A Let's Play of DRAPLINE, Where You Raise a Dragon Girl in One Year: A Year Spent Taking On Calamity Dragons While "Polishing Off" the Villagers

When you choose New Game, the story opens right at its climax. A dragon girl named "Kurya" urges you on: "What are you spacing out for?! This is the final battle, so pull yourself together!" Without really understanding what's going on, the player has to give battle commands. There are three actions to choose from, Defend, Attack and Buff, and this scene doubles as the combat tutorial. The commentator praises this opening as "a pretty great bit of staging."

The commentator also jokes that if this really is "the final battle," then, just like in Shiren the Wanderer 6, beating the final boss here might clear the game on the spot, and declares that they'll go in with a sense of tension. They start with a buff, then defend against the powerful breath attack that follows. But the battle turns out to have been "a strange dream," and the scene shifts into the main story.

The setting is a small village. The protagonist notices noises coming from the food storehouse at the edge of the village and goes to check, thinking a monster might have gotten in and be ransacking it, but finds a young girl there instead. With the commentator reacting, "Oh, how cute," the protagonist takes the girl in. The dragon girl's name is "Ku," and from here the year of raising her begins.

The main game starts in the first week of April. Right at the start there's a tremendous noise, but it turns out Ku was just hungry. Since you can't have her wrecking the house, you buy her food every week. Which stats grow depends on the food, and the commentator first picks mushrooms that are on sale.

After the meal, you go out into the village and help the villagers to earn money for food. The first person visited is Tori. While helping out, Ku tries to eat everything, but scolding her properly raises the villager's affection and improves the reward. When the job is done, you receive the reward, and at this point you can learn a new skill. According to the commentator, this is the rough flow of a week, with special events occasionally thrown in.

In the first special event, Mol, a member of the dragon clan, appears. According to Mol, Ku is a being called a "Divine Dragon," and her appearance is an omen that calamity will befall the world.

In May, Mol moves into the neighborhood and takes on the roles of giving training advice and keeping watch. Signs of calamity are beginning to appear in the village, and the commentator says having Mol around should make things a lot more reassuring. Mol advises that if you find a small calamity, you should fight it to gain real combat experience.

In June, you help out at the tavern of Urupika, a mandragora, chatting along the way. The commentator wraps up this scene with "OK, Urupika, all eaten up." Taken together with the mechanic mentioned earlier of "scolding Ku when she tries to eat everything," this is an expression indicating that Ku ate the villager, and the "eat all the villagers" in the video title also refers to this development. Right afterward, the commentator says "Anyway, moving on" and proceeds to the next scene.

At the end of June, the sky turns red, and a "cute dragon" comes after the Divine Dragon. According to the commentator, these "funny dragons" will keep showing up periodically from here on. The first opponent is the Calamity Dragon Cham.

Thanks to Mol's advance scouting, it was known that the enemy excels at poison attacks. So the commentator puts on "Ice Veil," which nullifies debuffs. Ice Veil also inflicts self-damage every turn, but they judge that it's better than getting poisoned.

When Ku's gauge fills up, she can fire a powerful breath. The commentator builds the gauge while keeping their defenses up and gets to the point where the breath is ready early on, but doesn't use it right away. The reasoning is that bosses like this usually go berserk when their health drops to half, so they want to whittle it down a bit more and then finish it off in one go. When they unleash the breath after wearing it down enough, it does more damage than expected. The commentator reads that the breath attack must always act last, and defeats the enemy with a light attack the next turn.

After the victory, the village holds the Divine Dragon Festival. The player comes up with a chant for the festival and tells it to the villagers, and the commentator goes with "Umami!"

In September, you help out at Tori's place again. Hearing that Tori doesn't like vegetables, the commentator praises Ku, who isn't a picky eater, as "so good." And this scene, too, ends with "OK, Tori, all eaten up."

Next, the second calamity dragon, the Calamity Dragon Moon, appears. From its sheep-like appearance and constantly languid demeanor, the commentator predicts it will use sleep moves, and figures that against an opponent relying mainly on debuffs, Ice Veil will come in handy again.

In the battle, they first attack with "Poison Fang." As predicted, the enemy inflicts sleep, so they use Ice Veil to nullify debuffs for a while. Despite the self-damage, being able to prevent sleep is "very umami," the commentator says. Since Ku's Defend has an HP recovery effect, they adopt a strategy of recovering by defending while waiting for the poison to wear the enemy down. The veil lasts until the end of the next turn, so they expect it to block the next sleep as well.

As in the previous battle, the commentator expects the enemy to fire a breath once its HP drops below half. So they whittle it down as far as possible before unleashing their own breath, aiming to beat the enemy before its breath goes off. The finishing blow is Curse, a move that deals damage equal to the total damage taken so far. With that, the Calamity Dragon Moon is defeated too, and the village is once again protected from calamity.

Time passes, and it's the third week of March. The year ends the following week. The commentator reflects on Ku, who has grown a little more grown-up since they first met, wondering whether she has matured not just in appearance but in heart as well. This week you help out at Nott's place, and between tasks the two get into a lively conversation about how to eat fish bones. This scene, too, wraps up with "OK, Nott, all eaten up."

Right after that, Mol appears, and the battle against Morgentiana begins. This is the final boss of this adventure. The commentator says, "I thought Mol would understand, but it's a real shame," but the specific reason for the fight isn't explained in the video.

The battle opens with Poison Fang. Poison works well on opponents without the Star's Blessing, but Morgentiana always cures the poison on the next turn and is then immune to poison for 5 turns. Its Double Slash attack is also very strong, and the commentator calls it "a pretty troublesome opponent." Even so, they declare that since Ku has also "grown by eating lots of villagers" over this year, they'll overcome this trial "with the villagers united as one—literally."

By the time they unleash the breath, both sides are nearly even in health. The enemy has a little over 130,000 HP left. The enemy's poison immunity runs out this turn, so they attack with Poison Fang again. According to the commentator's explanation, the enemy always spends a turn on "Molting," so they use that opening to land a final Curse and win. The commentator describes this victory as "OK, Mol, all eaten up," too.

In the ending, a narration plays: no one can control Ku's appetite anymore, and this girl will keep growing stronger without limit and defeat calamities with ease, but no one knows what will become of the world beyond that.

Having raised the strongest dragon girl in one year, the game ends. According to the results screen, Ku grew up eating lots of carbohydrates, and in the village she got along especially well with Nott. The commentator says that looking back, it feels somehow moving. On the other hand, they note that it was a shame you can only prey on up to three villagers, and conclude that since early access for the game has only just begun, they look forward to how it evolves from here.