What will be an issue to some however, is the steep learning curve in getting started. Even once you enlist your first party member you won’t be able to tackle many of the challenges. Dishing out your experience points, trying to work out why you can’t use healing items, fathoming just what all the stats on a weapon means… it’s an almost impenetrable fog of gloriously geeky abbreviations and numbers. The manual offers some respite, even containing an extensive glossary, but it’ll do nothing to ease the pain of being eaten by a white wolf for the fifth time.

After struggling with a Battlemage for a while, we restarted as a Warrior and made slightly better progress, but Drakensang takes a while to be forthcoming; clueless, we spent the first three hours of the game with gangrene and a -3 strength modifier. It wasn’t until reaching the first major city that our character, Filbert Fiddletwang, was able to learn the skill needed to drink tea. If this all sounds too much, then Drakensang will offer little more than an hour’s frustrating bemusement before you turn it off forever. If you’re prepared to fight through the complexities though, then a beautifully realised, vastly detailed and above all tremendously fun RPG is waiting.

Upon reaching Ferdok, the epicentre of the game’s plot, Drakensang really opens up. Everything starts to make sense. The plot – a surprisingly mature tale of conspiracy, politics, religion and er… dragons – kicks into gear, and characters start flocking to your side, eager to lend you their sword, bow, axe and whatever else you might fancy. Completing the first major story arc opens the game up even more, providing avenues to explore the world of Aventuria. The party system makes a pleasant change from the solitude of other recent RPGs and the camaraderie between characters is always evident no matter who you have in your party. There’s a real sense of teamwork going on. We did find that allowing the party members to pathfind for themselves led to problems, but controlling their movement in unison is an easy process, and advisable in most situations.

In many ways Drakensang is a throwback, a swansong to the party-based RPGs of yesteryear, yet somehow it doesn’t feel dated. It revels in its nerdiness, shamelessly flaunting its roots and never shying away from its role-playing conventions. And yet it manages to be fresh and edgy, a seriously hardcore entry into the modern RPG catalogue that defies as many stereotypes as it perpetuates. There are more Dark Eye releases on the way and if they’re of the same calibre as Drakensang, they’re more than welcome.

Pages: 1 2

Have you downloaded the latest issue from GamerZines yet? Check it out here!