How many English reviews will we see?
 

The main reason that made me stay in this great forum was to see how Drakensang will be perceived outside Germany. So far, hardly anyone reviewed the game. Metacritic lists three reviews. Based on your experiences with other games, do you think more major sites will publish reviews?

I believe Gamespot is planning on doing it but is presently firmly entrenched in Total war. Probably another week or two. Someone from here will surely do on also and I will bet we see 2 or 4 more in time as this is a long game and lots out now for reviewers to do

There will definitely be one from here.

Well, Drakensang just managed to show up at #10 on Gamespot's currently most popular game list…probably because of the traffic on the gamefaqs Drakensang forum (I have no clue what magical BS they use to divine that list). But anyway, showing up on the front page of the gamespot PC page like that will make the game known to A LOT more people that might not have even heard of it (which is good).

This also (hopefully) will mean that other sites/reviewers will take the time to review it.

It amazes me the lack of marketing (in NA at least) that I've seen for this game, and they obviously didn't make much effort getting the word out to the major (NA) gaming sites either. But it feels like word of mouth is doing the job for them anyway.

When I went into Gamestop last week (western pa) to get it, the clerk asked me "are you the one who called about this game a little while ago?" I said "no." He said "oh… because there's been a lot of inquiries last couple of days."

For whatever that's worth…

For me, the 'major sites' on a game like this are here and GameBanshee and possibly the Codex depending on who attacks it.

I mean, of what value is the opinion on RPG's from sites that reviewed FO3 basically with "OMG, OMG BESTEST GAME EVAR!!!!!1111one"

Now it is #2.

From a very naive view on the game I get the feeling that making a review of it can be tougher than for most CRPG. With my naive eyes, Only a very partial play, no replay at all, no attempt to replay some parts to understand some mechanism, I get the feeling that this game is flawed with many flaws beside many qualities and that it's a little mysterious how fun it can be to play it despite the numerous flaws.

I agree that this game has a couple of flaws. However, Drakensang has one big plus that unfortunately you don't see more often in complex games like this. It runs extremely well. It is kind on the hardware; I cannot remember a single crash (though I think there must have been one). It is easy to handle, it looks and sounds great. You don't have to wallow through dozens of options to find out how it runs best. One may criticise that it is a bit shallow and naive at times, but this can be a strength. Also, it is very hard to make decisions that bad that you feel that you ruined the game for yourself.

In short, Drakensang is friendly to you, the player. You launch it and enjoy. It's that simple. As I said, it is a rarity these days.

The more I play it, the more I like it. I feel very comfortable with navigation, interface, story, gameplay, etc., which is more than what I can say about, for example, NWN2, in which I had to sort of force myself to accept how things work there. The system underneath is very complex, yet you really don't need to understand it fully to enjoy the game, and basically right-clicking on whatever you don't understand usually explains it all. I would give it a solid 85 (with a personal bias to 90)

Well I'm charmed too but I disagree a bit about the pink vision. For performance I didn't get any problem with NWN2/MoTB/Oblivion.

I'll focus on just one point, it's how confuse are the fights, but I don't know if with the same game rules and general system that could be improved:

• In Drakensang the PC movements for position for an attack are so complicate and strange that they are hard to predict when in NWN2 that point is quite natural and never surprising.
• For some reason it's often hard to aim the target you want aim in Drakensang I don't remember at all this problem in NWN2.
• In Drakensang I have only one quickslot bar and need scroll to get another when in NWN2 I have 4 quickslot bars.
• The Drakensang fight system is more complicated because of the stamina system with many special attacks and combat modes limited in time. All of this make the Drakensang fights quite more complex requiring pause at each turn. But with RT that adds to the confusion. RTwP system doesn't fit well RT with Pause at each round, try BG series or NWN1&2 series with this setup and it won't work.

But for a dedicated player like me the real problem isn't the confusion or the complexity but more that the difficulty is too low during a large part of the game and in some area I notice the game abuse of repetitive fights. When the challenge is here and fights don't get too repetitive then the fights are quite fun but well it's not always.

