Gargaune
Magister
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,213
Saddle up, grasshopper, 'cause it's that time again - the time when I tell you what's what because you don't know any better. You see, we've all got our share of videogames we've never played, but we really should've! And by we, I mean you.
Developed by Surreal Software and published by Psygnosis in 1999, Drakan: Order of the Flame is one of those spectacular videogaming gems that's nonetheless slipped from the collective memory. The game is set in the eponymous (mildly dark) fantasy world and stars Rynn, which I believe is the Cornish way to spell "Totally Not Lara Croft", and most critically, it co-stars Arokh, the red dragon that Rynn gets to ride up into the clouds. If that hasn't picqued your interest already, you're dead inside.
As a personal anecdote, my interest was firmly secured by the demo I found on the disc of a gaming mag I was buying back then, one of my first issues too. I still remember it clearly, it was the Wartok Canyons with the starting point moved up about fifty metres. The catch? I didn't have a graphics card yet. The game ran but all the textures were a scrambled mess of LSD vomit, and it still made enough of an impression that I went out and got my first "3D Graphics Accelerator", a little 16MB Riva Vanta!
Okay, but enough memory tripping, what we've got ourselves is a 3D Action-Adventure videogame featuring 3rd person combat, platforming and, the highlight of the show, dragonback aerial dogfighting! Now, before we carry on, let me be clear that Drakan isn't actually a straight Tomb Raider clone despite some similar elements (well, two in particular, I'll let you figure out which), and the focus is understandably quite different - the puzzles are lighter and (mercifully) so is the platforming, with much more screentime dedicated to hacking orcs and dispensing death from above.
Fly me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!
The premise is simple: you play Rynn, the quintessential 90s action heroine endowed with strength, courage and... well, endowments, going about her merry evening when the forces of Evil™ descend upon her village to go about their merry evening. Rynn gets KO'd and her little brother, Delon, is taken captive, so she's off to get him back. But to pull that off, she's gonna need help, and that help comes with a pair of big wings and a legendary case of bad breath - the dragon Arokh. From there, the stakes escalate... The plot never gets particularly complicated nor does it go po-faced, but what humour is present is done in an endearing fashion rather than the cringeworthy inclinations of contemporary writing. It's not a very long game, I'd say 15-20 hours at most, punctuated by regular in-engine cinematics as the story unfolds.
"Succubi... Perplexing creatures."
One thing to note here... Back in '99, when games journalists liked games and the first YouTube streamer hadn't yet escaped the lab, devs felt more comfortable not cramming everything that's best about their games in the first half hour of play. Drakan's no exception and, indeed, it'll take you a half or so hour before you even get the real intro cinematic (featuring some of the coolest illustrations in videogaming ever) and then you've still got a bit more to go before you meet Arokh.
A long time ago, in a galaxy with talented artists.
So, story out of the way, how does it play? While dragon action is plentiful, and we'll cover that, you'll spend more time on the ground with Rynn, either exploring dungeons on your own or unlocking gates for Arokh to follow along. The levels are usually a fairly linear affair, an established progression of hub worlds that you traverse in a prescribed fashion, but they're also wide enough not to feel like simple corridors and there's the odd secret or bonus loot off the beaten path. There's even an instance where the game flirts with an open map and emerging from the Wartok Canyons into the Archipelago is one gaming memory that'll never leave me. Like I said, the game doesn't frontload all of its best bits.
The credits thank the devs' wives for putting up with "the other woman, Rynn." Ballsy.
When you're off with Rynn, you'll be doing tons of melee fighting with a side of archery and the odd use of magical trinkets, like invisibility potions or fire crystals. Rynn can also sneak, and while it's not a prevalent mechanic, it never hurts to pay attention for the opportunity to stab a sleeping orc. The game relies heavily on resource management and it's tight - all weapons (including bows!) and armour have limited durability, arrows don't grow on trees, and magic items have precious charges, so you'll constantly be rotating through gear and you wanna keep the right tools for the right job. Magic arrows pack a punch and have a limited homing capacity, and you'll really want to have them on hand when you take on an airborne dragon without Arokh. Enemies wear armour too, and that's when you'll want to switch to your Armour Piercing weapons instead of wasting them on creepers. And if you find yourself surrounded by a whole pack of the aforementioned creepers, I hope you saved that AoE Fire Crystal. Aside from durability, melee weapons have their own distinct damage values, attack speeds and ranges.
