Dragon Arise is a dragon-themed RPG that features the player taking on the role of the main character who is transported into a dragon world in yet another Isekai-esque premise. As the prophesied savior of the Dragon Islands, your mission is to lead a legion of dragons against the encroaching curse and restore balance to the lands.
The gameplay is composed of you assembling a group of dragons, collecting them through various means: Playing the game, through gacha mechanics, or outright spending real money. These dragons can be leveled up, their skills enhanced, and their genes improve to further upgrade their limits. You can create a team of five dragons to bring into missions, and customize their deployment formation. The customization options allow for diverse strategies, ensuring that every player can create a unique dragon squad tailored to the enemy.
The beginner experience is a very welcoming one, with a highly comprehensive tutorial to help the player learn the ropes. The resources given are plentiful, I was able to build a max five-dragon squad immediately, and the first many missions are doable without yet fiddling much with the dragons. New gameplay elements are slowly unlocked as the player progresses through the game.
The missions themselves are automatically played out, and players only need to watch. They can, however, opt to manually activate abilities, or to increase the speed of combat to 2x. The fights usually boil down to unit stats , their specific elemental abilities and its effects on the enemies in play in a chess-like manner.
Progression revolves around upgrading the dragons to be able to survive and defeat increasingly difficult missions. Upgrading these dragons can become grindy. Fortunately, the game mechanics are accessible; how to do upgrades, when to find the requirements, are easy to figure out thanks to the intuitive UI and informative tutorial.
Aside from the main campaign, there are also other side activities such as an endless battle, an increasingly challenging set of missions mirroring the main campaign, or a simplified dungeon crawling experience to spice up the whole experience. If you're a fan of dragons, epic battles, and immersive worlds, Dragons Arise is an Android game that is worth looking into.