Drakensang - the next Baldur's Gate?

[tcdale]

Anyone heard of this game? I posted some basic information and some links to reviews on my blog, but the basic gist of it is that it's a new, "Baldur's Gate style" CRPG, done in a more "traditional, story-focused" fashion. Lots of things I'm finding are saying variously that it's the next Baldur's Gate, or at least worth a pit stop for Baldur's Gate fans who are waiting for Dragon Age to come out.

 

But, it wasn't in the store when I looked, and it's a completely different non-d20 system (DSA -- Das Schwartze Auge / The Dark Eye). Insanely popular system in Germany, but I don't think many people outside of Germany have heard of it.

 

Opinions? Played it? Etc?

[erik]

DSA is very old-school, arcane and traditional enough for AD&D fans. The Northlands Trilogy by Sir-Tech were fun games, though difficult. So I was planning to take a look at this one.

 

Haven't tried Drakensang yet, demo wasn't out last I looked. Haven't seen it in stores. The screenshots look promising. Said to work at least tolerably well in Wine, hmm...

[lynx]

the demo is already out.

[Evaine Dian]

I played it when it first came out in August, so it's been a while and I've probably forgotten quite a bit about it, but I can write a little review, maybe tonight or tomorrow.

[Kaeloree]

From everything I've read, it sounds like your run-of-the-mill RPG with pretty graphics. If you're an RPG fan, it's worth picking it up, but not if you're looking for innovation and brilliance. Apparently it has all of the typical fantasy tropes, which is a bit of a shame, but eh.

 

I don't think it will be the next Baldur's Gate, but it might tide people over until the next, more innovative RPG.

[theacefes]

Looks nice, reminds me a bit of Silverfall meets Gothic, except not as crappy looking. Honestly, with all the fantasy RPGs I've played, the one thing that keeps turning me off about them, no matter how deep the story or how awesome the graphics, is...the voiceovers! There are many many people out there (especially here in the modding community) that are wonderful voice actors and don't sound like mindless robots that game studios could certainly afford or get volunteers for. Unfortunately horrible voiceovers seem to be the trend of many RPGs that I've played since the days of BG and IWD.

[Lord Ernie]

I've just finished it, got my hands on it a few weeks ago. It's a fun enough game, with a decent main storyline (nothing extraordinary, though), and some rather fun and imaginative sidequests. Don't expect any in-party banter, though.

 

My main complaints are the blandness of the party members (made worse by the lack of banter/dialogue), the character creation system (I spent some time studying the DSA official CC system, which did me very little good... your archetype is pretty much pre-generated) and the voicing is definitely sub-par. Don't expect David Warner or Jim Cummings.

 

Still... this could be the company's BG1, with plenty of exploration, quests, but shallow party members, to its BG2, although it's not quite as good as BG1 was back in the day (or I've just become more spoiled). All in all, a fun enough game to give a try.

[Evaine Dian]

Character creation:

 

Characters are predefined to a certain degree. There are three different races, humans, dwarves and elves. Race, class and in some cases also gender depend on each other, that means if you want to play one of the thief classes, you must pick a human PC, all dwarf classes are male, amazons are female only, etc. There are 19 classes for male PCs, 17 for female PCs. You have no influence on the character models, you can't choose hairstyles, faces etc, but the models are pretty enough, so I don't really mind.

I like the classes; I've heard that it is "DSA light", the P&P system is said to be much more complicated, but also much more fun. I liked it the way it was in the game; much nicer than e.g. NWN2 (I hate how you can get away creating a bard/sorcerer/wizard in NWN2...)

 

 

 

Voicing and dialogues:

 

There is "NWN1 style dialogue" (a box pops up with the dialogue in it) and cutscene dialogue. The NWN1 style usually only has the first line voiced; in the cutscenes, everything is voiced.

 

I don't know which version you played, Lord Ernie, but the voicing in the German version is very good, many of them are professionals who normally dub actors or TV shows (you can have the German voices of Bruce Willis and Adam Sandler in your party). It is definitely nowhere near subpar, quite the opposite!

I don't know about the English version, though.

