the main menu, doing scientist things in the background. The game itself comes down to two teams of flying monsters fighting each other with science-fiction weaponry and their own unique abilities.
There is very little context to it all and while that might throw some lore-loving players off, the primary focus of the game is on the combat more than anything else.
The gameplay is pure aerial combat between the two teams of flying creatures. As the title alludes to, there are dragons for players to play as, but there are also almost as many non-dragons ready to be taken into battle. The teams (the Dominats and the Orhas) can be blended with dragons and non-dragons and teams can have multiple types of the same creature on one team.
Every player begins with the Cronos dragon unlocked. This is the standard dragon and gives players an easy creature to play as they venture into the game for the first time. Experience points are awarded at the end of matches, and if enough are collected the player’s account levels up and more DNA is unlocked, allowing them to spend that DNA on unlocking a new creature to play as. There are currently eight different creatures to unlock, ranging from the typical dragon (like Cronus) to fast-moving, flying stingrays.
Each creature comes equipped with two weapons, two items, and one special ability. The weapons and items have a few choices that players can select from, allowing players to adapt to particular situations as they see fit. Each creature’s special ability is unique to them and cannot be changed. These special abilities range from close-quarters fire breath, to electrical attacks that can disable enemy weaponry.
On the creature selection screen you can read about a creature’s abilities, and unlock more creatures by utilizing DNA.
Once the creature, weaponry, and items are selected, players spawn into the map and are off to battle.
Using WASD and surrounding keys to control movement and movement speed, I had the ability to maneuver my dragon in any direction I chose, though moving straight forward was the only way to get anywhere quickly. The mouse is used for changing direction and firing the currently-selected weapon. Controlling my creature was very intuitive and I had no trouble adapting to the control scheme.
What I did have trouble with was getting used to how the creatures fly.
I realized that I wanted, and kind of expected, that my dragon would be able to zip around the maps as nimbly as the kinds of dragons seen in movies like How To Train Your Dragon. Instead, the creatures in Time of Dragons are slower and operate utilizing more realistic laws of physics.
At first it felt clunky and slow. Having to fly straight at an enemy to fire at them was just a boring game of joust that took little skill and was hardly satisfying when won. To turn sharply my dragon had to almost come to a complete stop to pivot around in the direction I was moving my mouse in, and then gradually build speed back up again. It took me some time to learn that I needed to utilize dips and dives to attain the quick bursts of speed necessary to catch up to an enemy, and always swoop around and go for a flanking attack, rather than fly right into the fray.
Once I realized these and a few other aspects of maneuverability, my score dramatically rose. I was often the first or second highest scoring player in the game 6-8 player games.
Time of Dragons does suffer from some pretty bad audio effects, though. The quality of the sound effects vary from sound to sound, but it’s never anything great. The game could really benefit from having a sound designer edit the audio, because as it stands now, the sounds of Time of Dragons really cheapens the experience.
If you can tolerate the poor sound quality, and are willing to take the time to get comfortable with the maneuvering, Time of Dragons can be an enjoyable experience. It’s not an amazing game, and I have no idea how the developers can continue to support it without making any money from it (it’s a free game with no ads or microtransatcions), but as it stands now, if the game looks even remotely interesting to you, give it a try, you might have some fun with it.
