Now that is a blast from the past :D as a huge TDE player this was of course mandatory playing back in the day. Really sad the line ended after the sequal and so the whole CRPG renaissance pretty much passed this setting by.
There were actually a few more TDE games released in the years following, though they were not outstanding. Daedalic tried their hands at a more tactical RPG with Blackguards 1 & 2. Then there were the two Realms of Arkania remakes, the highly questionable Skilltree Saga and the flawed but pretty fun Demonicon.
it's always interesting to see non German players finding Drakensang and the whole Aventuria / The dark eye Setting :-) i mean if you ask most nerds who were teenagers in the 90s i bet they played The Dark Eye 3rd Edition and will tell you stories about the Borbarad campaign that take years to finish. I started playing the TTRPG when i was 18 with 3rd edition and switched to the 4th Edition (which is used for this game) when i was 23 or so. It was kinda cool to play with the rules you knew from the tabletop in the videogame and see several NPCs you did know from the metaplot In the Dark eye 4th and 5th Edition there ARE some minor racial bonuses but most of the BIG bonus comes from your culture so if you are a dwarf but are raised in a mostly human city your starting bonus for your attributes is different than if you are raised in a dwarven hold. So mix and match with race / culture and profession is totally possible you basically can create almost everything (no wonder that the full rulebook are 4 books each with 300 pages and more) by the way the black "mask" you let your character wear is an inside joke for german players since that mask was included in the 1st edtiion box. It was a paper mask that the GM should wear during gameplay to look ominous.
It's a real shame that the studio didn't survive after the development of the second part. For the time, both parts were a real development. I think it was partly because "Das Schwarze Auge" was almost unknown outside of Germany. Which I also think is a shame because I think it's a good set of rules. "Blackguards" suffered a similar fate, but there were other reasons for this. Apart from that, I had a lot of fun with both parts of Drakensang and I might pick up the second part again. Thank you for this trip down memory lane.
The Dark Eye was a pen & paper system in Germany inspired by D&D. There were some great ideas and concepts, but also a few issues I find in that system. It got me hooked on FRPGs back in the days. I fact I prefer the magic system of a mage there compared to the wizard in D&D. I consider combat in Dark Eye and D&D both not optimal from a rule point of view. Still, it is a classic although I never finished it.
I so wish there were more fantasy games with a more down-to-earth plot like this. No villains who want to destroy the world, no angels, demons, gods or any of that stuff. And no heroes who can destroy entire armies with a single sneeze. After all, even in pathfinder at the end of the game it gets tiresome to destroy huge crowds of demons every 2 minutes.
Great title! I hope you also taking a look on the second game of this series, Drakensang River of time. Its just like the first one, but a little more fleshed out in many details, like you have access to fast travel points and already visited locations give you new quests or change in some details over the course of the game. I personally enjoyed both, but if someone is interested in the series, i would recommend River of time over the first title.
Fun fact, Drakensang is sort a spiritual sequel to the Realms of Arkania trilogy, which also featured the same ruleset, but a much older version, also the setting, I think it is the same. I did play a lot of Drakensang, I enjoyed, despite some oddities, such as the wound system (which without something to remove the debuff can get deadly) and only very late in the game I noticed that I needed to pick a talent or something to counter the penalty for using heavy armor.
One of my favorite games of one of my favorite tabletop Rulesets. Played a lot of the dark eye IRL when I was a teenager with my friends and really enjoyed this game when it came out. Finished it again about 2 years ago and I have to say it really held up well. Also, the follow up game "Drakensang, the river of time" is really good, it plays before the Events of this game, and you can learn some of the origin stories of characters who play a role in this game in the second game.
The newer Drakensang River of Time is, in my opinion, the superior game. Though that is subjective. It is however objectively easier to get into. It has full voice acting, and more modern conveniences like fast travel points and more character customization options. The plot is also less cliche. Highly recommend it to any RPG lovers. I've been checking every few months if new English Let's Plays are made for it, but no such luck. I've played it so many times that I don't think I'll personally play it in the future.
Yep, the River of Time is a much more fleshed out Drakensang game for sure. It's still a rather convoluted game mechanically but once you get an understanding of how skills and attributes work it's a good crpg. A shame it will be overlooked by so many because it does take a bit of tweaking to get it to work on modern windows, but once you do it is a fun game.
I remember picking this game up and finishing it way back when. Kept hitting so many game breaking bugs, but lack of funds for other games kept me dedicated to finishing it.
I started with DnD cRPGs(BG, NWN, Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil etc) before Drakensang but never managed to get into them, either didn't finish the game or had to go for breaks or restart the campaign. Drakensang really pulled me in and i completed it in one go. Started to like cRPG genre more after that.
I love this game. It does show its age and some of the game mechanicsa are quite complex (since the game is a faithful recreation of a tabletop RPG), but the great atmosphere and the story really got me hooked.
From what I remember companions are like in BG1 : archetypes with a few special interactions and a bit of side content if you're lucky. The dwarf was the friend of the guy murdered, the amazon has some stuff when you run into some of her colleagues and the thief girl is the daughter of the big shot of the city underworld, which may give bonus options, not sure. That's all I can recall. Small tips : any skill that inflicts wounds is super powerful since even an ogre falls down at 4-5? wounds regardless of HP & magic is pretty nerfed compared to most games but some enemies have high physical armor and then you'll be happy to have something that does damage
One of my favorite game back in the day when these kind of games were not as frequent. One of those rare games. I would love more games with these rules.
Nice to see people knowing about this somewhat forgotten game. Despite the daunting dark eye rules, the game is painfully simple. There are many archetypes, but everyone is basically a fighter, and the game is 95% about fighting. What matters is if you can cast magic or not, and the distribution of your base stats, 14+ strength/constitution being a priority to be able to reach the max of 21. All the rest of the skills can be learned in-game, so it's less interesting to play a thief archetype as they have weaker fighting stats, but without magic to make up for it(at least not in the first game). And outside the elven fighter (decent fight stats+ starts with good rank in the strength buff spell), there's little incentive to play a half-caster as opposed to a full one. My favorite archetypes: - the dwarven sapper (best fighter+ thief skills from the start) - the healing mage (human full caster with double mana regen. Get access to skelly boi summon and fireball mid-game) - the elven ranger (immediate access to the hawkeye spell, fun for a full archer party).
Ah, Dark Eye or DSA in Germany. My start into the FRPG genre. One key difference of combat between this and D&D is, that in DSA you roll for attack and in case of success the opponent rolls for parry. Then the AC is just reducing the damage rolled. That makes fighting interesting, but also can make them take long if both have high attack and parry skills. Magic again does not require to memorize spells in advance. I like that. The limit is the mana or rather "astral points" here. The animations were not so great even back then, but if one gets used to a different kind of storytelling it can be a rewarding experience. I admit, that I never finished it though. Maybe I should check, if I have it in my lib somewhere... 😅
Oh man, I still have the physical copy of this and its sequel Rivers of Time--it had one of those awesome flip-covers with extra art and details inside of it. I remember finishing this as a Burglar; for some reason, I was intent on building a character that focused mostly on thievery and charisma...who subsequently got carried by every other character in the party , all the way to the game's conclusion. Luckily, I was smart enough to abuse the 'wound system', which really helped make up for my main character/dead-weight.
I have the "collection" edition set somewhere, with all the releases. I recall it had some of the old invasive copy protection software of that era included. One of those which demanded you put the disk in your drive, while playing, so it would check (and regularly spin your drive up & down). Had a strong dislike of such things since one of them had previously damaged my DVD-ROM drive, in a different game, with such dodgy software. Glad there are digital editions, now, without that crap.
@@NefariousKoel starforce was the first that came to mind but i think Drakensang was Securom, pretty much same crap at the time. game was good tho, atleast rivers of time, starting to become abit unsure if i played this one but im sure i did. Remember not being impressed when i started playing and then really hooked after 5-10 hours or so.
Daaaamn, now i feel old, but i still remember a couple of things from the game. Actually, the quest where you escort the senile wizard until he remember he can use teleport is stuck in my mind forever, i've reused it a lot.
The GOG version had a similar issue when I tried it a couple years ago. Had to add -windowed and -novideo in the start options. Then hit Alt+Enter twice, after in-game, to put it back to full screen. Just a little tinkering. Don't know if GOG changed anything since that first release. A bigger issue was a constant crash on Save. It was my anti-virus getting a false positive and killing it. Adding the game EXE to the AV's exclusion list fixed it. Ran just fine afterward.
Never manged to finish first one. River of Time was peak tho, good thing I'm not one of those gamers who always start from the first game and then proceed to the next one by release date...
I played this a while back and enjoyed it. It does take a while to get used to the Dark Eye rule set (it's not a variation on D&D, it's totally different) but if you find yourself looking for a good old classic cRPG you haven't played to death already put this one on your list is my recommendation.
At minute 2:30. If I remember correctly you can change the attributes slightly if you push the button on the right bottom. But far more important is that the kind of spells and the maximum level of your spells and skills is determined by your initial character.
LOL! The lazy camera, that's new. Do you think they did it like that in order to have more time for rendering? I mean, I get the idea that the players will feel like they're at fault themselves for running forwards too fast, so it's not like they'll think to complain about poor engine implementation... I completely missed this game (series?) myself: happy to see my favorite RPG reviewer covering it! Thanks for your videos!
Whoa, this brings back memories. Almost forgot its existence. Too bad I never really got far into it. I was easily overwhelmed by the rules, a bit like Pathfinder but at least with Pathfinder, being D&D, I had the knowledge of its rules.
The Dark Eye TT is/was quite big in Germany. It has way more lore, history and detail to its world than D&D. For Example there is "newsletter" called "Der Aventurische Bote" (= the aventurian messenger) released every two month since 1985 covering the developments in Aventurien. Back then in the mid 90ties there was "the war of the magicians" which was an adventure campaign to play, but a certain outcome became history and changed the world.
Oh, how I wish for a Realms of Arkania trilogy review from you. They are full fledged cRPGs made in the early 90s that belong to the same Das Schwarze Auge franchise and Star Trail is my favorite RPG to day. Yes, I like it more than Baldur's Gate 1&2. Drakensang is an aRPG compared to RoA trilogy.
Can you please ( when doing 100% review ) explain the system in depth?🙏🙏🙏 I tried playing the "Drakensang: The River of Time" 5 times ( even finished act one ), but could never fully understand the system, so I was eventually killed every time. I think many people would appreciate it.
Drankensang was an awesome game. I have 2 very memorable moments up today (No spiolers). One is from a very harsh difficulty spike from mother ratzinki (which you can encounter way to early) and the other is Zant from Drakensang river of time which had one of the best ways to deal with a custom difficulty I've ever seen. You can use Sigil stones to debuff him, however someone says to you before the fight that you'll get reward for every sigil you've left after the fight. Says something if I remember them that strong after one and a half decade. Both games had a very unique charm.
Ohhhh here we goooooo This game started my interest in CRPGs and Pen&Paper as well. I played it again in December-January and it's still a nice game, even though very grindy
Love your content mate! It helps me sort the games for want/notwant/maybes :) And RPG's are a favorite since BG 1 & 2. A tip for a game i haven't seen on your channel yet is edge of war, an early acess game.
I still remember playing the tabletop maybe ten years ago... I played a cocky bard and put all points in attack and none in defense. So when I hit, it was glorious, but any small hit almost killed me. But my party loved the bard and always saved him. Great memories...
Regarding skills: In the ttrpg you actually roll THREE d20's and each skill is linked to nominally "three" Attributes. Each d20 has to roll under the linked attribute value. Your "Skill-Points" in a skill are a pool that you use to reduce any failed rolls down to successes. It sounds odd yet makes skill checks very dramatic. EG if you needed to roll under a 12 a 10 and 14 and your dice came up 11, 12 16 (btw there is a suggested colour system for the attributes dice you can optionally use) you pass, fail, fail, BUT you skill of value = 4 lets you spend points to push the "fail" "fail" from about to success i.e. 2 points of skill knock the 12 down to the required 10 and and two more points knock the 16 down to 14 so you succeed with no additional quality result on the roll. That is iany remaining "Skill-Points" give additional levels of quality on the success. Combat doesn't use this system its a straight d20 roll and is more streamlined compared to the skill-check.
Loved the game with its many classes and gimmics. What i really hated was that an overpower armor set is forcefully pushed on you and u get the pieces as main quest rewards and they don't visually fit with most armors especially if you use leather or cloth.
Also, regarding your point of not being able to customize your character appearance, you can actually use the character editor to do so. You're still limited in using one specific model, but you can swap between different character models, like playing a battlemage with a rogue model.
Was a wonderful RPG back in the day, was really fun complex and interesting. The quantity of subclass was really good and fun to play. Lot of quest and story to read.
Played this when it came out and loved it, agree that the systems do take some getting used to! From you footage it looks like you might need to use Riva Tuner or something similar to limit your FPS, the character run speed looks way off.
This is so weird. This is one of those games I played all the way through, but in the last 15ish years I completely forgot about it. Somehow it was the BLOOM everywhere and the font that made me remember. Have you ever had an experience like that? Something you wouldn't think about a game somehow ends up being indicative of it.
Yeah, playing pillars 2 I knew I had seen their AI systems somewhere before and thats because it's almost identical to FF12 which came out like a decade prior.
This was a very fun CRPG when I played it back in the day. I've tried numerous times trying to go back to experience it, but every time I do and play a close to an hour I tend to remember some of the bad monster combat encounters I've had and I just quit playing. It was a blast from the past and I usually tend to move passed it on a graphical tolerance level, but there is something else here that's stopping me from replaying it and I don't know what it is.
Looks interesting and never heard of it, going to check this one out. The xp system reminds me almost of genesys ttrpg system, where its not really levels but xp is a currency that you use to "buy" skills and ranks in them, talents or increase to stats.
Amazing game. A real blast from the past. It's actually very well done RPG, it just requires a little bit of patience. I only wish River of Time wasn't region locked, hopefully they bring it to GOG ...
Wow, never expected you to take a look at this little gem. Back in the day i spent way too many hours in that game and enjoyed every minute of it. It has it's flaws but is really fun and can be very challenging at times. I'm not sure though if i could enjoy it these days
I heard of the TTRPG from a German exchange student and I was curious about it but since i was still learning French at the time and I could not find any Eng. Edition for the core rule book, I leave it be. Maybe i will buy this on a sale, since it also reminds me of DA Origins, only a tad more rough. I hope the GOG version is not problematic to run since as of late I have little to no patience to find work-around for old software
Good game. Played it on release and had a lot of fun with. Still have the physical copy somewhere. I remember finding it a bit too simplified in comparison to the way older Realms of Arkania trilogy but it's still far from anything you would normally call simplified 😁 The Dark Eye ist my favorite TTRPG but sadly there have not been new CRPG adaptions for it nor are they announced. Larian have not yet said, what their new projects will be after leaving DnD, so there is a small hope... 😅
I really liked Drakensang when it came out. It’s my second favourite TDE game after Realms of Arkania: Star trail(the OG not the remake). I remember returning to character creation after trying it out for a few hours and making a new character. It also did a good job of keeping you immersed once you got going. On the negative I remember it being quite janky. Overall a good game.
I'm so glad you are enjoying the game! :) The game is a bit slow to start, but I do think it actually has a pretty good development throughout. Nothing mind blowing, but still a few very solid twists and surprises
I dont know if you reviewed Arx Fatalis but if not, you really need to give it a go. It is such a unique game with an intersting premise, amazing athmosphere and a lot of little details. I highly recomend it
love this game cause it was one of the first games i played as a child aside from Warcraft 3(in german, which i didnt even speak german even now i barely know it), Rising Kingdoms and mafia 1. This one was my first real introduction to RPG, but not like Loki or Warcraft elemenets. But actual roleplaying. I loved the archetypes, i loved how a guard actually looked similar to other city guard on the way to Ferdok. The first impression of Ferdok. The initial letter from a friend. His Death. The murders. And the fact that game goes up to 100 hours, especially if you were a noob child like me, combat would take long time. When i was 11/12 i remember not finishing the game because at the last map it was super hard with the dragon people, only few years later i learned i can just skip them and run to the final boss and try my luck there. 2-3 years ago i replayed this game, used a trainer too to allow myself changing appearance(i played one class while using charlatan model, which is really cool on females). I also cheated with some stats and extra points but i had a blast role-playing it either way. This and Dragon Age Origins are my favorite experiences with role-playing and great introduction story to a beautiful world. I'm very sad that both this game and DAO didn't get proper continuation. Dragon Age gets something but a whole different direction so far but Drakensang is sadly over aside from the online game that's been going on for years, but i hear the story and world there is totally detached from this beautiful game. Do you guys know if it's worth playing Drakensang 2, the river of time or smth? I know it'sa prequel with Ardo, but it's also much shorter and idk if i like prequels without good sequels D:
given the fact that there will likely never be a sequel, if you liked the first one, the second one is more of the same(yes a bit shorter, but still enough to feel like a proper journey) in this case I can strongly recommend it
Your video made me restart another play through attempt. The first time I played I played as a rogue and had to stop at the final act (I chose to specialize in throwing weapons. I know…). My second attempt I got soft locked in the dwarves area. I’m hoping my third attempt is the one I complete it.
The Dark Eye is an awesome pen and paper RPG. They made many PC games, I played nearly all of them. Some were really good. Great that you found the title! :) How did you stumble upon it?
Dark Eye/Das Schwarze Auge is very nostalgic for a many Germans of a certain age. Maybe put some reference to it in the title when you post the review :)
You got me confused there for a second. I loved this game back in the day and I see first impressions video from an hour ago, so I didn't know what is going on. It's a great game, i wonder if it stands the test of time
I played both this and the sequel when they came out 2008 and 2010. They were both decent games for their time; though I enjoyed River of Time / Am Fluss der Zeit and the Phileasson addon more. Familiarity with the setting and the rules (IIRC the game came out with a pdf copy of the official rules on the cd to help with that, if desired) is useful in the same way if you play BG3 and know the D20 mechanics and Faerun or the Sword Coast.
Ah, yeah it's different to D&D but I honestly like the system more than D&D. At least the one I started playing tabletop Rpgs 30years ago and the modernised one of drakensang. (The newest I can't bear.) I even finished Drakensang back when it released, I found it ok, but rather easy, but with lots of walking. Because they tested it with instant teleports instead of properly. I had even Drakensang: The river of Time. Which I heard was even better. And you get a boat as base of operations. But I never got around playing it. Well my love truly belongs to the Trilogy of the 90s, back then not The Dark Eye in English but, Realms of Arkania. I loved especially the first and second one, Blade of Destiny and Star Trail. Absolute games of their time. You could spend hours reroling the dice, till you got 6 decent characters for your party. And leveling up was a pain too. But so many fond memories. 😊
I used BG1, BG2, and NWN to learn the basics of DnD. It's easier to see it in action than just reading the core books, which I did at first. I imagine this would be especially true for Dark Eye for the most part.
I liked Blackguard (2014), another Dark Eye video games, that is turn-based, though often quite hard. The rules system is convoluted for sure, but I got the hang of it in Blackguard (the interface for skills is rather clear). I get the impression Darkensang, with its real-time system, must be much hard to understand in terms of rules and stats.
Now that is a blast from the past :D as a huge TDE player this was of course mandatory playing back in the day. Really sad the line ended after the sequal and so the whole CRPG renaissance pretty much passed this setting by.
SAME! I remember this being the only crpg I had on my crapy Pentium 4 for years ahah
There were actually a few more TDE games released in the years following, though they were not outstanding. Daedalic tried their hands at a more tactical RPG with Blackguards 1 & 2. Then there were the two Realms of Arkania remakes, the highly questionable Skilltree Saga and the flawed but pretty fun Demonicon.
it's always interesting to see non German players finding Drakensang and the whole Aventuria / The dark eye Setting :-)
i mean if you ask most nerds who were teenagers in the 90s i bet they played The Dark Eye 3rd Edition and will tell you stories about the Borbarad campaign that take years to finish. I started playing the TTRPG when i was 18 with 3rd edition and switched to the 4th Edition (which is used for this game) when i was 23 or so. It was kinda cool to play with the rules you knew from the tabletop in the videogame and see several NPCs you did know from the metaplot
In the Dark eye 4th and 5th Edition there ARE some minor racial bonuses but most of the BIG bonus comes from your culture so if you are a dwarf but are raised in a mostly human city your starting bonus for your attributes is different than if you are raised in a dwarven hold. So mix and match with race / culture and profession is totally possible you basically can create almost everything (no wonder that the full rulebook are 4 books each with 300 pages and more)
by the way the black "mask" you let your character wear is an inside joke for german players since that mask was included in the 1st edtiion box. It was a paper mask that the GM should wear during gameplay to look ominous.
I played this years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the first RPGs I played on PC.
It's a real shame that the studio didn't survive after the development of the second part. For the time, both parts were a real development. I think it was partly because "Das Schwarze Auge" was almost unknown outside of Germany. Which I also think is a shame because I think it's a good set of rules. "Blackguards" suffered a similar fate, but there were other reasons for this.
Apart from that, I had a lot of fun with both parts of Drakensang and I might pick up the second part again. Thank you for this trip down memory lane.
The Dark Eye was a pen & paper system in Germany inspired by D&D. There were some great ideas and concepts, but also a few issues I find in that system.
It got me hooked on FRPGs back in the days.
I fact I prefer the magic system of a mage there compared to the wizard in D&D. I consider combat in Dark Eye and D&D both not optimal from a rule point of view. Still, it is a classic although I never finished it.
@@dgmt1 I liked the Solo adventures in the form of books already. They were nice when not enough friends were around.
I so wish there were more fantasy games with a more down-to-earth plot like this. No villains who want to destroy the world, no angels, demons, gods or any of that stuff. And no heroes who can destroy entire armies with a single sneeze. After all, even in pathfinder at the end of the game it gets tiresome to destroy huge crowds of demons every 2 minutes.
Great title! I hope you also taking a look on the second game of this series, Drakensang River of time. Its just like the first one, but a little more fleshed out in many details, like you have access to fast travel points and already visited locations give you new quests or change in some details over the course of the game. I personally enjoyed both, but if someone is interested in the series, i would recommend River of time over the first title.
Fun fact, Drakensang is sort a spiritual sequel to the Realms of Arkania trilogy, which also featured the same ruleset, but a much older version, also the setting, I think it is the same. I did play a lot of Drakensang, I enjoyed, despite some oddities, such as the wound system (which without something to remove the debuff can get deadly) and only very late in the game I noticed that I needed to pick a talent or something to counter the penalty for using heavy armor.
One of my favorite games of one of my favorite tabletop Rulesets. Played a lot of the dark eye IRL when I was a teenager with my friends and really enjoyed this game when it came out. Finished it again about 2 years ago and I have to say it really held up well. Also, the follow up game "Drakensang, the river of time" is really good, it plays before the Events of this game, and you can learn some of the origin stories of characters who play a role in this game in the second game.
The newer Drakensang River of Time is, in my opinion, the superior game. Though that is subjective. It is however objectively easier to get into. It has full voice acting, and more modern conveniences like fast travel points and more character customization options. The plot is also less cliche. Highly recommend it to any RPG lovers. I've been checking every few months if new English Let's Plays are made for it, but no such luck. I've played it so many times that I don't think I'll personally play it in the future.
Yep, the River of Time is a much more fleshed out Drakensang game for sure. It's still a rather convoluted game mechanically but once you get an understanding of how skills and attributes work it's a good crpg. A shame it will be overlooked by so many because it does take a bit of tweaking to get it to work on modern windows, but once you do it is a fun game.
I remember picking this game up and finishing it way back when. Kept hitting so many game breaking bugs, but lack of funds for other games kept me dedicated to finishing it.
I started with DnD cRPGs(BG, NWN, Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil etc) before Drakensang but never managed to get into them, either didn't finish the game or had to go for breaks or restart the campaign. Drakensang really pulled me in and i completed it in one go. Started to like cRPG genre more after that.
TDE - where being a charted accountant is beneficial while rolling your character.
I love this game. It does show its age and some of the game mechanicsa are quite complex (since the game is a faithful recreation of a tabletop RPG), but the great atmosphere and the story really got me hooked.
From what I remember companions are like in BG1 : archetypes with a few special interactions and a bit of side content if you're lucky. The dwarf was the friend of the guy murdered, the amazon has some stuff when you run into some of her colleagues and the thief girl is the daughter of the big shot of the city underworld, which may give bonus options, not sure. That's all I can recall.
Small tips : any skill that inflicts wounds is super powerful since even an ogre falls down at 4-5? wounds regardless of HP & magic is pretty nerfed compared to most games but some enemies have high physical armor and then you'll be happy to have something that does damage
One of my favorite game back in the day when these kind of games were not as frequent. One of those rare games.
I would love more games with these rules.
Played this game ages ago. It had such a great vibe. Glad to see you covering it. It also had a prequel and an expansion.
Nice to see people knowing about this somewhat forgotten game. Despite the daunting dark eye rules, the game is painfully simple.
There are many archetypes, but everyone is basically a fighter, and the game is 95% about fighting. What matters is if you can cast magic or not, and the distribution of your base stats, 14+ strength/constitution being a priority to be able to reach the max of 21.
All the rest of the skills can be learned in-game, so it's less interesting to play a thief archetype as they have weaker fighting stats, but without magic to make up for it(at least not in the first game).
And outside the elven fighter (decent fight stats+ starts with good rank in the strength buff spell), there's little incentive to play a half-caster as opposed to a full one.
My favorite archetypes:
- the dwarven sapper (best fighter+ thief skills from the start)
- the healing mage (human full caster with double mana regen. Get access to skelly boi summon and fireball mid-game)
- the elven ranger (immediate access to the hawkeye spell, fun for a full archer party).
Ah, Dark Eye or DSA in Germany. My start into the FRPG genre.
One key difference of combat between this and D&D is, that in DSA you roll for attack and in case of success the opponent rolls for parry. Then the AC is just reducing the damage rolled. That makes fighting interesting, but also can make them take long if both have high attack and parry skills.
Magic again does not require to memorize spells in advance. I like that. The limit is the mana or rather "astral points" here.
The animations were not so great even back then, but if one gets used to a different kind of storytelling it can be a rewarding experience. I admit, that I never finished it though. Maybe I should check, if I have it in my lib somewhere... 😅
Oh man, I still have the physical copy of this and its sequel Rivers of Time--it had one of those awesome flip-covers with extra art and details inside of it.
I remember finishing this as a Burglar; for some reason, I was intent on building a character that focused mostly on thievery and charisma...who subsequently got carried by every other character in the party , all the way to the game's conclusion. Luckily, I was smart enough to abuse the 'wound system', which really helped make up for my main character/dead-weight.
I have the "collection" edition set somewhere, with all the releases. I recall it had some of the old invasive copy protection software of that era included. One of those which demanded you put the disk in your drive, while playing, so it would check (and regularly spin your drive up & down). Had a strong dislike of such things since one of them had previously damaged my DVD-ROM drive, in a different game, with such dodgy software. Glad there are digital editions, now, without that crap.
@@NefariousKoel starforce was the first that came to mind but i think Drakensang was Securom, pretty much same crap at the time. game was good tho, atleast rivers of time, starting to become abit unsure if i played this one but im sure i did. Remember not being impressed when i started playing and then really hooked after 5-10 hours or so.
omg my childhood crpg I never finished because I got stuck in rat dungeon
I remember this Mother Rat Boss..... was incredible difficult ;)
I started replaying this a few month ago and the stupid Boss Rat is what kicked me out of it after around 2/3 of the game 😅
Daaaamn, now i feel old, but i still remember a couple of things from the game.
Actually, the quest where you escort the senile wizard until he remember he can use teleport is stuck in my mind forever, i've reused it a lot.
The GOG version had a similar issue when I tried it a couple years ago. Had to add -windowed and -novideo in the start options. Then hit Alt+Enter twice, after in-game, to put it back to full screen. Just a little tinkering. Don't know if GOG changed anything since that first release.
A bigger issue was a constant crash on Save. It was my anti-virus getting a false positive and killing it. Adding the game EXE to the AV's exclusion list fixed it. Ran just fine afterward.
I've never heard of this one! It looks like a mix of Neverwinter Nights 2/Dragon Age: Origins. I'll have to check it out sometime.
Never manged to finish first one.
River of Time was peak tho, good thing I'm not one of those gamers who always start from the first game and then proceed to the next one by release date...
River is a prequel anyway so no problem there. The only problem is the 1st one is pretty underwhelming when you play River first, as I did.
I played this a while back and enjoyed it. It does take a while to get used to the Dark Eye rule set (it's not a variation on D&D, it's totally different) but if you find yourself looking for a good old classic cRPG you haven't played to death already put this one on your list is my recommendation.
At minute 2:30. If I remember correctly you can change the attributes slightly if you push the button on the right bottom.
But far more important is that the kind of spells and the maximum level of your spells and skills is determined by your initial character.
LOL!
The lazy camera, that's new.
Do you think they did it like that in order to have more time for rendering?
I mean, I get the idea that the players will feel like they're at fault themselves for running forwards too fast,
so it's not like they'll think to complain about poor engine implementation...
I completely missed this game (series?) myself:
happy to see my favorite RPG reviewer covering it!
Thanks for your videos!
Whoa, this brings back memories. Almost forgot its existence.
Too bad I never really got far into it. I was easily overwhelmed by the rules, a bit like Pathfinder but at least with Pathfinder, being D&D, I had the knowledge of its rules.
The Dark Eye TT is/was quite big in Germany. It has way more lore, history and detail to its world than D&D. For Example there is "newsletter" called "Der Aventurische Bote" (= the aventurian messenger) released every two month since 1985 covering the developments in Aventurien. Back then in the mid 90ties there was "the war of the magicians" which was an adventure campaign to play, but a certain outcome became history and changed the world.
Oh, how I wish for a Realms of Arkania trilogy review from you. They are full fledged cRPGs made in the early 90s that belong to the same Das Schwarze Auge franchise and Star Trail is my favorite RPG to day. Yes, I like it more than Baldur's Gate 1&2. Drakensang is an aRPG compared to RoA trilogy.
The Dark Eye TTRPG was my first/gateway TTRPG experience... It's true what they say: you never forget yoir first. 😇
Can you please ( when doing 100% review ) explain the system in depth?🙏🙏🙏
I tried playing the "Drakensang: The River of Time" 5 times ( even finished act one ), but could never fully understand the system, so I was eventually killed every time.
I think many people would appreciate it.
I remember that when I bought the game back in the day, it came with a manual, maybe it's online or something
Google Darken sang the dark eye guide. Literally the first result was an extremely helpful guide explaining all the game systems
I tried to post the link but UA-cam deleted it immediately
xD explaining the Rules for The Dark eye 4th Edition yeah that takes a while
Drankensang was an awesome game. I have 2 very memorable moments up today (No spiolers). One is from a very harsh difficulty spike from mother ratzinki (which you can encounter way to early) and the other is Zant from Drakensang river of time which had one of the best ways to deal with a custom difficulty I've ever seen. You can use Sigil stones to debuff him, however someone says to you before the fight that you'll get reward for every sigil you've left after the fight. Says something if I remember them that strong after one and a half decade. Both games had a very unique charm.
Ohhhh here we goooooo
This game started my interest in CRPGs and Pen&Paper as well.
I played it again in December-January and it's still a nice game, even though very grindy
Thank you, and have an amazing day
Love your content mate! It helps me sort the games for want/notwant/maybes :) And RPG's are a favorite since BG 1 & 2. A tip for a game i haven't seen on your channel yet is edge of war, an early acess game.
I still remember playing the tabletop maybe ten years ago... I played a cocky bard and put all points in attack and none in defense. So when I hit, it was glorious, but any small hit almost killed me. But my party loved the bard and always saved him. Great memories...
I did love this game back in the days. The graphics hade something specific that resonated with me
Really interessted on your final thoughts :)
German D&D. Noice.
Regarding skills: In the ttrpg you actually roll THREE d20's and each skill is linked to nominally "three" Attributes. Each d20 has to roll under the linked attribute value. Your "Skill-Points" in a skill are a pool that you use to reduce any failed rolls down to successes. It sounds odd yet makes skill checks very dramatic. EG if you needed to roll under a 12 a 10 and 14 and your dice came up 11, 12 16 (btw there is a suggested colour system for the attributes dice you can optionally use) you pass, fail, fail, BUT you skill of value = 4 lets you spend points to push the "fail" "fail" from about to success i.e. 2 points of skill knock the 12 down to the required 10 and and two more points knock the 16 down to 14 so you succeed with no additional quality result on the roll. That is iany remaining "Skill-Points" give additional levels of quality on the success.
Combat doesn't use this system its a straight d20 roll and is more streamlined compared to the skill-check.
Loved the game with its many classes and gimmics. What i really hated was that an overpower armor set is forcefully pushed on you and u get the pieces as main quest rewards and they don't visually fit with most armors especially if you use leather or cloth.
Happy to see I'm not the only one still enjoying this old gem from my childhood in 2024❤
This one's an absolute gem. Enjoy your playthrough!
I loved this one back in the past... so cute.
Also, regarding your point of not being able to customize your character appearance, you can actually use the character editor to do so. You're still limited in using one specific model, but you can swap between different character models, like playing a battlemage with a rogue model.
Was a wonderful RPG back in the day, was really fun complex and interesting. The quantity of subclass was really good and fun to play. Lot of quest and story to read.
Hi Mortym! Whoa, some old school crpg fun. Nice!
omg The Dark Eye! good memories
Played this when it came out and loved it, agree that the systems do take some getting used to! From you footage it looks like you might need to use Riva Tuner or something similar to limit your FPS, the character run speed looks way off.
I could not get a handle on this game and now I can’t get it to run. Truly amazing you found the time to review it.
DUDE, this the game of my childhood 10/10!
This game has been in my backlog for years.
3:07 can only imagine what mortyms crew must be thinking right there
This is so weird. This is one of those games I played all the way through, but in the last 15ish years I completely forgot about it. Somehow it was the BLOOM everywhere and the font that made me remember. Have you ever had an experience like that? Something you wouldn't think about a game somehow ends up being indicative of it.
Yeah, playing pillars 2 I knew I had seen their AI systems somewhere before and thats because it's almost identical to FF12 which came out like a decade prior.
This was a very fun CRPG when I played it back in the day. I've tried numerous times trying to go back to experience it, but every time I do and play a close to an hour I tend to remember some of the bad monster combat encounters I've had and I just quit playing. It was a blast from the past and I usually tend to move passed it on a graphical tolerance level, but there is something else here that's stopping me from replaying it and I don't know what it is.
Looks interesting and never heard of it, going to check this one out. The xp system reminds me almost of genesys ttrpg system, where its not really levels but xp is a currency that you use to "buy" skills and ranks in them, talents or increase to stats.
Amazing game. A real blast from the past. It's actually very well done RPG, it just requires a little bit of patience. I only wish River of Time wasn't region locked, hopefully they bring it to GOG ...
Thanks for the video. It's almost painful seeing the graphics and realizing how old this game is. Onward to 400k. All glory to the algorithm.
seems like an interesting game. cant wait for the review
This was one of the first RPG i played. Loved this game, still Love this game and will always Love this game. Hope one day there will be Drakensang 2.
Ive watchef your videos since about the 40k subscribers mark. I think I like your reviews more than I like the games.
This is one review I always wanted to see. I never played this game, but always wondered if it is worth trying.
Wow, never expected you to take a look at this little gem.
Back in the day i spent way too many hours in that game and enjoyed every minute of it.
It has it's flaws but is really fun and can be very challenging at times.
I'm not sure though if i could enjoy it these days
oh boy was I waiting for thisss
Finally, my fav rpg series :D
I heard of the TTRPG from a German exchange student and I was curious about it but since i was still learning French at the time and I could not find any Eng. Edition for the core rule book, I leave it be.
Maybe i will buy this on a sale, since it also reminds me of DA Origins, only a tad more rough. I hope the GOG version is not problematic to run since as of late I have little to no patience to find work-around for old software
Would you try Dark Stone?
Good game. Played it on release and had a lot of fun with. Still have the physical copy somewhere.
I remember finding it a bit too simplified in comparison to the way older Realms of Arkania trilogy but it's still far from anything you would normally call simplified 😁
The Dark Eye ist my favorite TTRPG but sadly there have not been new CRPG adaptions for it nor are they announced.
Larian have not yet said, what their new projects will be after leaving DnD, so there is a small hope... 😅
I really liked Drakensang when it came out. It’s my second favourite TDE game after Realms of Arkania: Star trail(the OG not the remake). I remember returning to character creation after trying it out for a few hours and making a new character. It also did a good job of keeping you immersed once you got going. On the negative I remember it being quite janky. Overall a good game.
those were good times :D have fun!
Played this years ago. It was a BIG deal at release: the game did all kinds of stuff, and with great graphics (for the day).
