IncendiaryDevice
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2014
- Messages
- 7,407
If that was the only factor being considered in the comparison...
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Drakensang Series
- Thread starter Zewp
- Start date
Turjan
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2008
- Messages
- 5,047
If you really want to play the first one, get a mod to increase walking speed, as you walk a lot back and forth on the same maps with respawning enemies. It's okayish. Railroading is a given, as the developers stated outright that there won't be any diverging paths, because they don't have the budget to implement stuff that won't be seen. When they finally sold 100,000 copies, they saw this as an unexpected and huge success, to put this into perspective. The end sequence unfortunately leaves a sour aftertaste, even if the dwarf city before that is quite nice.
The second game gives you much more freedom. You have a ship that lets you move between areas you have discovered. Trash mobs are rare, and they don't respawn (some say they went too far with this, but it's okay). Enemies don't always only target your weakest char anymore. There's only one place (a big dungeon) that revisits all the combat mistakes of the first game (enemy stacks due to lack of collision, lack of enemy variety). All in all, I like the game quite a bit. Because companions are voiced, you will, for most of the game, have a fixed party though.
The expansion to RoT is quite bad though. It's a beautiful setting that gets relegated to a background for mostly uninspired combat. If you play it in one go, you will probably fall asleep at some point. If you have it installed when you start the main game, it gets split into more manageable segments that show up at different times in the main story (however that does not mean there is any connection to the main story). You might see this as a bit of change once in a while, but you can as well leave it out.
The main story of RoT is unusual for a fantasy RPG, because it's in principle a very down-to-earth, personal story. Some people absolutely hate this lack of epic feel, but I found that quite endearing. The story actually contains elements of realms-wide relevance, but those are very much downplayed in the delivery. The chars mostly don't care very much. It's quite refreshing actually. The expansion on the other hand is uber-epic (though not well done). It's quite the contrast.
For people who know the RoA games: River of Time takes place at the same time as Blade of Destiny. Most of the game world hints are absent from the English version though, because the developers did not expect English speakers to recognize anything from the Dark Eye world.
The second game gives you much more freedom. You have a ship that lets you move between areas you have discovered. Trash mobs are rare, and they don't respawn (some say they went too far with this, but it's okay). Enemies don't always only target your weakest char anymore. There's only one place (a big dungeon) that revisits all the combat mistakes of the first game (enemy stacks due to lack of collision, lack of enemy variety). All in all, I like the game quite a bit. Because companions are voiced, you will, for most of the game, have a fixed party though.
The expansion to RoT is quite bad though. It's a beautiful setting that gets relegated to a background for mostly uninspired combat. If you play it in one go, you will probably fall asleep at some point. If you have it installed when you start the main game, it gets split into more manageable segments that show up at different times in the main story (however that does not mean there is any connection to the main story). You might see this as a bit of change once in a while, but you can as well leave it out.
The main story of RoT is unusual for a fantasy RPG, because it's in principle a very down-to-earth, personal story. Some people absolutely hate this lack of epic feel, but I found that quite endearing. The story actually contains elements of realms-wide relevance, but those are very much downplayed in the delivery. The chars mostly don't care very much. It's quite refreshing actually. The expansion on the other hand is uber-epic (though not well done). It's quite the contrast.
For people who know the RoA games: River of Time takes place at the same time as Blade of Destiny. Most of the game world hints are absent from the English version though, because the developers did not expect English speakers to recognize anything from the Dark Eye world.
Last edited:
Raghar
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2009
- Messages
- 22,653
They should release it as a freeware and it would be fine for everyone. A normal story in a not overly excessive epic RPG. It's long, it has lot of details, but lack of experience from developer is showing. And they had basically zero experience in game development thus they did idiotic stuff like using DB engine in first game.
Drakensang camera is working a lot better, so no.
As for the series - River of Time has really good story without forcing the player to save the world again. Other one has a lot of tedious fights in the end with the reptilians and what not but for 1 playthrough it was good enough for me.
Excidium II
Self-Ejected
TRoT also has tedious fighting, I gave up midway through.
