/scaly/ vidya

Resurrection of an older project, listing video games bearing potential relevance in regards to the presence of reptiles. The quality of the actual games vary drastically, the intent is to jot down vidya that people will unironically play solely because it has dragons or lizardmen or dinosaurs or what have you playing at least a secondary role.

Sharks and salamanders are not reptiles.

Very much always a work in progress.


Series

At least 2-3 or so games each; we'll get them out of the way first. Largely unsorted.

Monster Hunter

See Advanced: Monster Hunter! threads on /trash/ if you have any inquiries.

Capcom action games with (mostly) casual grinding and some spin-offs; primarily features reptiles you hunt.
Has jumped between a lot of hardware, but is never consistent about multiplat between entries.

The franchise offers a large selection of wyverns with some grounded basis and also an 'Elder Dragon' category, a more supernatural category of both true dragons with six limbs, but also some weird motherfuckers. As a Hunter, you slay or capture them all the same with a (usually) big weapon of your choice and create or upgrade weapons and armor with their parts.

This isn't a franchise you play in release order. For which game to start with, generally the latest release will have a more active playerbase or be easier to get into. Some, but not all entries also have an expanded version. If you have a toaster, Portable 3rd w/ translation is also a decent entry point despite its age and status as a 'high rank' game, as it can easily be emulated and still has a decent amount of content.

The Stories JRPG subseries has the player star as a monster rider, practicing monster eugenics as they fight alongside their manlet-sized monsties.

Spyro

Insomniac's platforming series on the PSX with a dragon protagonist.
A skub-tastic remaster of the trilogy also exists on modern platforms.

Come on now, you were expecting this. It goes without saying that going past the initial three game results in varying QUALITY.

The Elder Scrolls

RPGs set in first-person view that gradually become less WRPG with each iteration.
Play these on PC if you don't have brain damage.

Also known for its lore and modding capabilities, the series features the Argonians as a recurring playable race of lizardmen that can breathe underwater and resist disease. Morrowind gives them digitigrade legs, but in most other games (including Daggerfall, of where they are also dickless) they are bipedal. Skyrim has dragons as the central point of conflict in its main quest, of whose ranks include Charles Martinet. Online is the only modern game that allows players to go to the Argonian homeland, Black Marsh.

The general has an Argonian modding index for Skyrim specifically if you want to mod the game, as well as some for Oblivion.

Drakenguard

Features some hack 'n slash and aerial combat.

The gameplay in these are generally regarded to be bad, but they're also Yoko Taro games so they're also bizarre enough to be endearing in their own right. The key entries include dragon partners for the main characters. The Nier series is also essentially connected.

Gex

Mostly known for a handful of 3D platformers during 5th gen.

Filled to the brim with TV and movie references of the time.

Croc

Two 3D platformers.

Another short-lived platforming series, despite having a fairly cheery protagonist these games sometimes have a more eerie atmosphere.

Bubble Bobble / Puzzle Bobble

Taito's arcade game series and spin-off.

In the former, two brothers turn into chibi dragons that blow bubbles in pursuit to rescue their girlfriends from an alcoholic. The latter is a puzzle game series.

Breath of Fire

Capcom JRPGs.

Some of the games have the protagonist have a dragon transformation powerup, and perhaps some very much scaly party members.

Divinity

Mostly WRPGs, some of them have /scaly/ relevance.

Most here may be familiar with Original Sin 2 and their lizardmen, including the Red Prince. There's also Divinity 2 for an adventure game with dragon shapeshifting, while Dragon Commander also features some of that but in the form of being about empire management.

Jurassic Park/World

Dinosaurs.

Operation Genesis is the first park building entry hailing around from 6th gen, Jurassic World Evolution and its sequel are its modern successors. There's also a few odd other games out there.

Dark Souls

Action games with cool exploration sometimes.

The other quintessential action game series on this list, featuring a good share of draconic bosses and also transformations made accessible through given covenants the player may join . Though the latter isn't that practical, the first game at least had them fashionable while they want sandwiches in the third. DaS2 instead makes it a set of armor. This should probably get bumped down elsewhere but dragons are already prominent enough throughout the franchise somewhat.


Standalone

Ideally these should be games where the /scaly/ part is very much relevant.