That last one's the small sort of giant.
Combat itself is quick and hectic. The usual problems of the era are present, with dubious hit detection, inconsistent AI and a floaty, accelerated feel to the camera that takes some getting used to, and you'll often find that just circling tougher enemies is a winning strategy. But it does the job. There's no lock-on here, no quicktime events, no convenient bullet-time warning you there's a blow coming - you've been bestowed sight and (hopefully) reason, and Surreal Software expects you to use them. If you see an enemy using a shield, you wanna swing over to attack his other side. When that giant axe comes up, you'd best roll under the hit. And rest assured, smaller enemies will duck under yours. And if you see a Wartok wearing armour, that's not just for show, he's wearing bloody armour! Additionally, not everything will politely walk up to you and wait for a hammer to the head, creatures like succubi or dragons will be perfectly happy to rain death on your from high on overhead, so you need to get the bow out. Shooting an arrow is instant but it ain't hitscan, it will travel to its target, so make sure to lead. Aside from this lot, you'll also have creatures who will politely walk up to you and you'll very much wish they hadn't - giants in this game are genuinely giant! You've been warned.
Drakan - a world with no Health & Safety department.
When Rynn isn't busy getting smacked in the face by whatever walks, crawls or floats around the world of Drakan, she's usually leaping across chasms and trapped floors, dodging giant boulders, and getting her gymnastics on with whatever assortment of spinning, swinging blades are in her way. Either that or figuring out some environmental puzzle. Or both at the same time. I've never been a huge fan of platforming, so I'm happy to say it's not all too egregious - usually - but there's a steady stream of it. Some of the game's more pressing puzzles just come down to learning from your (fatal) mistakes, and the advice there is simple - Surreal gave you a Quicksave key, use it!
"Crowdragon-2 to ground control, we've got a bogey inbound. He... he's got a hot chick on his back!"
Once you're ready to take a break from Rynn's pedestrian affairs, it's time to clamber onto Arokh's back and enjoy a power trip that makes Todd's dragons look like a ride on a ferris wheel - "See that mountain? You can kill it with fire." You'll be dogfighting other dragons, bombarding enemy ballistae and mercilessly defecating on any infantry that's (mostly) powerless against you. Orcs and Wartoks are altogether at your whims, but Goblins and Knights have ranged attacks that can screw you up if you get in range, and Giants will hurl nearby barrels at you or, if no barrels are on hand, they'll throw Orcs. Which is every bit as hilarious as you're imagining it... until you find out they can do it to Rynn, too. But while riding Arokh is definitely the "easy mode" of the game, you're by no means invulnerable and if you don't keep moving out of enemy fire, you'll quickly find yourself taking a dirt nap.
Kiting in Drakan is absolutely hilarious.
The dragon isn't restricted to the skies and you can also just ride him on the ground if there's enough room, either outdoors or in larger indoors area. But things get even better, because Arokh's AI is a bit more sophisticated - if Rynn heads into a solo area (conveniently marked by the doorframe being to small for her companion), he'll actually tell you that he'll wait for your return, but if you take our heroine for a jaunt out and about, the dragon will take off and shadow you from above. He will then proceed to barbecue any hostile that comes your way and you can always call him to your side using the Dragon Action keybind. In fact, this is one significant detail you'll notice about the level design - most places could be traversed entirely on foot if you chose to, the paths are there.
While Arokh doesn't have any equipment of his own, he gets multiple breath weapons, the starting of which is Fire, and then you'll pick up Poison, Frost, Lightning and Magma as you progress through the story. Each of these has two attack modes - for instance, your main Fire attack is a long distance projectile, the alternate is a short-range continual flamethrower, whereas Lightning's main is a bolt that arcs to targets ahead and the alternate lobs a slow-moving ball that zaps anything in range as it goes. These have different tactical applications and breath costs, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I stuck with Fire for around 80% of the time. Additionally, while on the ground, Arokh can simply take a bite of any genius who's walked right up to his snout. Note that while on Arokh's back, you can't access Rynn's inventory, so you'll be restricted to using regular Healing Potions via the hotkey, but Life Potions are out of reach. However, when enemy dragons die, they might leave a soul spark floating in the air which can be collected for a free heal.