I don't recall camera being much better, it still plays p. much like NWN2.
I don't recall camera being much better, it still plays p. much like NWN2.
Lilura
RPG Codex Dragon Lady
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2013
- Messages
- 5,274
It's probably shit.
Turjan
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2008
- Messages
- 5,047
Isn't that true for almost anything? But yeah, it reuses the current maps, and from the trailer, I get an idea how they tried to make combat challenging. Which is probably the reason why I never tried it. The mod trailer uses the BG battle music btw :D.
Lilura
RPG Codex Dragon Lady
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2013
- Messages
- 5,274
Not of NWN mods. Got a link? I'm up for a laugh.
Turjan
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2008
- Messages
- 5,047
circ
Arcane
Been replaying this for a few days - first one. Second one is in almost all respects the better game, but I hate the uninspiring party you're stuck with. Not that the groupmates in Drakensang had much personality, but atleast you could switch around classes.
Anyway, it wasn't until now, replaying it and having experienced the other third person rtwp RPGs that Drakensang shows off its uniqueness.
It's got shitty magic, crap groupmates, confusing and shitty story with dumb dialogue for 3 year olds - but the latter might be because of a poor translation. But, compared to Dragon Age Origins, which came out later technically although the concept is older supposedly, and Oblivion, Drakensang does a lot of things much better.
Compared to Oblivion, you don't need mods to farm ingredients from animals, and it's not a terrible system either. I don't think DAO had farming either.
Locations are pretty huge, massive compared to DAO. Cities, towns and villages actually look like they should, unlike anything in Oblivion or Skyrim. The wilderness areas are pretty boring though, kind of like in Dragon Age Inquisition. The press at the time went on about how Skyrim inspired DAI, but I think it has more in common with Drakensang.
The animations are unsurpassed as far as I've seen. You block and parry and dodge in a realistic fashion, show off injuries and getting hit, unlike the laughable shit that one saw in DAO or Oblivion. And the animations got even better in RoT, more fluid and faster. RoT also improved movement - letting you walk with mouse button pressed down and even autowalk/run.
Now, you can't have a conversation with every single citizen like in Oblivion, but why would you want to. And despite the option to do that in Oblivion, it runs like garbage because Bethesda just can't code.
Not that NPCs look all that good, but this game is about 10 years old too. But they look a lot better than the clones in DAO or the retard club from Oblivion.
Also check out the shadows in Drakensang. Of course it's a little different since the light source is static in it, but the shadows look sharp and smooth, unlike anything Bethesda has ever made. And run well too.
Also, about 5 years before Skyrim, Drakensang had environmental effects like splashes when you run across puddles, which even Fallout 4 doesn't have, and good looking reflections, although the water otherwise looks like crap.
It doesn't have wet effects like in DAI or Fallout 4, and no day-cycles, and the yellow filter seen in outdoor areas is horrible. But it's a pretty impressive piece of work in some respects. With a nice budget, the studio could have really made something special with Drakensang 3.
Anyway, it wasn't until now, replaying it and having experienced the other third person rtwp RPGs that Drakensang shows off its uniqueness.
It's got shitty magic, crap groupmates, confusing and shitty story with dumb dialogue for 3 year olds - but the latter might be because of a poor translation. But, compared to Dragon Age Origins, which came out later technically although the concept is older supposedly, and Oblivion, Drakensang does a lot of things much better.
Compared to Oblivion, you don't need mods to farm ingredients from animals, and it's not a terrible system either. I don't think DAO had farming either.
Locations are pretty huge, massive compared to DAO. Cities, towns and villages actually look like they should, unlike anything in Oblivion or Skyrim. The wilderness areas are pretty boring though, kind of like in Dragon Age Inquisition. The press at the time went on about how Skyrim inspired DAI, but I think it has more in common with Drakensang.
The animations are unsurpassed as far as I've seen. You block and parry and dodge in a realistic fashion, show off injuries and getting hit, unlike the laughable shit that one saw in DAO or Oblivion. And the animations got even better in RoT, more fluid and faster. RoT also improved movement - letting you walk with mouse button pressed down and even autowalk/run.
