Drakojan Skies: Acolytes

Yes, this is the best web shooter. Ever

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Let me start by saying this much- this game is amazing. This is the most detailed and intricate side-scrolling flash shooting game I have ever seen. Drakojan Skies: Acolytes is a story-driven action game with several stages, characters, modes, and unlockables. Did I mention it’s fun too?

DS:A drips with quality and attention to detail, as you’ll immediately notice as you play the first stage. The levels in this game offer no repeats- it’s not like you fly out in the middle of space, or against a background that repeats every ten seconds. No, these levels are entirely unique, and every bit of them look amazing. Stages scroll both horizontally and vertically and take you through several locations, including hangars, villages, underwater, clouded skies, and more. The levels have plenty of extra things going on too, such as exploding areas in the background, people calling out for help, truck convoys, scouting enemy ships, and so on. True, as of now there are only seven levels to play- but each one is lengthy, includes a mini-boss and main boss, and is packed with things to see so there’s not really any room to complain. Besides, I think it’s a perfect amount for a flash game.

The game offers many characters and ships to choose from, although the only differences you’ll find are that the characters have different dialogue and the ships, well… look different. It would have been cool to have ships with different stats, such as speed, lasers, and defense. Although the game already offers a pretty in-depth weapon system so that would have been a pain to alter. If anything I found the variety of weapons to be a little pointless. The upgrading of the main weapon along with the special weapon was nice, but I hardly ever found a need to use the secondary weapons (let alone switch between them) other than to drop a grenade on a boss. I also never found a need to boost either, but to each their own. The ‘workshop’ area also lacks a little bit, as you can only use it to purchase special weapons. Additional ship parts or something similar would have been cool, but again ship modification wasn’t really a focus of the game.

As I mentioned, the graphics are excellent by themselves but it’s the small touches that really puts this game over the top. There are many different types of enemies to fight, and they all fire many types of weapons at you. Missiles, energy pellets, lasers, blasts, spread shots, etc. The bosses and mini-bosses that you fight also show damage as you fight them, with parts of their ships breaking off and catching on fire. The sound excels as well, with sound effects in all the right places. The music is generally well-fitting but when it switches to a rock theme for some of the boss fights it almost seems out of place. Maybe that’s just because there’s vocals to it.

Aside from the weapon system mentioned above my only other small complaints are with the game design. For one, there is never an option to exit back to the main menu for some reason, unless you die and decide not to continue. When playing the game in branch mode each level gives you a briefing, but when you play in full game mode that briefing is gone. Also, when playing in full game mode choosing ‘change character’ starts the level for you. That’s really just being nit-picky though. This game has plenty of replay value. Play through the game in branch mode, play it again in full mode, then choose your own levels after that. You can unlock new ships to use (and a cool new character) and opt to put in some cheat codes if you really need. I would say the difficulty level is just right, as people who just want to play branch mode with 3 continues shouldn’t have a problem, but after that playing full game mode with 3 continues presents a bit of a challenge. With all of this, plus the promise of new content being added as time goes by, you have no excuse not to go play this game. The quality here is above and beyond a majority of everything else you’ve played.

Click here to play Drakojan Skies: Acolytes






Comments (1) [view all]

  Latest comment left by EvanStone:

This came at the right moment. I was looking for a great shooter, and you prevailed. It was amazingly AWESOME! ... But damn! I couldn't beat level one.

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