This game often gets passed up by the D&D RPGs, but if you're a fan of those then you will probably like this too. What's great is that the game just kinda throws you into the world and makes you fend for yourself. It took me several attempts at creating a character just to be able to survive the first few encounters - so yeah, it's no for everyone. The camera controls are a little frustrating and the UI is kind of a mess, but it's still a great RPG.

Drakensang is an RPG in the vein of Baldur’s gate and Neverwinter Nights, that utilizes the German the Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) Pen and paper role-playing system, given the game a huge depth when it comes to the character creation. If you like old school RPGs this is definitely a worthy addition to your game library

Drakensang the Dark Eye is a massive old school rpg, there is very little voice acting and character sheets have multiple pages but its nice in that you have to put some serious thought into how you play. The story is really long and starts off with the murder of a friend which spirals into an epic "dragon quest" and some memorable battles.

This is the best party based RPG I've played and am greatly enjoying it. I'm from the old school of Spiderweb Software's Exile (then updated through Blades and Avernums) but liked the strategy party semi-RPG Dungeon Siege I and II. There is deep PC development and any skill can be learned and raised, within the limit of total skill points (and racial limits). The party is slowly assembled about the main character and there are a variety of quests and missions (sneaky, errands, deep dungeons) about a strong story. There are nice branches that I've read about and look forward to deciding.

The graphics are great as is the sound. I like the cut away videos that add to the story line.

I would prefer an option for party formation (vs. Attack and Defense). It seems I need to pause and move characters, but that adds a strategic element of how to attack (side or back) and also for the monster AI to use. Just a bit of a quirk.

I've seen some modding and there is a party editor (to change the saved game) and am disappointed there is not a larger modding community. Perhaps they will release a world creation editor to really extend the game (and it's engine). I'm keeping an eye on River of Time and also the Drakensang Online.

Old CRPG fans will remember the days of Baldur's Gate with fondness. Certainly, however, we haven't had anything that really called back to those days since; bioware is off making Mass Effects and online RPGs, for example, and Troika gave us one last good game before dying. Drakensang, however, is a return to that period of RPGs; you have complex character building, many characters to recruit, and lots of dialog. The River of Time, which is a prequel to this game, is even better, but they are both fantastic and worthy of your time.

Drakensang is a very good party-based RPG. It's kind of in between Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate. The combat is similar to Baldur's Gate where pausing and changing tactics and casting spells is encouraged.

The level system is both good and bad in that it's very flexible - you can pretty much make your character into anything, and with some exceptions, skills aren't limited to class. However, this (along with the Dark Eye rules which I don't think most people are familiar with) creates the problem that you probably won't know what you're doing and how to efficiently level up your characters.

So while the game starts off kind of slow and learning how the Dark Eye system works may take some time, in the end it's a pretty rewarding RPG. I definitely recommend this for fans of the genre.

The Dark Eye is exactly what you want if you are fans of old school D&D CPRG like Neverwinter Night. However, if you prefer more action oriented RPG, this one might bore you. You need patience to really find the fun of this game.

In my opinion Drakensang the Dark Eye is a good RPG that could have been great. There are certainly some great aspects to it. In particular, the skill development system is one of the best I've seen. Not only is there a large set of varied skills to develop, but not so many that I found it overwhelming, the game also takes a somewhat unique approach by letting you spend experience points to raise skills at any time and not only when reaching a new level. Instead your level limits how high you can raise skills. I thought this was a very good approach to skill development. There are also several other nice touches to the game, like for example how you early on get your own house where you can store items, easily travel anywhere on the map and you can install workbenches to use for crafting. The game has a good crafting system and there are some items that can only be obtained by crafting them. Other nice touches include the ability to use perfume to temporarily raise your charisma and some unexpected humorous moments the details of which I won't reveal.

