Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is a fighting game with some RPG elements for the Nintendo DS. Taken from the popular CW4Kids series of the same name, the game is a surprisingly fun fighting game for the handheld system. You are able to play all 13 Kamen Riders including the two Survive Mode characters as well as a bunch of other unlockable characters. The game was published by D3 Publisher and developed by Natsume, most known for the popular Harvest Moon series. As a huge fan of Harvest Moon, I was actually very excited to see what they brought to the Kamen Rider game.
Unless you are familiar with the Kamen Riders series, the entire game will probably be quite foreign to you – it was to me – and I even watched a few episodes to try and familiarize myself. There are three modes to choose from – Ventara Mode, which is the story mode; Advent Master Mode, where you can fight battles for high scores similar to an Arcade Mode; and Duel Mode, where you engage in traditional one on one fighting versus the CPU. Each character has a deck of Advent Cards that assist during battle. You start out with three and can carry up to five cards total. To use your cards you must fill up the Advent Gauge which is filled by doing damage to your foes as well as taking damage. You also have the option of using the stylus to manually charge your Advent Gauge by touching and holding your character with the stylus. You can also hold down the L + R buttons. Funny enough, I never used this mechanic.
Advent Cards are a very important part of your battle strategy and can help make or break a fight. Unfortunately, there are no in game descriptions of the cards nor is there anything in the game manual. You must either be very familiar with the show, look it up online somewhere, or just start testing out the cards to see what they do in battle. While I am no expert, I had a tiny idea of what the cards did so I thought I would just try my luck! I found a few cards that seemed to work for me and I went with them. This will vary for each character so don’t be afraid to try new cards as you unlock them or when you are playing new characters. The type of battle and knowing your opponent will also make a difference. You will either know this from watching the show or you will just figure it out if you play the game enough. If you play with Dragon Knight or Wing Knight, you can unlock Survive Mode Dragon Knight and Survive Mode Wing Knight which do more damage and if you find yourself low in hit points, you can use the Survive Mode Advent Card, gain some HP back, and start kicking some butt.
I started out with Ventara Mode using Dragon Knight, one of the main characters of the series. Ventara Mode is broken up into 10 levels with five stages per level leading up to the battle against General Xaviax. After you complete each stage’s objective, which can range from killing all the enemies on screen, timed battles, and mini-boss battles, your character will earn points and level up. Leveling up grants you more hit points and you will do more damage to your foes. This is the extent of the RPG elements of the game. It would’ve been cool to be able to purchase Advent Cards with points or even level up your character more dynamically, but the main focus of the game was as a fighter and that’s where the game shines.
If the fighting seems unbalanced at times, that’s because it is. Pay attention to the level of the enemy that you are facing, you will be surprised to see some advanced levels early on in the game. That’s where the RPG element of the game really comes into play. You will need to grind by replaying previous levels in order to earn more XP or to just level up faster. If I got stuck in a battle, a few lower level fights would get me out of my rut. It can be a pain but it works and I found myself going back and replaying past fights and being extremely pleased when I was finally able to kill the more advanced bosses. I found myself yelling in frustration at some moments, but again, grinding or trying different cards or other strategies would do the trick.
I had a really hard time with the inability to block during a fight. You can use a move called Guard Break but I prefer the traditional block techniques that are common to most fighters. This upped the difficulty of the game and without a good blocking system, I found myself getting overwhelmed especially in battles against higher level opponents. You can use the Guard Vent Advent Card, which makes your character immune to attacks for 10 seconds, but that doesn’t get unlocked until later in the game so you will need to come up with other strategies until then.
In order to fully unlock everything you will need to play through the game with other characters. The great part about this is that each character, while going through the same structure, faces different battle objectives so you won’t find yourself playing the same game with a different character. This gives the game a tremendous amount of replay value. It took me between 3-4 days to complete my character’s missions so with 13 characters to play though, you will get a lot out of this title. On top of that, you can play the Advent Master Mode for additional challenges and rack up some high scores or you can just hone your battle skills for fun in the Duel Mode.
The one thing that this game really lacks is a multiplayer mode. The Duel Mode makes for a perfect mode for another DS player to connect with for some real fighting game fun. Not sure why the decision was made to exclude a multiplayer mode, but I think that would have made this game even better.
One of the most important things to a fighting game are the controls. While all fighting games (at least to me) have a high element of button mashing, this game is not immune to that. However, you will need to get a grasp on the controls and what they do in order to get through the game more easily. You will find yourself getting surrounded by enemies quite frequently in this game so knowing the controls will help you get through some of those frustrating moments. There are no combo moves to learn and master which is a big bonus in some aspects. The biggest issue I had was targeting which is done by using the touch screen. The game auto-targets the closest enemy otherwise. A third hand would come in handy since you are using the D-pad and the buttons as well.
For a DS game, I am always pleasantly surprised by the graphics of the games and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is no exception. The graphics are what you would expect from a DS game. The cut scenes utilize the top and the bottom screen as one. During a fight, the top screen is used to show your Advent Cards, the Advent Gauge, and your HP meter. The electro-rock soundtrack is most likely taken from the TV show and gets a little monotonous after a while. I played the game with the sound off or at the lowest level possible.
This game is a must have for any Kamen Rider fan and if you are not a fan, it is worth checking out. It’s a decent DS fighting game and offers many hours of replay value to the title. The lack of a multiplayer option is unfortunate but I don’t believe that it makes the game less fun to the single player.
Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is rated T for Teen and is available now exclusively for the Nintendo DS for $29.99 MSRP.
A review copy of the game was provided by D3Publisher and did not affect the outcome of this review.
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