Dark Era

Game overview

Dark Era is a free RPG game released by Game123 which involves the time-space concept in its storyline for the player to fight against the armies of a Dark Emperor. The game majorly focuses on guiding the players in their conquest against the Dark power which the automated gameplay of Dark Era clearly shows.

Even though the rather well-designed environment and competitive graphics of Dark Era are a positive, it is a very small consolation for the lack of action and involvement of the player. Yes, there are certain character upgrades during the course of the game and the introduction of beasts and mounts does spice things up a little bit, but not nearly enough to make up for the disappointment of the automated character movement and decision making.

➔ Main points:

• A number of classes to choose your characters from.
• Good environmental setting and commendable graphics.
• Not enough player involvement.

Full review

Think about a 3D, mmorpg, action game which involves time travel while improving the characters’ abilities all the time… sounds awesome, doesn’t it? This is what Game 321’s ‘Dark Era is all about!
The storyline of the game revolves around the concept of destruction of time by the warriors of a dark emperor, and the player’s character is the chosen one to save the world from utter chaos and bring it to peace.

Three classes to choose from…

At the beginning of Dark Era, you need to create a character from a total of three available classes; Wizard, Berserker and Assassin. Each character, as you can imagine, has its own specialties, and its gender as well as some very limited specifications can be selected by the player in the game from the very start. As the storyline proceeds, the character develops in different directions, which is more prominent during the latter stages of the game.

Beasts and mounts…

Up till now, everything in the game sounds pretty generic from the storyline to the character classes and their development; however, there is a very unique twist which is definitely going to make things more interesting and much more fun.

On reaching a certain predefined level, the players get a ‘beast’ in the form of an animal, which accompanies them wherever their character goes. You can feed your beast with ‘beast gems’ to gain stats bonuses by increasing its beast points. Moreover, by gaining enough beast points, you can increase your beast’s level, which enormously increases its basic stats and makes it more formidable. After reaching a certain level, you can merge your character with its beast to form something like a super warrior, which, quite obviously, is a very strong combination.

If you are thinking that the game cannot get any more interesting, you are very wrong. On advancing even more into the storyline and gaining levels, your character can have its very own mounts. Mounts are similar to beasts in many aspects except that your character can ride on them to move faster and reach its destination. Mounts can also be fed to increase their ‘stats’ which in turn, enhances the power of their owners. Once the stats have grown enough, the mounts are upgraded, and after each upgrade, you get a skin by using which your mount’s appearance can be altered.

Exciting environment and graphics

The best thing about Dark Era is, arguably, its engaging graphics and a fairly detailed environment. In some instances, you are in awe of the beauty and imagination of the scenery in the game, and in some levels, its detail makes you fall in love with it. The beasts and demon in the game come in different forms and sizes and despite their huge variety, most are very well-designed.

In the environment itself, different beasts are scattered for your character to go and start a fight with.
After every enemy encounter, your character can recover its energy and move on to its next target

After every enemy encounter, your character can recover its energy and move on to its next target

To stop the game from becoming too lethargic, the developers have even introduced some mini objectives in Dark Era which are a breath of fresh air.

Shiny but boring

Sure, there are some promising features of Dark Era which make you want to play it and experience it for yourself, but there are some elements which frankly, can be quite disappointing even for the hardcore mmorpg lovers.

One thing that makes Dark Era an absolute waste of time is that the game seems to be fully automatic and the player literally has to do nothing for the character to advance. It keeps on playing itself, engaging into duels and fights here and there, and opting out of them every once in a while if the outcome isn’t looking very promising. Yes, every now and then, the player has to click on an option to make a decision but that doesn’t happen often enough to ensure adequate player involvement. So, unless you are a person who likes to watch others play, chances are you are not going to like what you see in Dark Era.

All in all, the Dark Era does seem quite ‘dark’ when you see it being played automatically and it's not exactly the kind of dark you’d wish to see in any game.

To sum it up, there are certain features of Dark Era which show promise; graphics and the concept of mounts and beasts to name a few, but the completely unplayable nature of the game totally ruins what could have been a potentially interesting mmorpg revolving around the unique notion of time and space.

Ready to enter the world of Dark Era? Click here to play now!

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Review summary

1. Three classes to choose from…
2. Beasts and mounts…
3. Exciting environment and graphics
4. Shiny but boring