Drakensang - first impressions
 

I am 12 hours into the game and I … like it.

positive:
+ story driven
+ many little side-quests
+ much micromanagement, crafting, healing
+ slow combat with pause (like BG)
+ no rest & heal, you have to bandage yourself
+ stat driven, lots of necessary AND unnecessary things to learn
+ low level gear and weapons, you really have to search for good magic treasure
+ much dialogue - but no full speech - much dialogue can only be read
+ very good trading system - you never have enough money ;)
+ fast load times
+ nearly bug free

negative:
- the automatic game camera could be better
- more party interaction would be nice, maybe there's more to come
- (for adults) target group: young teenagers, no heavy adult themes, topics so far, everything is a bit too n i c e

Traditional old school RPG - not as brilliant as the Witcher, but good. Like the old Dark Eye games the game is very good for beginners.
[Maybe we get a new generation of hardcore RPGers!]

Thanks for that -- looking forward to hearing more.

Story, sidequests, stats and particulary low-level treasure are all great, but it's very refreshing to hear that there are no bugs.

I am, as of now, very much excited.

Thanks HiddenX--I've found your taste and judgement on games to be extremely reliable over the years. I hope we'll see an English localization of this. It sounds like one I'd enjoy.

Yep, I'll be buying an English version, assuming it ever comes to Oz. Might look out for a US or UK release!!

I remember playing the older games on the Amiga and PC. I am looking forward to this when it's released in North America.

Thankd for the info. HiddenX

Shaf

I need to play through the original trilogy first!

I don't think so.

The original trilogy has few - except of the world - in common with Drakensang.

Even the version of the rule set (and the ruile set as such) has changed.

No adult themes? does it mean the game story is also of simplistic nature? with no adult themes? or complicated moral or philosophical questions?

The one reason I never played much oldies before was because I always played the newest games first (new => old). I have found out that by doing it in the correct form (old => new) makes it much easier. You even get to apprieciete the continuity and development during the years.

If drakensang was like dark messiah of mm is to might magic series (dm is not a real rpg even) then I might consider it as totally seperate. Drakensang though is a rpg, its based on the same ruleset (its the 4th dark eye video game) and world - thats enough for me to consider it as a modern successor.

I can't say since I still don't have it.

Okay, from this point of view yoiu're right.

But what i meant was that it has nothing to do with the old trilogy - especially story-wise.

It is not a "forth part", but set many, many years later in a different part of this world.

Story-wise has never been a requirement for me. I.E for me AD&D series starts with gold box games, continues with dark sun, baldur's gate (icewind dale sidestory) and NWN & NWN2. Stories in each were totally different even the original gold box series has three seperate "stories". Spiritual successing is more important, the world, ruleset and game mechanics.

I would have liked drakensang to be party based too like the original RoA but with modern games that seems to be somthing that you cant expect to have. But if its a quality rpg (unlike uhm dark messiah) then it doesnt really matter - quality is more important than sticking to old mechanics.

Due to having to work this weekend (yay! -- NOT :| ) , I'm not as far into the game as HiddenX probably is by now but I think I can answer that as well from the first few hours of playing and from knowing the old trilogy pretty well.

The answer is, no, there are no real adult themes and no complicated moral or philosophical questions in this game. Which shouldn't be too surprising since the old trilogy didn't have any of that either. The Dark Eye and Aventuria are a pretty light-hearted setting with a good dose of humor thrown into the mix (the racial conflict between elves and dwarves, for example, is more of the bickering kind rather than outright, flaming hatred). Also, character names are often times kinda funny/weird/comical and the dialogue often includes humorous comments. Or… who doesn't remember the totally insane, out of context "eat more cheese toast" pop-up message from the Northland trilogy that came out of nowhere a few times throughout the games?

Nah, Aventuria isn't really the kind of place for any real adult themes or deep moral/philosophical questions. It's also not a goofball setting either though. It is still a serious setting/background but not overly serious.

So, the complexity lies more in character development and in understanding the specifics of the rule set. But the quests and the story are a pretty straightforward matter (at least to the point that I have played so far). It was, however, the same in the old trilogy with the exception of the main quest in the 2nd part, Star Trail. It was fairly difficult at times to figure out which things you needed to do in which way and in which order in that game.

There are moral choices and consequences, but as Moriendor said it is presented in a fairy tale style.

PS:
The boss fights are real challenging, you have to build a balanced party and equip them with all you can find, buy and craft to master these fights. Good tactics are needed, too - I love that.

Some puzzles are very difficult to solve.

zakhal wrote:
HiddenX wrote:

So is this party based or not? The description in our database says yes.

It is. But you don't get to create your party at the beginning like you did in the previous games. Instead you pick up your companions (up to three) along your travels (like in BG). You can also have one summoned creature and one passive helper NPC in your party so the max amount of party members is six although you only have direct control of the original four.

I would suggest this is a continuation of RoA in the same that Baldur's Gate is a continuation of the Gold Box series…in other words, not really.

That was an insider joke - probably of Attic themselves.

I heard this was a play on the … what i know as "crunch time" on software/game development … which resulted in saying (I think even ironically) that the developers should "eat more cheese toast" if they were hungry - because they could't eat anything else because they had to work so hard.

This is what I've heard, but I can't say whether it is true or not. All I can say for relatively sure is that it is an insider joke.

It's in a way similar to the "Larian Dungeon" of Divinity.

I think this hits the nail on the top.

Thanks. That answers my question perfectly--yes and no. ;) While I'd rather roll up a party of my own any day, this way at least allows you to explore some alternate skillsets and tactics, so I guess that works. I'm looking forward to checking it out if it ever gets Englished.

I may be wrong but didn't ROA-Shadows over Riva deal with racial injustice? The half-orcs in the game were treated as second class citizens and forced to live in the poorer sections of town and work for next to nothing (like Arcanum but not as involved as it went into the subject.) Exchange the word half-orc with any ethnic minority in real life and you have a real life adult problem. Even though they dealt with this problem in a fantasy way, it still was one of the more memorable parts about the last game.

Let's also not forget in the first trilogy they did have at least one adult theme in the game or are brothels not adult themes anymore? ;)