I have been following Draconia's development since at least early 2021 and so far these are my observations of just about everything about the game as it's evolved.

I wanted to start by bringing up some of my observations about the devs and how they handle the community and questions.

A couple of the devs, but mainly the creator, Levia Draconia, seem to have a big head about making a game. They come off a having a "holier than thou" attitude about their game, constantly making it known that they are better than "the competition" because they won't include microtransactions or exclusive content. As if every new game has incorporated that and they are the heroes we need. This isn't particularly relevant to the game itself, but it's not a good sign. The vibes are off.

It's also worth noting that there is a supporters chat on Discord. As far as I understand, it's a chat for members who contributed money to the early development of the game, and so have a special chat to offer criticism on development before it goes out. This chat seems to have turned more or less into an echo chamber of positive feedback unless the devs specifically ask for criticism. Any other legitimate criticism is brushed off, ignored, or mocked. Only listening to positive feedback from blindly loyal fans is not how you make a good game.

They also seem to not be able to take comparisons very well. A while back I brought up a comparison, as positive feedback, only to be met with a few fans immediately jumping to defend the devs. At which point the devs came in and stated that both of the designs were "pretty generic" despite being extremely similar. Granted, I could've worded my message better, but after I was brushed off the devs essentially mocked my comment. This was already kind of a bad sign, but when asked later about how certain systems might work, and asking for maybe some comparisons to current games to get a tangible idea of what's happening, they refuse to say anything. However, they also refuse to describe any systems in their own words. This makes it seem like they're just winging it and have absolutely no solid plans for any systems which is not a good look.

When asked about the gender system, the devs stated that there would be no gender system to "avoid bad reviews", due to other recent games having some bad reviews for having inclusive gender systems and pronouns visible for npcs. This seems cowardly at best, but their opinion of current gender issues isn't what matters here. It's the fact that they are taking away a very fundamental part of roleplaying. Which is being able to pick a gender. Even if they don't include a bare minimum nonbinary option, I think most people can agree that being able to at least pick between male or female is a very important part of making a character. I do not want to be forced to play a genderless character every time. I asked twice about how what pronouns your character would be referred to would be handled, and even offered an alternative solution, but I was ignored both times.

On the plus side of all this however, development on the game is very fast, and if you have access to the supporters chat on Discord, the devs post constant updates almost every day. They make consistent progress all the time and it never feels like they're wasting their time.

As it is currently, there are only a handful of npcs in the world, and so far, the writing does not look good. The characters themselves are fine, but dialogue is written with actions written as text. Such as *he looks up at you with a grin*. It's extremely off putting to read and I have never seen a serious RPG do this in my life. If certain actions, expressions, or ideas can't be expressed in speaking and simple movements alone, then I believe it is bad writing. I obviously can't be too sure of anything yet, but this has very grim implications about how the story will be done later.

The movement system is, in my opinion, the absolute worst part of the game and will easily be the downfall of this game if not addressed. If you are familiar with The Isle(legacy), it is exactly like that, but without the alt turn. You can only move forward and turn left or right as sharp as your turn radius allows. There is no backwards movement or turning in place whatsoever. This kind of control scheme is tolerable in a game like The Isle where you will mostly spend your time walking forward anyways, but for an RPG where you need to navigate villages and buildings, likely as a giant dragon, it is unacceptable. Tank controls would be more preferable to this option. This movement system has also already been demonstrated as extremely flawed in The Isle for real time combat. When two players fight, the winner purely comes down to who has a tighter turn radius. In Draconia however, enemies are not limited by a turn radius. This means that on the ground, you have to just tank hits and keep biting until either you or the enemy dies.
For some reason, jumping completely cuts off all momentum, meaning that if you jump you basically come to a complete halt. It makes jumping over objects or gaps either really hard or impossible. Which completely defeats the purpose of jumping.
Flying is a whole different thing all together. In general the flight physics are pretty good. It does feel cool to be a dragon, using skill to dive and dodge through trees and caves, however the controls also make no sense. There are two flight modes. One is for travel and the other is for combat. In travel mode you move in the direction of the camera, but can also move forward back and side to side with wasd in relation to the camera. This is fine, however, you cannot ascend or descend with space or another key. The only way to ascend or descend is by physically pointing the camera up and down. I have never played a game where you can fly where you cannot move up and down like this and it just takes away an extra bit of control I would like to have. That's only travel mode, combat mode is much, much worse. Combat mode locks your movement to the horizontal plane, where you can only move in the direction your camera is pointing, so you cannot move diagonally. Pressing A and D forces the camera to slowly rotate left and right even against your mouse movements, which is jarring and weird. You can only ascend and descend by pressing space and crouch. I legitimately have no idea how this mode is supposed to be better for combat as it controls significantly worse and less precise than the travel mode. When I asked the devs if it would be possible to add the space/crouch ascend/descend, at least as an option, to the travel mode to make it control better, they simply told me to switch flight modes.

In contrast to the rest of the game so far, the graphics are undeniably stunning. The environments are beautiful and always interesting and unique. I've not seen many games that have such truly well put together and fantastical environments that give such an awesome sense of scale. All the creature models look just as good and have a good continuity so far, with nothing standing out as out of place. Any screenshot of this game will always look gorgeous.

In conclusion, an RPG in which you play as a literal dragon is a pretty unique idea for a beautiful game with great art direction, but with terrible movement systems that have no sign of changing that make the game feel awful and hard to play combined with awkward and unpleasant to read writing, the game will probably ultimately only be appealing to the few hardcore loyal fans this game already has. I just can't see the full release of the game being fun to play at all unless you just really like taking screenshots.
If things change in the future I will update this, but as of now, this is how it looks.

Such a beautiful game. Amazing graphics and visuals. I am in love with this game, and will be playing a lot of it.

I've put about 100 hours into this game and I can say that I love it so far! There are 8 playable characters and the game is still in pre alpha and its bare bones with not a lot to do, but build up a hoard of your own or for a clan, fight spiders and crabs to level up fast to grow, do gathering quests for NPC's to level up and grow, and finding all the way points to fast travel. Though there isn't much to do, the game is beautiful and for those with creativity can make stunning looking dragons and neatly built homes! There is a BIG world you can explore by flying around with your own styled dragon! The word is made nicely in its early stages with land markers to stand out to get an idea of where you are and a compass to help navigate. I believe that this game is going in a good direction so far and I would 10/10 recommend giving it a chance!