Lost in Time

Nintendo has officially announced a shutdown date for its mobile RPG Dragalia Lost �??the fantasy adventure will end service on iOS and Android platforms on November 29, 2022.

As reported back in spring of this year, the decision was made to shut down the CyGames-produced title earlier this year, which will see Dragalia Lost close its servers after four years of relatively successful engagement. The narrative campaign came to a close back in July, with players encouraged to use these remaining months to wind up their adventur?es, max out characters, and spend any remaining "Diamantium," the title's in-game currency. No further Diamantium can be purchased as of today.

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Launching in the fall of 2018, Dragalia Lost was a very popular title, raking in over $120 million USD within its first 15 months of operation. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the earnings figures have dipped, though the game still remains somewhat popular among its?? hardened community. As we have quickly come to understand, however, if you are not making All The Money, you might as well be making No Money, and thus Nintendo and CyGame??s have decided to pull down the blinds.

"It is our sincere hope that you have enjoyed your experience with the game from the moment you started playing it," said Nintendo back in spring. "We will strive to ensu?re that you c?ontinue to do so for as long as time allows."

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Another mobile RPG bites the dust

Nintendo has announced that this summer will bring about the end of mobile RPG Dragalia Lost. In a statement posted to its official website, the publisher announced that the title will conclude its story campaign over the comin??g months before ter??minating service sometime after it reaches a narrative climax in July 2022.

"The Dragalia Lost main campaign is scheduled to reach its conclusion in July of 2022 with part two of chapter 26, the final and climactic addition to it?s long-runn??ing story," explained Nintendo. "After the main campaign has concluded, service for the game itself will come to a close at a later date. Further details on the end-of-service schedule will be provided in a future notification."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCrsB44A2Sk

Originally released in the fall of 2018, Cygames' epic fantasy adventure has been very successful for Nintendo, raking in over $120 million USD during its first 15 months of operation. But, according to recent research data from the number crunchers at Sensor Tower, Dragalia Lost's monthly re?venue has dropped throug??hout 2021 and 2022.

While the mobile title is still pulling in good money, it is apparently not pulling in all the money.

"It is our sincere hope that you have enjoyed your experience with the game from the moment you started playing it," concludes Nintendo. "We will strive to ensure that you con??tinue to do so for as long as time allows."

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When Worlds Collide

Later this week, two big names in the fantasy RPG world will lock horns, as mobile battler Dragalia Lost welcomes four heroes from the legendary Fire Emblem series. Nintendo has released a new trailer pr??omoting the "Kindred Ties" ??crossover event, part one of which will go live in-game this week.

As you can see from the video below, the lucky quartet of Fire Emblem stars initially chosen for the Kindred Ties event are Fire Emblem Heroes' Sharena and Peony; Fire Emblem Awakenings' Chrom; and recurrent Fire Emblem star Tiki. These characters can leap into Dragalia Lost's colourful chibi action and will also feature in boss bat?tles, with players unlocking special awards including wallpapers and avatars.

In addition to this wave of new characters, Dragalia Lost will receive a new Coliseum mode on May 5, which will allow players to square off against wave after wave of heroes in hectic throwdowns. The Coliseum mode will also feature high-level quests, to test the mettle of even the most hardened warriors.

Kindred Ties: Part One will go live in-game on April 29 at 23:00 PT and April 30 at 02:00 ET / 07:00 BST. Dragalia Lost is available now on iOS and Android devices.

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Pocket Money

With a mere six mobile games, Nintendo has managed to accumulate a total of over $1 billion USD in lifetime revenue, according to figures from the number-crunchers over at Sensor Tower.

Of the six titles, fantasy battler Fire Emblem Heroes is the most successful by a country mile, racking up $656 million - over 60% of all revenue - since its original release back in 2017. Second place goes to habitat sim Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which pulled in a still ridiculously impressive $131 million. Dragalia Lost, Mario Kart Tour, Super Mario Run, and Dr. Mario World bring up the rear, as demonstrated in Sensor Tower's graph below.

