Glad I only paid a couple of quid for Drakensang....

[Carlos' Bitch1]

..because, to be honest, the game is not delivering much at all.

I have gotten to the 'Rat Caves' in the Brewery, and so far this game has very little to recommend it at all.

The Combat is ridiculously easy, not to mention RTwP.

And the dungeons...oh the dungeons...

Now, don't get me wrong. I love large dungeons, so long as they are well built with plenty of meat to them. This may include devious puzzles, excellent set piece battles and problems to solve. I have encountered none of these in the dungeons on display so far, yet the game enjoys throwing me into dungeons; a lot of corridors, with some nice artwork and so on, smashable barrels(!), and one enemy type per dungeon.

So, be honest with me; is this all the game has to offer?

I enjoyed the character building, and the large amount of skills and so on, yet as we know, a number of these are redundant. I also don't mind having less encounters than the norm for this kind of game, but why couldn't they have been a bit more creative?

This is a game that is screaming out for a decent turn based combat engine, mixed in with some well thought out set-piece battles.

Again, does this game improve substantially in these areas?

Does the sequel (prequel?) improve on these aspects greatly?

 

[Phelot]

Oh God the Brewery dungeon... Please, just skip that whole quest, it's not worth it at all. It's literally a joke to see how much tedium the player is willing to go through.

The game gets better IMO. Blood Mountain, for example was pretty fun.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

So, be honest with me; is this all the game has to offer?

It gets even worse once you hit the darkspawn tunnels. Should have gone with river of time as it's a different and much better game.

The rat dungeon is a joke on you.

 

[Phelot]

Yeah, I'm playing through River of Time (I stopped around the holidays due to lack of time) and it certainly seems better. Better use of skills as far as I can see. VoD has written up some good comparisons in another thread.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Yeah, I'm playing through River of Time (I stopped around the holidays due to lack of time) and it certainly seems better. Better use of skills as far as I can see. VoD has written up some good comparisons in another thread.

100% truth.

 

[Raghar]

I have gotten to the 'Rat Caves' in the Brewery, and so far this game has very little to recommend it at all.

The Combat is ridiculously easy, not to mention RTwP.

And the dungeons...oh the dungeons...

So you never questioned the strange smile that dwarf has.
You never questioned why is he always so readily available?
You never questioned the strange stuff about these rats?

When these rats nearly wiped my party, I rethought the whole thing, looked at these suspicious stuff, and moved out. (Thought skinning gave me quite a few nice stuff.)

Sucker.

One of redeeming qualities of the Drakensang was relative lack of dungeons. Also it has quite few nice environments. For example that quest about that frog, swamp, or that other city. I wanted to kill that retarded major.

Combat in Drakensang is turn based simultaneous execution. (Without an ability to reasonably block path of the opponent.) It might be easy, but I roleplayed so it didn't feel too easy. In addition it has often quite harsh spikes, as it should have. (Note the same rules nearly always apply for your opponents as well.) Considering you are in the beginning, have you met people with halberds?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

I liked it, and it does get better as you go along.

 

[JarlFrank]

Combat in Drakensang is turn based simultaneous execution.

RTWP by any other name would smell as bad.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

It might be easy, but I roleplayed so it didn't feel too easy.

 

[Mortmal]

The follow up improves significantly, its rather enjoyable , and theres a better use of skills . In my opinion its the second best rpg of the year 2010 after by new vegas but not any close of the first one.I wouldnt recommend you to buy it at full price either, the core combat is still the same, melee>> magic , better to put heavy armor on all your guys and forget magic, just rush it all with 2H swords.
Well theres not anything else to play at the moment, i must say i enjoy much more mount&blade warbands mods like prophecy of pendor than any of the new mainstream games, divinity 2 and two worlds 2 quickly bores me.

 

[Cenobyte]

The whole brewery dungeon is just for fun

The game will get better once you leave Ferdok.

 

[Raghar]

Combat in Drakensang is turn based simultaneous execution.

RTWP by any other name would smell as bad.

