Dragon Fin Soup
is a Roguelike RPG, released on November 3rd 2015 for the PS Vita, PS3, PS4 and PC platforms.
One of its distinguishing characteristics among other RogueLikes is that the game features a story mode alongside the more traditional Survival and Endless Labyrinth modes.
It features turn-based and tile-based tactical combat, but tends to encourage a faster and more action oriented style of play, winding up feeling part Action RPG and part Real-Time with Pause.
The story mode stars Red Robin, a Bounty Hunter and raging alcoholic plagued with nightmares. She starts off doing odd jobs for the local bartender and other folk, and winds up learning more about her nightmares than she bargained for.
The game itself features lots of the things that make roguelikes so addictive and fun: Procedural Generation, random loot, tons of Item Crafting, and lots of things to discover. Oh, and guns. All this with a charming art style and sense of humor, to boot.
Dragon Fin Soup contains examples of the following tropes:
- Attack Animal: The starting pet in Story Mode, Big Bad, is a wolf. Other various critters can be found along the way.
- The Alcoholic: Red is quite fond of the sauce, and all of the health-restoring items are booze of one form or another. Drinking enough in a short time will make her go into an alcohol-induced frenzy and start attacking indiscriminately.
- Anachronism Stew: Not quite to the level of Schizo Tech, but pretty close. Modern gun designs are present alongside many standard fantasy spells and items. Plus the bartender wears a decidedly modern "trucker" hat and a recurring quest giver is a scientist in a hazmat suit.
- Back Stab: Getting in a hit from behind guarantees a Critical Hit. Seems hard to do at first considering there are no stealth mechanics, but then again, pets can pull aggro, lots of attacks can stun for a few turns to let you get behind the enemy, and enemies often flee when damaged. Does it still count as backstabbing when you do it with a shotgun while they run away?
- Chest Monster: The Tranka. In keeping with sacred Chest Monster traditions, it has a decent attack power and a ton of HP. Thankfully, they can be exposed at a distance with a gunshot or spear attack, and tend to be susceptible to bombs.
- Crate Expectations: A common source of loot, particularly recipes.
- Depleted Phlebotinum Rounds: Several types of ammo, in particular silver and heartwood shavings, seem to work better against certain supernatural foes.
- Dual Wielding: Red can use two one-handed weapons at the same time, getting the full damage potential of both.
- Equipment Upgrade: Power crystals can be used to improve Red's gear, giving better stat bonuses.
- Final Death Mode: Playing in Hardcore story mode, as well as either Survival or Endless Labyrinth modes, means you die, you're gone. You can save and quit, but once you reload your game your save file is erased until you quit again, so if you die, you have no file to fall back on.
- Giant Enemy Crab: Well, giant friendly crab, as it's one of the pets Red can find.
- Helping Hands: One of the pets Red can find.
- Improvised Weapon: A few of them, such as a broom.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Loads of them. Some of them even materialize with the completion of certain dungeon puzzles.
- Item Crafting: There are a huge number of recipes in the game, well over 500. Red can find them in dungeons, or the player can discover them through trial-and-error. Thankfully, many of the recipes can be extrapolated from similar ones, such as using different metals to craft ingots, chain rings, metal sheets, and so on.
- Little Red Fighting Hood: the main character
- Schmuck Bait: You might be really tempted to see what happens when you use the "Eat" command on a shovel, but unless you're playing one of the undead unlockable bonus characters, it's a one-way ticket to game over.
- Shout-Out:
- Red Robin and her pet wolf Big Bad (no, not that kind of Big Bad) are a pretty obvious one to Little Red Riding Hood. Though it's likely that B.B. Hood/Bulleta from Darkstalkers is another strong influence.
- Two of the songs that can be heard in the tavern are Baby Don't Forget My Number and Ring of Fire.