A parting thought on gameplay is that the title also included a multiplayer mode, but it's one I unfortunately never got to try out and I imagine it's not really an ongoing thing a quarter century down the line. I'm told it was pretty good, though.
Who says you can't have good visuals with twelve polygons?
Now, Drakan's gameplay is delightful despite its rough edges - variable challenge, wonky controls - but what absolutely drives the experience home is the art direction! This is an old game, we're talking about relatively early 3D where everything was made out of about two dozen polygons and you could count the pixels in the textures, but the visuals are still captivating in the same way that games like Unreal and Sacrifice remain mesmerising. The art concepts underlying both the 3D renditions and the phenomenal cinematic show supreme style, the environmental colour composition is exciting, and the game has a sense for proxemics that's rarely been matched. Things that are meant to be large feel large, going toe-to-toe with a giant, plummeting into the depths of Alwarren, flying freely through the Archipelago, they all capture that sense of the sublime that will stay with you for years to come.
I'd also like to give props for how beautifully the dragon's flight was animated for its time, Arokh rising and falling between wing beats, throwing his body around for momentum or gliding in a downwards swoop, Rynn counterbalancing on top of him, it's all quite lovely. Frankly, it feels much more dynamic and physical than the animations in Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC or any other takes I've seen on the concept.
Additionally, the game is scored by one of the best soundtracks in any fantasy production, an adventure in and of itself. The bitrate is sadly none too rich, but from the very title theme through to the end, Drakan's OST impresses excitement, peril and grandeur upon you in a manner that few other scores ever have, let alone with such consistency. Don't take my word for it, just have a quick listen right here. Hear that? That's not a cinematic background, you'll be playing to it!
How it looked back then vs. how it looks today.
While the graphical assets are dated by present day, the Riot engine that powered the whole thing was quite remarkable. For many years following its release, the game continued to work without a hitch, up to around Windows Vista, when Microsoft's casual disregard for legacy gaming started catching up with it. It was necessary to rig the game in Developer Mode just to manually load into the first level on a new game, and a nasty mid-game bug would have you crash to desktop upon leaving Alwarren.
But the dedicated fan community at Arokh's Lair kept supporting the game with unofficial patches and mods as well as all sorts of additional fan content and multiplayer levels. The latest compatibility solution is the comprehensive Community Patch (thanks to Lemming42 and Wirdschowerdn for pointing me in the right direction from my outdated setup) and it's all you need - install the original game, don't apply the official 445 patch and instead install the Community Patch in its Full form that includes dgVoodoo2, then sit back and enjoy! Well, you might also want to set Windows XP compatibility mode on Drakan.exe if you notice random CTDs, but see how you get on.
There are a couple of caveats to cover, though... First off, the Community Patch triggers a Windows Defender potential malware warning, which is why it's distributed in a password-protected archive. The author addresses this as a false positive (due to his unsigned application modifying the external game application) and he's had it whitelisted with a variety of antivirus providers, but Microsoft didn't wanna play ball. Second, while scanning the post-Community Patch installation directory with Windows Defender yields no more headaches, doing it with MalwareBytes will raise an alarm for two self-extracting archives in the bundled /Mods/ collection - both of these represent optional mod content, and you may safely remove them if you like, they're just alternate appearances for Rynn and Arokh. Third and finally - and relax, no more virus talk - be advised that the Community Patch will redirect your configs and saved games location from inside the program's root directory to a new user path location (Documents/My Games/Drakan).
