Mini review: DragonFable

Casual web games are hot. Red hot. Bursting with hotness. Did I say they are hot? I first discovered Adventure Quest a few years ago via some flash board which talked about a casual rpg where you basically open a can of whoopass on monsters and other creatures. You basically smak down monsters, get gold and exp, go buy bigger weapons and repeat. You may say to yourself this is extremly cliche' for a game to boil down to the "level grind" but it was the endearing quality of the graphics and whimiscal storylines that kept me logging in and eventually becomming a "guardian" - which is simply short for "I paid to have better weapons and skills".

When I learned they were doing a prequel of sorts called DragonFable, I wanted to sign up right away. It plays in a similar fashion but seems to have more of a style of Final Fantasy where you are playing more one vs. many than 1 on 1 battles. I'm not sure what I think of the card-style attacks, and so far the quests seem geared to hard core players who probably are double my exp level, but needless to say I didnt hesitate when they offered up the "dragon coins" level of "pay for more smak-down power". Why?
Why would I fork over money for a flash game that's basically mindless clicking and monster slaying? Well, its for precisely that that I did sign up. I play this game on off hours or between lulls as a sort of RPG equivalent to Solitare. It's fun, you can drop it off and pick it up right where you left off (though it's extremely annoying that you have to re-equip everything between logins) and you can spend as much or as little time on it as you like. It's mindless fun for those times late at night or when you want a little diversion. And it seems totally worth it to purchase a membership when you dont have time to sit around and take 2 years to level up. You can use the tokens you get to buy impressive weapons which act as their own carrot to reward you for getting up there in levels.

All in all DragonFable is a more refined and streamlined version of Adventure Quest. I hardly visit AQ any more since I've been playing DF - but I'm still happy and look forward to all the great monster smakage that Artix and folks are planning for us.