Review of The Dark Eye: Drakensang

To start, let me say that I love traditional CRPG's. I haven't noticed many CRPG's in recent years, most new RPG's are console RPG's, ported over to the PC. But here is Drakensang, a new pure CRPG, and I am loving every minute of it.

I'm just going to list what I like and dislike about this game.


MUSIC

The music in this game fits the atmosphere, I love it. I remember when Baldurs Gate first came out, the tavern music, the wilderness music, it all fit in that game. It was one of the first games I ever played where the music fit in with the atmosphere in harmony. Here in Drakensang, the music fits. Tavern music sounds like tavern music, and while exploring the city, calm beautiful music surrounds you. Music is suppose to draw you deeper into the story, deeper into it's magic, and here it does just that. Music of the year needs to be awarded here. I would love to get a soundtrack CD for this game, and I have never wanted one before for any other game.


GRAPHICS

I don't like big flashy graphics, in fact, I hate big flashy graphics. Since Fallout 3 is popular, I will use that as an example. In Fallout 3, there are a lot of blood effects that fill the screen, there are also a lot of blur effects, and all they do is obstruct my view. I like nice clean graphics, I don't like or want all that extra flashy stuff. In Drakensang, the graphics are nice and clean. The graphics stand out and are colorful without resorting to using extra flashy graphic effects.

The clothes and the architecture of buildings reminds me of old Europe. If you have ever been to the Renaissance festival, that is what this game feels like. Colorful jesters, big muscles, big bosoms, fanciful outfits with potions, daggers, and scrolls attached. It's almost perfect.


SOUND EFFECTS

Sound effects are abound. Birds chirping, monsters growling, weapons swooshing, companion's comments, it's all there. But of course it is, isn't it? What is there to say about sound effects, but that everything is splendid. And speaking of your companion's comments, the voice acting in the game is done well. The companions you can gather to fight with you will speak and make comments about situations. You are also able to talk to them anytime you want to learn more about them. They all have their personality in their voices, easily recognizable for each.

There is one possible drawback to the voice acting. Every line in the game is not spoken. There is a lot of dialogue in the game, but only the first lines, and sometimes more, are spoken. Therefore, you will have to read many lines without a voice actor reading with you. I don't have a problem with this, I love to read!


STORY

Speaking of the dialogue, the game is full of story. Generally, there are two types of RPG's. One type of RPG has a story for you to follow with a lot of dialogue, and the other type of RPG is just action with little dialogue. In this game, there is LOTS of dialogue and a lot of story for you to follow. You can, of course, skip a lot of the dialogue if you wish, but for those that want it, there's tons of information to find out.

The game is also linear, it draws you along a path. A game like Daggerfall lets you travel the world as you please, here in Drakensang, you can only go in a certain direction. There are, of course, many optional side-quests to perform that don't follow the main quest, but have little stories of their own for you to solve for loot and experience.

I do love the story, it has pulled me in like a good book. I want to keep playing to find out what happens next, and what I will be doing next. Because the game was translated from another language, it might make you wonder if the story turned out good in English, as a lot of games that are translated have ended up poorly written. The good news is that here the story has been kept intact, the English translation was pulled off marvelously.


COMPANIONS

Since you are only able to create one character, you will find many companions to join you in your adventure. The biggest thing with companions in a story-based RPG is "Do they have background stories and are interesting?". To answer that, I have to say "yes!".

Okay, I love the companions available. In Neverwinter Nights 2, I only liked some of the companions, as I do in most games. Sometimes I can't stand them. But here, they somehow managed to create companions that I like having in my party.


CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

When you create your character, you are offered a wide array of professions. These are the typical affair, such as a warrior, archer, alchemist, different types of mages, and so forth. There are about 20 in total, each with a male and female choice. The only drawback for me when creating a character, was that they only had one look each and they could not be changed. You can not change their hair color, their hair style, their faces, their body type, etc. For example, if you want to be a soldier, he will look a certain way with no option to change his looks. However, each class does look different. A mage might look Mideastern, while the soldier will look European. So even though you can't change your character's looks, each class does look different, and the different looks are so wide in selection, that I was able to overlook not being able to customize the look of my character. I usually prefer to customize my character's looks, but I was happy with this just the same.

There is also the character sheets. There are a lot of skills for you to raise when you level up. There are social skills, fighting skills, crafting skills, thieving skills, and many more for you to raise. I love having many skills to raise, it gives me more choices when leveling up my character. I wish more games had tons of skills like this to raise.


THE RULE SET

This game uses a rule set from The Dark Eye, it's a lot like Dungeons and Dragons. There are stats and skills, everything based on points and rolls. Like a lot of Dungeons and Dragons video games, you don't need to know the rules to play it and have fun. So you don't have to learn the rules if you don't want to. However, there is the option to let you know all the rolls and behind the scenes numbers, so if you want more information about what is going on, it's there for you.

I honestly don't know a single thing about this rule system, just like I don't know anything about the Dungeons and Dragons rule system. I am able to enjoy this game just the same as I enjoyed Neverwinter Nights.


COMBAT

Combat in the game is real-time with pause. It's a lot like the combat in Neverwinter Nights. There are turns that happen, but it all happens in real-time, giving you the ability to pause, and choose what spells and skills you want to use in combat.

I would prefer pure turn-based combat, but the combat here I am enjoying just as much. You will have to select each of your characters and order them to use their skills. The A.I. does not use their skills on it's own, it needs player intervention. But, the A.I. does attack on it's own, so your companions don't just stand there when attacked, they just don't use their skills on their own.

It feels like turn-based combat, even though it's in real-time, which is probably why I like it so much.


STABILITY

I want to mention how the game runs. A game can run slow for several different reasons. Sometimes, your computer isn't fast enough, sometimes it's a wrong driver, sometimes it's the game engine, sometimes it's something else.

I have a medium range computer. I have a few of the graphic settings turned down, and I am able to play the game perfectly smooth. I experience no choppyness at all. The game has not crashed once after playing for over 20 hours. The game is stable and it plays great!

However, I have noticed one small thing about it that I had trouble with. On rare occasions when casting a spell, the game would pause for a split second, then continue. I never did figure out why it did this. If this was it loading it into memory, or what, but other than this, I have not experienced anything else. Since it doesn't happen much, I just forgot about it.

I'm very happy with it's performance!


INTERFACE

It's a CRPG!

In other words, it has an interface fit for a computer. This is a big deal to me, because when a game gets ported over to the PC from a console, it leaves it's console interface on it. It makes it clunky and hard to use, and even sometimes annoying. I've played my share of PC games with bad interfaces too, don't get me wrong, but it's nice to play an RPG with a good interface that works.

Thanks for giving me an interface that works!


DRM

The game uses Securom for it's copy protection. It does NOT require internet activation of any sort. Securom is only used for a DVD check. So you do need the DVD in your computer to play.


CONCLUSION

I love this game. I'd recommend it to anyone, of course. But if you love CRPG's, you should give it a try. With the low price the game came out with, I don't see how anyone could refuse. I am truly in love with this game.

I even heard they are making a sequel to this game, which means more CRPG goodness. Maybe the CRPG genre isn't dead afterall?



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