 

Many times, you have very little choice what to answer - often, there is only one single reply option. The PC has no history and no personality whatsoever. There is no alignment and as far as I remember, most of your reply options are good or neutral. I know only little about the P&P rules of DSA (I only read the novels, but don't play the game), but it seems that alignment as such is handled very differently in DSA than in D&D, so this is not necessarily Drakensang's fault. It still bothers me, though, because even if the PC cannot be outright evil, he still has to have a bigger variety of "good" reply options and not just one single lousy answer or "yes, I'll help you" (to advance in the game) vs. "I'll come back later" (to wait and, well, come back later and choose "yes, I'll help you" instead).

 

Some non-joinable NPCs had funny lines and generally manage to make the game feel more alive, but overall, something was missing to make it a truly enjoyable game.

 

The joinable NPCs had potentially interesting backgrounds (a tough amazon, a troubled mage, a knight, an exotic mercenary); I really do not understand why they did not give them proper banters. The way it is now, they are little more than cannon fodder. You can ask them three or four questions each, but those question don't take current events into account and stay the same throughout the entire game, as far as I remember. Almost no one has a personal quest (I only remember two personal quests and they were very short). Sometimes, two NPCs exchange two or three sentences (tied to certain places, e.g. when you cross a certain dangerous bridge), but these banters are easy to miss, because they appear just as a (voiced) floating line over their heads, without dialogue boxes, and they aren't triggered reliably; sometimes I reloaded when I missed one banter, but it didn't fire again.

 

There is a place where your NPCs will stay if you don't need them. When you go there and stand near them, they sometimes say a couple of new lines, but it's nowhere near BG2, rather like BG1, just not as much fun as BG1.

 

 

 

Gameplay and other stuff:

 

You have a little map in the left corner. While the design is very pretty, it makes the game far too easy, as it gives away where you have to go to solve the next quest. Adventuring for dummies. There is also no way to adjust the level of difficulty and that is a huge problem, as it is far too easy overall.

 

The game is linear; once you have completed the quests in one area, the area is often shut down completely and you can't return.

 

The music is very atmospheric. Graphics and area design are good, too. In my opinion, they are far superior to e.g. NWN2. I never liked how small and limited the areas are in NWN2 and how often the game has to load when you go somewhere. The areas in Drakensang seem bigger and better designed in that respect. There is one thing that bothered me very much, though. When I first get to Ferdok (the main town of the game), I was very disappointed about how bland and empty it looked. It's your average fantasy design (timber framing), you can enter only very few of the houses and there is just very little you can do there. I'm a fan of DSA novels and this is just not what I expected. I think they chose Ferdok for the game because there was no official description of the town, meaning they could have designed it the way they liked it. However, before the game was released, an official map of Ferdok was published in a book, so the design had to be changed. Maybe that is why it is so bland?

 

I didn't find a single bug, it never crashed, I never got stuck, nothing. I heard it has a very mean copy protection - if you play an illegal version, NPCs you need to finish the main quest and advance in the story will not appear.

 

 

 

The Plot:

 

To be honest, I can remember only very little and that's not a good sign, is it?

In the beginning, I didn't really know why my PC was doing what she did; there isn't a proper "introduction" and during the first few hours, it was unclear to me what the game was really about, because the narrative was missing. Later on, the plot became more obvious, though. Sometimes the plot bored me, sometimes it was interesting and made me want to go on playing. Overall, I think there is very little replayability, as the game is very linear, there are no romances, your race/gender doesn't seem to matter at all and generally you can make only very few choices. I might still replay it someday only because I can't remember the plot clearly.

 

 

 

 

Overall, it was okay, but not as good as I had hoped. I don't know if it really deserves the to be called an RPG. There are nice battles, sometimes funny (non-joinable) NPCs with great(!) voicing, a few interesting quests, good music, pretty graphics, but the joinable NPCs and most of all the PC are painfully bland and you can't really roleplay. If you play it as a mixture of action and adventure in a fantasy setting, it is definitely a good game and worth playing.

[Domi]

I was going to get Drakensang when I first heard of it, but quickly lost interest with the first reviews that indicated that there is nearly zip to the party members (I mean, I understand it in 1998, but in 2009... no WAY!) and story interactivity; I haven't heard about the quality of the translation yet, but I haven't looked for a while. If I find it in a bargain bin, I might get it. Probably will collect dust side by side with the Kult, I was planning to play for *ages*, but no time, no time...

 

That's said, kudos for the reviw, Evaine!

