Game News Drakensang: TRoT shipped

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Drakensang

Drakensang: The River of Time shipped in Germany. My copy just arrived.
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Also there seems to be an add-on in the works already: <a href="http://www.drakensang.de/phileasson.php">Phileasson´s Secret.</a>
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[getter77]

I still need to spend time with the first game one of these days, but I'll be interested to see how they try to up the ante for this sequel and expansion thing.

 

[Raghar]

Is it German only?

Did they used the same database with 3D output methodology as in the first? Aka is it just a series of locations that are impossible to return into?

 

[Ch1ef]

Cool, more boobs.

 

[Shannow]

Hmm, had a look at the features:
More skill checks and more c&c were mentioned.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's out already? Great. The first one was rather mediocre but I liked the art design, if this one improves upon the gameplay (and especially the encounter design) I'll probably enjoy it well enough to actually finish it.

 

[Phelot]

I'd really love some impressions on the game. The first one was pretty bland, but had some great potential.

 

[sirfink]

Cool, more boobs.

Damn, how could I forget the boobs? Best part of the game.

 

[Jaesun]

Must be why I passed on this game.

 

[Andhaira]

Hey, great news. Do let us know how it is. I hope its just as optimized as the first one else my laptop wont run it.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I tried to avoid looking down but I couldn't. Only reason I paid any attention to this woman at all. Then again, my dwarf should be looking up...

 

[Black_Willow]

Must be why I passed on this game.

Not enough dicks for you?

 

[Mortmal]

Same i dlike some impressions, first one was gorgeous, flawless with zero bugs.. but i never finished it, it was jsut too boring , filled with the same encounters over and over, and altough it was party based ,it was just rushing them in with big swords, magic diddnt matter the slightest.

 

[Perfect Fool]

Same i dlike some impressions, first one was gorgeous, flawless with zero bugs.. but i never finished it, it was jsut too boring , filled with the same encounters over and over, and altough it was party based ,it was just rushing them in with big swords, magic diddnt matter the slightest.

Actually, magic buffs/debuffs were reasonably useful and speeded some of the tedious fights up slightly. Other than that, you're pretty much on the money. It also annoyed me that monsters could just rush through my warriors to attack the squishies so that tactical positioning was impossible. If they haven't fixed that zone of control issue somehow then the combat will suck in this game too and they'll have to do something really special with the rest of it to make it worth playing.

 

[ricolikesrice]

if you already disliked drakensang 1 i dont think drakensang 2 will do much for you and you can pretty much skip reading this or preferably let everyone know in a funny and witty way how much Drakensang sucks. Maybe do it pretending you re a horse for extra lulz.

... for the remaining 3 codexers who liked drakensang ...

quick first impressions after roughly 5-6 hours of playing yesterday (expect some future flip floping from me as 6 hours is jackshit to judge a game from )

the good:

-character creation (expert mode) has much more options to customize your chars than drakensang 1. its also nice to have a game where barbarians actually look the part, not having the same bodytype as bookworms (NWN2, DA:O, etc.). but the biggest change is being able to pick from a huge list of (dis)advantages to customize your chosen class more (still in limits though, i.e. mages will never be the strongest guys around)

-graphics/art design is fantastic just like in the first game, except with even more attention to detail and beautiful vistas. Nadoret(the city) oozes atmosphere which is saying a lot considering thats its pretty much just a generic medieval fantasy city. but one done incredibly well ...<<<< graphicswhore.

-seen TONS of skillchecks and many multiple ways to solve quests. i am playing a rogue and so far i actually feel like playing a rogue, not just a fighter with dagger -> read: i m solving most quests non-violent and had rather little filler combat so far.
(mind you the first 1-2 hours of the game is similar to DA:O in that you have 4 different starter-quest chains based on class, i.e. as a mage you start differently than as a rogue or a fighter or a ranger/nature class ... so since those made up quite a big part of my playtime yesterday ... it wasnt really suprising they d cater to rogue gameplay)

the meh:

-combat so far been good in that there was far less filler combat (mind you playing as rogue ) than in drakensang 1 which suffered heavily from orc caves/deep roads syndrome - bad in that so far i havent died once with a character/party suboptimal for combat and that the first boss fight was a really crappy "hit him 3 minutes till the tons of HP are gone" encounter. 2nd boss fight was more interesting/fun but not really hard either. mind you i m having/had little/no troubles on nightmare DA:O, hardcore NWN2, TOEE etc. etc. either and actually have a pretty hard time thinking about a single cRPG that was truly challenging once you have a properly built character/party - incl. many/most turnbased ones. but lets not start playing apologist here yet - so far combat certainly wasnt a strong point in drakensang 2.

