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

[toro]

Just got the rune armor of the bygones (heavy variety, 240 total armor now), also found the rune sword, but can't use it yet, need 15 more prowess

Come on. The game is easy. Farm some side quests.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Just got the rune armor of the bygones (heavy variety, 240 total armor now), also found the rune sword, but can't use it yet, need 15 more prowess

Come on. The game is easy. Farm some side quests.

Or produce permament stat increase potions. If you have rune armor, you should know the recipes and have some ingredients.

 

[toro]

Just got the rune armor of the bygones (heavy variety, 240 total armor now), also found the rune sword, but can't use it yet, need 15 more prowess

Come on. The game is easy. Farm some side quests.

Or produce permament stat increase potions. If you have rune armor, you should know the recipes and have some ingredients.

He probably has eaten the plants with permanent stat increases.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Finished the Arena stuff, all the Arena fighters sucked. Ebru with his 2000 traps and summons, Lissandra with her stupid orbiting fireballs and spells, Sinistra with basically a 2v1 with her clone, and then, worst of all, Ada, She Of The Pure Cheese. Silly bitch just runs around like a hedgehog on adderal, infinite summons of 4-8 copies, fog so you can't see anything, and my favorite, gladiator armor, so once her health is low, you are basically doing no damage. What a long-ass boring fight... And her strikes take like a third to a half of your health bar too, despite me wearing top end Rune Bygone Armor. I really hate when games arbitrarily scale enemy damage, not taking armor into account at all. What's the point of heavy armor if it doesn't do anything?

Anyways, with some perseverance and alcohol, I beat all these clowns.

 

[cpmartins]

Finished the Arena stuff, all the Arena fighters sucked. Ebru with his 2000 traps and summons, Lissandra with her stupid orbiting fireballs and spells, Sinistra with basically a 2v1 with her clone, and then, worst of all, Ada, She Of The Pure Cheese. Silly bitch just runs around like a hedgehog on adderal, infinite summons of 4-8 copies, fog so you can't see anything, and my favorite, gladiator armor, so once her health is low, you are basically doing no damage. What a long-ass boring fight... And her strikes take like a third to a half of your health bar too, despite me wearing top end Rune Bygone Armor. I really hate when games arbitrarily scale enemy damage, not taking armor into account at all. What's the point of heavy armor if it doesn't do anything?

Anyways, with some perseverance and alcohol, I beat all these clowns.

I agree, but to be fair the only way it could offer a decent challenge is through those ungodly amounts of cheese.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't like cheese challenge. They could've just gave enemies higher stats and some logical abilities, this is not Dark Souls.

 

[Zlaja]

What do people mean when they say this game is like Gothic?

It's heavily inspired by Gothic: no questmarkers, great exploration, very satisfying progressing and similar game structure.

And faction choice which requires hard work to get accepted, and spending LP to train at specific NPCs (with flavour text where they actually explain how to do something), and getting knocked out and mugged in certain situations instead of killed, and brewing potions with specific herbs to raise stats (unless you screw yourself and just eat them), and main quest divided by chapters with new tougher enemies added after chapter change....etc, etc.

It's downright shameless.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Finished the game. 43 hours according to the save file.

Overall, very positive impression for a new studio. They did use a lot of ideas from Gothic games, but to adapt them to a 2D pixel engine, create a brand new setting, and create enough new stuff of their own where it's not a blatant rip-off, that's quite an achievement. In a way, it's also the circle of life, since Gothic was inspired by the 2D Ultima VII: The Black Gate.

The world is great, there is so much stuff to find, and to explore, tons of optional out of the way locations and points of interest that really breathe life into the game. The lore and atmosphere, based on Celtic mythology I guess, are not my cup of tea, but are original and well done. Writing is not great or anything, but for a tiny new studio, it's functional and professional sounding (similar to PB games).

They also have done a fairly good job with the combat, given the 2D constraints. I think it's biased toward a dodge character, because the frantic pace of combat, many simultaneous enemies, and lack of prominent animation tells make playing an armored shield using character more challenging. Would've been nice if that build and ranged approaches were more balanced, but overall, it's well done.

I also really enjoyed the active nature of the gameplay in Drova. There are a lot of puzzles, or just things to figure out, like where to go, how to get something done, which is a refreshing change of pace from modern AAA quest compass brainless bs. The only issue I had here was some puzzles require you to pixel scan large rooms, so it's easy to miss something you need to find, but other than that, it's really well done.

I would say a solid 8.5-9/10.

 

[Lord_Potato]

From what I heard Gothic was mostly inspired by Ultima 9. Yes, the failed, terrible one. And yet for the German devs it was a window into what was possible with the new tech. So they decided to do it themselves.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

From what I heard Gothic was mostly inspired by Ultima 9. Yes, the failed, terrible one. And yet for the German devs it was a window into what was possible with the new tech. So they decided to do it themselves.

Gothic 1 was partially marketed as the game Ultima IX promised to be but never was (mainly through the press though, if I remember correctly). It may very well have been an inspiration technically. Ultima VII was most definitely one of its main inspirations too. And even today there is no other game that took Ultima VII's focus for worldbuilding and a believable environment (interactivity, NPC reactions on the player and other NPCs/creatures, daily schedules) so seriously as Gothic I and especially II. They never quite achieve the same level als Ultima VII, but they are extremely close. Gothic III failed on it's own megalomania, the Risens did ok but never reach the same quality.

 

[Maxie]

The original Gothic game was inspired by U: Underworld tech-wise. Also, it was negatively inspired by Albion (1995) - they wanted to make a game nothing like Albion

 

[mosopogo]

Overall, an enjoyable experience, especially as the first showing of a new studio.

Exploration is dense and feels very rewarding.
Progress is tangible and earned.
Combat is simple but allows for mastery and skill expression.

Some small criticisms:
A lot of the magic of the first playthrough is lost in the second. The small size of the team becomes pretty evident as routes do not diverge too much.
There is a bit of disparity between the two major factions. The Nemeton seem to have gotten more love with more quests in the midgame.
In particular, one of the Remnant squads you can join has NO quests as the squad leader is too busy drinking to care.
Chapter 3 feels a bit railroaded. The devs said they're going to change it slightly, but seems like big changes are unlikely as Drova is just about a finished product.
Ultimately, most of the criticism lies in just wanting *more*, which shows how much I liked it.

I encourage anyone who wants to do a second playthrough to try the Insane difficulty.
Encounters are quite a bit different and the enemy changes will surprise you. I'm surprised it hasn't been talked about more.
There is apparently one last content patch planned for next month, though, so you might want to hold off for that.

 

[Zurbo]

Yeah, exploration and atmosphere is nice. Game can be recommended.
One thing I would appreciate is more of those slopes, where you can jump down or a way to unlock some other kind of shortcuts, so that you can move faster while backtracking and searching for something, especially through those tangled up areas. Cause amount of running is a bit tiring at times.

 

[Melanci]

Yeah, exploration and atmosphere is nice. Game can be recommended.
One thing I would appreciate is more of those slopes, where you can jump down or a way to unlock some other kind of shortcuts, so that you can move faster while backtracking and searching for something, especially through those tangled up areas. Cause amount of running is a bit tiring at times.

I played it recently and thankfully the map isn't super big and they added fast travel via caravans between 3 locations (remnants, nemeton and tavern) which by the end of the game is nice because there's a ton of back and forth.