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As mentioned previously, I sunk some hard-earned money into the D&D 4E PHB, PHB2 and the DMG so that at least when I reference D&D 4E, I know what I am talking about. After some weeks of crunching the D&D 4E’s combat rules and powers, I have come to a conclusion about the combat system. Effective, yet artificial.

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It is the most anticipated game concert event for me – Video Games Live. It started in 2005 and began to tour the various states in USA, and it was a matter of time before it came to Singapore too on 19th July 2009. Recently, for this country with the nickname of “the little red dot”, there has been a series of concerts – PLAY, one for Final Fantasy and some time back, the Eminence Ensemble performed at the Victoria Concert Hall. So how does the legendary VGL @ Singapore matches up?

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Dragon Warriors is not your typical fantasy role-playing game. Sure, there are warriors engaging each other in perilous combat, mages who flung fireballs and the good old dungeon crawl, but its theme and feel are noticeably different, making it stands out from the crowd.

To describe Dragon Warriors with a few words: gritty, lethal, immersive, evocative, written with soul and spirit and simple.

The Good: Simple to understand roll under system, distinctive classes, rooted in historical basis, writing is evocative, settings feel authentic and fantastic at the same time, elegant method of dealing with armour, detailed world with beautiful maps, an atmospheric introductory adventure

The Bad: Is 5 books put together as 1, rules are only explained in the middle of the book, a couple of classes imbalance, introductory adventure is heavily scripted, spot rules are inconsistent

The Quirks: Art goes from “meh” to “wow”, uses comics to explain the rules, arguably a “complete book”, some of its thinking may be considered “antiquated”, sometimes you roll a D20, sometimes it’s a 2D10

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Dragon Warriors may come across as an odd one in the RPG world, even with its re-release. It is old school in feel and tone and with D20 taking the crown for being rules-heavy, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay being the poster child of grim and gritty and Castles and Crusaders being the representation of “harking back to the times of yore”, Dragon Warriors feel like it is squeezed out from the pack.

Sleeping Gods, and the campaign world Legend, I feel, is the real reason why Dragon Warriors shine. In this review I hope to explain why. Needless to say, this review is abound with spoilers.
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