For like, the entire time since the Indie-Themed Spring Fever Sale was announced including Dragon Fantasy Book I, I was under the crazed impression that it was actually Dragon Fantasy Book II, which not only was announced first but also included in all of the big Indie Lists that I used to say "holy shit so many Indies" and has generally been a known quantity as coming out to the PS3 and Vita for a while now. Obviously being called Book II insinuates that there's a Book I and with no real mention of it coming to the PS3/Vita as well, I more or less wrote Book I off as inconsequential. Or at least hoped as much because I was going to buy the hell out of Book II no matter what. Well, the only little thing holding me back from doing just that has officially been assuaged.
Dragon Fantasy Book I, as in the first book of what is possibly a series of games, being that there are at least two of them, is being released tomorrow as part of the already-mentioned Spring Fever Sale. So when Dragon Fantasy Book II comes out sometime later on this year (calling it now, I'm saying the Summer Sale), we will have all already had the chance to be initiated in what type of game this is, had a chance to experience the world and the mechanics and story already so that the proper continuation of it will be able to do what it is meant to do - continuing on from where Book I leaves off. Hopefully now that both games will be on the same platforms, there will be some way to tie data from one to the other if they did, in fact, do that in their original forms. Because that is always really neat when games do that and not enough -really- do it anymore.
So what -is- Dragon Fantasy Book I, you're wondering? Well, that's a pretty easy question to answer. Dragon Fantasy Book I is a throwback to the classic RPGs of yore, your Final Fantasies before they got crazy convoluted, your Dragon Warriors before they were called Dragon Quest, these are the games to think of when you consider Dragon Fantasy Book I. Which....makes sense. Given that Dragon Fantasy could be seen as an amalgamation of Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy in title alone. I....hadn't actually noticed that until I started typing those sentences. Strange. Anyway, the sprite style seems closer to Final Fantasy (basically FF1) and the combat style seems closer to Dragon Warrior 1 than anything which is an interesting combination if nothing else. And since I played the hell out of Dragon Warrior 1 when I was a kid, I am all about this, suddenly.
I'm not prepared to say that it's a parody game, but the official trailer certainly paints the picture of a game that doesn't necessarily take itself super serious. So at the very least, expect little bits of humor interspersed here and there, if not necessarily an outright humorous tale as you might expect from something out of Zeboyd Games. Perhaps not a parallel I -should- be drawing, but, well, it's an easy one to make, really. Zeboyd might not have revolutionized 'retro-humor' games or whatever, but they're certainly the biggest name of them at the moment, so it's inevitable that some allusions are going to be drawn if you focus on humor and retro-style graphics for your game for at least a little bit longer. Personally, I don't see it as a bad thing, but I really can't speak for what the game has to offer until I have played it. And I am going to play it.
Though, speaking on the graphics, there is something rather interesting on that to note. Originally, Dragon Fantasy Book I sported a complete 8-Bit style 'Retro-throwback' look that I believe Dragon Fantasy Book II ended up updating to more of a 16-bit style. Well, in porting the game over, the developers decided that it wasn't enough to do a straight-port and then decided to redo every single piece of art in the game to match a sort of almost-16-bit-but-not-quite style that they're calling "8-Bit as we remember it" because, honestly, I'm sure we do remember 8-bit games as looking a -little- better than they actually did. The cool part about this is that it can be toggled at any time, so if you want to go -super- retro, you can flip it back to the original 'actual' 8-bit look. Either the music shifts in type along with it (so, sounds more like a classic NES game on 'actual' 8-bit style) or you can shift the music independently of the graphics, but either way it means that the whole look and feel of the game is toggleable. That is no small feat.
If nothing else, it's clear that there's been a lot of effort put into not only the game itself, but the porting and transitioning of the game to PS3 and Vita. The improvements and changes I've already mentioned aren't the only ones, as Dragon Fantasy Book I will also include UI improvements already made to DFBII as well as adding an entire new section to the game. If that's not enough incentive to urge a purchase, then that combined with the Indie Push and the sale price should be enough, hopefully. If that's not enough, however, well....I dunno. Maybe the posts I'll make -about- the game will do that. Possibly. Because I am going to talk about this game as well as buy and play it. Which...is a novel concept lately.
basically my point is that I want you to buy this game
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