Snake

hiss

Dragon's Dogma

Itsuno from Capcom tries his hand at an action RPG, which garnered something of a cult following. The main antagonist is Grigori, believed to be one of the best vidya dragons around. Play it on PC for a drastically better framerate than on consoles.

A sequel is in the works and pending release. Dragon's Dogma Online, an MMO spin-off, was taken offline but private server efforts for it are making some tangible progress.

Angels With Scaly Wings

This is a visual novel, not a video game. Anyway, you are the ambassador to a Earth-like world populated with dragons no bigger than a horse. Like some other furry VNs, it can also be depressing.

Snoot Game

A parody VN of Goodbye Volcano High that is not only a high quality shitpost that is better than it should be, but is unironically better than the actual GVH itself, which took the better of roughly three and a half years to come out since its announcement. Any presence of it on /v/ will make janitors completely assblasted for reasons unknown.

One of the devs has decided to make his own commercial VN afterwards, titled I Wani Hug That Gator!.

Golden Treasure: The Great Green

An interactive novel about a draak-kin's (feathered wyvern) life, from egg to adulthood. Survive by exploring, getting stronger and avoiding danger. Hunting and fighting have their separate minigames, the latter a bit more involved. After 3 deaths, you lose your save, but can restart from certain points and keep some permanent upgrades that make it much easier later. Very draconic point of view in writing.

The anon who suggested this has also provided a link to the game.

Rune Factory 4

Ventuswill is often revered on /scaly/, so it's only fair that her game goes on here. But it's been released on more platforms now and you STILL can't marry her, goddamn it.

Dragalia Lost

IT'S FUCKING DEAD

Dragalia...Lost.

ARK

One of the more known OPEN WORLD SURVIVAL CRAFTING (and formerly) EARLY ACCESS but with dinosaurs, of which some can be tamed. Also has a more fantasy-themed DLC. There is a good bit of infamy surrounding the game and its development (shit is very unoptimized and ridiculous in file size too), so take caution.

Drakan

A dragon rider game, with Arokh assisting the player in the air and sometimes ground.

Snake Pass

An unusual platformer where the central mechanics involve being a snake, you coil and slither around objects to navigate levels and avoid falling.

Dino Run DX

A standalone, more developed version of the Dino Run flash game of old but would probably pass for pixelshit these days. Run away from the meteor's destruction.

Century: Age of Ashes

It's a competitive dragon rider game that happens to be free-to-play. As a result, anything could happen so take some caution.

I of the Dragon

A dragon game hailing from around 2004.


Browser / Flash

In-browser and Flash games that are a lot more compact than the above, but aren't pornographic. Look a bit further down for that.

How to Raise a Dragon

A game going through the life cycle of a dragon, you control and influence its upbringing at different stages.

Deepest Sword

A former flavor of the month the internet made porn of for a bit, you try to make a very long blade to penetrate the dragon's scales and slay it.

Flight Rising

Browser game about breeding dragons, that has at least one anon in the general still playing or keeping tabs on it.


Lewd

This section could use some expansion. There are very likely plenty of these by now that are better than these offerings.

Kobold Adventure

It's a text adventure game where you go through the hardships of being a kobold.

Flexible Survival

Coming in both single player and even MUD forms, both are text adventures sharing the premise of the furry apocalypse happening, where defeat in combat, items, and certain scenes can transform the player. There are a few reptilian transformations as with some NPCs. Still under development, the Godot build appears to be a different game entirely.

Grove

A gay-oriented RPG Maker game with a humanoid dragon protagonist and some of his kin exploring cursed as fuck lands, with corruption being the game's overarching theme. Still under development, but reaching the end of story content for a given build at least unlocks a gallery for you to see bad end content without needing to throw battles constantly.

The developer has also made a game named Prowler, which is about a discount Nargacuga.


Character Creators or Mods

This is for anything with powerful enough player character editing or has any notable mods, but bears little relevance to /scaly/ in literally any other way.

Guncaster

A GZDoom gameplay mod that can be ran with most Doom WADs, the player character is an overpowered, anthropomorphic dragon who uses both guns and magic in tandem, also able to fly freely. Created by the Russian Overkill dev, the overall quality of the mod is also very high despite the premise, but it's also very overtuned in strength on purpose as a result.