-until now the game was just as linear as DS1 but from all the pre/reviews i read this is supposed to change pretty much at the point i stopped playing yesterday. we ll see

-the story/writing is similar to Drakensang 1, if you re a storyfag forget about drakensang as its a lighthearted fairytale adventure - no grimdark epic mature extreme plot of high literary value. there are some good jokes that made me laugh - though i wouldnt listen to a kraut talking about humour.
there s a scene where the dwarf in your party goes rambo on a castle full of corrupt guards and you have to save his ass while he s running in circles to avoid all the archers firing on him -> just in case you needed any proof apart from the art direction of certain NPCs that drakensang isnt really meant to be serious business.

unlike drakensang 1 everything is voiced now and there are many more cutscenes - incase someone cares.


the bad:

-handholding . its nice to have multiple solutions to quests but i d really prefer if *I* could find out about them - like you do in Fallout for example. In Drakensang 2 your companions act as spoilers: imagine you re going to that ratcave in fallout and on the way some dude would run up to you and say "hey btw if you dont want to kill all those rats, you can just plant explosives at the cave entrance" - thats my Drakensang 2 experience thus far: NPCs spoiling all the fun that you could/should discover yourself.
.....i m hoping its just the beginning of the game and will be gone later.

(....a little compensation for the handholding however is that at least unlike most other recent RPGs you can actually fail many quests, losing out on XP and rewards.)

-unlike drakensang 1 there s 3 difficulty modes now and in typical lazy ass design its the old and never good "easy = enemies have less HP, hard = enemies have more HP" retardation. fuck this crap.


Summary:

6 hours wasnt much but so far i m looking forward to playing more later today. i m not having the "oh my god, they did everything right this time around" feeling but the many smaller and bigger improvements add up and if the game doesnt fuck up in some truly retarded way i think this has potential to be simply "good"(FOR WHAT IT IS, HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH) where drakensang 1 was "slightly above mediocre".

 

[Ch1ef]

Aaaaaaaaand....tits?

 

[hoochimama]

Sounds good,but what about performance? The d2 demo seemed to run slower than drakensang1.

 

[Phelot]

thanks for the impressions ricolikesrice.

Anyone else play?

 

[Szioul]

English translation. v.0.1 Machine translated dialogs. Found it on NFOhump

 

[ricolikesrice]

Sounds good,but what about performance? The d2 demo seemed to run slower than drakensang1.

the city of nadoret (which was also in the demo) has performance issues. i played drakensang 1 maxed out on my old GTS8800 which went kaputt a few months ago and performance was top. drakensang TROT i m playing with my new ati 5770 yet nadoret still stutters (its playable though). rest of the game runs smooth. from reading forums it looks like most people are reporting performance problems with nadoret but apparently the rest of the game runs for them just like drakensang 1.

i just finished it btw, its a bit shorter than Drakensang. roughly 15 hours for the mainquest and an additional 15 hours for all the sidequests/areas i d say.
the game is a lot less linear than the first one though and you can keep playing after finishing the MQ so i have to look what quests i may have missed (visiting old areas from time to time opens up new quests in them) .

i m not really good at writing reviews but if you have any questions feel free to ask. i enjoyed it alot and plan on starting a 2nd playthrough now. the game improves on drakensang in almost every single way except combat so if you already liked the first there s no reason to pass on this one. its still far from the greatness of Star Trail however.

wonder what Shannow and Jarl think about if if they got it yet but i ll keep an eye on this series and the addon in the works.