Unfortunately there are also some negative aspects to the game that keeps it from being the great game that it could have been. In particular, there is too much dull filler combat. While there are a few interesting and challenging battles in the game it mostly keeps throwing the same enemies at you in gradually increasing amounts. A bit more variation would have been appreciated and it only rarely felt like battles had been designed to require a bit of strategical thinking. I also found it unecessary that locations where locked after finishing everything related to the main quest there making it impossible to return to them. This just made the game feel somewhat more linear without adding anything (but perhaps it was required for technical reasons?).

The combat system is similar to that in the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale series. Combat takes place in real time but with the option to pause at any time to issue new commands to your characters. There is also an autopause option that essentially makes combat turnbased. This works fairly well in general, but I found that the autopause option sometimes made combat feel slower than in most other turnbased RPGs.

The story is a rather standard unoriginal fantasy RPG story, although it does have a few fairly interesting twists along the way. The intro and ending felt totally unoriginal, though. I did not find this to be a major problem, however, since I don't play this kind of game for the story anyway.

In conclusion this could have been a great game if the combats had been more varied and better designed. As it stands, I found it to deserve a (somewhat weak) four star rating.

Quite old school. Lots of quests. Lot of them are small. Got a bit too old school for my taste. Boring fights. Good story though. Food for the real fans.

Fun cRPG with the same feel as baldur's gate series. With updated graphics and same old fun cRPG content, this is a must get for any cRPG fan. Story is not as epic tho, but it makes up for it by having a good amount of content to explore, fun character to interact with and quite a bit of character customization as well.

This game went mostly under the radar, and the RPG setting (TDE, The Dark Eye) upon which it is based isn't the most widely known outside of Germany.

Since it is a little different to what most gamers are used to it may take a few hours at first to get the hang of the stats, the skills and how to make a good character build for those who, like me, enjoy knowing how the "system" works. Fortunately there's a few wiki made by players that give in-depth explanations.

With the help of that info (or without for those who just want to play the game and have fun!)

You are in for a great game, it challenges some of the best rpgs out there. The characters are memorable, the combat and rpg mechanics are top notch and the TDE system just work out plain great in a computer game! The only downside I'd say is that the camera is a bit clunky, but I've seen far worse.

This game is a little gem.

The Drakensang game has great character development mechanics. But after killing the 100th rat, I just had to stop playing. It reminded me of Neverwinter Nights 1st level missions, where you clear rats out of someone's basement for experience. Only in this adventure, every third quest involved giant rats. Am I overstating the problem, of course, but you get the point.

I just finished the game and I must say that It was really good. I had never even heard of the game before, but when I saw it on sale a few weeks back I looked up a few reviews and figured I would give it a try. I'm really glad I did because this game is on par with games like Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights 2. It has similar gameplay to those games so if you like that style of game then Drakensang is a must have.

The graphics are well done and ,depending on your computer, you have the option to install and additional high resolution texture pack that makes the game look even better. There are nice details on everything from the characters to the environments and some nice touches like bubbles in pools on the floors of caves, leaves falling from trees or dust whipping around on dirt trails. It is well done and you can tell the developers really put some effort into making the game feel alive.

I wish there had been a little bit better tutorial because I didn't understand how to level up my skills at first. Simply go to a trainer and spend your adventure/xp points there. I guess that's what the instructions are for.... You can also craft armor, weapons, and potions in the same way.

Anyway, once I got the hang of the game it was really fun. Drakensang starts off a bit slow and you won't get mind-blowing special abilities, weapons and magics but what the game offers is a solid party based RPG experience with enough variety to keep it interesting. The game is not perfect and if I had to pick a few things wrong I would say that all the dialog should have been voice acted and I would have like to see a few more abilities and skills and maybe a few more races to play as. In addition, I would have liked for the merchants to re-supply items but that's just being picky and may have made to game too easy.

Compared to other games in the genre, Drakensang stands side by side with them and it is now one of my favorite RPG's ever and I'm really looking forward to starting the next game in the series. So in the end I give Drakensang a 9 out of 10.

