Drakensang: River of Time is actually A GOOD GAME?

[a budda]

guys, i'm totally having a blast
looks like baldurs 3 to me
loads of stuff, stats, crafting, skills but the best is
COMBAT!!11!
seriously, some fights drag for more than an hour (max difficulty of course), lot of micromanagment, great system

is something wrong with me? i feel pretty uncodexian now

level 7 now

 

[Jaesun]

1/10

 

[Jools]

I enjoyed Drakensang 2.

 

[mondblut]

but the best is
COMBAT!!11!

is something wrong with me?

If its combat didn't change from original Drakensang (and I believe it didn't), something is very wrong, indeed.

Or did they finally add collision meshes to participants?

 

[not an artichoke]

It's not click-n-yawn easy like DA or anything, that's for sure. You'll have to actually use tactics and intelligent skill selection on most fights once you're past the first couple areas

 

[mondblut]

Tactics? Like, what?

Drakensang is really a blob game. The third person combat is merely a decoration, as participants freely pass through each other to reorder themselves, spend no time at movement and generally behave like a single body of party vs a single body of "encounter". And the only tactic employed by both sides is "everyone gang up on one enemy".

 

[Calem Ravenna]

It was a fun little game, with an interesting class/skill system but not really that good overall. And the combat is indeed terrible. Controls-wise even worse than that of Dragon Age or Neverwinter Nights 2 and that's quite an accomplishment.

Drakensang is really a blob game. The third person combat is merely a decoration, as participants freely pass through each other to reorder themselves, spend no time at movement and generally behave like a single body of party vs a single body of "encounter". And the only tactic employed by both sides is "everyone gang up on one enemy".

Exactly. Some blobbers at least have limitations on who can attack who on a given moment (rows of characters and somesuch) and blobbers don't have to cope with messed up pathfinding.

 

[Brother None]

If its combat didn't change from original Drakensang (and I believe it didn't), something is very wrong, indeed.

Or did they finally add collision meshes to participants?

Nope. No collision meshes. No indepth AI settings. Shitty opponent AI. The camera is still wank.

That said, combat is hugely improved. Why? Because there is much, much less of it. There is only one trash-mob filled dungeon in the entire game instead of the eleventy such dungeons in Drakensang. The fights are a bit bigger in scale and need a bit more consideration in which skills to use due to various immunities and susceptibilities to bleeding/poison/knock-down/etc. Combat is still essentially bleh, but they did a much better job designing encounters this time, and that's a huge difference.

They fixed a bunch of other small annoyances too. And the story is much more engaging. It is definitely loads better than Drakensang.

 

[dr. one]

a nice little holiday fairytale-y adventure with good pacing and 30-40 hours of playtime well justified by the amount and variety of content.

compared to the first Drakensang it has:

- a lot less filler combat
- tactically more interesting boss battles and better encounter design in general
- better puzzles
- better quest design, including some minor C&C and multiple solutions here and there
- more nonlinearity (new side quests pop up in the old areas as player proceeds through the main story)
- a bit more fleshed out companions
- better itemization, including more crafting opportunities
- quite a bit more use for social skills
- three different beginnings, depending on class type
- overall tighter structure, much better pacing and refreshingly non-"epic!", quite well told main story

It is definitely loads better than Drakensang.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It really has better encounters (ignoring the Efferd temple here) and they significantly cut down on mob respawning which was disturbing in Drakensang. The fight against the demon was particularily well done. I mean the most elaborate tactics you had to employ to win in Drakensang was to apply the salve of fire protection when appropriate unlike the demon encounter in RoT where you really had to work for victory especially when not using any of the MacGuffins to weaken him.

 

[Circuitbreaker]

a nice little holiday fairytale-y adventure with good pacing and 30-40 hours of playtime well justified by the amount and variety of content.

compared to the first Drakensang it has:

- a lot less filler combat
- tactically more interesting boss battles and better encounter design in general
- better puzzles
- better quest design, including some minor C&C and multiple solutions here and there
- more nonlinearity (new side quests pop up in the old areas as player proceeds through the main story)
- a bit more fleshed out companions
- better itemization, including more crafting opportunities
- quite a bit more use for social skills
- three different beginnings, depending on class type
- overall tighter structure, much better pacing and refreshingly non-"epic!", quite well told main quest

It is definitely loads better than Drakensang.

I couldn't agree more.

It's just a pity, there's only a very limited amount of NPC's to recruit and use in your party. That's about the only thing that was better in Drakensang 1 though. It's rare to see a developer clearly taking criticism to heart and producing a sequel that improves on the original in a big way.

