Review: Drakensang The Dark Eye

The single player CRPG has become something of an ugly sister of late, with the MMoRPG stealing the limelight and attending all the best balls. That's not to say, however, that the odd CRPG beauty hasn't come along now and again. But for the most part, the high profile role playing titles that have surfaced recently tended to be less hardcore and more action oriented than their forebears.

Enter Radon Labs, then, a German developer whose apparent goal seems to be to redeem the situation, harking back to some of the older, party-based games in the CRPG catalogue while at the same time attempting to appeal to those who neither own a 20-sided die nor have beardy tendencies. A game that hedges its bets then; Always a tricky proposal, but for the most part it's managed to pull it off.

Muddle-Earth

However, things do get off to a shaky start. The back story involves some old tosh about a long forgotten time of peace presided over by dragons, then a subsequent era of chaos presided over by dragons, followed by an epoch of peace and a further, impending time of unrest (which might be presided over by dragons, but that would be telling). Throw in some angry dwarves and migratory elves and you have a preamble that's about as hackneyed as can be.

Furthermore, considering that one of the big draws of an RPG is the ability to explore and adventure, another immediate disappointment was the inability to swim or even wade in any of the game's many water features, especially frustrating considering the enticing, babbling brook that just happened to be located right at the player's initial spawn point. I had hoped that this hydrophobia was borne of the character's neophyte nature, yet there was no progression that allowed me to go skinny dipping at a later point.

A touch of class

But anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves, as the game commences with the time honored tradition of prodding you with a large stick until you choose a character class, ranging from common RPG archetypes such as the warrior and the rogue to more exotic types including a pirate and a prospector. Character customisation is severely limited at this point, but it's perhaps just as well, as it requires a bit of study before you can effectively decide which attributes to increase and which Special Skills to unlock, but we'll cover that a bit later.

Virtual life in Aventuria kicks off at a fairly gentle pace, with a succession of easy quests accompanied by appropriate tutorials that introduce various aspects of the game without overwhelming you with information. The interface, party dynamic, character progression and combat mechanics are all showcased in this way, and thanks to some interesting quest text it's a relatively quick and painless journey upon the game's learning curve. In terms of the types of quest available, there's nothing here that breaks the mould - collection, courier, escort, and kill quests are all in evidence, but again thanks to the writing most of them feel like they are in keeping with the spirit of the game, rather than some arbitrary chore.

Smite for the right, to party

It's not long before you encounter your first enemies, and initially, I found the combat to be curiously unsatisfying; Despite being an elementalist with the power to summon fiery creatures out of the ether and lightning bolts from my bottom (well, almost), I felt somewhat detached from the action. To some extent, that could be attributed to the inevitable pause function that allows you to issue orders to your party members during combat. This function works in a fairly straightforward manner; you can take direct control of the ancillary characters, or you can issue a generic 'defensive' or 'aggressive' posture and allow them to get on with it, or you can be more hands on and order them to execute their special attacks, subject to the availability of Astral Energy (mana to you and me) and/or Endurance.

The ability to take charge of your party at any given moment is a welcome thing, as there were more than a few occasions during underground dungeon crawls where a couple of my group members would loiter behind me during combat, not attempting to help in any way. In fairness, there's probably no other way the combat dynamic could have been handled without giving the party members full autonomy, which may have benefited the sense of immersion but at the expense of complexity (fewer characters to marshal).

Another, vaguely related criticism of the subterranean sections (sewers, caves and the like) is that many of them are fairly sparsely populated with enemies, resulting in an experience that could be summed up by the phrase "barrel bashing, loot collecting maze exploration." This is definitely one of the game's weakest areas, yet they are often unavoidable unless you don't want to unravel the main plot.

Second gnome

On the upside, one interesting evolution of the pack horse idea (although something that's been seen in a few MMoRPGs) is the notion of home ownership. Once you win the trust of a filthy rich dwarf in the city of Ferdok, you are rewarded with a place of residence at which you can store inventory items or even party members, so that you can choose who and what joins you on individual adventures. As the icing on the cake, you can also decorate your new home, and you've even got a subservient little dwarf to take care of household chores.

In terms of impressive armor and weaponry, Drakensang isn't really a loot-heavy game, so character progression needs to be dealt with in a considered manner. Somewhat differently from other RPGs, experience gained from slaying mobs yields points which you can immediately spend on core attributes such as courage, cleverness and charisma to boost your proficiency in certain Talents. There's a reason for that capitalisation of the letter 'T', because Talents is what your character has, and lots of them.

Magic, Combat, Physical and Social are but four of the many Talent types upon which you can spend your hard earned experience points, but unfortunately, the game doesn't give you much of a clue as to how to allocate them, so it's very much a case of saving your game, making any Talent adjustments then seeing if the results are to your liking.

The (dark) eye of the beholder

Aesthetically, the game straddles a divide between realism (if there is such a thing in a high fantasy setting) and cartoon style. Wizards sport beards and big pointy hats, rats are grossly over sized, and dungeons are dank, dark and generally unpleasant, not to mention very similar in their looks. Above ground, the graphics are more pleasing on the eye, with lush, verdant forests occasionally giving way to quaint hamlets or busy, architecturally impressive towns.

While travelling between the aforementioned hamlets and towns using the fast travel ability, the game introduces another game mechanic of the CRPGs of old - the random encounter. Thankfully, it doesn't foist these upon you to a degree where they become tiresome. Furthermore, you are explicitly presented with the choice to flee or fight before they even begin, and if you do decide to slug it out but find yourself over matched, you can retreat to the edge of the encounter map and continue on your travels.

Even though the game's focus is undoubtedly combat and exploration, there is a reasonably fleshed out crafting option. Your ability to craft is tied to your competency as a Blacksmith, Bowyer or Alchemist (yet more Talents that you can level up). You can purchase recipes and ingredients from vendors scattered throughout the world to be used at the appropriate workbenches. Happily though, if, like me, you have very little interest in crafting, you can skip over it without it impacting your game to any noticeable degree.

Epic Teutonic odyssey

Regardless of whether you're a crafter or not, there's certainly a fair dollop of role playing goodness to chip away at. By my own account, I've been playing for around 30 hours now with no sign of the end of the main quest in sight, but more importantly, I haven't begun to tire of what the game throws at me.

Having said that, unless you're the type who is impressed by graphics or sound, Drakensang isn't likely to win you over immediately with its charms, as it requires an investment of a few hours play before things really start to get interesting, both in terms of the enemies you will face and the development of the main story. But for my money, it's time well spent, as it succeeds more often than not in recapturing the spirit of some of the more highly regarded CRPG titles of the earlier part of the decade.