I really like this game, I really do, but so far I've found it unplayable. Sooner or later, reguardless of how many times I start over the game has an error that either destroys my save file or causes a constant issue popup messege that forces me to the desktop everytime I enter a new area that has yet to be resolved without manually cracking open the game and messing around with the files. Since the game probably won't see any support patches anytime soon seeing how the company has moved on to other titles it's up to you whether you get this or not. Like I said it's a fun game and if your lucky and don't run into any bugs the gameplay is great but after six tries at this I'm probably going to have to move on even though I really don't want to. I want to play this the whole way through but so far I just can't. I've fallen in love with game but buy it at your own risk.

To me Drakensang is one of the best RPGs around. I like its in-depth stats system based on the paper and pencil game and its bright cartoonish graphics. The storyline is typical by fantasy standards - but that is not a bad thing as it is tightly paced and well-told. Unfortunately this game seems to have been overshadowed by the likes of "more mature"games like Dragon Age and Witcher, but I feel that this is just as strong an addition to the RPG genre.

I played the first part of this game in German and was really surprised by how much fun the game is to play. If you love the classic RPG games as in the old days you will also love this game. The good thing is that the game can still be played even if you are not someone who likes to be on top of all the stats that the game offers. Towards the end you might get to powerful and the fights can be a little bit too easy

This is traditional high fantasy computer role-playing game (ie. Tolkien-esque Dragons, Elves, and Dwarves, in a medieval-esque setting, with common existence of magic, and an heroic feel). If you liked Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age you will probably enjoy Drakensang.

The game mechanics (ie. in this case I mean the rules of world interaction and the framework for character development) are complex and actually based off the rules of a German tabletop roleplaying game (as is the world the game is set in) - as Baldurs Gate was based off AD&D 2nd Edition. These rules will take some getting used to and in this respect it is a definite throwback to more old world games like Baldur's Gate rather than streamlined newer games like Dragon's Age. Generally I see this as a plus, since I like more complex games.

Other than that, the game has lovely graphics (it definitely feels like you are in Europe around Germany or Austria in late spring/early summer), somewhat clunky gameplay, and very ordinary sound and music. The game's writing is solid but occasionally amusingly bad, some of this probably stems from translation issues. The plot and setting is fairly unoriginal and kind of standard for a high fantasy game (ie. get the McGuffin and kill the foozle) but it does the job.

The game suffers from FAR too much filler combat in certain parts of the later game. This definitely reduced my fun, because I really dislike filler combat/trash mobs. This is not helped by the fact that combat is a pretty slow affair, and having to chop your way through the ten thousandth minor monster that has no hope of hurting you, and exists only to slow you down can get very tedious.

That said, the game is still fun, with some entertaining quests (including a war between Hanseatic-league-esque merchant houses), amusing and interesting NPC's (Master Rakorium and his apprentices are good value, as is Forgrimm), and some gorgeous outdoor settings (eg. the area around Tallon). In contrast some of the underground areas are boringly generic and repetitive.

This is not a short game and should keep you going for 30+ hours easily.

In closing, this is a solid game, but not a great one. I'd recommend it to any CRPG fan with the caveat that if you hate filler combat, be warned.

Pro's:

Good graphics with some gorgeous outdoor environments

A solid CRPG

Lengthy in a mostly good way

Con's:

Filler combat!

No, really, the filler combat!

Boring music/sound

Unoriginal

This is a great RPG! The controls takes some time to get use to. I'm playing this on a 16:9 widescreen laptop and I couldn't find the 1366X768 option. There was a 1360X768 option, so that was OK. The graphics are great, but the RPG elements are what makes this game great.

Drakensang offers an excellent party-based RPG for those who prefer their RPGs deeper and more detailed. It is quite a traditional game, evoking memories of Baldurs Gate, but with attractive 3D graphics. It isn't too demanding on system specs, meaning that most users will have a pleasant experience.

