''Dragon Raja'' () is a series of serializing

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

novels written by Jiang Nan. There are now 4 volumes (including 6 books) published now, with an extra story titled ''The Wings of Lament'' () and released only on magazine '' Fiction & Drawing''. Combining fantasy, courage, persistence and the true meaning of friendship, the series encourages its young readers to grow up in a world full of unexpected challenges. At the same time, it is a story about loneliness. Fulfilling one's duty, as well as protecting the people one holds most dear, is a responsibility one has to take alone. Under the cover of heart-pumping, mind-thrilling adventures, millions of readers find courage and strengths in the series. Since the release of the first volume on April 1, 2010, the series has gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, each and every one of the first 6 titles of the series has championed the best seller list with more than 2,000,000 copies sold. It attracted a lot of young teenager readers, and have remained one of the preeminent cornerstones of youth and fantasy literature.

Plot

''Dragon Raja I: The Blazing Dawnlight''

Lu Mingfei (), also known as Ricardo M. Lu, an 18-year-old high school student, who was applying to universities in

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, received a weird admission letter from a college named Cassel near

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Once he took on the special railway express CC1000 to the mysterious Cassel College, what awaited for him were crazy lessons, strange teachers and all kinds of creepy classmates. Besides all these unexpected things, he was informed by the college that a disaster was happening under the

Three Gorges Dam The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, downstream of the Three Gorges. The Three Gorges Dam has been the world ...

in China, and a war between human and dragons was on the way...

''Dragon Raja II: Eyes of the Bereaved''

During his first year's summer vacation of Cassel College, Ricardo M. Lu received an invitation to a class reunion from his high school classmates just on his birthday. In the meantime, an urgent dragon-related mission from Cassel College was assigned to him and another student Chu Zihang (). However, the maverick Chu Zihang alone shouldered the whole task. After the mission was completed, the two boys immediately went to Chicago and started their new semester. At Chicago railway station, they met a girl named Xia Mi () and claimed herself a freshman of the Cassel College. As this girl showed up, a series mysterious incidents were happening...

''Dragon Raja III: The Dark Moon Tide (I)''

It was the second Cassel College's summer holiday for Ricardo M. Lu. A dangerous dragon heartbeat signal was discovered under the sea of Japan. Before this ominous indication developed into a certain catastrophe, Hilbert Ron Anjou, the principle of the Cassel College, appointed his three students, Caesar Gattuso, Chu Zihang and Ricardo M. Lu as special agents to resolve the crisis. As soon as these three students took this confidential mission and arrived in Tokyo, they received warm reception from the Japanese branch. The three boys thought it would be a pleasant cooperation, and began their underwater mission. The submersible sent the team to an 8-kilometre-deep sea. They met the amazing Dragon City, and accidentally found the embryos of the dragons began to hatch. In the meantime, the whole Japanese branch suddenly lost contact and the situation became extremely critical. The trio was facing the most severe crisis ever...

''Dragon Raja III: The Dark Moon Tide (II)''

Historical remains of dragons were discovered and awaken by the Cassel trio. The trio escaped from the dragons' attacks, and safely returned to harbour. However, without any help and contact from neither the Cassel College nor Japanese branch, the three boys, Caesar Gattuso, Chu Zihang and Ricardo M. Lu got lost in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and trapped in Japanese mobs. They finally took a Japanese host club as temporary sanctuary, waited patiently for any chance to revenge, and complete their mission...

''Dragon Raja III: The Dark Moon Tide (III)''

Uesugi Erii ( ja, 上杉絵梨衣), a girl from the Japanese branch, was designated as sacrifice to save the whole crisis. The trio was totally against this decision from the headmaster of the Japanese sect, and planned to take the girl away. Meanwhile, the White King of Dragon under the Sea of Japan was awakened, and Tokyo city was facing a catastrophic destruction...

''Dragon Raja IV: The Abyss of Odin''

The fourth year for Ricardo M. Lu in Cassel College started, he was appointed as the new chairman of the student union. Accidentally, he found his senior, Chu Zihang, literally disappeared. In addition, Ricardo is the only one who remembers his existence. While Ricardo was trying to figure these weird things out, a series of attacks against the college happened and he was suspected of being the attacker. Ricardo had no choice but reached out to Nuonuo (诺诺) who was Caesar Gattuso's fiancée and taking bridal training for help...

Release information

Video game

massively multiplayer online role-playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

(MMORPG) for mobile devices, titled ''Dragon Raja'', was developed by Loong Entertainment and released for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android. It launched in North America, South America and EMEA regions on February 27, 2020. The game is powered by

Unreal Engine 4 Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genre ...

from

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...

Besides traditional game features such as PvE and PvP fights, there are also various minigames such as cooking and sports as well as exploration elements.

Reception

''Dragon Raja'', then known as ''Project:SU'', was revealed at Games Developer Conference (GDC) 2019. Even before the official launch, there were a number of mainstream gaming websites worldwide reporting about the game, such as

IGN Poland ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distr ...

Pocket Gamer ''Pocket Gamer'' is a video game website that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. The site launched in 2005 and is published and owned by UK company Steel Media Ltd. The site covers all major portable and mobile gaming formats, incl ...

, Noisy Pixel and mein MMO Most of the reports praised the graphics. It also won the "Most Anticipated Game" award at Unreal Open Day 2019.

References

{{Reflist Chinese fantasy novels 21st-century Chinese novels Chinese adventure novels Fantasy novel series Novels adapted into comics Novels adapted into video games 2010 Chinese novels 2011 Chinese novels 2012 Chinese novels 2013 Chinese novels 2015 Chinese novels