Late last year, Niantic revealed that its successful AR title Pokemon GO had raked in a cool $3 billion i??n just four years, with 2019 being its most successful year to date. With this kind of revenue at?tainable for a successful title, it's hardly any wond?er why publishers seem so hell-bent on conquering the mobile market, and will likely continue the chase for some time to come.

Nintendo mobile ?games have brought in $1 bill?ion in lifetime revenue [GamesIndustry.biz]

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Live now through December 15

It's always great to see Nintendo team up with Mega Man. I mean the (actually) iconic series got its start on the NES, so seeing Mega Man in Smash Bros. warms my h?eart in a big way. ??This crossover might not be nearly as impactful, but it's still nice to see Capcom and Nintendo work together in any capacity.

I'm talking about none other than Dragalia Lost, one of Nintendo's more polarizing mobile releases. It's still going over a year later, and now it's getting the aforementioned Blue Bomber crossover. Cleverly, it sees D??r. Wily taking over the in-game universe, with Mega Man teaming up with the game's protagonist to take him down. Mega Man, with his many-colored coats, will ??be playable, and enemies from his franchise will enter the game.

The event is actually live now, and will run through December 15. Did...Nintendo actually get me to log back into Dragalia Lost for the first time in months? I think so, especia?lly given that the event is thankfully not tied to gacha nonse?nse.

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A veritable war in your back pocket

Nintendo's mobile RPG title, Dragalia Lost, is approaching its sixth-month anniversary. The free-to-play fantasy title launched o??n iOS and A?ndroid devices in September of 2018, hoping to cut out a slice of the mobile gaming pie currently enjoyed by titles such as Pokemon GO and Fire Emblem Heroes.

Speaking of Feh (as the cool kids call it... I think) Dragalia Lost is to celebrate its half-year celebrations by staging a crossover event with the pocket battle title. Fire Emblem: Lost Heroes will see some of Feh's popular characters stumble blindly into the Dragalia Lost u??niverse, where no doubt everyone will sit down over tea and carrot cake - or perhaps get into a massive scrap. Here's hoping the latter.

As well as the crossover event, Dragalia Lost has also received its Version 1.6.0 update, which adds a game speed toggle, better co-op play, and the?? option to equip two Wyrmprints alongside various bug fixes. Check out ?the video below for more details on these new features.

Dragalia Lost is available now on iOS and Android devices.

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Nobody is immune to burn out. Not even fire-breathing lizards.

It says a lot about the weary nature of gacha games that I’ve stepped back on my relatively idealistic outlook towards them in such little time. I was already wary of them even while trying to remain relatively optimisti??c, and though I still enjoy what I previously said I enjoyed about them, that wariness has grown much more.

Back in late 2018, I considered Dragalia Lost one of the best mobile games I’ve ever played. It had high production values, it scratched my hack-and-slash itch, the cast won me over, and the developers constantly delivered patches in direct response to player feedback. The one major gripe I had at launch was the poorly skewed gacha rates, and even that d?id relatively little to damage my interest when I became a big fan of most of its? common-rarity characters. I held it in much higher regard than CJ did in his review because to me, it felt like a great game that kept getting better.

Now I only pop in once in a week or so to collect a login bonus and immediately log off. I still feel there is a good game there, one that’s especially worth playing with friends. But almost every time I suggest pals give it a shot, I add, “Just be careful not to play too much during events.” I say this because I don’t want them to get burnt out through grinding the same way I did. This grindy phen??????????????????????????omenon isn't new to the mobile game space, but I want to cast some more l??ight on this issue through a game I used to be much more enthusiastic about.

Like most free-to-play mobile games, Dragalia Lost uses limited-ti??me events to keep players interested. These events usually last about 11 days each. I have no problem against thi?s principle by itself, but the issue comes from how redundant an event's progression plays in practice.

Also like most mobile games, Dragalia gates exclusive party members, power-ups, and resources behind these events. Getting this loot requires hours of grinding. Dragalia almost constantly hosts these events, usually starting one less than a week after the last. Thus, if you don’t constantly commit to the grind, you&rsq??uo;ll miss out on something exclusive, or at least you'll have to wait until the next event. While you don’t need all of them to beat every fight, the sheer notion of missing exclusive stuff is nagging enough to spur many players to grind for them whether they'll enjoy it or not.

