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Review Drakensang: The River of Time Review

VentilatorOfDoom

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Tags: Drakensang

<p>Gamebanshee offer <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/101185-drakensang-the-river-of-time.html" target="_blank">a fairly accurate and in-depth review</a> of <strong>Drakensang: The River of Time</strong>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Before I started on this review, I went back to read my review of Drakensang: The Dark Eye. I was amazed to find how many of my major problems with the game have been at least partially resolved in this prequel. Too much walking? Quick travel points. Too much boring trash mob combats? Less frequent and more interesting combat encounters. The original had an uninteresting, cliche plot? A smaller, more interesting plot. <br /><br /> None of these changes are huge, but add them together and they make The River of Time a much better RPG than The Dark Eye, and The Dark Eye was already pretty solid in its own right. Granted, The River of Time still has a handful of issues that mar the experience, including the uninspired combat system and shoddy localization. But it is definitely a better game, and easy to recommend to anyone who enjoyed The Dark Eye. <br /><br /> Radon Labs took an interesting risk in creating a smaller scale story in which the protagonist is just one member of a group rather than "the special one". Game designers &ndash; like dungeon masters &ndash; often exert themselves in heaping praise and prophecy on the protagonist in an effort to make the player feel like they've been chosen, and this direction can easily feel trite and overdone. Still, in an age of epic-scale &ldquo;you are the one from my dreams&rdquo; storytelling, I find The River of Time's approach refreshing. But it is a risk and, much like its setting, won't appeal to everyone. <br /><br /> It took me over 30 hours to play through The River of Time's main quest and a whole slew of its side quests. That is only half the time it took me to finish The Dark Eye, yet a significant chunk of the missing half was spent in endless walking sequences and fighting trash mob upon trash mob. At $20, this game is an absolute steal for North American CRPG enthusiasts, and it most definitely deserved better treatment than from its publisher.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/101190-gb-feature-drakensang-the-river-of-time-review.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>
 
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Good review. I played the German version and I can't say I regret paying for the imported box, but the combat (and especially camera in combat) was something of a deal-breaker for me. I didn't finish the game even though I otherwise thought it was pretty decent.

One other thing that stood out was how even good ambient sounds/voices were ruined by having them loop far too often; "...und Ringe für wirklich jeden Finger" gave me more nightmares than "Patrolling the Mojave...". It's one of those things that I can't ever understand someone did not point out during testing.
 

poetic codex

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CrunchyHemorrhoids said:
Too little, too late.

Indeed. This review comes out after the developers went bankrupt and then bought over by a company that makes online games. :roll:

The publisher DTP had a huge part in that though. Their non-existent marketing outside of Germany and lacklustre efforts at localization pretty much doomed the game in a place like America where promotion is key.
 

markec

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poetic codex said:
CrunchyHemorrhoids said:
Too little, too late.

Indeed. This review comes out after the developers went bankrupt and then bought over by a company that makes online games. :roll:

Damn you BN, if you made this review earlier the company would not go bankrupt, we would see Drakensang 3 which would be best RPG of all time and Radon Labs would have probably found cure for cancer and made world peace.
 

poetic codex

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^I know you're being snarky, but if there is one game series that could have used the exposure (ANY exposure) and word-of-mouth, it was Drakensang.
 

Thrasher

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Yes, it's a shame.

Pretty good review, but I think this is an exageration

... where The Dark Eye would shower you with magical items and gifts like some kind of nervous dungeon master just looking to please his gamers...

I found the first game very limitted in its loot drops compared with all other modern RPGS (except maybe the Gothics). I was always looking for better stuff to buy from merchants, and never seemed to have enough money until the end.
 

Gosling

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A shame the fraranchise is dead and the developer is no more. The game had its flaws sure (what game didn't) but you could feel the love and attention to detail that went into it.

So what's the fate of the Das Schwarze Auge in computer gaming? Is there any chance for us to see another developer make a game based on this system?
 

getter77

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Gosling said:
A shame the fraranchise is dead and the developer is no more. The game had its flaws sure (what game didn't) but you could feel the love and attention to detail that went into it.