Second Life

Still somehow kicking for over 20 years later despite having a shitty engine, basically anything /scaly/ should be possible to make as an avatar, be it bipedal or quadruped. The catch is that SL works on an economy; you'll likely have to fork up money, grind some minigames, go soliciting, or somehow get enough lindens from someone since any good avatar isn't free, and some specific knowhow may also be required to achieve given results if you don't buy a holistic avatar. If you've had any experience with modding Bethesda games - what with body mods and needing clothing meshes that fit them, it's sort of similar but with nearly everything behind microtransactions.

Obviously, it is also up to you on what you will actually do with your avatar afterwards.

As there are multiple third-party clients available, Firestorm is typically recommended for general use but others do at least have other niches. If you are doing degenerate things, it does have RLVa built-in as well, an API that allows for client-side restrictions.

VR Sims (VRChat, NeosVR)

You can pretty much just use any model properly configured for these, but generally speaking you'll likely be stuck with anthropomorphic avatars (that may or may not have digitigrade legs). There's plenty of decent avatars and sometimes free, lesser versions of paid stuff are also around, which do typically have better support. Typically, these are often sold on Gumroad, and come with .blend files, pre-setup Unity Projects for VRChat, and Substance Painter files for making your own textures. There's a bit more of an upfront cost and these are more complicated, but unlike SL you at least own the files and can pretty much do nearly anything you want with them.

Neos on the other hand can accept .obj and .fbx models with a literal drag and drop, but avatar setup requires a good amount of proper in-world configuration and opening Unity projects may still be the only means to get all the loose textures and maybe other assets required.

Avatars

This is not an exhaustive list of paid avatars that fit under the scaly umbrella. A website named VRCArena indexes a lot of avatars but is also somewhat lacking in quality control.

  • The Nardoragon is a fairly soft-looking anthro that while isn't too malleable in proportions, has a shitload of third-party support compared to the rest.
  • Nicroreda sells the Kobodal and the more eastern-like Dergodal. A chibified version of the former is available for free on Neos and presumably VRC.
  • The Drachetype is essentially Synths, Digimon, and PSO2 Casts all in one mecha-dragon look.
  • There's some Synth avatars.
  • The Draconian is essentially a buff anthro dragon, although the creator's other avatars are much more popular.
  • You can even be the Tama. Several other odd Monster Hunter avatars also exist.
  • Someone provides mods to convert some dragon avatars into wyverns.

Phantasy Star Online 2

New Genesis in itself is fairly dubious in quality as far as the actual game goes by Sega trying to do open world shit, while base PSO2 despite having a lot itself - has incredibly minimal support since it more or less finished.

Arguably has the best character editor in a game without access to user-made assets (compared to the above two); creative use of accessories can accomplish a ton of things, yielding a reptilian/draconic appearance isn't that hard but this is still a service game, so this may involve needing to build up a collection over a sizeable amount of time for desired results.

Playing as a CAST can be an easier way out of accomplishing this with cybernetic-looking parts if you can dig mecha looks. Artist agitype01 not only has a knack for figuring out scaly/furry getups within PSO2, but he also won an accessory design contest with the Crestadraga mask which for the time being is only available to buy off other players in NGS.

The original PSO2 features draconic mobs and characters from a planet named Amduskia, where they play a largely minor role but come back for some relevance in the final episode. Strangely, most of its boss-type enemies have female voiceovers for their rarer counterparts. The only cosmetic based on their appearance is a player-designed costume.

Honorable Mentions?

Maybe this can be a section for games that contain scaly characters or critters worth mentioning, playable or not, but don't really fit elsewhere. However there can be a lot of 'token scaly' characters or races out there (ie Sorlag in QC, Goris in FO2, or XCOM 2 vipers) and this could be long. The editor will see if there's demand for it, possibly a section for relevant playable factions (ie in 4X games or RTS or whatever) could work too.

Stuff like MTX will probably just be left out on the whole since anyone here wouldn't really care about paying money to have a pet dragon follow you around in Path of Exile or something else gay like that.

Edit
Pub: 25 Dec 2021 12:27 UTC
Edit: 30 Aug 2023 07:45 UTC
Views: 1595