However, be aware that Drakensang is rooted firmly in the "pen and paper" world of RPGs, which means lots of inter-related stats and behind-the-scenes number crunching. Whilst the game does a good job of shielding you from this, I found that reading the manual, and learning the mechanics of the system helped a lot in getting the best out of the game. If you're not prepared to learn the game, and system, preferring a more "Diablo" or "Dungeon Siege" approach to RPGs, then you'll probably find it all a bit fiddly.

The story is good, but ultimately dragged during the middle section, and that's why I've dropped the score. It can feel like a trudge getting to the end. However, there's plenty of game to enjoy up to that point, so even if you do ultimately lose heart, you'll have had a lot of fun hours with the game, making it excellent value.

The game offers many choices for character classes and abilities, and allows lots of customisation. Additional NPCs then join your party as you play, opening up your tactical options. It took a while for magic users to join, so one could argue that there's a bit of a bias towards having a magical main character, but that's a mild criticism. Many of the NPCs are memorable, such as the Amazon who joins early on, and the gruff dwarf in the first city.

All in all, an excellent title, but somewhat niche. There aren't too many choices in the "deep" RPG category, especially party-based, so Drakensang remains a beacon of light for those of us with a preference for a more cerebral RPG experience.

You've got to love a program that doesn't crash your PC. Drakensang runs superbly on Windows. **Note** Ensure your DirectSound (part of DX 9.0c) is up-to-date, otherwise Drakensang will not boot. The solution is to install the latest DX 9.0c updates, or the latest DX 9.0c SDK from Microsoft.

Drakensang is replete with tremendously realistic graphics. Eye-candy galore. The buildings have a look of a medieval period. The artwork for clothing is superb.

Once I became used to it, I appreciated the ease of use of the menus for Inventory, Stats, Spells, Skills, etc. A nice touch, having a second sack for Inventory. I appreciated how simple it was to transfer items around.

There are some drawbacks to the game, one of which is the cost of upgrading your character & your party members is expensive - almost prohibitively so. If you don't use your earned points right away, it's a sure thing your party will be killed. It's difficult at best to save up enough points to purchase the stat upgrades that cost 100 or more points.

The relationship between armor and magic use is taken too far. Characters lose their magic abilities completely if they wear certain types of armor. The developers should have used a spell percentage drop if a character is armored. Not only that, but something as simple as changing a hat can drop a stat (like Dodge Value). It also makes no sense to lose an Attack Point when wielding a shield, since they have Shield Attack (and the shield arm does nothing when empty anyway).

I like the quests in the game. I enjoyed them because the main portion of certain quests would at times open up several related side-quests, which significantly raised my immersion. But they should have been more generous as to the number of Points you earn for quest completions.

In my opinion, I felt they programmed some of the Boss Encounters with too high of a difficulty. The game provides you with tools to help you during these encounters: you can pause the action, then by pressing and holding the CTRL Key, you can set-up a queue of as many combat rounds as you wish for each party member. Changing your queue is just as simple: enter a new queue - the first action you enter will replace the current queue.

The game's camera is a mess, especially if you are underground. If a party member becomes stuck, you can fix that by choosing another member to lead, then "select all" to move as a group, then you should be able to free a stuck character.

The difficulty level of the Boss Encounters might cause you to shelve this game for a time, but it will be short-lived. Drakensang is very enjoyable despite the shortcomings I mentioned. Overall it is a superb RPG.

This is a decent party based western RPG that uses a popular rules system in Germany, which makes for a nice change of pace from the Dungeons and Dragons rules most western RPGs are based on. The story and setting is fairly generic fantasy, but the gameplay is solid. If you enjoyed the old Infinity Engine games like Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate and want a game with similar gameplay, Drakensang is worth buying. Just don't expect an excellent plot.

