Drova: Forsaken Kin - 2D action RPG inspired by Gothic series

[BosanskiSeljak]

Spoiler

Is this part of the map gated by chapter? It seems impossible to get here? I can get up on a place where there's a Leshy, but no way to go down. The road is blocked by rubble and you can't get there through the water area where my character is because the islands don't connect

 

[Jinn]

I'm not saying it's a terrible game, but I don't get the hype on 'dex.

I don't really understand where you got a sense of hype from. Most of the people actually playing the game have just been saying it's good and enjoyable, not that it's amazing or groundbreaking. It's a well constructed indie open world RPG made by an impressively small team. The world-building is fine, the writing is mediocre, the progression is satisfying, the combat is fun and reflects said progression well, the enemy variety is good, the economy is tight (at least in the first half), the exploration is an incredible strength, quests and character interactions offer some interesting emergent moments, the atmosphere delivers in certain cases, the music is decent to good, and the environmental art is nice. It's a solid 7-8/10 (8 personally, but I can see how it could drop based on preferences) game made for Gothic fans by Gothic fans. And I don't think anyone has indicated much beyond that.

Good game that's certainly worth the price. As a big fan of Gothic 1 and 2, it scratches that itch very well. I personally find it better than Risen, which I also enjoyed a lot the two times I've played through it.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Fuck me

Spoiler

I found my way, by accident, into Drivanius' dungeon still underleveled. I used up all my consumables to fuck up those golems and got the armour pieces, nice. But I have barely any left and I run in all happy thinking I'm gonna get some great loot and get met with another fight. A fight where I got him down to ~30% health when he then proceeds to spawn 3 more people. Fuck this I'll come back to it.

I hate getting blueballed like that in games but I guess it's fair lol

 

[Shaki]

I'm not saying it's a terrible game, but I don't get the hype on 'dex.

I don't really understand where you got a sense of hype from. Most of the people actually playing the game have just been saying it's good and enjoyable, not that it's amazing or groundbreaking. It's a well constructed indie open world RPG made by an impressively small team. The world-building is fine, the writing is mediocre, the progression is satisfying, the combat is fun and reflects said progression well, the enemy variety is good, the economy is tight (at least in the first half), the exploration is an incredible strength, quests and character interactions offer some interesting emergent moments, the atmosphere delivers in certain cases, the music is decent to good, and the environmental art is nice. It's a solid 7-8/10 (8 personally, but I can see how it could drop based on preferences) game made for Gothic fans by Gothic fans. And I don't think anyone has indicated much beyond that.

Good game that's certainly worth the price. As a big fan of Gothic 1 and 2, it scratches that itch very well. I personally find it better than Risen, which I also enjoyed a lot the two times I've played through it.

"Solid 7-8/10 game made for Gothic fans by Gothic fans" is all I need to be a very happy man, but somehow for 20+ years, despite this very modest expectation, I was consistently disappointed by 99% of the "Gothic-likes", including most of games that Piranha Bytes itself made. Pretty much only Archolos and Risen (and to lesser extent first Elex), were decent enough to actually make me happy, and I think from these, only Archolos beats Drova. So actually I am goddamn hyped. I am allowed to get hyped for a 2nd best Gothic-like of the last 2 decades. It's not perfect, but Gothic itself also wasn't perfect, and it never stopped me from shilling it.

 

[Grauken]

I finished it, both endings sucks but game was fun, so I guess it's okay

Tbh all gothic/risen/elex games kinda have shit endings, so it checks out.

Not limited to them, most cRPGs have shitty endings and those with good ones are the exception

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Spoiler

I got this bulletin board quest but I talked to every Druid in Nemeton and none of them acknowledge something they have for me. Which place is Sacred Grove, am I missing something?

 

[Karwelas]

So, I just laughed my ass of due to an interesting, VERY interesting part of the game happening, namely:

A little fun thing

I just skipped whole chapter by doing things out of order - you can head to the Light Forest and get yourself a Spark before joining any of the factions. Your character actually mentions that they, in fact, already have a way to piss all over Blackflame and cause Chapter 2 to be skipped, going straight to chapter 3. The reactions of other characters, are understandably bordering on total shock, respect and hint of doubt. But that was fun thing to happen.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Spoiler

I got this bulletin board quest but I talked to every Druid in Nemeton and none of them acknowledge something they have for me. Which place is Sacred Grove, am I missing something?

central area in Nemeton, guy up left

You talking about the guy who wants butterflies? Did that already, guess the game doesn't acknowledge it like the other bulletin board quests I did before reading the note

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

So...choosing Nematon consequences

Spoiler

is it possible to do this and not destroy the forest? I'm going through the aftermath and it literally broke me mentally i hate this. Did i miss somrthing? I did warn the Bonded, primieval forest was my favourite part. Im too fucking mentally ill getting attached to the piglets i helped god fucking damnit fuck it all burn it all

 

[Sunri]

So...choosing Nematon consequences

Spoiler

is it possible to do this and not destroy the forest? I'm going through the aftermath and it literally broke me mentally i hate this. Did i miss somrthing? I did warn the Bonded, primieval forest was my favourite part. Im too fucking mentally ill getting attached to the piglets i helped god fucking damnit fuck it all burn it all

You are a bad man no matter what, you can only help survivors after this game is rather linear

 

[thesecret1]

So...choosing Nematon consequences

Spoiler

is it possible to do this and not destroy the forest? I'm going through the aftermath and it literally broke me mentally i hate this. Did i miss somrthing? I did warn the Bonded, primieval forest was my favourite part. Im too fucking mentally ill getting attached to the piglets i helped god fucking damnit fuck it all burn it all

Spoiler

Don't forget to loot the piglets for meat.