Now, at this point my recommendation is that you use the Community Patch, but if you absolutely don't wanna go that route (you're uncomfortable ignoring potential malware warnings or whatever else), I'll briefly cover the older approaches. Install the game, then apply the official English 445 Patch. After that, you'll have to apply either the unofficial 445++ patch or the full Drakan 10th Anniversary mod (which includes the 445++ patch). Your mileage may vary, I had severe visual bugs with the Anniversary mod, whereas I've completed the game on Windows 10 with 445++ installed, but had to put up with the Windows title bar. If you still can't start a new game, launch Drakan in Developer Mode (hold Shift -> Developer tab -> tick Enable Developer Mode) and New Game will let you select the Ruined Village to start. And if you have trouble with missing audio, scour the web for a (legit) copy of dmsynth.dll and copy it into your Drakan root application directory.
On the bright side, once core compatibility's resolved, Drakan's a relatively bug-free experience and you'll only encounter the odd annoyance, like Arokh landing somewhere inaccessible or spamming you with "I can't fly here" until you find the precise square inch where he can take off indoors. Through the whole game, I only had two instances that forced a reload, once when clearing an encounter of Mummy Mages didn't trigger a gate to open as it should've, and once when Arokh decided to land his flaming behind on an inaccessible ledge. My biggest hurdle was this one elemental puzzle in the Temple of Trials that utterly tanked my framerate - it may or may not happen to you depending on what compatibility config you're running, but even if it does, it's still doable with some tenacity and memorization.
Yes, I am showing off.
But if getting the game up and running is manageable, getting a copy, well, now that's a different story. You see, GOG's space is all taken up by visual novels and Steam is too full of Half-Life 3's, so you're gonna have to do this the old fashioned way and go adventuring for a box. Amazon may or may not still have the solitary copy available depending on your territory, but thankfully eBay still has a bunch of discs in various conditions, even the odd new one. Hurry, before some other, more proactive Codexer beats you to the goods!
And if you've got a moment, do stop by GOG's dedicated request page and give Drakan a vote, because if this title doesn't deserve to be in a catalogue of "good old games", I don't know what does. And if you do, Rynn will blow you a kiss. Or maybe Arokh will. Depends on whether you're prettier than this guy:
Are you? Are you, really?
That about sums it up. The game's plot is meant to pick up directly in the sequel, Drakan: The Ancients' Gate, which was also supposed to expand the gameplay formula, but since that was a PS2 exclusive, I haven't played it (yet). So, in conclusion, I've done my part and shared some excellent advice, now it's up to you to go out there and give yourself the gift of Drakan: Order of the Flame!
~*~
Developed by Surreal Software and published by Psygnosis in 1999, Drakan: Order of the Flame is one of those spectacular videogaming gems that's nonetheless slipped from the collective memory. The game is set in the eponymous (mildly dark) fantasy world and stars Rynn, which I believe is the Cornish way to spell "Totally Not Lara Croft", and most critically, it co-stars Arokh, the red dragon that Rynn gets to ride up into the clouds. If that hasn't picqued your interest already, you're dead inside.
As a personal anecdote, my interest was firmly secured by the demo I found on the disc of a gaming mag I was buying back then, one of my first issues too. I still remember it clearly, it was the Wartok Canyons with the starting point moved up about fifty metres. The catch? I didn't have a graphics card yet. The game ran but all the textures were a scrambled mess of LSD vomit, and it still made enough of an impression that I went out and got my first "3D Graphics Accelerator", a little 16MB Riva Vanta!
Okay, but enough memory tripping, what we've got ourselves is a 3D Action-Adventure videogame featuring 3rd person combat, platforming and, the highlight of the show, dragonback aerial dogfighting! Now, before we carry on, let me be clear that Drakan isn't actually a straight Tomb Raider clone despite some similar elements (well, two in particular, I'll let you figure out which), and the focus is understandably quite different - the puzzles are lighter and (mercifully) so is the platforming, with much more screentime dedicated to hacking orcs and dispensing death from above.
Fly me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!