An alright game, for an alright price. Graphics were nice, but the storyline and quests could be much better. I personally play RPGs like this expecting a good storyline to keep you involved. I was dissapointed in that aspect, but if you don't mind it lacking a storyline you can really get into, it's probably perfect for you.

Drakensang is an ok rpg, especially since they are scarce lately.

The graphics are beautiful, the character customisation is profound and there are many quests to be fullfilled. Nevertheless, some aspects of the game makes it medicore for me.

For starters: the quests are very generic as is the gamingworld. Also, the dialogues lack personality and it is hard to get into the game.

Altough the quality of the graphics is nice, the colorscheme is very 'fairytale'-like and the camera makes it difficult to play sometimes.

The AI while fighting is also a bit disappointing.

Apart from that the storyline lacks originality and depth.

A last remark is the ruleset. I'm used to play D&D-style rpg's. It is nice to see somtehing new for a change. The extra information regarding the 'Schwarze Auge' is lacking, it is hard to understand and to find a good way to decently level your character. More backgroundinformation should have been included for me.

Don' get me wrong: Drakensang was an interesting game for a while, but it was hard to get into it. Nevertheless I spend over 20 hours playing this game. Conclusion: Drakensang is a mildly advisable game to play. (3,5/5)

Excellent old-school RPG experience wrapped up in a slick modern look and presentation. Well worth the time if you enjoy CRPGs like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, and fun to mess around with a game based off of The Dark Eye, Germany's version of D&D.

I loved the old Realms of Arkania serie and was thrilled to see another game based on the same rpg ruleset being released. The game is oldschool, it doesn't invent itself but it does what it does extremly well. it has an interesting story, challenging fights and a fluid game play. Sometimes the camera feels a little frutstrating when fighting indoors and you would wish you would have had a completly free camera to view over your gang of adventure.

Everythings is very well polished, from voiceover to graphics. This must be the RPG to have. Somehow i feel that Dragon Age will be the filler to make the wait for Drakensang 2 bearable.

For the price and if your a RPG fan this can't be passed!

Drakensang is a very beautiful game with a very nice medieval look, especially if you turn Hi-Res textures on. It also has an interesting story, with some archaetypical characters but interesting, nevertheless, varied locations and vintage cRPG flavour for old-school gamers. It has some flaws, but since it's one of the very few good single player RPGs out there lately, a fan will forgive them without any doubt. And the price is a bargain, although we are still waiting for a PDF manual of the game (quite necessary to understand game mechanics and how things work, as the tutorial helps you out but only in a very superficial way) and hope in Gamersgate are working on it.

Definitely, among the best cRPGs you can buy with $30.

Game is great. If you have played other true D&D games you will sort out the character build without any problem. The ingame tips help you sort out the rest. Graphics are modern but keep the old game feel. The storyline keeps you moving but you are not locked into finding x before y. And you have plenty of areas to explore on your way. As was said if you liked NWN I or II or The Witcher you will like this as well.

This is a pretty great game for those of us that enjoy hardcore PC rpgs. Did you like Neverwinter Nights 2, The Witcher or Baldurs Gate? If the answer is yes to any of those, then you should certainly pick this up without delay. Not only is the game great, it is priced to sell at $30.

This game is absolutely superb. Just make sure you get the manual pdf for it!! It's a complex D&D-styled German CRPG with controls like MMORPG and beautiful high-res graphics.

The class selection is tremendous, in fact you are later encouraged to create your own class. The battles are beautiful and the controls perfect.

Hopefully this game gains a huge US following and will be modded in the future. It's as epic as BG2 or some of the older Bioware games. For $30, it's a steal!

I played the german version of this when i was in the army now gonna try the english one,Even without speaking much german i really enjoyed this game now i can play all the quests and understand them lol.I really good old school RPG like the baldursgate icewind dale style ,lots to do you can build a proper team no one man RPGing here.

The graphics are good and great if you install the high res pack,recommended to all and any who miss the old school RPG's and have had enough of ARPG's 8.5/10