| Platform | Nintendo Switch |
| Release Date | 6/22/23 |
| Cost | $9.99 |
| Publisher | Origamihero Games |
| ESRB Rating | T |
Games give off certain tells that they won’t be very good. Earthen Dragon is such a game, selling a complete action RPG adventure for ten dollars. Its not particularly broken, just incredibly cheap looking and boring. You play a dragon whose wings don’t work. You walk outside and find your a cat in a tree. To get them out, you need a ladder from the humans. To get there, you need three keystones. Once you get through, you find a cow guy who tells you to go to a dungeon to get ice breath… and by that point, I was so bored I chose not to continue.
But wait, how can you judge Earthen Dragon by only playing the first ten minutes? Because the first ten minutes are a boring slog with cheap enemies and lackluster design. Compare this to the first ten minutes of say… Diablo 4. Sure you come to a near dead town and have to go a dungeon to kill demons. But, you get to experience the silky smooth game play that says,”This is a good game, play me!” The first ten minutes of Earthen Dragon scream… well they don’t scream, rather they snore. I’m not putting in the time if I’m not hooked. And a beginning that would be crap by 90s game standards doesn’t instill much hope.
It isn’t that you can’t make a long and compelling game for $10, Buddy Simulator 1984 does it well! It’s just that there they didn’t bite off more than they could chew. Plus, you want to continue playing it. A 3D action adventure simple requires a larger budget today to make something decent. Earthen Dragon just isn’t it. But I’m wagering even if it did, it still might not be.
Overall: Earthen Dragon required a much larger budget to make something people want to play. It didn’t have a large budget.
Verdict: Not recommended
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