I played the English demo several weeks ago and it was pretty decent. Anyone have any feedback on the US release version yet? Any Europeans who have had it for awhile have any thoughts on the game?
Links! or the lazy gamer goes nowhere
I've never heard of this one personally.
It's only $28 at Amazon.com, unfortunately the American publisher has decided not to give this game any press, so you are hard pressed to find so much as a review. It is also available for $30 at GamersGate and Direct2Drive.
These are the only three reviews I know of:
7.6/10 at IGN.
7/10 at PC Gamer UK.
82/100 at Games Examiner.
I've also been reading about it on forums at various RPG sites. From what I gather, it is a good, solid RPG but falls well short of being great. Entertaining and without significant flaws, but not particularly memorable for anything. Keep in mind that is the viewpoint of RPG enthusiasts, so it might be different for a more general gamer. If I was on the fence, I'd wait for a review from one of the RPG websites (GameBanshee is working on one, I think in about a week), which should go into more detail than the IGN or PC Gamer reviews.
None of this is from personal experience, my copy is still in the mail. I've also heard (not officially, but from a source I trust) that this game will be coming to Steam, though there is no ETA for when it will be avaliable.
I am still in the tutorial area and have not put too much time into the game. So far it seems to be at least on par with NWN2 for game play. As I have not experienced the story yet I cannot comment. I did spend a lot of time with the Character sheets checking out the skills and spells available to the starting classes. There are many interesting classes.
Human:
Warrior
Archer
Soldier
Battlemage
Healing Mage
Charlatan
Rogue
Burglar
Thief
Elementalist
Metamage
Alchemist
Pirate
Amazon
Elf:
Ranger
Spellweaver
Fighter
Dwarf:
Mercenary
Sapper
Prospector
I went with a Metamage with is basically a Necromancer. Here she is:
I will post more maybe next week once I have dig into the game some more.
From what I've heard it's a little dry and traditional, but is also surprisingly polished for an indie German game. I might give it a shot at some point.
Is this a lone character game or do you end up managing a party?
Is this a lone character game or do you end up managing a party?
You create one character and you can get up to 3 npc's to join you along the way.
Given my Euro-RPG fetish, I'm morbidly curious about this one. I'll look forward to more impressions from those of you braver than I.
Arovin do you have 3 monitors running at once? I like that look.
I... what the! I just noticed that. Examining the picture closely makes me nauseous. Such a wide FOV.
Eurogamer have a review/preview
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/drakensang-the-dark-eye-hands-on
Arovin do you have 3 monitors running at once? I like that look.
Yes, I have a triplehead2go adapter from matrox.
From what I've heard it's a little dry and traditional, but is also surprisingly polished for an indie German game.
Just to be clear, it's as 'indie' as Gothic is. Which means it pretty much doesn't meet the general 'indie critera' since it was funded by a local publisher, dtp.
Fair enough. I tend to lazily use the word "indie" instead of "game with far lower budget then most of it's peers".
My eye has been on this game, but I figure I have plenty on my plate right now, so I can wait until the price drops (I know, it's not that much, but I just bought NWN2 with expansion for $20, so I'm set).
I simply like the fact it's using a real (ie. non video game) rpg's rules and world, which, imho, helps make games better than if the devs had to make everything up on there own. I'm being very general here.
My interest has been piqued so I will download the demo as soon as my net connection gets more reliable. The router has been sh*tting out on me recently
I just played the demo and wasn't really very impressed, I can't quite put my finger on it but something about the combat bugs me (I played the battlemage), from what I gather the game is using a PnP system with rounds and what not but I couldn't quite figure out how long the rounds are, it seems random at times. I really can't get my head around the mechanics going on under the hood; case in point both the attack spells I started with state that they are instantaneous but they take about five minute to cast. I feel like I need a Baldur's Gate sized manual to help me wrap my head around the mechanics like I did when I was learning DnD mechanics.
The demo installed stable and loaded in a snap. That gets a big plus from me after that Empire total war demo fiasco. Not to mention the Grand Ages: Rome demo that wouldn't even download off of steam.
EDIT: Started the demo as a dwarf. One thing I'm finding hard to cope with is the slow as molasses "run" speed. And it seems like the only possible way to open chests is to pick them open. Not being a thief I have to walk past them because there is no possible way for me to open them.
Damn you Spy, you're killing me here. You know I can't resist the Germans and their RPGs! Well, the price is right at least.
Do you feel like opening dialogue options is paying off? I'm forever choosing between fighters and people who can actually carry a conversation.
Is there no way to speed up travel speed? Running around is painfully slow and there is no sort of rapid travel system I can find. Thats the only thing that kills the experience for me, the rest is nice and polished. There are no translation horrors either.
Is there any game IGN doesn't review? Sheesh. Anyway, I thought this was poignant:
Drakensang is based on a very popular pen-and-paper game in Germany so it draws its rules from a coherent and comprehensive system. Having never played the tabletop game, I can't vouch for the authenticity of the rules, but I can say that they seem a bit more complex than the systems used in many other popular RPGs, both on and off the desktop. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I'm already so familiar with the D&D and D20 systems that it's no great leap for me to jump into Neverwinter Nights and instantly understand the relationships between the math and the game results. Drakensang may be just as intuitive and accessible to people who've played it a lot but in trying to break into the North American market, I feel that the designers need to make their system more transparent.
Some kind soul has translated a German FAQ to English, it explains the game system somewhat. It is very detailed, doesn't deal with spoilers, and looks to be a great primer for an unfamiliar system.
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