The premise is simple: you play Rynn, the quintessential 90s action heroine endowed with strength, courage and... well, endowments, going about her merry evening when the forces of Evil™ descend upon her village to go about their merry evening. Rynn gets KO'd and her little brother, Delon, is taken captive, so she's off to get him back. But to pull that off, she's gonna need help, and that help comes with a pair of big wings and a legendary case of bad breath - the dragon Arokh. From there, the stakes escalate... The plot never gets particularly complicated nor does it go po-faced, but what humour is present is done in an endearing fashion rather than the cringeworthy inclinations of contemporary writing. It's not a very long game, I'd say 15-20 hours at most, punctuated by regular in-engine cinematics as the story unfolds.
"Succubi... Perplexing creatures."
One thing to note here... Back in '99, when games journalists liked games and the first YouTube streamer hadn't yet escaped the lab, devs felt more comfortable not cramming everything that's best about their games in the first half hour of play. Drakan's no exception and, indeed, it'll take you a half or so hour before you even get the real intro cinematic (featuring some of the coolest illustrations in videogaming ever) and then you've still got a bit more to go before you meet Arokh.
A long time ago, in a galaxy with talented artists.
So, story out of the way, how does it play? While dragon action is plentiful, and we'll cover that, you'll spend more time on the ground with Rynn, either exploring dungeons on your own or unlocking gates for Arokh to follow along. The levels are usually a fairly linear affair, an established progression of hub worlds that you traverse in a prescribed fashion, but they're also wide enough not to feel like simple corridors and there's the odd secret or bonus loot off the beaten path. There's even an instance where the game flirts with an open map and emerging from the Wartok Canyons into the Archipelago is one gaming memory that'll never leave me. Like I said, the game doesn't frontload all of its best bits.
The credits thank the devs' wives for putting up with "the other woman, Rynn." Ballsy.
When you're off with Rynn, you'll be doing tons of melee fighting with a side of archery and the odd use of magical trinkets, like invisibility potions or fire crystals. Rynn can also sneak, and while it's not a prevalent mechanic, it never hurts to pay attention for the opportunity to stab a sleeping orc. The game relies heavily on resource management and it's tight - all weapons (including bows!) and armour have limited durability, arrows don't grow on trees, and magic items have precious charges, so you'll constantly be rotating through gear and you wanna keep the right tools for the right job. Magic arrows pack a punch and have a limited homing capacity, and you'll really want to have them on hand when you take on an airborne dragon without Arokh. Enemies wear armour too, and that's when you'll want to switch to your Armour Piercing weapons instead of wasting them on creepers. And if you find yourself surrounded by a whole pack of the aforementioned creepers, I hope you saved that AoE Fire Crystal. Aside from durability, melee weapons have their own distinct damage values, attack speeds and ranges.
That last one's the small sort of giant.
Combat itself is quick and hectic. The usual problems of the era are present, with dubious hit detection, inconsistent AI and a floaty, accelerated feel to the camera that takes some getting used to, and you'll often find that just circling tougher enemies is a winning strategy. But it does the job. There's no lock-on here, no quicktime events, no convenient bullet-time warning you there's a blow coming - you've been bestowed sight and (hopefully) reason, and Surreal Software expects you to use them. If you see an enemy using a shield, you wanna swing over to attack his other side. When that giant axe comes up, you'd best roll under the hit. And rest assured, smaller enemies will duck under yours. And if you see a Wartok wearing armour, that's not just for show, he's wearing bloody armour! Additionally, not everything will politely walk up to you and wait for a hammer to the head, creatures like succubi or dragons will be perfectly happy to rain death on your from high on overhead, so you need to get the bow out. Shooting an arrow is instant but it ain't hitscan, it will travel to its target, so make sure to lead. Aside from this lot, you'll also have creatures who will politely walk up to you and you'll very much wish they hadn't - giants in this game are genuinely giant! You've been warned.
Drakan - a world with no Health & Safety department.
When Rynn isn't busy getting smacked in the face by whatever walks, crawls or floats around the world of Drakan, she's usually leaping across chasms and trapped floors, dodging giant boulders, and getting her gymnastics on with whatever assortment of spinning, swinging blades are in her way. Either that or figuring out some environmental puzzle. Or both at the same time. I've never been a huge fan of platforming, so I'm happy to say it's not all too egregious - usually - but there's a steady stream of it. Some of the game's more pressing puzzles just come down to learning from your (fatal) mistakes, and the advice there is simple - Surreal gave you a Quicksave key, use it!
