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Every now and then a RPG comes along that still is able to show you what the core essence of RPG genera should be like. A true RPG game is known to lurk in deep enchanted forests around the world waiting to be found every half a decade. For those dedicated RPGer that craves the loot, character builds, adventuring, and leveling up, you know that this beast thrives among us RPG hardcorers.
Drakensang 2 The River Of Time is no different from other classic, epic, rpgs. This game should not be missed by any long time RPGer or connoisseur. Now a day’s RPG light have become common ground and have raided many of our brains RPGS villages and taken away our options and dreams. Most of us have scene our RPGs basically getting their fat, salt, and spices cut out of our RPG steaks. Most of us want to play a full out RPG not some freaking “Slim Fast†“Sugar Free†“None nude strip show†“Fat ass steak that’s not real meat†any ways you get the idea, this right here is the real deal. Dare say another successor to Boulders Gate or in the same league as Dragon Age, read on [In The Reply]
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 20 replies.
Let me start of by saying that if anyone played the first Drakensang, yes it was not perfect and may have been for many tedious and boring and missing something. Rest assured that Drakensang 2 - The River Of Time is a different game and the devs have perfected their formula. You will play a different game.
Right at the beginning you will feel the atmosphere of Drakensang and the overall presentation that is a unique story book feel to it. While playing sometimes you never know if you are reading a book come to life or watching a movie or cartoon that is a sweet RPG. You really have to play the game and get into it after a half an hour to an hour when the story starts to pick up. Unlike the first game this time the story is fast paced and generally everything moves and works very well. Any RPG fan will probably fall in love with it and have a hard time putting the game down it’s really a RPG definition out of a game dictionary and keeps that old school hardcore rpg vibe.
There is more to be said but I am gona hit you with the likes and dislike as well as the pics and videos. For those that want to read more go ahead look further down the thread.
Pics, videos reasource dump:
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/
Vids:
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-30-39-68.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-31-55-65.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-33-12-38.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-34-34-72.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-35-17-63.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-36-20-27.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-38-00-10.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-39-57-24.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-39-57-24.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-41-34-89.wmv
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang 2011-01-24 18-43-14-95.wmv
Pics:
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang%202011-01-26%2018-43-50-43.jpg
…
http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/drakensang%202011-01-26%2019-01-00-78.jpg
Rest of the pics are here: http://renewsoft.com/drakensang2riveroftime/
Web site good info http://www.drakensang.com/community.php
Things I like:
- Style of the art and overall world is very cool. It’s hard to say but it just gives you that feeling of going away from reality and going to another world to relax and get consumed by the artificial world(one of the reason I play RPGS = Escape). I really enjoy it, I could spend a lot of time in this game and forget about the real world.
- Leveling up, this game defines what an RPG is all about. Check out pics and vids to see the lvling screens. Basically you have excessive character spells, traits, talents, specialties, attributes, professions, if you love full RPG games that are the real deal and not RPG lite you are gona go nutz with it. The char builds are crazy you really gota tinker and think about it. Love it. Any rpg that makes me think of my build is a good game.
- Loot is plentiful, not wow style but there is plenty of loot to buy and even find, and make of course(blacksmithing)you are gona run out of money fast since there is a lot of cool stuff you will want to buy.
- Spell system, is freaking awesome, tones of spells to learn and level, it’s hard to know what spells to lvlup, so many and very specific functions some real cool stuff in here.
- Probably some of the best team based combat right up there with Dragon Age, I like having to say exactly what I want my crew to do. Pimpest chess game you will ever play in combat.
- Graphics are real awesome, everything is very detailed and has rad style and feel to it, am a massive fan of the art and style. Great lighting, poly models, shadder effects, the guys use the graphics tech well. No beefs, only a few little shrubs may be not perfectly set is some place.
- The amount of shrubs, herbs, plants around are real cool for Alchemy, basically if you take alchemy you will want to read about all the plants and pick them all.
- The animation is top notch and everything has subtle details very refreshing to see.
- Most spells as they get more powerful actually get new graphics, models and or animation that is something I really appreciate, see my vids.
- The indoor areas are fantastic as well very well detailed and the dungeons as well, basically every looks great.
- The music is great real nice score works very well and brings you into the game even more so. Great ambient as well and spells sound pimp.
- Voice over are really cool I so far love all the voice overs none of them are lame like some real bad JRPG that have been massacred.
- Difficult level, there are a lot to choose form, you will find it challenging and if it’s too easy on lower diff you can crank it up if you are l33t.
- Great story nothing state of the art or totally new but it does the job and you want to know more and paly more.
- Nice in game cinematic bring the story more to life.
- A lot of classes I have yet to try them all, each one has so much to offer and you will want to play them all. Each class has a male and female version.
- Outstanding user interfaces nothing feels cheap everything is done with care.
- Nice professions, bowing, alchemy and blacksmithing all are very hardcore and are very fun to do.
- I very nice and steady pace of gameplay, you never feel rushed and feel like you are always relaxed and can take your time and savor the game. Hard to explain but its real cool. Combat is intense, which is a perfect fit to everything.
