OK, here's my 2nd review ever and I can tell you it's not going to be nice on CD:SS. My first review was for Bug Village and it was purely to serve as a warning to others who were thinking about picking it up. This is similar, a warning, for a game that is actually decent but completely ruined by mercenary tactics to get you to part from your cash if you are a completionist. I played this on a Nokia Lumia 800.
Overview
The basic story is that a dragon is causing some trouble so you must use your dragon to hunt it down. Simple enough and not particularly engaging.
Gameplay
It is a side scrolling shoot 'em up reminiscent of the good ol' days. There are 5 story missions with bosses and around 20-25 missions unlocked after which are harder and more varied. There are different abilities (around 170) you can unlock and use depending on your preferred playing style. Some are for shooting, some healing, etc It is good fun however the enemies always appear in the same order and it can get very repetive when grinding out the achievements - more on that later.
(3/5)
Graphics
The graphics are really good. The character, enemies, backgrounds and menus are all crisp and well done. The highlight of the game.
(5/5)
Touch Controls
Works well although sometimes you will find your finger moving slightly from the control pad and accidentally firing your tertiary weapon located next to it.
(4/5)
Sound
Average. I usually play with no sound as I'm commuting so I can't say whether it gets repetitive. However just put your own music on!
(3/5)
**EDIT: As a number of people are down-voting this review because I gave a lot of weighting to the achievements section, I thought I would add a break here. If you don't care about achievements or completion then you can see that this is a solid game I rate 4/5 based on the above. If you want to see my final conclusion after being screwed over by the game then read below.
Achievements
OK, this is where the game is absolutely terrible since the latest patch. I will focus on 1 achievement and that is White Reaver Unleashed! where you must unlock all 170 skills. The in-game currency for unlocking these is called jewels. Now, you used to be able to get 15 jewels for completing level 5 of story mode - this is no longer the case. To finish the game you will need to grind about 3,000 jewels after completing the game. Jewels are awarded for every 30km travelled (Limited to around 600 Jewels) when checking in with the GPS, you can grind playing for about 20 jewels an hour
or you can pay 2,400 MSP (EDIT no longer an option). So, let's put that into perspective, grinding it will take you 150 hours, over 50% longer than Seriously. An hour a day for 5 months - you could be proficient in an instrument or a foreign language with that dedication!
or just fork over your $30 (EDIT no longer an option), which I'm guessing most people will resort to doing if they want to finish this game. But wait, it gets worse. I was up to about 2,500 jewels as I had started pre-patch and I'm fortunate to holiday around Europe a fair bit, clocking up the GPS. But last week my game just erased all of my saved data for no reason. Gone forever. The same would be true if you broke or lost your phone. It's just not worth even starting this game if you want to finish it. A real shame as apart from this one thing it's a decent game. What really pisses me off is that they put this in AFTER people had already paid for it purely to get more money out of them.
(0/0)
Glitches
Can randomly wipe your save and cost you hours of your life.
Conclusion
If you don't care about completion and want some fun for $1/£0.79 then pick this good game up and fill your boots. If you like to complete your games then avoid this like the plague. It'll take you longer to complete than Gears of War or Far Cry 2
unless you pay around 2,400MSP (EDIT no longer an option)
Positives - Good graphics and gameplay, cheap to buy (initially)
Negatives - Will take you forever to complete
or 2,400 MSP. Don't be fooled by the $1 price tag. Applying this patch AFTER people have already paid for the game in the first place is disgusting
Overall
(1.5/5)
Edit: Pre patch would've been 4/5
1.5