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DRAKENSANG - why you should look into this game.

Charles_Dickens · 2009-04-12 01:57:16

Hi. If you don't like reading lengthy posts, then do me a favor and buzz off.There are two things that I should admit to up front. The first is that when I'm playing a new game that I really like I tend to experience a kind of honeymoon phase during which I'll love the game maybe a little bit more than it truly warrants.With me, this phase usually lasts between 7 and 10 days, and since I've been playing Drakensang for 4 days now that puts me squarely in the honeymoon phase. (I've known other gamers to enter this phase, and it's annoying. What you want to do, really, is slap them across the room in attempt to wake them from their reverie. Yeah - I understand that.) The second thing is that I'm an enthusiast of single-player, party-based, fantasy RPGs (my all-time favorite titles being Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Neverwinter Nights 2) which is exactly what Drakensang is - and since I see so few games of this description come along it means that I'll sometimes over-appreciate the ones that do.So essentially you might want to take my comments, which are exclusively positive, with a grain of salt. I also haven't finished the game yet - and indeed it appears, based on some things I read on the net, that I've only just begun. (Well good - because right now I don't want this to end.)The first thing I want to comment on are the visuals. I'm a graphics-whore, and graphically Drakensang is very strong... to say the least - playing this game makes me feel as though I've stepped inside a beautifully illustrated children's story. When you install the game you're asked if you would like to install the optional high-res-texture pack, which is a whopping 4 gigabytes in size. Why would anybody not want to install that? Should the texture pack even be optional? Personally, I think not, my friends. The textures in this game are insanely sharp. Lush is the word I would use. I've never seen a game that looks quite this sharp.As far as the art-direction is concerned, I would describe this game as being like a very souped-up version of Fable or a more charming version of Oblivion. Actually, Drakensang is kind of what I had imagined Fable was going to look like but didn't. The visuals are so stunning that when I'm wandering into a location for the first time I'll click on the walk button and have my party members all sheath their weaponry so that I can casually walk them through the area and just soak in the surroundings.Here's something that's always been a bit of a mystery to me - why is it that some people can't seem to understand that games of this nature (classic, party-based RPGs) are not first person shooters, and therefore should not be played as such? There's an extremely annoying video series that's been posted at Utube of some guy playing the first hour of Drakensang. Near the end of the hour he's no longer playing the game, but just making fun of it. At one point he says: 'This game is so bad...' - but the entire sequence is disturbing to watch because he's been attempting to play this classic RPG as though its an action RPG. If you don't know the difference between, say, Titan Quest, and, say, Baldur's Gate, and you attempt to play the one as though its the other, then you're probably going to end up hating the game. It's not really the game's fault though. Draknesang, like Baldur's Gate, begs of you to slow down and enjoy the atmosphere. You're not supposed to be rushing around as though the place is on fire. Indeed, Drakensang doesn't beg of you to play it a certain way - it demands it of you. If all you're doing is constantly selecting your entire party by dragging a box around it, and then clicking on the enemy, and wondering why everyone isn't simply attacking the enemy, then you're not playing Drakensang as it's meant to be played. (That guy who posted those videos at Utube really ought to be taken out and shot - he's done such a disservice to the game. He's a fool, really.)Not to be too critical of The Witcher (because I did enjoy parts of that game - and yes I realize that The Witcher is more action RPG than it is classic RPG) - but my chief complaint was that there wasn't a walk feature included. Why, oh why, could the developer not understand that forcing me to run my character across the room just killed the atmosphere dead!I can happily report that the walk feature in Drakensang works beautifully - you simply click on a point on the ground and watch your characters walk forward (that guy playing on the Utube video, would NEVER have used the walk feature, and was constantly clicking the mouse as though he was playing Titan Quest... I was almost surprised that he didn't criticize the game for not supporting the 360 controller!). I can happily report that your party members have superb path finding skills - nor do they continuously bump into each other when they're walking along. The spacing, between the party members, is perfect. Sometimes, when they're walking through a narrow area, they'll even line up in single file and follow each other through - I've never seen that before. The one problem with the animation system here is that it's so fluid there's a danger some gamers (ahem) will believe that they're playing an action RPG when what they're really playing, of course, is a classic RPG. The two games need to be approached differently. But the point is, we've got a beautiful movement scheme here. You can walk your party when you want to walk it, and run it when you want to run it - and it looks beautiful in both situations. (NWN 2 ...