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Drakensang: The Dark Eye Review (PC)
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Drakensang is an old-school RPG
Drakensang: The Dark Eye harkens back to the RPGs of old. If you've ever found yourself missing the days when you could take a full party of characters on an adventure of epic scale and do battle using strategy and tactics rather than massive mouse clicking, Drakensang: The Dark Eye might just by the RPG for you.
The adventure begins when an old friend, Ardo, sends you word that he needs the services of an outsider to help with a problem. But on your way to him, you find Ferdok city closed to strangers. It seems a band of murderous thugs have taken up residence in the dark forest, and before you can enter the city, you'll need two citizens to vouch for you.
While Drakensang might not be the most beautiful RPG you've ever seen, the graphics suffice, and it has much more depth than its low price tag of $29.99 suggests. While I normally cringe at the thought of voice acting in a lower-budget game, the voice overs in Drakensang are actually well done. And, while the writing isn't going to win any awards, it's as good or better than most RPGs.
Drakensang also has a way of really pulling you into the adventure and giving you a sense of story. As you approach the inn, you'll overhear an amazon woman arguing with the inn keeper, and on your way to investigating the mystery of the dark forest, you'll come across two bandits carrying a chest and arguing about which of them should carry the chest next. These small details really breath some life into an old school RPG.
Drakensang has a slowed down tactics-based combat system
Combat is handled in a more strategic fashion than your normal run-of-the-mill action RPG. Instead of clicking constantly on the bad guys and blowing through the battle as quickly as possible, you'll find the game paused when you enter combat, giving you time to give orders to each of your party. Tapping the space bar unpauses the game and your characters will race into battle to carry out your will. From there, you can either switch to characters in real time and give them new orders, or pause the game and take your time.
The combat engine also limits the need to micromanage by having your characters choose a new opponent once their current target is finished off. This can be very handy when you want to concentrate on controlling your elementalist while your mercenary and burglar wade into the battle.
And there is plenty of variety. You'll be able to play numerous classes that range from mercenaries to rangers to battlemages, burgler, elementalists, metamages and alchemists among many others. After creating your character and setting out into the world, you'll meet other adventurers to add to your party, up to a total of four in the party.
Drakensang: The Dark Eye has already won an award for best German RPG 2008 at the German Developer Awards and the U.S. version of the game ships on 2/18/09. For those that like to try before you buy, a demo is available from their website. The demo limits you to creating a mercenary, ranger or battlemage and you can't do too much tweaking to the character, but it will give you a great sense of what the game is about.
Drakensang: The Dark Eye Review
Final Grade: 82
While the graphics won't knock you over, old school RPGers will go nuts for the party-based tactical combat and the rich, detailed world that comes to life as you play the game. Don't let the low price tag of $29.99 fool you -- this game is a must buy for RPG fans who constantly find themselves saying "I remember back when...".
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