I enjoy grindy games, but one of the reasons why I enjoy them is because I find level grinding a great way to wind down. If that grind is limit??ed to a short time frame, that quality doesn’t apply because I'm tense about whether I'll finish on time. Instead of only using my spare time, I might have to shelve other plans or desires to achieve everything. Condensing that playtime also expedites the feeling of boredom from repetitive tasks. Instead of using the grind as a temporary escape, I start wanting an escape from the grind itself.

Exacerbating this problem even further is the lack of variety during event grinds. There are two types of events with different rules, but they can be simplified to one general feedback loop. First, you go through a short story arc w?ith dungeon-crawling stages like the story mode, followed by the main boss battle. After reaching a cliffhanger that gets resolved at the event's end, you collect loot by bashing that boss at one of three difficulties. And… that’s pretty much it.

There’s a bit more to it than that depending on the event type. For example, raid events technically have two bosses: one generic normal boss and one unique raid boss. But getting endgame-??level rewards effectively requires fighting the same boss(/es) dozens of times. It’s extremely repetitive for only a week or two of playing.

As a specific example, let’s look at the latest raid event’s requirements to max out on Twinkling Sand. This item appears in every limited event, but it's a crafting ingredient for all of the strongest weapons and it’s not available anywhere else??. Thus, this acts as our best reference to how much grinding you need to do to continue making power progress after some threshold.

We’ll be generous and estimate that fighting an Expert level raid boss takes 4 minutes on average, including loading screens and matchmaking with teammates. I’ll spare you the number crunching, but I estimate that it would take 85 Expert raid battles to get all of an event's Twinkling Sand. That adds up to 340 minutes or five to six hours, assuming you don't take breaks. Technically you can get most of an event's sands in half that time, but since you need so many of them anyway, the sunk-cost fallacy tempts you to go all-in from there. Even spreading this over the whole event’s runtime, the ennui of fighting one short boss fight that many times settles in long before the grind is over.

All of that is after each event’s lengthy story prologue, which can take an hour by itself if you don’t rush the cutscenes. But one of my favorite things about Dragalia Lost is that the writing has a lot of interesting scenarios and characters. These stories are some of the things I look forward to most in every event. And they all play out before the grind-fest begins, so I don't have to wade through hours of repetitive fights to enjoy them. I didn't rush these as that would be counter-intuitive to why I kept playing Dragalia in the first place.

I would much prefer it if these events would take less time, or at least if their grinds would offer more variety. These lengthy and repetitive grinding requirements don’t provide any tangible benefit to anyone except for Dragalia’s mos?t dedicated players, and even they aren't necessarily getting the best deal out of this system. Gating ultimate upgrade necessities like this means that getting those upgrades is based largely on how much you can play in short burst??s. It doesn’t reward the players who dedicate themselves most to the game overall, just those who binge more at the right time.

That sews unhealthy habits if not done in moderation, and almost constantly hosting events isn’t moderate at all. I even consider conventional mobile game stamina limits a blessing because they put a stop gap on unhealthy binge-grinding, but Cygames keeps giving players loads of stamina refilling items because players keep asking for them. I don’t blame them, either. Hard limits on how much you can play a game you like feel crappy, and generally, alleviating those limits is a good thing. But these limits still helped me recognize that I wanted an escape from the grind because a part of me felt relieved every time they held me back. If I like that a game stops me from playing it, that should raise a huge red flag.

So now I'm avoiding that grind altogether. I don’t even consider Dragalia Lost a bad game per se. I want to play it some more because its strengths, such as its characters and hacky-slashy-ness, outweighed its flaws when I played responsibly. But if I’m compelled to warn everyone against playing it too much like I’m doing in this article, that can only mean that its positive qualities don’t last as long as its negative qualities during these events. I have better uses for my week than smacking the same boss 80 times, and while I never had to do that to enjoy Dragalia, I want to dist?ance my??self from any temptation of doing that again.

