Drakerider Game Info

Drakerider is the latest role-playing game to land on iOS via developer Witchcraft and Square Enix. It’s available (separately, sadly) for iPhone and iPad as individual episodic pieces or a single bundle. You’ll take control of Aran, a tracker sent off on a mission to return a young girl to her family. But of course Aran quickly ends up thrust into, well… the apocalypse. Demons known as The Dread have returned to Igraine and Aran assumes the weighty mantle of being the next dragalier. Dragaliers, other than being hilariously dubbed, are those that form a binding contract with Igraine’s only dragon to protect the land.

Drakerider’s structure is fairly standard. Your highly attuned, psychic companion tells you where demons might be. You fly there via an overworld map and drop in to run through quick stages of demon bashing. There’s usually a little pause for storytelling and progression along the way. A boss fight wraps it all up neatly and you’re off to the next challenge. 

The game’s unique battle system help keeps the monotony at bay. Your dragon is always at risk of entering a berserk rampage, causing him to attack friend and foe alike with reckless abandon (and great damage). To remedy this, you must swipe left and right to use a system of chains to control your dragon companion.

There are three stages of chains before your dragon breaks free, colored blue, green and yellow. The various color stages are where your abilities (earned by a skill tree system) kick in. Abilities within blue are usually related to healing and guarding, while the riskier yellow setting does high damage but increase the risk of a dragon berserk. Euipment slots adjust how much of your chain’s bar is allotted to each color.