 

[Fedora Master]

The game deserved better graphics than it got.
Also stop it with the fucking laughing, this isn't some kind of Wuxia movie

 

[Nikanuur]

The Piranha Bytes king is dead, long live the Just2D king!

 

[Marat]

The Piranha Bytes king is dead, long live the Just2D king!

This un's better than anything bald guy's PB ever made.

 

[notpl]

The game deserved better graphics than it got.
Also stop it with the fucking laughing, this isn't some kind of Wuxia movie

I kind of like the ridiculous NPC emotes in convo. Makes it cartoonish enough not to care about the overall poor writing.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Just finished took ~37 hours total doing pretty much everything I came across.

This really just is Gothic.

Unfortunately, with the same problems. I kept seeing people saying how each chapter kept opening up new content but I'm not sure where that comes from? Everything after Chapter 2 is pretty barren apart from the occasional quest or previous quests which span chapters/you can't complete until later due to difficulty. On top of that is a much less immersive world overall. Lack of verticality & the pixel graphics although I agree with notpl, they played into it with those emotes and stuff which is better than if they took themselves too seriously. The unforgivable parts of the world are simply the many things that don't make sense and stretch the suspension of disbelief pretty far. Though by far I'm most disappointed with the linearity of things. The railroading into what I asked about previously opened my eyes to things later on thinking "oh, I would've gotten to this no matter what I did". It really took away from the impact events of Chapter 3 had on me, which is a shame, because it's very rare a game gets me actually emotionally invested like I felt exploring the aftermath of everything. Why can't people improve/expand upon the Gothic system? It's ripe for the taking and there are such simple things that can be done to make it at least a bit branching. Because now all I can say is "its Gothic but worse", when you could've done a lot more.

Fortunately, Gothic is the magnum opus and even a lesser version of it is still very enjoyable and much better than other things coming out. Don't regret the time I spent with this game.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I'm not saying it's a terrible game, but I don't get the hype on 'dex.

I don't really understand where you got a sense of hype from. Most of the people actually playing the game have just been saying it's good and enjoyable, not that it's amazing or groundbreaking. It's a well constructed indie open world RPG made by an impressively small team. The world-building is fine, the writing is mediocre, the progression is satisfying, the combat is fun and reflects said progression well, the enemy variety is good, the economy is tight (at least in the first half), the exploration is an incredible strength, quests and character interactions offer some interesting emergent moments, the atmosphere delivers in certain cases, the music is decent to good, and the environmental art is nice. It's a solid 7-8/10 (8 personally, but I can see how it could drop based on preferences) game made for Gothic fans by Gothic fans. And I don't think anyone has indicated much beyond that.

Good game that's certainly worth the price. As a big fan of Gothic 1 and 2, it scratches that itch very well. I personally find it better than Risen, which I also enjoyed a lot the two times I've played through it.

"Solid 7-8/10 game made for Gothic fans by Gothic fans" is all I need to be a very happy man, but somehow for 20+ years, despite this very modest expectation, I was consistently disappointed by 99% of the "Gothic-likes", including most of games that Piranha Bytes itself made. Pretty much only Archolos and Risen (and to lesser extent first Elex), were decent enough to actually make me happy, and I think from these, only Archolos beats Drova. So actually I am goddamn hyped. I am allowed to get hyped for a 2nd best Gothic-like of the last 2 decades. It's not perfect, but Gothic itself also wasn't perfect, and it never stopped me from shilling it.

Have you tried Enderal?

 

[toro]

Finished it after 35.5 hours. This is a gem.

I agree that there are issues with the story, the combat, the skill system, and the world design; however, this game is a tremendous achievement for one reason only: while there are other games that have captured Gothic spirit for a couple of moments, Drove Foreskin is the only one that managed to keep this spirit alive for the entire experience (more or less). Gothic was released in 2001, and - except for Piranha Bytes games - personally, I don't know any other game that managed to do this. This is a dream come true for any Gothic fan because it means that somebody picked up the Piranha Bytes's torch.

Just a few tid bits about the game: except the female warriors there is no woke content whatsoever, specific plants only spawn in specific locations (ruin flowers near ruins and so on), NPC have schedules and sometimes they wander and it's possible to encounter them in middle of nowhere, armor and equipment tier is more important than skills, some spells are insane and fundamentally different combat styles are possible. To keep is short: exploration and atmosphere are great until the last part of the game when you become OP.