Real time with pause:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIJZVXni ... re=related

As you can see it's massively more dynamic than turn based combat. All these millisecond timings for blocks are simply missing from turn based combat, or they are automated.


Admiral jimbob
I thought when you are playing RPG on a computer, you are doing the same stuff as when you are playing PnP RPG. Also what DA:Origins have to do with this topic?

 

[made]

Again, does this game improve substantially in these areas?

no

Does the sequel (prequel?) improve on these aspects greatly?

slightly

Instead of rat-filled tunnels there's a crab-filled temple.

 

[Murk]

lewl, blackadder got trolled by the game

 

[dr. one]

yep, Drakensang is a subpar game.
pretty much its only good gameplay aspect is character system, but it´s underutilized.
encounters are extremely repetitive and 99% of them require zero tactics. in my playthrough, the mother rat encounter was the only challenging one, mainly because i was level 5 at that time.
play Dragon Age on nightmare if you want a game with more varied encounters, less repetitive dungeons and more tactical requirements. i´m not trolling here.

River of Time is a huge improvement over the first game.

 

[Eyeball]

Funny, I thought it was fairly difficult in places. Wait until you get to the brewery boss. Unless you've put the quest off until later levels, that is one battle that's bound to cause you grief.

I like Drakensan, it has an interesting character system and an above-average amount of strategic depth, but for some reason, I can't get myself to play it any more - I'm kind of stuck in the orc castle, the ogres keep smashing my party. How do you guys make it so the ogres are "easy?"

 

[Grunker]

..because, to be honest, the game is not delivering much at all.

I have gotten to the 'Rat Caves' in the Brewery, and so far this game has very little to recommend it at all.

The Combat is ridiculously easy, not to mention RTwP.

And the dungeons...oh the dungeons...

Now, don't get me wrong. I love large dungeons, so long as they are well built with plenty of meat to them. This may include devious puzzles, excellent set piece battles and problems to solve. I have encountered none of these in the dungeons on display so far, yet the game enjoys throwing me into dungeons; a lot of corridors, with some nice artwork and so on, smashable barrels(!), and one enemy type per dungeon.

So, be honest with me; is this all the game has to offer?

I enjoyed the character building, and the large amount of skills and so on, yet as we know, a number of these are redundant. I also don't mind having less encounters than the norm for this kind of game, but why couldn't they have been a bit more creative?

This is a game that is screaming out for a decent turn based combat engine, mixed in with some well thought out set-piece battles.

Again, does this game improve substantially in these areas?

Does the sequel (prequel?) improve on these aspects greatly?

Told ya.

No, seriously, the game is bad, bad, bad. The only redeeming thing about it is the skill system, which is alright.

 

[Raghar]

How do you guys make it so the ogres are "easy?"

They are not easy, but after you had experience with these two ogres before, you should devise some tactic. Have you tried that killer shot? A mage in the party helps too. A wounded ogre is much less dangerous.

 

[Texas Red]

RoT does not have such annoying dungeons as DE. Seriously, start RoT, nearly all if not all issues people had with the original have been addressed. I found that the voice acting is worse, though all of the dialogs are fully voiced now. I've already outline the positive changes in your other thread.

Does the sequel (prequel?) improve on these aspects greatly?

slightly

Instead of rat-filled tunnels there's a crab-filled temple.[/quote]

Except the crab filled temple, which I found the worst dungeon in the game, is completely optional. The combat there is difficult as well and requires some strategy.

 

[Grunker]

RoT does not have such annoying dungeons as DE. Seriously, start RoT, nearly all if not all issues people had with the original have been addressed. I found that the voice acting is worse, though all of the dialogs are fully voiced now.

Fuck the voice-acting. I've heard RoT is just more of the same, which is why I haven't bought it? If it truly addresses the gameplay-issues of no. 1 I might check it out.

 

[Texas Red]

RoT does not have such annoying dungeons as DE. Seriously, start RoT, nearly all if not all issues people had with the original have been addressed. I found that the voice acting is worse, though all of the dialogs are fully voiced now.

