RoA: Blade of Destiny - Retrospective Review

RetrospectiveGaming looks back at Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny:

Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny Review (1992)

About:
"Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny is a role-playing video game developed by Attic Entertainment Software. It was the first game based on the German pen & paper RPG system The Dark Eye by Fantasy Productions. The original German version of the game (German title: Das Schwarze Auge: Die Schicksalsklinge) was released in 1992. Due to its success it was translated to English and released by Sir-Tech in 1993."

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More information.

Overall a good and detailed review. There are a couple of things I don't quite agree with though. The author often speaks like you cannot save at all (he complains about several harsh moments where you could just reload). I think in the english version you could even save without penalty. In the German one I think you had to pay a small amount of xp if you save outside of a temple.
Also gold was never an issue due to loading and saving...it's just so easy to get tons of gold in that game. Actually too easy. Either by savescumming the crap out of card games in taverns or in the long run by selling the dropped items. As in contras to lots of other games, you can loot everything enemies drop all the time.

Also I never found it difficult to find shops. They are actually displayed on the minimap. However it is extremely tedious to find the quest people as you sometimes need to bump into each and every house in order to check it out.

I certainly agree to the slowness of the combat. While it didn't bother me much back then I think from today's perspective it's a pain in the ass.

"There are not a lot of dungeons in the game" is actually quite incorrect. When I played this game I was surprised about how many dungeons they are. And how many are totally optional. Just looked it up in some forums and found the game had 15 dungeons which I'd consider to be quite a lot. Granted the game is huge and you will only spend a fraction of the time in dungeons.

Indeed, there are a lot of dungeons in the game, or at least there were when I played it. Not all of them are called dungeons if I remember right, but it's really just the same thing with a different name. Really, the only problem with this game for me was that I'd just finished Krondor, and this one felt not quite as good, at least not to me. Other than that, I did enjoy it.

Every time I tried to play this I got frustrated by the micromanagement aspects...and I normally like more detailed in depth games. I'll give this one another try some day though as so many love it.

I never played it. I tried the recent remakes but didn't like them particularly. The older version looks pretty decent though in that video, and since it is cheap on gog at the minute (less than a pound ) I've picked it up and added it to my ever growing backlog. I should get round to trying it around 2030 or something…!

I thought about picking them up on GOG, but I don't want to invest time into the whole trilogy. Which is the best? I hear it's either Star Trail or Shadows over Riva.

Silver Coin said:

I thought about picking them up on GOG, but I don't want to invest time into the whole trilogy. Which is the best? I hear it's either Star Trail or Shadows over Riva.

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I'd say that Shadows over Riva is worst, while it's still good.

The first game has most of freedom and the biggest map.
The second part still has a big (albeit smaller) map, but is a bit more detailed.
The third part has no map at all and is extremely linear. However it has a (nowadays cheap looking) 3D environments, which are far more detailed and some voiceovers now and then.

I think regarding combat there was an improvement in the second over the first that you can also shoot diagonally. Otherwise it stays pretty much the same in all games.

Personally I'd go for the first. And if you decide to check out the second as well, you can import your characters from the first.

Silver Coin said:

I thought about picking them up on GOG, but I don't want to invest time into the whole trilogy. Which is the best? I hear it's either Star Trail or Shadows over Riva.

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I prefer Star Trail over the first and third RoA, it's also the first of the series I played in the mid nineties. Blade of Destiny I catched up on later on then, it misses some of the comfort stuff introduced in Star Trail.

I enjoyed all three games, probably not equally but enough that I could see myself replaying all of them at some time.

These three games have one of the best DOS pixel graphics in the world. Scotia-level quality. Only reason I didn't play them, because the turn based fights have a super ugly whistling sound played every friggin' time a battle turn ends.

I played the Blade of Destiny remake which is pretty much a 1:1 remake, and I enjoyed it. The game was horribly broken on release and still a bit choppy after patches but it's playable. I liked the game systems a lot. Combat is painfully slow but the remake has speed-up options (2x, 4x, etc..)

RPG-wise it's a great and interesting game. You don't have to micromanage that much, but you do have to carry items that would be otherwise "mundane" in most RPGs. Want to travel through those huge mountains during the dead of winter (time passes in the game, seasons happen, etc.) then you better be packing some bedrolls and warm jackets. The movement from place to place on the open world map is part of the charm. You have to set up camp, make sure you can survive the harsh conditions, watch for ambushes, pick herbs for your mages to toy with for alchemy, etc.. It's sort of a survival sim game when travelling between locations, and I found that just awesome. There are "random" scripted encounters, like an avalanche could happen (good thing you had a spare grappling hook with you!), or even in dungeons one of your characters may get claustrophobic and wait at the surface for you! There are travelling markets that pop up in cities from time to time, skill checks when exploring (want your Rogue to try and use their Acrobatics skill to get to the bottom of that dark chasm? Go for it! They might die, but they also might find some great treasure…) I find all of those things incredibly unique with loads of potential even today, and that's why I enjoyed my time with the remake, despite it being pretty rough around the edges. It's unpredictable, interesting and 100% unique.

I'd suggest giving the remake a try and at least giving it a few hours to start showing itself. It starts slow and stays pretty slow throughout but it can draw you in. It did me. The game-breaking bugs have all been fixed. And I feel the systems in the game have so much potential that haven't been tapped much since that trilogy. Shame that Guido Henkel's "Deathfire" Kickstarter didn't make it.

Ah, memories.

Fluent said:

I played the Blade of Destiny remake which is pretty much a 1:1 remake, and I enjoyed it. The game was horribly broken on release and still a bit choppy after patches but it's playable. I liked the game systems a lot. Combat is painfully slow but the remake has speed-up options (2x, 4x, etc..)

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Hmm. Ok, thanks. Perhaps I should give it another go sometime. My memory is that it was slow, choppy, graphically muddy and generally unappealing, but maybe it improved with patches after I tried it. Although I quite like the pixel graphic style of the originals, so I'll probably give those a go when I get round to it.

Is there any reason to play the remakes over the originals?

Personally, I find the remakes a lot more appealing at least from a visual and audio standpoint.

I get that a lot of people like the pixel graphics of the originals, but I find them a little too dated especially since I never played them back in the day.

I personally think the 2D backgrounds look more visually appealing than the poorly rendered 3D graphics of the remake, but I was mostly just wondering if the remake added anything in the way of new content or QoL features?

Silver Coin said:

I was mostly just wondering if the remake added anything in the way of new content or QoL features?

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Not sure about new content, but as far as QoL features, the remake allows you to speed up the snail-paced combat like Fluent mentioned above.

I really tried replaying this game when it was supposedly updated a few years back, and quit after a few hours because it was ruining my vibe from when I originally played the game. I keep meaning to get back to it.