Last year’s hit from Germany, Drakensang: The Dark Eye, has arrived in North America with a budget price and a classic scope that evokes the likes of Baldur’s Gate. Production values are wanting in spots, but even with voice acting that might make your ears bleed and some convoluted character development, this remains an involving, old-fashioned heroic saga. The Radon Labs-designed game still hits the spot if you’re looking for a traditional RPG with just the right mix of wizards in pointy hats and unsung heroes looking to fulfill their destiny.
Drakensang’s story and setting have been compiled from so many fantasy novels, movies, and games that Drakensang will initially cause deja vu. You play a stereotypical hero who starts off as a nobody, yet soon becomes a legendary adventurer as the fulfillment of–yep, you guessed it–a prophecy. Everything here seems to have been randomly pulled out of the grab bag of RPG cliches. Gruff but lovable dwarves, hippie elves who just want to be left alone, mysterious messages from old friends, rampaging goblin hordes, and forgetful mages who are mirror images of Gandalf make up the cast of characters in the medieval fantasy land of Aventuria. As with timeless RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate, you manage an entire party of up to four adventurers. Quests are many and feature myriad goals that run the gamut from keep-busy jobs such as killing a white wolf and tracking down a stolen diadem to cleaning out a crypt of the undead and solving riddling rhymes. Just about the only touch of originality comes from the main plotline’s focus on dragons, which at one time ruled the world before a scaly civil war.
The game’s mechanics are derivative and cluttered up with extraneous rules taken from Drakensang’s pen-and-paper inspiration, The Dark Eye. Characters are crammed with finicky stats, talents, and attributes that can be hard to come to grips with, especially in the beginning. Each hero comes with eight attributes, nine base values, five talent pools with five separate skills in each, a raft of combat talents dealing with each weapon type, three schools of special abilities, magic talents for spellcasters, and a recipe book for the alchemical, blacksmith, and archery goodies that you can put together on your own. Whew. In addition to all of this, there are a pile of races to choose from, all pulled from standard fantasy folk such as humans, elves, and dwarves, and in turn slotted into about 20 race-exclusive professions. For example, if you choose to play as an elf, you can become a ranger, fighter, or spellweaver. Pick a dwarf, and you’re stuck with a mercenary, sapper, or prospector. And so on.
