dragon star varnir

Dragon Star Varnir is a jrpg by Idea Factory it focuses on witches who are cursed with dragons within them who must consume other dragons but must be careful with said consumption and they must break the curse or else they will become dragons. 

Oddly enough this plot sounds eerily similar to another shin megami tensei digital devil saga and tokyo ghoul which focuses on consumption of enemies to become more powerful and pandoras tower with the cursed aspect thats how derivative the plot was honestly.  

The consumption mechanic is even similar to digital devil saga the more an enemy is scared the likely you are to consume them and gain new abilties and stat boosts that are permanent and over eating leads to not so pleasant consequences too. 

The graphics were generally ok and so was the art too. 

The dungeons themselves were pretty straight forward which is good but they often looked recyled sadly. 

The plot is incredibly short actually even more shorter once you just keep on grinding i honestly have no issue with it being short as its better than the padding and filler. Its said to be dark fantasy but honestly deaths end re:quest was darker than this as it had literal digital enemies being described in graphic detail how they eat the characters alive and th ending was not the best either due to the rushed out nature. 

The skill set list was really restrictive and not really good. 

Some of the boss fights were just cheap and annoying spam attacking multiple times. 

the game also suffered from censorship too as well unfortunately. 

the music was decent. 

theres also the madness and timer meter which was also annoying too because of how finicky it was having to constantly go back and forth to feeding characters and if you don't feed them or if you feed them too much you get the bad ending. 

the enemies were just reskins of one another. 

Unbalanced 3-Layer Combat: The gimmick of fighting across three vertical planes often feels superficial, as most encounters simply require grouping enemies onto one level to spam area-of-effect skills. 

Poor Magic Balance: Magic attacks heavily outperform physical attacks, making standard physical characters feel useless in late-game boss fights. 

Frustrating Exploration Mechanics: Specific obstacles require a specific party member's field action, forcing constant menu navigation just to walk down a hallway. 

Useless Mid-Battle Plane Switching: Moving characters up and down the vertical battlefield layout wastes a turn and rarely provides a tactical advantage. 

Underwhelming Customization: Despite a massive skill tree, most unlocked passive abilities offer negligible stat increases that barely impact combat. 

Illogical Monster Drop Rates: Collecting specific dragon factors requires grinding the same enemies repeatedly due to low, randomized drop percentages. 

Abrupt Side Quest Lockouts: Progressing the main story past hidden thresholds permanently locks active side quests without warning. 

Repetitive Battle Music: The same few combat tracks loop continuously, causing audio fatigue over a lengthy playthrough. 

Boring Dungeon Gimmicks: Environmental puzzles rarely evolve past basic lever-pulling or barrier-clearing tasks. 

Clunky Target Locking: Selecting specific enemy parts to break during boss battles feels loose and unresponsive. 

overall this was a below average game. 

it gets 3 out of 5 stars.