Fuck the voice-acting.

I'll just copy paste the post I made previously:

I tried giving the DE another try recently and dropped it for the same reason as when I first played it. Large open areas with nobody to talk to, almost no use for the dialog skills and dungeon crawling where you kill the same thing a dozen times without a challenge. I only got up to taking Ardo's house and that slug dungeon underneath the temple, so it might get better, though.

The River of Time is a huge improvement and I enjoyed it thoroughly, except for a few generic fetch quests and occasional dungeon crawling. Skills are used frequently and not only all of the dialog ones, but also craft skills and even attributes. There's is a strong focus on character interaction instead of combat, too. Your companions are likable and are actually the center of the story instead of your character, so they have a lot to say. Your character type will also affect the dialogs and there's some nice C&C.

Be warned that the beginning is underwhelming compared to the rest of the game. There's some annoying, extremely generic quests such as fetching beer for a guard.

Did anyone try the expansion for RoT, though? I understand that the company went bankrupt or something, so it received even less coverage than RoT, which is an incredible achievement. Not much information available.

 

[Grunker]

Hmm. Sounds promising. Anyone else feel the same about this game?

 

[Nickless]

It still had some problems, the rails you're stuck on are very visible and some of the combat is repetitive, mostly in wilderness areas though. There weren't enough skill checks to my liking, at least, skill checks that didn't have a superficial result based on success or failure (Especially etiquette and streetwise) and while they were essential for the best result in a few quests, the reward didn't particularly feel worthwhile comparative to unskilled success. Walking/running speed is still terrible, and sneaking isn't worthwhile since the speed you move at is so unbearably painful, at least unmodded.

That said, there's some nice dungeons/quests that are mutually exclusive to the choices you make (Well, okay, two that I can remember), and the entire atmosphere of the game was upbeat, lighthearted and whimsical. (If that's not your thing, skip it) There were some difficult combat encounters that didn't feel like filler (Disregarding the crap [hurr] temple), especially if you always agree with the dwarf NPC companion. Certain skills also make tough combat avoidable, occasionally (Mostly in the first half of the game), which is nice. Come to think of it, the last half of the game did feel rushed, as the pathway to finish the main quest becomes very narrow. Overall, I'd rate RoT much higher than its counterpart, the latter of which I wasn't able to finish due to its tediousness.

Edit: Also, I really liked how the start of the game had different ways for you to stumble onto the main plot, depending on your class. It was a nice touch. Still, not enough C&C for me to want to go for a second playthrough beyond the intro.

 

[Grunker]

It still had some problems, the rails you're stuck on are very visible and some of the combat is repetitive, mostly in wilderness areas though. There weren't enough skill checks to my liking, at least, skill checks that didn't have a superficial result based on success or failure (Especially etiquette and streetwise) and while they were essential for the best result in a few quests, the reward didn't particularly feel worthwhile comparative to unskilled success. Walking/running speed is still terrible, and sneaking isn't worthwhile since the speed you move at is so unbearably painful, at least unmodded.

That said, there's some nice dungeons/quests that are mutually exclusive to the choices you make (Well, okay, two that I can remember), and the entire atmosphere of the game was upbeat, lighthearted and whimsical. (If that's not your thing, skip it) There were some difficult combat encounters that didn't feel like filler (Disregarding the crap [hurr] temple), especially if you always agree with the dwarf NPC companion. Certain skills also make tough combat avoidable, occasionally (Mostly in the first half of the game), which is nice. Come to think of it, the last half of the game did feel rushed, as the pathway to finish the main quest becomes very narrow. Overall, I'd rate RoT much higher than its counterpart, the latter of which I wasn't able to finish due to its tediousness.

Edit: Also, I really liked how the start of the game had different ways for you to stumble onto the main plot, depending on your class. It was a nice touch.

I was also turned off so much by the first one that I actually didn't finish it. So if that was the same for you, I think I'm gonna try my hands on River of Time.