Now, you can't have a conversation with every single citizen like in Oblivion, but why would you want to. And despite the option to do that in Oblivion, it runs like garbage because Bethesda just can't code.
Not that NPCs look all that good, but this game is about 10 years old too. But they look a lot better than the clones in DAO or the retard club from Oblivion.
Also check out the shadows in Drakensang. Of course it's a little different since the light source is static in it, but the shadows look sharp and smooth, unlike anything Bethesda has ever made. And run well too.
Also, about 5 years before Skyrim, Drakensang had environmental effects like splashes when you run across puddles, which even Fallout 4 doesn't have, and good looking reflections, although the water otherwise looks like crap.
It doesn't have wet effects like in DAI or Fallout 4, and no day-cycles, and the yellow filter seen in outdoor areas is horrible. But it's a pretty impressive piece of work in some respects. With a nice budget, the studio could have really made something special with Drakensang 3.
Watser
Arcane
- Joined
- May 8, 2014
- Messages
- 1,865,075
Just started playing this for the first time the last couple of days as well. The game is really pretty despite the NPC's looking rather derpy and it plays really smooth. One thing that bothers me is the camera though, when you zoom in and out it jumps in specific intervals and I find that zooming all the way in is too much, but zooming just one step back the camera is too far away already.
Combat is really dull but at least it's over with quickly. The animations are quite 'slow' though in combat, but it makes it look a lot more fluent, allowing your party and enemies to dodge and block in a realistic and smooth fashion. So far I have only faced 3 different types of enemies: rats, wolves and bandits; hoping it gets more interesting in that department later in the game.
The game has a horrendous slow movement speed and it will likely kill any motivation you might have had to boot up the game. It is fortunately possible to edit the movementspeed from the savefile itself and is explained in this thread: https://www.cheathappens.com/show_board2.asp?headID=79989&titleID=14327
It is highly recommended because you run so incredibly slow and you will be running a lot.
Combat is really dull but at least it's over with quickly. The animations are quite 'slow' though in combat, but it makes it look a lot more fluent, allowing your party and enemies to dodge and block in a realistic and smooth fashion. So far I have only faced 3 different types of enemies: rats, wolves and bandits; hoping it gets more interesting in that department later in the game.
The game has a horrendous slow movement speed and it will likely kill any motivation you might have had to boot up the game. It is fortunately possible to edit the movementspeed from the savefile itself and is explained in this thread: https://www.cheathappens.com/show_board2.asp?headID=79989&titleID=14327
It is highly recommended because you run so incredibly slow and you will be running a lot.
fantadomat
Arcane
Last edited by a moderator:
rusty_shackleford
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2018
- Messages
- 50,754
been playing TRoT so I'm just gonna dump stuff in this thread
pickpocketing the guy who gives out the collector's edition items gives you a note with this in it
I guess it was meant to be a hidden hint about the then-upcoming xpac?
pickpocketing the guy who gives out the collector's edition items gives you a note with this in it
I guess it was meant to be a hidden hint about the then-upcoming xpac?
I wanted to like this game because of the character system but everything else is just so terrible.
The first hours are alright, nothing fascinating, very generic and uninspired, but playable enough to - in combination with the character skill sheet - enjoy it a bit. But once you reach the city everything gets much worse. Everything is a fetch quest, the investigation quests are cringe at best, stupidifying usually. Dialogues are written as if they were dumb and unfunny by design, quests and story are also clearly designed to be as generic and predictable as it is possible.
One of the worst RPGs I've played.
The first hours are alright, nothing fascinating, very generic and uninspired, but playable enough to - in combination with the character skill sheet - enjoy it a bit. But once you reach the city everything gets much worse. Everything is a fetch quest, the investigation quests are cringe at best, stupidifying usually. Dialogues are written as if they were dumb and unfunny by design, quests and story are also clearly designed to be as generic and predictable as it is possible.
One of the worst RPGs I've played.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2012
- Messages
- 28,349
I will say that River of time is far better.
razvedchiki
Erudite
both games are good.
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