So what's the fate of the Das Schwarze Auge in computer gaming? Is there any chance for us to see another developer make a game based on this system?

It looks bleak at present---especially given the lack of any sort of OGL mechanism(Or even just the earlier/obsolete Editions) that allows for some manner of game like D&D has that allows for the likes of Incursion and Knights of the Chalice to slowly trod along.

I suppose there's a chance that somebody will get to try again on The Dark Eye RPG front, though with this being the 2nd time a "series" has wound up tanking with it...well...I would say that hurts the odds in the grand scheme of things.

IF TRoT somehow went on to sell astoundingly well via GG, Impulse, and whoever else comes along----I'd imagine that would have some impact. Kind of a chicken/egg thing with press coverage for buzz generation though...
 

Mortmal

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The fate of drakensang is now a browser facebook game , and eventually an action rpg...
Drakensang 1 in my opinion was mediocre but the second one is well worth playing . Still it doesnt have the depth of the realm of arkania games, i miss planning my expeditions, having to buy food and replacement shoes to my characters, micro management, survival and planning is definitively more fun than today hand holding.
Theres no sense of danger in drakensang , in arkania you can really screw up and end up with a starved party with broken weapons ,half of them sick over that.
 

Gosling

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getter77 said:
I suppose there's a chance that somebody will get to try again on The Dark Eye RPG front, though with this being the 2nd time a "series" has wound up tanking with it...

So did Shadows Over Riva tank at the time of its release? How was it accepted in Germany and internationally? Why no sequels were made after it?

Sorry, I'm too lazy to make an internet research at the moment.

(I remember buying pirated version in Russia back then (there were no other versions available anyway), but obviously it came without manual and there was zero information on the gaming system so somehow I never got past the first city. Gotta replay the whole series now I think)
 

Turjan

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poetic codex said:
Indeed. This review comes out after the developers went bankrupt and then bought over by a company that makes online games. :roll:
Well, this review comes out a few days after the NA release, so what. But I agree that it's really sad that the company went under in the meanwhile. I somehow like the games they came up with.

I'm playing TROT at the moment, and I really enjoy it. It's a very laid back game, and up to now, I like it somewhat more than its predecessor. The game is much less linear and occasionally shows alternative pathways to solve quests. I'm not sure whether that will change, but at the moment I think it's $17.90 well spent.

The access to special gear is very limited in the game, which might turn people who are used to D&D loot off. That's fine for DSA, though. Another point is that, while the first game had too many random encounters, this one has very few on some maps. It's enough for my taste, though.

It's definitely not the best game ever, but a pleasant diversion. If you hated the first game, you probably won't like this one, either, but TROT was most certainly improved in many areas.
 

abnaxus

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From the review:
In The Dark Eye's setting, deonts are followers of a god who can call upon divine favors, by the use of karma points which recharge when the deont performs actions that please their god. It is great to see this class added to the cRPG version of The Dark Eye, albeit only as a follower and only for one particular god.
If the main character is a thief/rogue, you can actually become a deont of Phex as well at the end of the training missions.

A nice touch about the game is that each race, class & nationality gets quite a lot of amount of unique dialogue options. Your character's origins matter much more than in a certain other game that proudly uses "Origins" in its title.
 

circ

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Yeah, it's completely unlike Dragon Age, where no one really gave a shit what you were, except rare scripted locations. In RoT, a third of the NPC encounters would comment on me being a dwarf, elf or whatever. And unlike Origins, these origins were actually interesting and quickly dealt with, with a lot of variety and different approaches.
 

getter77

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Gosling said:
So did Shadows Over Riva tank at the time of its release? How was it accepted in Germany and internationally? Why no sequels were made after it?

Sorry, I'm too lazy to make an internet research at the moment.

IIRC, it managed well enough for the Trilogy in terms of Germany any whatnot----with the wheels kinda falling off by the 3rd part due to dev/business woes. Internationally, it just didn't light things on fire properly versus the other Big Classics.

It seems to keep hitting a weird kind of limbo between dev/business costs outright, awareness/marketing, and the elusive "It" factor. Each entity can't seem to hit a sustainable level of quality/money tree for it, to say nothing of capturing any mindshare comparable at all to D&D.

