Drakensang: The Dark Eye

Overview

I was skeptical at first:"Drakensang The Dark Eye? A pen and paper game by a German developer?" Fortunately all my suspicions were unfounded. Drakensang turned out to be a very good pen and paper RPG, even though the story and characters aren't all they could have been, arguably its the best work Radon Labs has done, a now, unfortunately defunct developer. It will take you about 50 hours to complete this huge RPG game, so you can be sure that Drakensang is worth the price tag, which should now be as cheap as dirt. The game has some truly beautiful graphics and environments, and to be honest i was surprised. The music is well done, especially in the dwarven mountain city of Murlosh, and on the loading screens, but where its all at is the gameplay, the shining beacon of Drakensang, so despite all the flaws this game may have, it still manages to be a very good RPG game. Chances are, if you enjoy video games with a pen and paper character system and ruleset you'll enjoy Drakensang.  
 

Pros Cons list

Pros

A rather long game taking up to 30-35 hours to complete.
Complex character system.
Great gameplay. 
Good music.  
Many classes, or rather archetypes to choose from.
Several races and cultures for archetype characters.
Several interesting locations including a zombie infested swamp and a mountain city of the dwarves.
 

Cons

Undeveloped characters and at times weak and unconnected story.  
Bad voice acting.  
Lacking in lore. 

Plot & Characters

The plot of Drakensang isn't up to the excellent gameplay, and unfortunately, neither are the characters. For the first quarter of the game I've enjoyed the story, but due to underdeveloped characters the story started to suffer and became less and less original to finally become a typical, average "the world is in danger, a champion must save it" RPG template for plots.This sort of plot works really well with RPGs, a hero who will do great deeds, from saving the world from a blight, to giving free and clean water to a desolate wasteland, but it still has to be done well there still has to be a reason behind actions and a reason behind goals, and Drakensng doesn't do it well, its not bad, its okay, but it could have been great, and the unimaginative, sometimes unexplained story and underdeveloped characters bring down Drakensang from being a truly great RPG game.
The main character is invited by a letter from his old friend and mentor Ardo of Boarstock to help him in events he didn't explain in the letter. Once the player reaches Ardo's house he finds him murdered, he must then stop the murderers, who are dragon cultists that worship the old dragon gods. After stopping them the character is proclaimed to be the champion of the Dragon Quest by the Oracle, as for why it was never explained. The character then must go through 3 trials to prove that he is worthy of the title of Champion by claiming 3 artifacts.. After the three trials the character must finally stop the evil that is threatening the world by going to the dwarven lands. 

This was just a brief overview, but during the game i found myself wondering:"Yeah but why is he doing that, is there any motivation behind his actions other than him being an evil noble?" a lot of the times no. Even later when you do find the reason behind characters actions its too little too late.  As for the Dragon Quest you've no idea why you were chosen champion or why you have to get the artifacts, its only later revealed that you need them in order for them to show the way to a great evil the character must vanquish.
Now the companions, there are some really interesting companions in this game, Forgrimm a lovable dwarf that blames himself for Ardo's death, Jost a battlemage coming from a land that lives by similar rules as the Qunari in Dragon age, where peoples purpose and future is predetermined, Dranor a rogue coming from a small village trying to pass himself off as a nobleman, these are just to name a few. The companions you gain early on, Rhulana,Dranor,Gladys and Forgrimm are well devloped, they have an interesting backstory and have several dialogue options,but the companions you recruit after only have one dialogue, you can only ask them one question and other than that you can exit the dialogue screen or tell them to wait at your house in Ferdok and the dialogue never gets updated depending on the situation or location the party is at. It just seems like the developer got lazy.
In conclusion the story isn't Drakensangs strong suit, and it seems its there only so the player can have some purpose behind defeating hordes of enemies rather than engrossing the player in the world of Darkensang. The same goes for the characters, this is the bad guy, he worships Dragons, slit his throat, though perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the story and some of the characters are like holes in Drakensang, holes that should have been filled. Despite this, Drakensang still manages to be a very good, fun and enjoyable game.  

The World of Drakensang and Atmosphere

Its not as dark as say The Witcher or Dragon Age Origins, its more of a happy world where you know at the beginning that good will triumph over evil. There are however segments of the game that hit you out of nowhere, for example the death of Archmage Rokarium's apprentice Rufus in Moorebridge where the player will be forced to kill the young apprentice he met in Avestrue due to the simple reason of him turning into a zombie. Still it has a rather "the sun always shines" atmosphere, which is now that i think about it, true, the sun does always shine in Drakensang. The world of Drakensang is filled with lore, but lore that feels incomplete, you keep on hearing about the 12 gods but you only hear about 6 of them, Hesinde goddess of art,science and travlers, Rondra goddess of war and anger, Praios the major god and Boron god of death, Phex god of thieves and Peraine goddess of agriculture.
Then you hear of a popular game in the Drakensang universe imman, but you never see it being played or hear of its rules.
Most of the lore you'll have to read during the loading screens instead of the typical codex entries of the Stalker,Dragon Age,Mass Effect or Witcher universes, which is unfortunate, because I'm the type of player who enjoys the lore of the world, and i realize that the developer can't put in all of the lore in the game which is why the codex concept exists. 
More could have been done on the lore part of Drakensang, you hear and read about thorvalian pirates, about people like your companion Nasreddin that live in the desert, all of these things and many others are mentioned, but are just as quickly forgotten once you stop talking with NPCs. If you want to read up on monsters,lore and factions, you're out of luck
 