"Crowdragon-2 to ground control, we've got a bogey inbound. He... he's got a hot chick on his back!"
Once you're ready to take a break from Rynn's pedestrian affairs, it's time to clamber onto Arokh's back and enjoy a power trip that makes Todd's dragons look like a ride on a ferris wheel - "See that mountain? You can kill it with fire." You'll be dogfighting other dragons, bombarding enemy ballistae and mercilessly defecating on any infantry that's (mostly) powerless against you. Orcs and Wartoks are altogether at your whims, but Goblins and Knights have ranged attacks that can screw you up if you get in range, and Giants will hurl nearby barrels at you or, if no barrels are on hand, they'll throw Orcs. Which is every bit as hilarious as you're imagining it... until you find out they can do it to Rynn, too. But while riding Arokh is definitely the "easy mode" of the game, you're by no means invulnerable and if you don't keep moving out of enemy fire, you'll quickly find yourself taking a dirt nap.
Kiting in Drakan is absolutely hilarious.
The dragon isn't restricted to the skies and you can also just ride him on the ground if there's enough room, either outdoors or in larger indoors area. But things get even better, because Arokh's AI is a bit more sophisticated - if Rynn heads into a solo area (conveniently marked by the doorframe being to small for her companion), he'll actually tell you that he'll wait for your return, but if you take our heroine for a jaunt out and about, the dragon will take off and shadow you from above. He will then proceed to barbecue any hostile that comes your way and you can always call him to your side using the Dragon Action keybind. In fact, this is one significant detail you'll notice about the level design - most places could be traversed entirely on foot if you chose to, the paths are there.
While Arokh doesn't have any equipment of his own, he gets multiple breath weapons, the starting of which is Fire, and then you'll pick up Poison, Frost, Lightning and Magma as you progress through the story. Each of these has two attack modes - for instance, your main Fire attack is a long distance projectile, the alternate is a short-range continual flamethrower, whereas Lightning's main is a bolt that arcs to targets ahead and the alternate lobs a slow-moving ball that zaps anything in range as it goes. These have different tactical applications and breath costs, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I stuck with Fire for around 80% of the time. Additionally, while on the ground, Arokh can simply take a bite of any genius who's walked right up to his snout. Note that while on Arokh's back, you can't access Rynn's inventory, so you'll be restricted to using regular Healing Potions via the hotkey, but Life Potions are out of reach. However, when enemy dragons die, they might leave a soul spark floating in the air which can be collected for a free heal.
A parting thought on gameplay is that the title also included a multiplayer mode, but it's one I unfortunately never got to try out and I imagine it's not really an ongoing thing a quarter century down the line. I'm told it was pretty good, though.
Who says you can't have good visuals with twelve polygons?
Now, Drakan's gameplay is delightful despite its rough edges - variable challenge, wonky controls - but what absolutely drives the experience home is the art direction! This is an old game, we're talking about relatively early 3D where everything was made out of about two dozen polygons and you could count the pixels in the textures, but the visuals are still captivating in the same way that games like Unreal and Sacrifice remain mesmerising. The art concepts underlying both the 3D renditions and the phenomenal cinematic show supreme style, the environmental colour composition is exciting, and the game has a sense for proxemics that's rarely been matched. Things that are meant to be large feel large, going toe-to-toe with a giant, plummeting into the depths of Alwarren, flying freely through the Archipelago, they all capture that sense of the sublime that will stay with you for years to come.
I'd also like to give props for how beautifully the dragon's flight was animated for its time, Arokh rising and falling between wing beats, throwing his body around for momentum or gliding in a downwards swoop, Rynn counterbalancing on top of him, it's all quite lovely. Frankly, it feels much more dynamic and physical than the animations in Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC or any other takes I've seen on the concept.
Additionally, the game is scored by one of the best soundtracks in any fantasy production, an adventure in and of itself. The bitrate is sadly none too rich, but from the very title theme through to the end, Drakan's OST impresses excitement, peril and grandeur upon you in a manner that few other scores ever have, let alone with such consistency. Don't take my word for it, just have a quick listen right here. Hear that? That's not a cinematic background, you'll be playing to it!