This might be GOTY for me. I didn't enjoy a game so much since Underrail and Kenshi.

Spoiler

 

[toro]

https://steamspy.com/app/1585180

Userscore: 96% Owners: 100,000 .. 200,000

 

[Cyberarmy]

Finished it after 35.5 hours. This is a gem.

Yeah, I concur. I've been playing this one all weekend and really having lots of fun with it. It really is "2D Gothic", the exploration feel, from zero to hero, the effect of better equipment and lots of ways to cheese the game. 2 factions to choose, many quests having more than 1 way to solve, being able to finish quests before getting them, NPCs spitting, smoking, peeing and laughing like maniacs and beating you because you slept in their bed. They even react to you if you talk to them while using their stolen stuff. This game is Gothic clone done right, in every step.

I really liked the combat, mostly against powerful human enemies. Having lots of traps, spells and throwables really gives nice tactical combat options. Even fully ranged builds are viable, after a few levels and items ofc.
Map looks small at first but it has lots of places to explore, even has a large number of cavern systems that kinda feels like Underrail at some point. Search mode is cool but somewhat underutilized.
Lots of nice quests and secrets also, just finished a Bloodborne homage quest and got a ring that gives Bloodborne's hp regain mechanic via attacking right after getting hit.
Enemy corpses don't just dissappear, they slowly rot where you kill them (rotting only happens when you move to a new act) which means you can re-loot them after learning skining or similar stuff. Map changes as you progress through the game.

It even has main weakness of Gothic series, if you clear the map in act 1 you don't get many enemies in later acts. Hell you can even bypass whole at 2 if you are over explorer like me. Late game is weak as usual but it is fun to mow enemies at that point.
Later acts don't have much side quests, I expected more quests from my faction.
Enemy variation is a bit low, dunno why but at some point in the game I found myself fighting frogs over and over.
Soundtrack is nice but a bit limited.
Too many unattackable, unkillable enemies. You can't even provoke them to attack you.
Not many bugs and most of them can be solved via reloading the game. I only missed an event in Pit because some hewer didn't move after trying to lure me to an ambush.


Probably my GOTY as well and as a member of the last bastion of Gothic like games, you fuckers need to play this one, right now. It has some problems but really good attempt from a first time developer.

 

[Habichtswalder]

I haven't seen much of the game so far, only 5 hours. But I think it's good, maybe even very good. Definitely charming.

Exploration is a lot of fun and the map is exactly the right size to give you some freedom without overwhelming you like modern open world games often do. The only flaws until now: The writing is generally solid, but some dialogues feel too modern-dayish. And some sidequests are uninspired. But these are minor flaws, nothing that takes away the charm of the game.

I'm not the biggest fan of the 2D-artstyle, but it doesn't matter too much.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Too many unattackable, unkillable enemies. You can't even provoke them to attack you.

This is its greatest sin imo

I didn't want to beat up the entire map like I did in Gothic but even so, the amount of people you can even hit is ridiculous.

Boris, his henchmen who attacked me (who I later found in a cave), some asshole merchant who didn't pay me after I escorted him and the guard in the hewer silver cave all deserved a good beating but I couldn't. They do the worst possible thing where the person isn't even an entity and your swing goes through them.

 

[Gandalf]

I think it is a good thing that this game is not just a 3D Gothic clone. I like it's charm. It reminds me of the old days of pixel art titles like Albion.
On the other hand I do think the 3D exploration would improve the experience tenfold, add a new dimension of depth to it, but it would be too close to home, I guess.

 

[Havoc]

Too many unattackable, unkillable enemies. You can't even provoke them to attack you.

This is its greatest sin imo

I didn't want to beat up the entire map like I did in Gothic but even so, the amount of people you can even hit is ridiculous.

Boris, his henchmen who attacked me (who I later found in a cave), some asshole merchant who didn't pay me after I escorted him and the guard in the hewer silver cave all deserved a good beating but I couldn't. They do the worst possible thing where the person isn't even an entity and your swing goes through them.

Unkillable? Yes. Unattackable? Erm, I was able to attack everybody. Here's Jimmy

And the merchant you speak about (escort from Nemeton?), I kicked his ass after escort and took his money.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Too many unattackable, unkillable enemies. You can't even provoke them to attack you.

This is its greatest sin imo

I didn't want to beat up the entire map like I did in Gothic but even so, the amount of people you can even hit is ridiculous.

Boris, his henchmen who attacked me (who I later found in a cave), some asshole merchant who didn't pay me after I escorted him and the guard in the hewer silver cave all deserved a good beating but I couldn't. They do the worst possible thing where the person isn't even an entity and your swing goes through them.

Unkillable? Yes. Unattackable? Erm, I was able to attack everybody. Here's Jimmy
View attachment 56892
And the merchant you speak about (escort from Nemeton?), I kicked his ass after escort and took his money.

Wtf? Is my game glitched? My attacks were like attacking air nothing connecting. I'm gonna relaunch and test again.