Sky Dragon: Guild Battles releases worldwide and I struggle to see the appeal

We are inside the global release period of Sky Dragon: Guild Battles, a game touted as a hit over in Japan. And I think someone needs to go over and remind Japan of all the cool stuff they have over there, because if this is a hit, they clearly haven’t been to Akihabara. 

Sky Dragon is an RPG where you recruit monsters, add them to your party, and then do battle with them. You become a powerful Sky Pirate with your cute companions by your side, join a guild, and become legends. On the face of it, it all sounds pretty cool.

There are even a few launch rewards to entice players to join. Depending on the number of people who install, everyone will receive a host of exchange tickets, gacha tickets, avatar hear tickets, and enhancement materials. You can also grab 430 Free Summons to start your adventure off with a bang.

Sky Dragon: Guild Battles... I don't get the hype

The only issue with this is that I have watched quite a few gameplay videos to research this, and it must be said, there is barely any. The videos all lasted about 10 minutes, and they all showed basically the same thing. You put characters in your party, start a quest, and then watch as still images walk up a path, get into a battle, and automatically fight with almost zero animation. Your one piece of interaction is tapping to use a characters ultimate. 

It is more of an idle game than an RPG, but even in idle games, you get to watch little sprites shanking foes. If you told me Sky Dragon was made with the basic RPG Maker package, I wouldn’t be surprised. Supposedly, it all comes together in Guild Battles and Raids. The former is a 10 v 10 duel, and the latter is 10 players against a big enemy.

Victory in these fights apparently relies on chat and teamwork, which suggests some sort of ability to affect things. But the developers decided not to implement those features in solo play for some reason. I can’t verify this, however, as I can’t find that many gameplay videos of this “hit” game.

Maybe that says it all.

You can try Sky Dragon: Guild Battles free on the App Store and Google Play, and if you do, I would be genuinely interested to hear if it is any good. From what I have seen, I think not.