Dragon Fin Soup

I had the good fortune to grab some hands on time at PAX with Dragon Fin Soup, a gorgeous classic style 2D RPG with a blend of rouge-like elements produced by Grimm Bros. Inspired by iconic RPGs of yore (Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy), Dragon Fin soup is an artfully styled homage to them.

Dragon Fin Soup adopts a dark fable theme where the story centers around Red Robin (an amalgamation of Little Red Riding Hood and Robin Hood), who is a charming functional alcoholic bounty hunter heroine on a quest for vengeance. When we say "functional alcoholic" we mean it literally, Red Robin requires rum to function.

The game is set in the magical world of Asura a world with a complicated past including civil war stemming rift between humans and non-humans. Asura is located on the back of a massive dragon-turtle swimming through a wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimy-multiverse. A sort of bizarre fantasy space-time nexus where you can encounter just about anything from succubi to robots.

Dragon Fin soup has three modes, "Classic" Story mode where you can explore the world of Asura and Red Robin's story saving, progressing, and leveling up in comfort. "Hardcore" Story mode is an endurance perma-death mode where you can attempt to complete the story quest on a single life (If you want bragging rights, that is the mode to pursue). The final and most challenging mode  is"Endless Labyrinth", a survival mode where you attempt to make your way through Asura as long as you can to exercise your endurance skills.

You begin the game by naming your world to seed the procedural  generated universe through random name creation or you can create a custom name yourself. You can also share your seed name with others to play in the same Endless Labyrinth version of Asura.

Though combat is turn based it is surprisingly fast and fluid, allowing for patient tactical decision making or a "run and gun" approach depending on player preference. The game also allows for harvesting and crafting over 150 different items (weapon, armor, food, etc) , adding another strategic dimension to the experience. On top of this, Dragon Fin Soup also has excellent versatility as it supports keyboard, mouse, and touch screen input simultaneously allowing the player to utilize a mix depending on their preference.

Dragon Fin Soup is beautiful, accessible, and delightful to play. I very much look forward to its final release. Even though its very successful Kickstarter (funded 498%) has passed you can still contribute via Grimm Bros' Slacker Backer Store for a limited time.

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Dragon Fin Soup's release date is still TBD and it is planned for release on PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita.