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When Good Games go bad

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: July 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game starts off under the guise of and innovative and entertaining fantasy based adventure/rpg. Having never played the original, I was a little in the dark about the story, but the history is fairly intersting even though the main plot is kind of thin. The gameplay is fluid and you definately get a good assortment of moves to dispatch your enemies with. The level progression system is definatively Diablo inspired. Now for what's wrong with the game. For starters, your max level is 9. Which for any adventure/rpg title is very disappointing on more than one count. Case in point, you cannot max out all of your stats at level 9, which means you must allocate points to only the skills you want to really beef up. Which wouldn't be terrible if A) You were actually aware that you had to do this, and B) If the game didn't force you to use all of your potential skills. So what you end up having instead of a customizable character whom you can choose to make a fighter or a spellcaster, etc. you are forced to have a little of everything, creating an overall mediocre character. My second complaint, although not as bad as the first, is that the difficulty of the game only increases in the number of monsters you must kill later on. So instead of throwing some engrossing puzzles at you, you end up just hacking your way through the last few levels of the game. If they ever make another sequel, I hope they improve on these flaws, because the game does have a solid foundation, but in the end, I was disappointed.

Drakan: the Ancients' Glitch

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

As a previous reviewer mentioned, there is a major glitch in this game. Your dragon can completely disappear. However, unlike the other reviewer, my dragon disappeared in front of my eyes never to be seen again. I called him, he came, I dispatched a monster, and the dragon was gone. There was no tunnel involved, and no way to get him back. How did this game ever hit the shelves?

Play at your own risk. I know I'm done with it.

Tomb Raider Meets Dragon Heart...And Both Get Burned

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 27
Date: December 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I tried out the demo for the game, and while at first it seemed like it would be good, after a few minutes it got rather boring. First off the controls seem a bit difficult to manage when flying the dragon. When I was attacked it was very hard to locate where it was coming from let alone try to turn around and defend myself. The controls were a little bit better when maneuvering just the woman.

The dialogue sure got repetitive fast, "Let's Fly!" "Let's Go!" How about lets shut up?!

The graphics where pretty choppy, not at all better than what you might find for a PS1 game. Even the characters seemed to defy gravity, after a monster was killed it just hovered there in midair. And after just a couple of hits you yourself are dead, didn't seem like there was any way to replenish your health except with the potion you start off with, and can run out of fast. Maybe in the real game, there's more you can pick up.

And then there were all these inventory items to deal with, potions, spells, weapons and the like. Which reminded me way too much of an RPG game, NOT and adventure game.

All in all, the demo sure didn't make me want the full game, but if you're even thinking about buying this game, play the demo first, before you shell out the dough!

Bugs-But Great Game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Yes, this game is great, yes I spent hours on it, but YES there are A LOT of bugs. Everything from critters that you have to kill being "lost" in mountains or hills, to losing your dragon, to completing a quest and the fact that you completed the quest never registering to the game. All of these can take place in the first minute or the last minute of the game. Thus loosing HOURS and having to replay or burn the game. It is a shame that something with this much potential was sped through the process.

Draken amost failed me, but it's fun to play

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I played the demo of Draken and it was fun, so thats were i wanted this game. The game over all is fun but i did have truble near the begaining of the game in the "showdow mire." not a fun place to be. And there is Spiders! and i really don't like spiders but there is only 2 places i 100% know that there are spiders. Enoghf of that, i like dragons so thats fun riding on a dragon. the game is long, and the story line is good. But the ending could be better. the skill system is differnet because you can only have 12 skill point to put on your chariter so you can have a strong point and a weak point or you you can be balnced. Overall Draken is a O.K. game.

Warning! Major bug on this game!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: March 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is an outstanding game which is tainted by a major bug nevertheless. Throughout the game, Rynn leaves her dragon to explore caves. However, on a cave in the Northlands which connects two sections, if you enter it without the dragon (as you do before multiple times because the dragon doesn't fit), you lose the dragon PERMANENTLY and have to start over the game from the very beginning! This unless you have multiple saves, which can take up a lot of space (1.5 mb). I didn't so I lost over ten hours of gameplay!

This bug was patched on the European release, but not on the American release. Bugs like this can slide on PC games, but on a console game you are stuck with them and are unacceptable.

OK game, but there are far better.....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: March 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is somewhat fun... You play as a redhead with a sword and huge knockers, as opposed to the usual big greasy armored dude you see in these types of games. There are plenty of quests and hidden features, and a nice bonus of blowing stuff up as a fire-breathing dragon.

A couple things keep the game from being more than mediocre. The combat can get repetitive-- swordplay is usually reduced to parry, attack, parry, attack; sniping with the bow gets old as the enemies are usually too stupid to realize they are being shot with arrows; and all the magic spells are so powerful that they unbalance the game (time slow and fear especially). The story is lame and predictable, and the dragon has horrible voice acting.

The most fun and challenge comes from riding the dragon: the game then turns to a kind of fantasy flying shooter. You battle other dragons, catapults, spellcasters, and even a huge two-headed monster at various points when you are in the open air. Plus the outdoor areas are way bigger. If the entire game was comprised of these outdoor areas and huge rolling landscapes, it might have been something special.

Room for Improvement

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: March 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I had high hopes for this game when I first began. The graphics are wonderful and the sound is great. Technically, there are a few bugs with the game, but most of these can be overlooked. The major flaw with the game si the way the story is carried out. There is barely enough of a plot to move the character from area to area. The ending needs the most work of all. After beating the entire game, it was very dissappointing.

Gear up and take wing...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: November 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Drakan: The Order of the Flame was a surprisingly solid, enjoyable,and underrated PC title when it was released several years ago. Despite this, it contained some very harmful flaws. For starters, the plotline never lived up to its full potential, and the climax went off like a damp squib and left in its wake a certain sourness that detracted from all the glorious hacking and slashing that came before it. On top of this, the game's dungeon locales became repetitive very quickly due to their unceasing sameness (despite the beautiful graphics engine).

Now, there is Drakan: The Ancients' Gates, the Playstation 2 sequel (and one of the reasons I myself picked up the PS2 console). It addresses some of its predecessor's issues, with varying degrees of success.

The Pros:
· Though Drakan: The Order of the Flame is now an aging PC game, the graphics are still very impressive. Drakan: The Ancients' Gates has improved upon these already pleasing visuals, and the results are stunning. The outdoor environments are the most stunning I've ever witnessed in a game of this type, and the indoor sections of the game aren't half bad either (the first couple of times you see them, anyways).
· Combat is a crucial element of The Ancients' Gates, and, fortunately, it's pretty fun. Hacking through the game's various beasties is quite enjoyable, although your capacity to sever limbs and inflict hideous gaping wounds has been removed in this second installment.
· Although Drakan owes much to Tomb Raider with its sexy heroine, it adds Arokh the dragon into the mix to keep things fresh. Taking flight is one of the game's best features, and dragon vs. dragon dogfights can be pretty intense.
· The game employs some RPG elements that were missing in The Order of the Flame. Being able to specialize in melee or magic is a nice choice, and adds a fair amount to the game.
· Drakan enjoys some very good production values. The musical score is rousing and memorable, and the voice actors are all pretty good. A new actor has taken on the character of Rynn, and in the process injected some life into the character that was lacking before.

The Cons:
· Like its predecessor, The Ancients' Gates still suffers from repetitive dungeon crawls. The caverns, sewers, and keeps are all rendered in an immensely believable fashion, but, in the end, they all begin to look the same once you've been playing for a few hours.
· The game's storyline never truly hits its stride, and the ending, while not as crippling as the first game's (which was so bad, in fact, that it darkened the overall gaming experience), is still pretty lackluster.
· The game's combat isn't as involving as the first game's merely because it has chosen to tone down the level of violence. It depends upon your own personal outlook whether this is a good or bad thing, but given how satisfactory it was to dismember an orc in part 1, I find it disappointing.
· Be warned, there are some very dangerous bugs lurking about in the world of Drakan, and I'm not referring to the game's hordes of giant spiders. If you're not the kind of gamer who saves his or her game in more than one slot and you're looking to start Drakan, you had better change your ways or suffer the consequences. You see, if you dismount your dragon and venture too far into another land on foot, you may lose your dragon forever - and since Arokh is required to finish the game, this is a very bad thing.

All in all, though, The Ancients' Gates is one of the best medieval fantasy hack-and-slashers you will find for the PS2 (if not the best). I can only hope that a third installment comes along and further improves upon this charming formula.

Barrel roll into fun... just for starters

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The game takes a little practice, went running about, swashing, rolling and hacking until I was comfortable fighting Rynn, and another 20 minutes just being acrobatic on Arokh (come on, lets power dive into an Immelman!) Much more liberating than Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, which railroaded you into one path. Here, you can wander about the map, looking into an ancient library with a skeletal problem, or find the missing wife of a farmer. Good characters, with fun dialog (well if it isn't Miss. Bloodbath) and the chance to ride a dragon and have him torch your enemies from afar (oh, you've got a big axe, do you? Well I've got a big dragon sitting over your head.)
Four stars becase of the constant need to repair eqipment that slow degrades with use. (It was a cool sword, now it's just an inventory item.)

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