Indie outfits like Spiderweb seem to have it more together as far as "tending the coals", with the occasional flareups, than the prior DarkEye teams.

If they can somehow do well with these online/ARPG things...well...that MIGHT at least get the gaming brand a bit more of a tangential community to work with. Otherwise, people will just have to mod the hell out of TrOT like that one guy on RPGWatch until such time as some developer decides to try again----hopefully learning from the missteps of the prior ones, or some indie/open-source/freeware thing somehow goes Wesnoth on the thing and doesn't get shut down either due to an OGL coming into being or just being outside of the law.
 

thesheeep

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Hey, don't worry. ;)
The next Drakensang will probably be a good game. Of course, a Diablo clone, but what I've seen an read so far... a good one, especially for a FreeToPlay online game.

Of course, still a f*cking shame that this part of the series was the last real RPG.
 

Brother None

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Thrasher said:
I found the first game very limitted in its loot drops compared with all other modern RPGS (except maybe the Gothics). I was always looking for better stuff to buy from merchants, and never seemed to have enough money until the end.

The gold-bedecked dragon armor was what did it for me. And remember I'm coming in from a PnP gamer perspective here: TDE, as a setting, is relatively low-magic, and magic items are extremely rare, because to forge them a magician must permanently imbue it with a part of his astral energy. DSA: TDE and DSA: TRoT are a bit too looty for TDE games, though still less looty than many other RPGs, that's true.

markec said:
poetic codex said:
CrunchyHemorrhoids said:
Too little, too late.
Indeed. This review comes out after the developers went bankrupt and then bought over by a company that makes online games. :roll:
Damn you BN, if you made this review earlier the company would not go bankrupt, we would see Drakensang 3 which would be best RPG of all time and Radon Labs would have probably found cure for cancer and made world peace.

I'm sorry bros. Itz coming, and it is all my fault.

poetic codex said:
^I know you're being snarky, but if there is one game series that could have used the exposure (ANY exposure) and word-of-mouth, it was Drakensang.

Wait, you're serious? GameBanshee gave the Drakensang titles as much coverage as it could. The publishers didn't even send out a press release for this needlessly delayed 20-dollar dump release for North America. Who you going to blame there?

abnaxus said:
If the main character is a thief/rogue, you can actually become a deont of Phex as well at the end of the training missions.

Cool. I was wondering about that but had only tries mage/nature mage/fighter backgrounds so far. Will correct. Nice touch.

Wish they'd put in more deonts though. I used to play a deont of Rahja back in the day. It was tons of fun.

getter77 said:
I suppose there's a chance that somebody will get to try again on The Dark Eye RPG front, though with this being the 2nd time a "series" has wound up tanking with it...well...I would say that hurts the odds in the grand scheme of things.

Isn't the Dark Eye: Demonicon still in production? Though I suppose both it and Drakensang: Online look more like hack 'n slashes.
 

Morkar Left

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Brother None said:
markec said:
poetic codex said:
CrunchyHemorrhoids said:
Too little, too late.
Indeed. This review comes out after the developers went bankrupt and then bought over by a company that makes online games. :roll:
Damn you BN, if you made this review earlier the company would not go bankrupt, we would see Drakensang 3 which would be best RPG of all time and Radon Labs would have probably found cure for cancer and made world peace.

I'm sorry bros. Itz coming, and it is all my fault.

The developers were basically kicked out right after the release in Germany (a couple of months later) because the game didn't sold enough. Which is very suspect for me because for such production values and budget I always assumed you have to include the international sales to see if it is a success. But at that time there wasn't even clear when and how (even if?) the game gets translated. Plus the marketing seemed even lightweight in Germany. At least it was pure luck for me to hear about the second game (but I don't care about the gaming scene in general).
 

ricolikesrice

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Brother None said:
Isn't the Dark Eye: Demonion still in production?

i didnt exactly follow it (because it would have been shit anyway with carsten strehse of "The Fall" fame behind it .... ) but remember reading german gaming news that the company has gone insolvent as well.

too bad about radon labs though, i really enjoyed TROT - best RPG of 2010 for sure - (and i like new vegas for what it is but not a good RPG) and considering the many improvements over part 1 i d have really looked forward to a third part.

you can again blame the publisher for this one: from what i read the budget was a lot higher for TROT (mostly for full voice acting and all that shit ) than drakensang 1 but the sales werent....

