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Drakensang Online is a 3D browser mmorpg based on The Dark Eye PC game series and its dark fantasy universe. In this hack’n’slash gaming production, players with quest of purging evil, enter into the dangerous and dark world. They will travel through dungeons, mystical forests and many different dangerous places. In the same time they have to develop their character and raise it on next experience levels.
World of Drakensang brings memories of classic medieval fantasy worlds. Version created by BigPoint is talks about events, which happened in the last Drakensang. Storyline takes place in land of Duria. In order to understand plot, player doesn’t need any background stories. Game mechanics take mostly from classic PC titles like Diablo 2 or Torchlight. In-game main objective includes exploring various dungeons, killing X monsters, and gathering X items. During adventure, player will use various powerful spells, abilities and weapons. Unfortunately, producers into the game included just two classes. These are classic and known for rpg players mage and warrior. They have just different names than their rpg brothers – Dragonknight is a warrior, and Spellweaver is a mage.
Diablo under different name?
Older gamers who will start playing in Drakensang Online, will recall some games which became classics in history of PC gaming. Examples include Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights. By a reason of gameplay focuses on mouse-click spam, and has locked isometric camera angle, it’s resembling mostly Diablo. Account and character creation doesn’t bring anything new – Drakansang has only two classes and personalization is very limited. Players can enter into the game after just few minutes. It’s not a huge drawback – taking over consideration game’s slim architecture, it’s quite acceptable.
Storyline is simple and is “getting rid of ancient evil which is imposing threat to the world”. Discovering the wilderness is the only saving grace from story-deprivation. And is very linear – most of time player won’t need to wander around the map aimlessly without knowing what he should do next. On the other hand game has tendency to make him completely lost from time to time. Like in other mmo games, player usually finds new places to pillage while being in the middle of completing quest. Basically, he walks around the area, completes every available mission, and then explores until discovering next dungeon or town.
Is there a point playing?
Character progression could be better designed by producers, because currently player is not able to customize it’s avatar to fit him more into his personal gamestyle. There are only a few dozen abilities to master and most skills are just upgraded forms of the previous ones. Moreover, level requirements for mastering available abilities are spaced out making the whole process feel slow. At least for a F2P browser game, spells animations look really impressive. On the other hand, players don’t get access to various skill combinations, until their character has gained advancement level 18 or higher. In order to make a proper use of various abilities, Spellweavers rely on mana and Dragonknights use on rage – exactly like in World of Warcraft or upcoming Diablo 3. In this case, Blizzard has many times proved that they are taking a lead when it comes to innovations and smart solutions. This time is no different. Both rage and mana can be gathered while being on monster hunt or be bought in NPC stores.
Pros:
+Quick paced hack’n’slash fighting system
+Possibility of fighting in Arenas
+No need to download anything
+High quality graphics
Cons:
-Very limited class selection (two)
-Repetitive and gets boring quickly
-Lack of variety in customization options
Summary
No matter how many times players will be forced to save fantasy world from evil, it will never become boring. This standalone production is still a load of fun, despite of that there is particularly nothing new and everything has been already seen. Fighting with bands of savaging monsters, raiding dungeons with friends, and fighting with others in the PvP arena to become a legend – it’s Drakensang Online. And everything in isometric, familiar Diablo-like camera view.
Other information
Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Vista or Windows 7
CPU: Pentium 4 2.8 GHz or comparable CPU
RAM: 1 GB for Windows XP; 2 GB for Vista/Windows 7
HDD: 2 GB Free
Graphics Card: nVidia 6800GT with 256 MB RAM or comparable graphics card
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