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Micromanagement found

When Nintendo first announced it would enter the mobile market, I thought it was going to do things differently. I thought the presence of arguably the greatest game developer ever would shake up the market and put an end to the dominance of those free-to-play gacha whale hunters I see advertising themselves during football games. For its first four apps, the company actually did do things different??l?y, merging its old school game design philosophy with the demands of the mobile marketplace.

Turns out, that's not really what the audience are in the market for. One of its games shut down already and two of the three others are struggling to make an amount of money Nintendo deems acceptable. They aren’t bad, but it’s clear the company’s approach isn’t exactly meshing with the demands of the marketplace. With Dragalia Lost, Nintendo is done doing things differently, choosing now to simply fall in line with the rest? of the industry.

Dragalia Lost (iOS, Android [reviewed]) 
Developer: Cygames, Nintendo 
Publisher: Nintendo 
Released: September 27, 2018 
MSRP: Free-to-Play w/ microtransactions

Dragalia Lost takes place in the kingdom of Alberia, a nondescript land home to nondescript heroes who are about to go on a nonde?script journey. The player character, who for the sake of this review I’m going to call Djedkhonsuefankh, is the seventh in line to inherit his father’s throne. During a trip to go form a pact with a dragon, Djedkhonsuefankh is confronted by an evil version of his father, who kidnaps his sister and sets our hero on a quest split between extremely short dungeons and expository bits of narrative.

Well, I shou?ld say "chunks" of narrative. These often over-written story segments easily make up more than half of the time I spent in the campaign. The writing's not bad, but it can be excessive. Thankfully, I am given the option to skip all the dialogue without being penalized. Whenever I do skip, the game gives me a quick, two or three sentence summary of what the scene covered.

The writer in me feels bad about skipping over somebody's hard work, but that feeling of remorse is easily outweighed by how impressed I am about just how much lore is in this game. It’s clear that developer Cygames, one of the more prominent mobile developers in the world today, really leaned into the creation of this game and its world. There are annals of information available to players a??bout the history of ?the kingdom, characters, and the dragons. Yes, this world doesn’t seem to contain an iota of originality, but the passion is there. 

The story segments of each chapter of the campaign usually bookend the brief bouts of combat. Dragalia Lost is a party-based dungeon crawler that requires just one finger to move your character and fight enemies. It’s an intuitive design, but doesn’t always work the way it should. A simple action that repeatedly fails for me is Force Strike which requires me to hold my finger to the screen without moving it. This attack is regularly required as it breaks enemy shields, but the slightest movement o?f my finger, so slight that I don't even notice it, will cause my character to start walking instead of pulling it ??off.

In combat, I'm only in direct control of my party leader. Thankfully, the AI does a decent job of managing the rest of my team. They dodge and attack with some regularity and only really weigh me down if I forgot to micromanage my team. I can switch my party leader to whomever I choose and surprisingly, there is a bit of depth here as characters who wield s?imilar weapons won’t control in the exact same way.

Weapons are one of three ways I can customize the characters on my team. There are also cards that grant stat or ability bonuses called Wyrmprints and dragons I can transform into during battle once I collect enough shards. Then there are the Mana Circles. These play a crucial role in powering up characters outside of the standard leveling system. Each circle has a variety of different power-ups, from new attacks to strengthened defense, which are unlocked with mana??.?? Characters have multiple circles to power up with, but gaining access to them all will take time and supplies.

Weapons, Wyrmprints, and dragons can all be leveled up and strengthened as well using their own, unique collectibles to do so. This means there is a lot of clutter to sift through when trying to micromanage your team. Dragalia Lost does a good job of keeping everything easy to understand, but it??’s hard not to see most of it as artificial bloat meant to keep people spending their Wyrmite.

Wyrmite is the currency you earn through gameplay to perform gacha summons as well as expand inventory space or refill stamina or Getherwings, the latter of which is a separate stamina meter for co-op play. Diamantium is the purchasable currency that runs the standard gacha prices. Performing a tenfold summon costs 1500 of either currency, which equates to roughly $3 a pull, making it only slightly more expensive than buying the same amount of pulls in Fire Emblem: Heroes. Of course in that game, when you do 10 pulls you’re guaranteed to pull 10 characters. In Dragalia, ??those 10 pulls are split between characters, dragons, and Wyrmprints.

