RPGWatch Feature: Two Drakensang Reviews

We have two full Drakensang reviews online today, from Gorath and Corwin with some additional comments from other editors.  Both articles ultimately form similar opinions, although Gorath played the German version and therefore experienced the original text and voiceovers.  Here's an except from Gorath's view:

Drakensang takes place on the continent Aventuria; a nice and friendly mix between a carefully designed medieval and a fairy tale world - the grass is greener and the flowers are more colorful than in other contemporary RPGs. All the cliché fantasy races are at home in Aventuria. So far so unspectacular. Thank god there's more behind it. Radon Labs breaks the cliché with a couple of slightly weird characters and consequently light-hearted dialogs, written in mildly old fashioned language. The comedy elements aren't overdone though - they'll put a smile on your face every once in a while and give the atmosphere more personality.

As you can see, that's quite a contrast to the dark and serious RPGs out there. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the story - one of the PR hooks was the involvement of four original The Dark Eye authors. Sounds great – but couldn't they have come up with something more sophisticated than “The ancient evil wants to take over the world. You must stop him, oh chosen one!” ? Not terribly creative. Both the writing and the subplots are generally well made and keep the player interested, though, and this solid execution lifts Drakensang's story and writing above the average.

Read the full article here.

Here's a sample from Corwin's view:

Once an NPC becomes available to join your party you can exercise complete control over their development and deployment. Character development was, for me, one of the highlights of the game.  In most rpg’s I’ve played over a great many years, a key aim was to reach a new level through the garnering of experience so your character could improve their skills and/or attributes. In the TDE system, you can upgrade or learn new skills, spells, whatever, at any time if you have sufficient experience points available. Need to boost your sword skill, or increase your strength, or agility? You can do it on the fly with each and every character as a need arises. It’s a marvellously flexible system and I loved it.

...and read this one all here.