Drakensang: The Dark Eye
Review
Doesn't quite reach its potential
by Marcus Mulkins
reviewed on PC
About that annoying stuff... (cntd.)
If you've followed the development of the game, you'd know that this game is from the same people that brought us the Realms of Arkania series. Supposedly, this game was set on Aventuria, an entirely different world. Different world? Hardly. A different continent perhaps, but the similarities are so many as to necessitate acknowledging that Arkania and Aventuria are closer than kissing cousins. They have the exact same 12-god pantheon. The names of magic spells and alchemy are identical. The different races and ethnic groups have the same historical backgrounds. I suppose that if I looked hard enough, I could discern differences - but THAT is the point: I would have to work _much_ harder to find the differences than I would to find the similarities.
The next annoyance is a SPOILER, which I would normally shy away from. But in this case, I am soooo annoyed, I'm going to trot it out anyway. Namely that - no ifs, ands, or buts, you want to make your chosen character to be a magic-user. The reason for this is that if your character does sling magic around, he or she can NOT wear metal armor. HOWEVER, one of the main perks of successfully following the main quest is that you collect bits and pieces of a metal armor set that a magic-user CAN wear without turning off his or her magic casting ability. If you're NOT a magic-user, that armor is good, but not the absolute best that you can put together by the end of the game. The net effect of this aspect is that it is annoying as hell to discover 25% of the way into the game that you can NOT achieve the maximum benefit of what is supposed to be the best reward for performing well in the game. All because you chose that neat Thief or Dwarf when you first started the game instead of that thin-skinned spell-slinger.
Which brings me to the annoyance related to character creation. The game uses what is without a doubt one of the best character creation systems. You could make a truly unique character every time - if it let you. Instead, there are 20 different archetypes. There are three different kinds of Thieves, three different kinds of Warriors, etc. However, instead of a template for each, you are given a single model of each. Such as, the form for the Warrior has a given set of Attribute numbers. EVERY Warrior you create will have those exact same numbers. AND graphically look exactly like every other Warrior you might make. You may choose between male and female (except for the Dwarf, which comes only in the male version), and you may shuffle skill points around some (between only those few specific skills that the archetype starts with). This results in a level of regimentation that undercuts the inherent flexibility the system is capable of offering.
Along about this point, if you look closely, you'll note that there are NO Clerics. At least, not as a player character. There are some spells that you would normally expect Clerics to have, but anyone capable of casting magic can cast those spells. Which then makes you wonder why it is that if literally anyone is capable of casting magic, why is it that if you started with a character that was pointedly NOT a magic-user, then he will NEVER be able to cast a spell? Conversely, you could start a magic-user, buff him up and put him in armor and he'd function _exactly_ like any other Warrior-type. The only difference is that if you dumped the metal armor for leather, you could go back to casting spells.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