All of the micromanaging and busy work -- including bonding with dragons, crafting new weapons, and an undercooked castle/town sim system -- keeps the app turned on as I pretty much just go through the motions every day. All of these extra systems I could deal with if the primary draw of the game, the dungeon crawling, was any good. It could be, but right now it's far too short and too simple to be engaging. Even when stamina costs increased, the dungeons showed no signs of improvement. I will say, though, the dungeons are exceptional to look at. There is some wonderful art design found throughout Dragalia Lost and I can tell Cygames had fun coming up ?with all those Wyrmprint cards. The game also has some remarkable music,?? sporting a bright and spritely soundtrack that makes those extensive conversations a bit more bearable.

The wonderful art, music, and lore deserve to be in something more original than Dragalia Lost. There are a hundred differ?ent versions of this game already available on app stores and it doesn’t do very much to hoist itself above the competition. This title may represent Nintendo’s riskiest attempt at breaking big into mobile gaming, going with an original IP instead of known property, but it also represents its least creative.

_{[This review is based on a retail version of the game downloaded for free from Google Play]}

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Nintendo x Cygames

[Update: The show is over, but if you missed it you can catch it down below. It doesn't look too bad for a gacha game, one Nintendo is referring to as "free-to-start" but we'll have to make a final verdict after the game is released at the end of September. If you want, you can pre-register for the title right now to score som?e Wyrmite w?hen it launches.]

If you don't count the Pokémon games, and you shouldn't, Nintendo hasn't had the best run in the mobile space. Miitomo crashed, Super Mario Run underperformed, and since Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp added loot boxes, the experience has taken a hit. Fire Emblem Heroes continues to be the br??ight spot for the company, having earned an estimated $400 million worldwide.

That game is still going strong, and the sure-to-be-successful Mario Kart: World Tour is coming before the end of the fiscal year. But before that lands on smartphones, Nintendo is releasing Dragalia Lost. The game, co-developed by Cygames, is ex?pected to launch in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and in the United States by the end of next month. If you'd to know more about the title, Nintendo is hosting a Mobile Direct tonight at 11:30 pm EST/8:30pm PST. Watch it with us and let us know if you plan on playing with it launches.

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Find out more about it tomorrow night

Since the launch of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp last fall, Nintendo has been a bit quiet about its future mobile plans. We know Mario Kart World Tour is expected before next March and the company is teaming up with Cygames for Dragalia Lost, but we don't have much inf??ormation about either of those titles. That changes tomorrow night.

Nintendo has announced it'll present a Mobile Nintendo Direct dedicated exclusively to Dragalia Lost. It's set to air tomorrow night at 11:30 pm EST/8:30 pm PST. Nintendo also confirmed the game will launch in Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, and in the United States on September 27, 2018. If you've forgotten what Dragalia Lost is, here is the r?eveal trailer to give you a refresher.

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Coming this summer

[Update: Nintendo and Cygames have put up a trailer for Dragalia Lost and launched the official Japanese site. Pre-registration is currently underway, with in-game rewards up for grabs.]

Ninten??do is cooking up another mobile gam?e, and this time it's a new IP.

Described as an "all-new original action RPG" co-developed by Cygames, Dragalia Lost will release for smart devices worldwide later this summer. The company has previously worked on titles like Rage of Bahamut, Granblue Fantasy, and Shadowverse, so the collaboration makes a lot of sense.

What's more, "for the purpose of facilitating the partnership, Nintendo will obtain approximately 5 percent of Cygames's issued stocks mai?nly through a third party allocation of its treasury stock."

As far as game details, th??ere's nothing to report yet. You'll have to use your i?magination for now.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal earlier today, incoming Nin?tendo CEO Shuntaro Furukawa expressed his desire to grow Nintendo's smartphone business into a revenue pillar. He also added that, in general, the company "should focus on things that only we can provide."

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