Unfortunately they just forgot about their great achievements when making the add-on for Drakensang 2. The add-on has an overload of senseless combat. Also the add-on main character is an NPC that auto joins your party but cannot be fully controlled. It makes you wonder whether Drakensang 3 would have been any good.

 

[abnaxus]

Unfortunately they just forgot about their great achievements when making the add-on for Drakensang 2. The add-on has an overload of senseless combat. Also the add-on main character is an NPC that auto joins your party but cannot be fully controlled. It makes you wonder whether Drakensang 3 would have been any good.

The addon was probably shit because at that time Radon Labs had declared (or was about to declare) insolvency and looking for a new financer.

 

[Gord]

I've read that they were pushed hard by the new publisher to finish the addon, which is probably the reason.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

and still my character attacks the barrel with a stick standing 3 feets away from it

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

The worst part was the Temple of Efferd.

Unless you really like fighting crabs, over and over again, endlessly casting ice cold warrior and spamming fireballs, I would skip it.

 

[Angthoron]

Have been playing this for about a week now, a rather nice game with lots of flaws like terribad combat (would it have hurt to at least speed it up a bit?), lousy controls and writing that is all over the place from good to horrible.

Still, I find myself enjoying it as long as it's not massively prolonged dungeon romps. The "outside" is pleasant and rather pretty and the dialogues and characters are interesting enough to follow the story and subplots. Reminds of Baldur's Gate 1 in many ways.

Too bad, really. With some tweaks to combat to make it less of a snoozefest (faster rounds, faster EN regen, better encounter design) it could've been a pretty good game. As it is, it's just pretty enjoyable if you're into this sort of thing.

 

[torpid]

Have been playing this for about a week now, a rather nice game with lots of flaws like terribad combat (would it have hurt to at least speed it up a bit?), lousy controls and writing that is all over the place from good to horrible.

Still, I find myself enjoying it as long as it's not massively prolonged dungeon romps. The "outside" is pleasant and rather pretty and the dialogues and characters are interesting enough to follow the story and subplots. Reminds of Baldur's Gate 1 in many ways.

Too bad, really. With some tweaks to combat to make it less of a snoozefest (faster rounds, faster EN regen, better encounter design) it could've been a pretty good game. As it is, it's just pretty enjoyable if you're into this sort of thing.

Agreed. The game has that euro RPG vibe that I'm a sucker for, but otherwise it's pretty average. And though I really like the ruleset, the setting is terribly bland, even more so than D&D.

 

[Annonchinil]

Is the demo a good indication of the actual game?

Its just the starter area, its ends once you get the two signatures and cross the bridge.

Are there any more interesting areas that the genric forest at the start? I thought the art at the bear cave was more interesting.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Is the demo a good indication of the actual game?

Its just the starter area, its ends once you get the two signatures and cross the bridge.

Are there any more interesting areas that the genric forest at the start? I thought the art at the bear cave was more interesting.

I believe you are talking about the first game. This topic covers the second game, which is better.

 

[Annonchinil]

Stupid mistake, thanks. Do RoT characters start at level one?

 

[a budda]

yes

level 11 now (half the max exp)
still fun, though not the second coming
and still would call it a bg3
hope there are some harded fights, at lvl 10 (elemental mage) + half-elf archer chick + thief/fighter + fighter it's getting too easy
quests generic but story not bad and the art and old-school feel pretty nice, awesome in 3D

still having fun and it means something these days

 

[Wolfus]

Both Drakensangs are good. Not as good as original trilogy, but good.

 

[circ]

I liked RoT more than anything recent, and even old from BioWare and Bethesda. Hell, I had more fun than with a lot of things.

It has its shortcomings, but all of Codex should give it a shot instead of garbage like FNV.

 

[circ]

yes

level 11 now (half the max exp)
still fun, though not the second coming
and still would call it a bg3
hope there are some harded fights, at lvl 10 (elemental mage) + half-elf archer chick + thief/fighter + fighter it's getting too easy
quests generic but story not bad and the art and old-school feel pretty nice, awesome in 3D

still having fun and it means something these days

If you think the fight with the crabmonster in the temple of I forget the gods name is easy, well, shrug. Final boss fight was pretty tough too.

 

[deus101]

I did install the first Drakensang...but i got sorta drained when i noticed the camera was as shitty as dragons age (if not worse).

This is why i miss the infinity engine!