Played this back in the day. Good game. Might go back and play again 😅😅
Loved that Game so much! Greetings from germany
I'm so glad you are enjoying the game! :) The game is a bit slow to start, but I do think it actually has a pretty good development throughout. Nothing mind blowing, but still a few very solid twists and surprises
Now that's a blast from the past. Will you include the standalone as well?
I dont know if you reviewed Arx Fatalis but if not, you really need to give it a go. It is such a unique game with an intersting premise, amazing athmosphere and a lot of little details. I highly recomend it
love this game cause it was one of the first games i played as a child aside from Warcraft 3(in german, which i didnt even speak german even now i barely know it), Rising Kingdoms and mafia 1. This one was my first real introduction to RPG, but not like Loki or Warcraft elemenets. But actual roleplaying. I loved the archetypes, i loved how a guard actually looked similar to other city guard on the way to Ferdok. The first impression of Ferdok. The initial letter from a friend. His Death. The murders. And the fact that game goes up to 100 hours, especially if you were a noob child like me, combat would take long time. When i was 11/12 i remember not finishing the game because at the last map it was super hard with the dragon people, only few years later i learned i can just skip them and run to the final boss and try my luck there. 2-3 years ago i replayed this game, used a trainer too to allow myself changing appearance(i played one class while using charlatan model, which is really cool on females). I also cheated with some stats and extra points but i had a blast role-playing it either way. This and Dragon Age Origins are my favorite experiences with role-playing and great introduction story to a beautiful world. I'm very sad that both this game and DAO didn't get proper continuation. Dragon Age gets something but a whole different direction so far but Drakensang is sadly over aside from the online game that's been going on for years, but i hear the story and world there is totally detached from this beautiful game.
Do you guys know if it's worth playing Drakensang 2, the river of time or smth? I know it'sa prequel with Ardo, but it's also much shorter and idk if i like prequels without good sequels D:
given the fact that there will likely never be a sequel, if you liked the first one, the second one is more of the same(yes a bit shorter, but still enough to feel like a proper journey) in this case I can strongly recommend it
Dang, this brings me back..
Your video made me restart another play through attempt. The first time I played I played as a rogue and had to stop at the final act (I chose to specialize in throwing weapons. I know…). My second attempt I got soft locked in the dwarves area. I’m hoping my third attempt is the one I complete it.
The Dark Eye is an awesome pen and paper RPG. They made many PC games, I played nearly all of them. Some were really good. Great that you found the title! :) How did you stumble upon it?
Just as I was thinking about replaying this game after a long time, this video appeared,lol.
That brings memories
Dark Eye/Das Schwarze Auge is very nostalgic for a many Germans of a certain age. Maybe put some reference to it in the title when you post the review :)
I actually really liked this despite its clunky gameplay, the theme and overall look really reminded me how I imagined worlds in DnD games.
Have you as part of your "old school gaming" tried "Darklands" If not I highly recomend you put it on your TBP list. Its such a clasic of old rpgs.
Drakensang and the Prequel Drakensang: The River of Time are great Game :)
I loved this game as a child
I would love for you to do a recommended preset for new player. I bought this game on sale in GOG but had choice paralysis on the start.
You got me confused there for a second. I loved this game back in the day and I see first impressions video from an hour ago, so I didn't know what is going on. It's a great game, i wonder if it stands the test of time
i played DS river of time and i love it its real gem
I played both this and the sequel when they came out 2008 and 2010. They were both decent games for their time; though I enjoyed River of Time / Am Fluss der Zeit and the Phileasson addon more.
Familiarity with the setting and the rules (IIRC the game came out with a pdf copy of the official rules on the cd to help with that, if desired) is useful in the same way if you play BG3 and know the D20 mechanics and Faerun or the Sword Coast.
Ah, yeah it's different to D&D but I honestly like the system more than D&D. At least the one I started playing tabletop Rpgs 30years ago and the modernised one of drakensang. (The newest I can't bear.) I even finished Drakensang back when it released, I found it ok, but rather easy, but with lots of walking. Because they tested it with instant teleports instead of properly. I had even Drakensang: The river of Time. Which I heard was even better. And you get a boat as base of operations. But I never got around playing it.
Well my love truly belongs to the Trilogy of the 90s, back then not The Dark Eye in English but, Realms of Arkania. I loved especially the first and second one, Blade of Destiny and Star Trail.
Absolute games of their time. You could spend hours reroling the dice, till you got 6 decent characters for your party. And leveling up was a pain too. But so many fond memories. 😊
I have the translated Dark Eye core book around here somewhere, but I could never quite wrap my head around it.
I used BG1, BG2, and NWN to learn the basics of DnD. It's easier to see it in action than just reading the core books, which I did at first. I imagine this would be especially true for Dark Eye for the most part.
A thing to note is that the skills have different 'classes', which dictate how costly a skill is to upgrade.There are A,B,C,D and E.
I played this ages ago after playing Neverwinter Nights 1, felt so different yet similar, never beat it though I was pretty close to the end
FINALLY... Let`s see how it will perform for you.
So youre open to old games... Now I wait for the day I see a Dungeon Siege video in my feed O.O
I liked Blackguard (2014), another Dark Eye video games, that is turn-based, though often quite hard. The rules system is convoluted for sure, but I got the hang of it in Blackguard (the interface for skills is rather clear). I get the impression Darkensang, with its real-time system, must be much hard to understand in terms of rules and stats.
Ohhh I remember there was an online browser based Drakensang game that I used to play since my GT9500 couldn't run much😂