Men and Dragons  (www.meneda.com)

 

Men and Dragons is a totally sweet RPG that you play online. The story is that you're a man (knight) and you're a dragon at the same time. The dragon side of you sits on your pile of treasure and laughs about how much real ultimate power you have while your knight attacks other dragons.

Even though Meneda hired the worst dragon artist ever, we'll just say that the size of a (non-Photoshopped) dragon's limbs compared to his body is inverse to his real ultimate power in this game.

Once you figure out how to register on the website and get the complicated "Meneda Suite" working properly, you are ready to create your knight and dragon, and embark on an unnecessary quest of random slaughter. As you progress, you will gain new stats and skills at the slowest rate never before seen in any RPG, except maybe Disgaea, but I don't know if that really counts.

Basically, this game is like Adventure Quest, but is completely devoid of animation and any variety of artwork (all the dragons are just palette-swapped (note that no black dragons are actually in the game)). The gameplay is similar: you click on "attack" and hope that you make a successful dice roll to strike on your opponent. At the same time, your opponent will attack you and roll some dice to see how much damage is dealt.

You get your choice of a Dragon Sword or a Dragon Lance to help you begin your dragon-murdering career, but you may, after playing for half a year (or immediately if you opt for a bonus to your strength stat) be strong enough to wield new weapons.

Enigma is skeptical of buying a new weapon because his Dragon Sword is supposedly "the fruit of several years of labor" and is of "premium quality steel".

It doesn't really matter what kind of weapons you pick or what sort of techniques (that are weaker than your standard attacks) you use, because the dragons are always better than you. In-battle healing items are really expensive and don't heal much, so they're pointless to take. If you are killed (and you will be), then you have to wait 20 minutes to be revived.

You'll be seeing this message a lot as you play the game. I don't see how there could be enough of you left to "rejuvenerate" after a dragon is through with you, though.

In summary, this game is totally sweet because the knights don't stand a chance against the dragons. I applaud Men and Dragons in that it is unafraid to show total realism in its gameplay, even if not in its graphics. Men and Dragons is a shining example of all that a game should and can be, except for the atrocious artwork, lack of real animations, and repetitive gameplay.

But who cares, right? It's REAL ULTIMATE POWER!