[Evaine Dian]

I was going to get Drakensang when I first heard of it, but quickly lost interest with the first reviews that indicated that there is nearly zip to the party members (I mean, I understand it in 1998, but in 2009... no WAY!) and story interactivity; I haven't heard about the quality of the translation yet, but I haven't looked for a while. If I find it in a bargain bin, I might get it. Probably will collect dust side by side with the Kult, I was planning to play for *ages*, but no time, no time...

 

That's said, kudos for the reviw, Evaine!

Thanks. I don't understand why they didn't put more work into the NPCs, they said so many times before they wanted to focus on good storytelling and that just includes good NPCs with a background and dialogues... Funnily enough, I read that quite a lot of people who play P&P DSA complained that they wanted no NPCs at all, but a party made up entirely of player characters à la Icewind Dale. Where's the fun in that?

 

Now, my review sounds very negative, but I still had a good time playing it and you could see that they put a lot of work in it. It IS a nice game, it's just no new BG2.

[Grunker]

Good review Evaine, thanks. I'm in doubt as whether to get this game or not. Both user reviews and critic reviews describe the game as mixed experience... Still, in this time of dead water, with next to RPGs out, and those released within reasonable time being rather bland, I guess it sounds better than nothing

 

Unfortunately horrible voiceovers seem to be the trend of many RPGs that I've played since the days of BG and IWD.

 

I agree. Come to think of it, since those days, Bloodlines and KOTOR have been the only games with outstanding/very good voice acting... I can't recall others, at least.

[theacefes]

Mass Effect's (I know I sound like a broken record) were pretty decent, although after hearing the same voices over and over again, you start to call Kaiden Carth and Dr. Chakwas "Bastila's Mom" and fem-Shep, "that girl from Mercenaries and BG and every other game". Plus, there's Seth Green. And that other guy.

 

Bloodlines had pretty good voicing too! Forgot about that!

[Grunker]

Mass Effect's (I know I sound like a broken record) were pretty decent, although after hearing the same voices over and over again, you start to call Kaiden Carth and Dr. Chakwas "Bastila's Mom" and fem-Shep, "that girl from Mercenaries and BG and every other game". Plus, there's Seth Green. And that other guy.

 

Exactly! From my point of view, there are two really bad tendencies in voice-acting in RPGs today:

 

a) Sillyness ala NWN (for some reason, voice actors seem to believe that every halfling has to talk like a choirboy who has been kicked in the nuts, and every elf like a priest from the catholic church or hippie from the late sixties).

 

b) Repetition ala Mass Effect (because the game companies apparently have two options: Hire hundred horrible voice actors, or hire 5 good ones and make them do the voicing for 300 characters).

 

Bloodlines had pretty good voicing too! Forgot about that!

 

I'm biased, but I'd argue that game has the best voice-acting EvArRRRr!!11!!

[Lord Ernie]

I don't know which version you played, Lord Ernie, but the voicing in the German version is very good, many of them are professionals who normally dub actors or TV shows (you can have the German voices of Bruce Willis and Adam Sandler in your party). It is definitely nowhere near subpar, quite the opposite!

I don't know about the English version, though.

Must be the English version, then. Some of the dwarven NPC's in the end have pretty good voicing (the King is the most memorable one), but all the rest is really rather bland, and not that great.

 

Really, generic blandness is my biggest complaint about the game overall. Generic storyline, generic main PC (dialogue, mainly), generic NPC's, and generic world. Not bad, per se, but there were very few 'oooh' moments for me.

 

As for the same voice actors showing up in different games: I really don't see the problem. Sure, when I first heard Kaiden speak, I also thought of Carth, but when the two are distinct enough characters (which I feel they are), I don't see the issue. I mean, I don't feel like Loghaire Thunderstone from Arcanum, Master Li from Jade Empire and Pan from Rise of the Argonauts are the same character at all, even though they're all done by the same voice actor who has a very distinctive way of speaking. In short, I prefer a well done voicing of a well-known actor over a badly done one of a new actor (and given their record, I think Bioware and other companies agree).

[Grunker]

very distinctive way of speaking

 

You nailed it there. I don't think there's a very big difference between Kaiden and Carth. If there was, I'd have no problem with the voicing being done by the same actors... But much of this is a matter of opinion I guess... Except the fact that NWN-voicing is horrible ^^