....seriously what a bunch of dumbfucks, thinking that by adding voice overs you suddenly will get twice (or more) sales for a niche RPG:
all those faggots who care about full voiceovers spent their money on shit like dragon age.

...should have kept a low budget and catered more to that niche audience (turn-based combat was demanded quite a few times from TDE fans and by that i dont just mean the 19y old slav kids trying to be all oldschool & elite here at codex ) and they could have remained profitable .....

anyhow because someone brought it up above: TDE : Shadows over Riva sold around 400.000 copies. thats quite a lot if you have a reasonable budget, hell i know plenty of AAA titles that sold less than half that much.
(least on PC but germany is still a bastion of pc gaming even though the PS3 is gaining ground .... since unlike the US&UK we dont have as many niggers, there s no ground for the SHITBOX 360 to gain )

-request for turnbased combat
-raging at publishers
-mandatory mention of niggers & shitbox

i think my codex post is complete with this.
 

mydnight

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Being in Australia, is there any way for me to get the game, or do I have to wait 5 years for GOG to acquire rights to it?
 

Brother None

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mydnight said:
Being in Australia, is there any way for me to get the game, or do I have to wait 5 years for GOG to acquire rights to it?

Amazon's digital purchase, maybe?

EDIT: nevermind, "Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address." Same for Impulse and GamersGate.

Well then, uh...import from Europe? That's the English localization I played. I think Bol ships worldwide, dunno about the rest.

Man, this is one of the worst publishing jobs ever.

I wish we had a localized version of that awesome Spanish series release.
 
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mydnight said:
Being in Australia, is there any way for me to get the game, or do I have to wait 5 years for GOG to acquire rights to it?

There is a way, yes. And I am over feeling bad about this way, under the circumstances. Not that it has even been released in the UK either...nor will it ever be I am guessing. I emailed the company, I waited for months...just give up. It isn't going to happen. What a waste of a decent game. The publishers really need to be shot.

Splice the mainbrace, break out a tot of rum for all hands and join me on this voyage me hearty!

As for Radon: Your first effort was drab, your second effort not bad...for a semi popamole game anyway. It is a pity your star burned out before your time came. :salute:
 

Brother None

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Blackadder said:
There is a way, yes. And I am over feeling bad about this way, under the circumstances. Not that it has even been released in the UK either...nor will it ever be I am guessing.

The UK? You can definitely just order the English localized DVD-ROM from one of those Dutch or Belgian stores. Shipping can't be that bad within the EU.
 
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Brother None said:
Blackadder said:
There is a way, yes. And I am over feeling bad about this way, under the circumstances. Not that it has even been released in the UK either...nor will it ever be I am guessing.

The UK? You can definitely just order the English localized DVD-ROM from one of those Dutch or Belgian stores. Shipping can't be that bad within the EU.

Your prices are disgraceful. I still keep an eye on them to see whether they will lower. No manual, just a box and a DVD, very funny. Add on a nice, juicy VAT to the cost.

Edit: I still cannot believe they haven't published this 'English' version in the home of English. Hilarious. Sad as well.
 

Brother None

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Blackadder said:
Your prices are disgraceful. I still keep an eye on them to see whether they will lower. No manual, just a box and a DVD, very funny. Add on a nice, juicy VAT to the cost.

90-page manual. It's neat, but nothing special. Still, they bothered to translate the manual to English and print it out and then...not release the game to retail in NA/UK? I dunno.

I actually bought it at 38 EUR because the publisher couldn't be arsed to send us a review copy. That's exactly how much they care. No idea they were going to drop it down to 20 EUR a month later. Also our VAT is already in the price (VAT is always included in pricing, it's the law, I fucking hate how they don't do that in the US), but I dunno about any import VAT you have to pay or anything.

Still man, it's your money.
 

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