In its current state, Pre-Alpha, I can't recommend this as a game just yet.
The main attraction of this game is getting to play as a dragon, but how the creatures control in this game is bad. Like an old MMO or a game from the early 2000's, you're stuck with tank controls; Your creature can't strafe or move in any fast capacity, you HAVE to make a wide turn if you want to move in a given direction. You're also extremely slow.
This map is massive; It's clear a lot of work has gone into the map and the player models themselves, but the polishing work for the map and characters mean nothing if players are stuck traversing a huge map at a snail's pace. There are fast travel points, but they are hard to see from a distance, can be confused with glowing crystals or flora, and they need to be unlocked via exploration (literally walking up and interacting with them) before you can use them. You also need to find and interact with one in order to travel between them... But there's no minimap or map UI. You literally navigate by what you can see on screen in front of you.
When you're exploring at a snail's pace, it makes travel an absolute chore. Even flying, the mechanic used by the most popular creature a game called Draconia can offer, is exceedingly slow. You can try gaining altitude at the cost of your full stamina bar at low levels, but you won't get very high. Diving, which also activates slow, drains your stamina despite the fact that you're literally just falling, so I often found myself just pressing F to deactivate flight midair just to try and regain stamina and get speed faster... even though diving is supposed to be making your dragon aerodynamic, a flight-deactivated free fall with your wings spread out apparently makes you accelerate faster.
Climb > flightless fall > pull into dive > swoop up. Then realize that you're still slow and your supposed boost dies off so fast that it's not even worth the time and effort to go through this sequence, so you may as well just fly level with the arrow keys... and run out of stamina. Because the stamina drain is active for as long as you're moving.
It feels like you're floating, not flying. Use a hoverball in GMod and attach a thruster to it. It's like that. You're also still stuck with tank controls, but worse; Turning in the air while hovering gets extremely confusing because turning in the air is you moving in a direction, but has a chance to make you twitch in directions you don't want to fly in... and you're still sliding.
Now, despite the slow pace of flight, you can't slow down easily. In flight, you're literally sliding in the air and there's no air brake. So you're slow to accelerate, slow to fly, and extremely slow to try and stop. You'll hit the ground, possibly kill your dragon, lose your inventory, and then have to navigate back to your unmarked death site to pick everything up.
I've talked about flight a lot. It's the biggest movement mechanic of the most popular kind of character to play. But half of the creature roster *can't fly.* I tried the flightless creatures and they have the same super slow issue that I did as a dragon, but worse, because the map's scale is basically made for creatures that fly. If you were to walk or run down to the beach from the starting zone, not only is it extremely tedious, but the hunger and water drain of your level 1 characters is insane. Coupled with the slow movement, leaving the starting zone without knowing where the devs have put food and water sources- actual drinkable water- could be a death sentence. Why bother leaving the starting zone?
Because the only way to level up is to collect items, and find the quest stones that are spread across the map. Leveling up increases your stamina, health, food, water, and magic meters. It's also the only thing to really do in the game. Collecting items gives minor amounts of EXP, and the quest stones can give you more than that... And you have to explore to find said quest stones, which only give you: One quest a day, each.
It's a grind. A grind where your level 13 character can be one shot by a tiny level 1 crab, the only enemy I've ever seen on this game, on the beach. A grind where your attacks-- bites and magic fire-- don't even hit the same as taking a whiz on an enemy. A grind that you can make yourself a gorgeous, or edgy, or neon abomination and run around a massive map with nothing to really do other than grind and collect ♥♥♥♥ off the ground, and it doesn't even feel good to control the character.
Supposedly there's a PvP option in this game. Given how you control, I don't imagine it's fun.
There's room for improvement. There always is. Plus, it's an indie title, and just a pre-alpha that's been in that state for years, and they have continuously, if sporadically, updated the game for years.
But as it is currently, it's boring. Tedious. More of a complicated screenshot maker and collect-rocks simulator than an actual game. There's a reason there's a low or nonexistent player count; If a game isn't fun to play, and doesn't feel good to play, people won't bother.
I might dip in in a year or so to see if anything is new, but otherwise? No.
Edit: to be clear, I checked dev comments from other reviews and took note that they said the wyvern has a better movement control scheme, so I tried it out. It's not the best but it's a *drastic* improvement. Not sure why it wasn't made universal for all creatures. But my review still stands.