- Game play is very well done much like Dragon age or never winter nights with the team based combat and the pause button. You issue commands to your squad. The game feels way more open box when compared for some reason.
- Hundreds of quests all are different and keep things fresh, nice they don’t seem pointless and they do tie into the story one way or other.
- Fantastic towns right up there with some of the best.
- I am not sure I have picked pocketed in any game before or I have forgotten but it is very well implemented in the game and if you try any rouge classes it’s so fun sneaking around and pick pocketing for loot it put a smile on my face. Sneaking if you play that way plays a massive role, but you don’t have too.
- Traps and lock picking are in and play a nice role; it’s good to have a rouge on your team at all times.
- Very interesting that the talents actually change the game play so what you take or do actually make the game different, for instance, if you’re a smooth talker etc there are a lot of cool things in the game.
- Probably missing something, you probably get the idea I like this game ïŠ
Things I don’t like:
- Generally nothing bothers me but I a few things I would of liked added
- It be nice to have the loot more like wow and have white, green, blue, purple, orange. If this were added to the game oh my, it would be insane.
- I realize this is a European game and the skeleton animation for speaking is not synced for the native lang, much like a dubbed movie. This is norm for imports but that extra work would have been really nice.
- A lot of the npc are fully voiced, in large towns etc there a few that only have text if they were voiced too that would have been massive as well. Basically the none important npc that don’t talk much right now only have text.
- Might have been cool to have tactics like DA and have a healer command role or spell caster or long range to be able to slack of and let the AI do your fights for you. Keep in mind this game really is about you controlling all your team, complete down to the t. I really enjoy that and it’s like the coolest chess game you will ever play.
- Hmmm eh really that’s about it, maybe not borrow anything in the story from other material? Really I don’t give a shit everybody these days borrow so whatever.
- Yeah that’s it not much I did not like, the game is really solid RPG to have part of your collection for sure.
I want to make a small note; I am a big fan of Dragon Age and Never Winter Nights 1+2. The reason this is mentioned is because the game share the a lot of the combat as Dragon Age and NWNs team based strategy/combat. Unlike DA most of the spells don’t have cool downs and a purely based on Mana. Be warned, when you run out of mana you are gona have to reply on other skills and your team mates while you re gen(tactics, strategy). Or as I am becoming, an expert Alchemist, if you play a mage class I would advise you do this asap. By the way Alchemy profession is freaking awesome(will get into this later).The game is 100% a team based game where you manage your crew like DA, BG2, NWN1+2. I found the combat extremely cool to control and the battles are very fresh for you have to real time manage all your characters to the T. Not you can do stuff solo if you really want and remove team members (not advisable). Note you really have to control your characters very carefully to get the most out of your combat and become KING.
One thing important to mention, being a team based RPG the characters in this game really grow on you and you actually do start to care for them. This shows great game design and care. The game does sport voice over’s, cinematics in the game, and a lot of text as well. The game has a massive fairytale cool fantasy rpg vibe that is very hard to create in this day in age. What I am trying to say if anything else the game will take you away from your real life and let you experience another world. To me that’s what it’s all about when you RPG \m/
The story its self borrows form, movies, other games and books, I am sure you can find some parts in there you could relate to or reference. Really who gives a shit if it’s not 100% new, it’s a cool story and I am enjoying it. The main thing the game keeps me playing on and on, I have sunk massive amount of time in the game. It’s one of those games you could play all day and not want to stop, weather its talking to people, gather herbs, reading up on new herbs, just walking around or deciding what to do with your char build, this game will keep you busy. Of course the main story line and combat and quests is where it’s really at.
The RPG elements are very hard core and exemplary I cannot really think of what more you could want(check out the videos for the pages of the stats, spells, talents, specialties etc that you can lvl up and tweak). It really is insane and makes me cry tears of joy. My only beef is I wish the loot had Wow style colors and they beefed up the loot more so. Don’t get me wrong the loot is great it’s just they could make it better and mob drops could be better, I love loot, white, green, blue, pruple, orange \m/ I have heard as you lvl up the loot gets better.
There is blacksmithing, archerying, alchemy which all three make up the main trades. They are done very well. I am doing alchemy and it is very fun, I needed plant lore lvled it high enough to identify plants in able to pick them for recipes it was really cool. All the trades are very fun and addictive you will be in heaven if such things crank your chain.
Spells are of course really important, what is a RPG without spells, it be a freaking goose egg. I am playing a Meta Mage which is sorta like a Necromancer and I have my own spells I learn. All the classes have different spells they learn it is quite different with each, there are spells you share but each have specifics.
Well there is so much more I could talk about, by now if your not interested I would say pass. But if you have an interest I have to say please do NOT miss out on this RPG that will probably get totally over looked by the NA market. Juts like Devinity 2 Dragon Knight Saga and other Euro RPGs this one is definitely a jewel. Especially if you are into Dragon Age, NWN series, Bauldersgate, D&D, etc you are gona really appreciate this game.
So sad no site has reviewed it or mentioned it :( I really hope fans of RPGs and those interested in this team based RPG do get a chance to try it out.
Happy RPGing \m/
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