To come back to my own interrogation about the appeal of the game, sometimes it make me think: but why I disliked so much Oblivion? I wonder perhaps it's right times for a light CRPG when it wasn't the right time when Oblivion was released? Well I don't think so but I'm not sure.

It's true that a new system fun to discover, companions, ton of kindly humor and even some good laughs add a lot to the game and Oblivion has nothing of that.

I totallyagree that there are repetitive fights. Especially later in the game they get particularly annoying.

I had no problems with the combat though.

I played Baldur's Gate with Autopause and I play Drakensang the same way (after each round - admittedly in BG you had a bigger variety of options) and fighting is absolutely logical this way. There is no problem with targetting.

You have shortcut keys for additional quickslot bars, so I don't understand your problem there.

Playing Drakensang without Autopause lets you miss the tactical possibilities of fighting IMHO.

Edit: The missing Autopause was the main reason I don't like NWN2 so much. You have no real control over your companions without it and the various AI mods are not a real replacement for that.

You played BG with pause at each round??? Myself I felt fights of BG/NWN didn't work well with that setup.

It's weird it seems it's only me that have often a problem to target opponents in Drakensang. Perhaps you don't use any PC/NPC with long range attacks?

Opponents almost merged, special attack cursor the same if above target or ground, PC far from action in dungeon involves a camera view quite weird to aim like your other PC between you and your target.

What are your solutions about those problems?

No, I know what you mean. It's just that Drakensang offered so much value for me that I can forgive and forget such little nuisances. :p

However until now I have always managed to target a opponent if I wanted to target it, although it sometimes involved quite a bit camera movement and/or hunting for the few pixels that represent the desired target on screen.

In NWN you can't play with Autopause. In BG you have some better options then after each round (e.g. spell cast, enemy sighted, out of ammo etc), so pause happens exactly, when you need to do something. However, Autopause after each round is good enough for me.

I never had a problem with aiming, probably because of the Autopause. I always use ranged characters. Since you can move the camera during pause there is no problem for aiming.

Obviously I am not looking out for reviews to find out whether it is a good game or not. I alreasy finished it, after all. I am just interested in what they will write.

But yes, I agree with you! It is a shame.

I agree with you. I think the way the camera works in Drakensang is what would hold down the grade of the game if i would have (god forbid) reviewd it.

I felt it was more worse in the beginning. Now i just feel it and no fights (as of yet) has been a problem.

I like the transparence of the ruleset. It doesn't feel like a number cruncher but more of a game. Drakensang does have flaws, but i don't realize them anymore. Its to darn good! :)

Btw, Autopause. This game hase autopause? I have totally missed that!

I'm advanced into the game and haven't seen that autopause yet (unless they mean the 'pause as soon as combat begins' instead of 'pause after every round'). In BG I didn't use the pause every round, too much micromanaging. I set it for different things like combat start, character death, character under 25% health, enemy dead, think that's about it.
About the camera, yes, I also have problems targeting, this could be solved if the camera was detached from the PC, that way I could move the camera to where the enemy is, instead of trying to swivel it left right up down to try and find a view where a pixel of the target I want shows (specially bad when my caracter is near a wall). Just something to hopefully improve for next installment. I'm enjoying this game more than any I have played in recent memory.

I disagree, although I admittedly never used BG's autopause system much.

Actually one reason I like Drakensangs RTwP implementation is the autopause system, which is both simple yet gives you nearly the same control as a turnbased game.
The examples you listed above (in favor of BG's system) wouldn't add anything to Drakensang. Because spell casting requires always multiples of one combat round, it is completely sufficient to change ammo after the end of the combat round you ran out of ammo.
The simple reason is, that (except for movement) the atomic time unit in Drakensang is the combat round. There is no half combat round or such, every action begins at the beginning of a combat round and takes X full combat rounds. So (except for movement) pausing every round gives you all the control you require.

On the contrary BG's (or NWN2's, as I can remember it better) autopause system with the tons of options either leads to slicing the action into irregular but highly frequent time intervals (when checking all options) or you giving some of the control out of hand (unchecking some options).

I'd prefer the simple and predictable quasi-turnbased way of Drakensang any time.