Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm

" Dedicated to dancing and robbing liqoiur stores"

Draconus is a great action game released last year by a company called Treyarch. For some reason the game does not seem to be that popular though.

Gameplay:10 You will have a choice to go through the game with either a Warrior or a Sorceress. ( I used the Sorceress.) The Warrior is a really good fighter, so he gets lots of defense and attack power and a decent amount of spells. The Sorceress is really good at spell casting so she can learn lots of spells and has a lower defense and attack power than the warrior.
Throughout the various levels in the game you will find blessing wisps. If you get enough of these you can increase your abilities at the end of the level and increase you rank. It's cool when your rank goes up because each time you do, the character goes through a change so they look more and more different with each change. ( The Sorceress looks really cool when she gets her final rank.)There are also healing wisps too, which heal half of whatever your max health is.
Battle can be hard at first until you get it down. You have a weapon to attack with and a shield to block with. You will have to know when to attack and when to block or you will get rocked. Going up against one guy at a time is pretty easy, but sometimes you run into 2 or 3 at a time then it gets really fun. It's best to try and split them up then, but sometimes they only stick in a specific area so it can be hard to do that.
If you do it right you can pull off some very devastating combo attacks. How much damage you do can depend on which direction you are pressing when you attack because you will be hitting the enemy in a weaker area.
You will run into many different types of enemies. Like Trolls, Lizard men,Dwarves, Draconians and many others. ( I HATE DRACONIANS!) And the areas you go to in the game are beautiful. ( Even if it's a graveyard your at.^_^) I'll get more into that in graphics.
You can't save on your VMU until you have actually beaten a level, but any time in a level you can place a save mark. So if you die you will start right back there. You can do this as many times as you want. And you are going to need to.

Story: 10 The story revolves around beings known as ''The Draconus'' beginning to appear and causing problems in the land. As the story unfolds it gets pretty interesting.
Before you begin each level a narrator tells you what the situation is and even tells you about the area that you are going to. So you find out a lot about the worlds history as you progress through.

Graphics: 10 Okay as I said before this game is very beautiful. Some of the areas in the game are simply breathtaking. The Sky Castle is one of the coolest levels I have ever seen in a video game. The enemies and the characters all look very good. The major bosses in this game are very big and menacing. ( The last boss especially.)

Sound:9 The music in this game is sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. Each piece of music fits the area that you are in. There is a good deal of voice acting in this game. A lot of it is pretty good. I have a bone to pick with the undead voices though. I just couldn't take them seriously. You will hear the narrator's voice more than anyone else and that's good because he's got an excellent voice.

Difficulty:9 This game is hard! especially when the game keeps throwing big groups of enemies on you. And the last boss, GOD I have not fought a last boss that hard in a long time.

Replay Value:7 After you beat the game you can play through it again with whichever character you didn't use to see how that one plays. It doesn't really affect story though.

Buy or rent: This is a great game and I suggest you at least rent it and try it out. It is fairly cheap right now. I think it goes for like $20 brand new. ( I got mine on sale for $8.)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/11/01, Updated 11/05/03