How it looked back then vs. how it looks today.
While the graphical assets are dated by present day, the Riot engine that powered the whole thing was quite remarkable. For many years following its release, the game continued to work without a hitch, up to around Windows Vista, when Microsoft's casual disregard for legacy gaming started catching up with it. It was necessary to rig the game in Developer Mode just to manually load into the first level on a new game, and a nasty mid-game bug would have you crash to desktop upon leaving Alwarren.
But the dedicated fan community at Arokh's Lair kept supporting the game with unofficial patches and mods as well as all sorts of additional fan content and multiplayer levels. The latest compatibility solution is the comprehensive Community Patch (thanks to Lemming42 and Wirdschowerdn for pointing me in the right direction from my outdated setup) and it's all you need - install the original game, don't apply the official 445 patch and instead install the Community Patch in its Full form that includes dgVoodoo2, then sit back and enjoy! Well, you might also want to set Windows XP compatibility mode on Drakan.exe if you notice random CTDs, but see how you get on.
There are a couple of caveats to cover, though... First off, the Community Patch triggers a Windows Defender potential malware warning, which is why it's distributed in a password-protected archive. The author addresses this as a false positive (due to his unsigned application modifying the external game application) and he's had it whitelisted with a variety of antivirus providers, but Microsoft didn't wanna play ball. Second, while scanning the post-Community Patch installation directory with Windows Defender yields no more headaches, doing it with MalwareBytes will raise an alarm for two self-extracting archives in the bundled /Mods/ collection - both of these represent optional mod content, and you may safely remove them if you like, they're just alternate appearances for Rynn and Arokh. Third and finally - and relax, no more virus talk - be advised that the Community Patch will redirect your configs and saved games location from inside the program's root directory to a new user path location (Documents/My Games/Drakan).
Now, at this point my recommendation is that you use the Community Patch, but if you absolutely don't wanna go that route (you're uncomfortable ignoring potential malware warnings or whatever else), I'll briefly cover the older approaches. Install the game, then apply the official English 445 Patch. After that, you'll have to apply either the unofficial 445++ patch or the full Drakan 10th Anniversary mod (which includes the 445++ patch). Your mileage may vary, I had severe visual bugs with the Anniversary mod, whereas I've completed the game on Windows 10 with 445++ installed, but had to put up with the Windows title bar. If you still can't start a new game, launch Drakan in Developer Mode (hold Shift -> Developer tab -> tick Enable Developer Mode) and New Game will let you select the Ruined Village to start. And if you have trouble with missing audio, scour the web for a (legit) copy of dmsynth.dll and copy it into your Drakan root application directory.
On the bright side, once core compatibility's resolved, Drakan's a relatively bug-free experience and you'll only encounter the odd annoyance, like Arokh landing somewhere inaccessible or spamming you with "I can't fly here" until you find the precise square inch where he can take off indoors. Through the whole game, I only had two instances that forced a reload, once when clearing an encounter of Mummy Mages didn't trigger a gate to open as it should've, and once when Arokh decided to land his flaming behind on an inaccessible ledge. My biggest hurdle was this one elemental puzzle in the Temple of Trials that utterly tanked my framerate - it may or may not happen to you depending on what compatibility config you're running, but even if it does, it's still doable with some tenacity and memorization.
Yes, I am showing off.
And if you've got a moment, do stop by GOG's dedicated request page and give Drakan a vote, because if this title doesn't deserve to be in a catalogue of "good old games", I don't know what does. And if you do, Rynn will blow you a kiss. Or maybe Arokh will. Depends on whether you're prettier than this guy:
Are you? Are you, really?
That about sums it up. The game's plot is meant to pick up directly in the sequel, Drakan: The Ancients' Gate, which was also supposed to expand the gameplay formula, but since that was a PS2 exclusive, I haven't played it (yet). So, in conclusion, I've done my part and shared some excellent advice, now it's up to you to go out there and give yourself the gift of Drakan: Order of the Flame!
~*~
Last edited:
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