Gameplay

If you've played D&D games you'll probably be familiar with Drakensang's ruleset. A series of die rolls is used to determine whether or not the action a character is preforming is successful or not, from hitting an opponent, to healing a wound, curing poison or identifying magical items to the damage inflicted on an enemy die rolls are used to determine everything. 
You start the game at the creation screen where you choose one from 20 archetypes, each archetype has different skills learned at the beginning, though all archetypes can learn any number of skills during the game. Each archetype also has different bonuses, from bonuses to vitality (hitpoints) to combat skill bonuses to astral energy (mana) bonuses and many others, also each archetype has a different culture and race. The greatest difference perhaps is those that have astral energy, and those that don't, as combat skills are powered by endurance, where as magic is powered by astral energy, mages can use both, but warriors and rogues can only use endurance. Unfortunately however, the only customization options at character creation is the expert mode, which will allow you to invest experience points as you see fit, however you won't be able to alter your characters appearance though you can change the characters gender.  Some archetypes are more suited for an archer, where as some for a warrior and others for a mage. There are archetypes that can, for example focus on being both a mage and an archer, the elven ranger is perfect for an arrow firing spell using character.

The world of Drakensang is huge. you have 8 locations, of which each has its districts and environments you can enter such as caves, houses so on and so forth. As mentioned it will take you around 50 hours to complete the game, if you do the secondary quests as well. 
There are many skills in the game, in all there are 36 skills in all, allowing for a different feel each time you play Drakensang. In order to upgrade skills you've learned you need experience points, where as adventure points are used for leveling up, so for example you need 7000 adventure points to reach level 10, you do however gain adventure points at the same time as you gain experience points, if you kill an enemy worth 5 experience points, you also gain adventure points. Skills in the game focus from collecting ingredients, to making weapons, armor, potions etc. from the collected ingredients to talking with and persuading people to disarming traps and picking locks, there are many others. Then there are weapon skills, as you increase one of your weapon skills (daggers, swords, two handed axes and maces just to name a few) you're parry and attack value when using that weapon increases as well. Attack of course determines whether or not you hit an opponent, and parry whether or not you block the attack, dodge is used to determine if you completely avoid an enemies attack. 
You also have combat and magic talents, as mentioned astral energy and endurance are used to utilize these talents, you can only learn them from trainers, which is the biggest flaw in gameplay, instead of choosing abilities at each level up, you have to look around for trainers, and there aren't many of them, especially for combat talents, the first trainer that can teach you every combat talent is in Murlosh (chapter 8), which is quite a far way away from the beginning of the game. 

Some time must pass before a talent can be used, a warrior can use mighty blow in one combat turn, but a mage must wait up to 4 turns to use some of the more powerful spells, curing wounds an poisons takes 5 turns.  
Indeed, the gameplay element of Drakensang is its strongest element, you will advance your character and party, buy and find incredibly powerful items, and destroy your enemies with a hail of arrows, a mighty two handed sword, or a powerful spell. Each time you play through it, you can choose a new path, do you want your warrior to be a seducing nobleman, that is learned in etiquette and seduction, you can do that. Or do you want to play a mage that has knowledge of animal and plant lore all the while being able to pick locks? You can do that too. Its unfortunate that the characters and story aren't quite as good as the gameplay and graphics, as it would have been a truly great game. 

Graphics

The graphics are rather good, its no Mass Effect 2 or Skyrim or Witcher 2, but it is beautifully designed and the landscapes can often be captivating. From that river surrounded by trees, to going before the Oracle and being chosen a champion beneath rays of sunlight. To a Dragon scorched land where you can still see embers glowing, it really does have some beautiful environments. 
Other than that the textures aren't bad, and the character models are straight out of Neverwinter Nights 2, not surprising considering Drakensang was built using Bioware's Aurora engine (same one used in Neverwinter). The characters do look rather epic when you equip them in full plate mail armor and give them a huge two handed sword to wield. Again, the graphics won't make you drop your jaw in awe, but for a small German developer, you will be surprised. 
 
 

Audio

Drakensang features a rather good soundtrack, you almost wish loading time is longer so you could listen to the loading screen music, it ranges from scary in Moorebridge marshes to rather epic in Murlosh, so like i said, its rather good, i wish however the same could be said about the voice acting. In the English version the voice acting ranges from God awful where you'll wonder how the hell can someone even be so bad at voice acting to rather good, it all depends on who's doing the talking, i actually laughed when archivist Loisane was kidnapped. As for the sound effects they are there to do what they do, be sounds, there is however a time when you order your character to destroy barrels so you can loot the contents, thats when you wish that you're playing with your speakers off. 
 

Conclusion

A  diamond in the rough, Drakensang has many flaws and holes, and yet it still manages to be good. If you're looking for a game with great story,memorable well developed and interesting characters, a great universe filled with lore and information then you're better of looking elsewhere, if however you're interested in a RPG game that is rather long and costs little, an RPG game with excellent gameplay, good graphics and a good soundtrack, you needn't look any further, Drakensang is here.