/v/ - Video Games

That game is the definition of an unrespected masterpiece.

Played this game a lot when I was a kid. Took me ages before I got through the first level, probably because my english wasn't that great at the time. I remember always hacking away at the corpses of enemies until they were just a bloody pulp.

>>14820707

I forgot to add I still have a physical copy of this for ps2, I think I'm gonna give it a spin after this thread

>>14820707

The first game has no gold or merchant system at all. No experience points or leveling up either. I doubt I would like the sequel as much because having such systems means that you are encouraged to farm for XP and gold and make decisions based on them which I dislike because it feels inorganic. They're also not satisfying rewards to take risks for because they're ubiquitous and intangible resources, but you end up farming for as much as you can anyway because "you never know when you're going to need it".

I like it better when games focus the mindset of the player to survive, minimize losses and only take risks for tangible and unique items, which the first game does well.

>>14820519

I don't know what you've been smoking but the combat in Drakan is absolute shit and the game would be completely irredeemable if not for the dragon sections. The only reason to push through all the caves and mines in the game is the promise of another dragon ride at the end of it where you can finally make those goblin/orc fuckers explode from the air, free from the janky combat, managing the degrading swords inventory and having to quicksave after each room.

The atmosphere of the game was unreal for 1999 but, much like Shenmue from the same year, it aged very poorly once the technology stopped being impressive. Not to mention Severance/Blade coming out between Drakan 1 and 2 to demonstrate how to do a proper hack'n'slash adventure in 3D.

>>14820875

Severance is a great game but its combat is overrated.

First of all, it's easily broken and trivialized. By mid-game, you're just spamming the best combo attack you have to kill enemies in one to two hits, you don't get into the groove of getting into the enemies faces and ducking and weaving through their attacks because you just poke enemies with one super attack and keep your distance until the next opening. Second, Severance's movement and camera are way clunkier than Drakan's. It's tank controls almost. The combat system is extremely limited and forbids fluid movement but its easily broken anyway because of shit weapon/moveset balance. Also, you can actually easily outrun most enemies in the game, you only don't because you need the XP. I still think it's a great game because of its level design and pacing.

Drakan's combat is not as complex, but it's less clunky and it actually makes you use everything you have at your disposal and make you pick your battles.

>>14820875

Severance is trash overrated by nostalgia-faggots though, it's combat is a turd.

>>14820519

I remember pirating that game when i was a wee little boy, but couldnt get the sound to work, is it workable in w7?

>playing as a girl

kill self

dubs

>>14824608

I'm playing it on Windows 8.1, all I needed was the official patch and the AiO unofficial patch. The lens flare effect causes framerate drops so I just disabled that and everything is running smooth. Sound effects, voices, and music are all playing fine. Running old games on Windows 8.1 is usually more problematic than on 7 so if I'm not having any problems you shouldn't either.

I remember renting the ps2 sequel of this and trying to get as far as possible in a weekend. Fond memories. Thanks for this.

>>14820519

Thanks, OP. Never heard of it before, but I'm going to give it a go. Sounds right up my alley.

How did you come across it?

I think I'll download Severance as well as I've seen it around but never tried it either.

>>14820519

Drakan's combat isn't that good. The controls are pretty clunky, and many enemy swings come out way too quick to properly dodge without just guessing they're about to attack. Wartoks, in particular, have this shield charge, which comes out immediately, and can deal 90% of your life in one or two seconds, even with good armor. Every time I fought a Wartok with a shield, I had to do a ridiculous hit&run dance, just to try and not get insta-gibbed from a sudden shield charge. Late-game enemies are an utter pain to try and fight fairly, many of them being almost impossible to even get close to, without taking damage (and I'm not talking about giants, which I understand is the point of them).

It also has plenty of other issues. Weapon durability decreases no matter what you hit, be it enemy, barrel, or wall. This is barely a problem, though, because the game throws so many weapons at you, you never really need to worry about durability. I had to drop lots of good weapons, just to make room for even better ones. Arok can be a pain to get to go where you want him, sometimes. This might have been an issue with running it on modern hardware, but there were a few points where the physics made platforming almost impossible to reliably do. And, of course, there's the lackluster final third of the game, with a damage-sponge final boss and cliffhanger ending that doesn't get resolved in the sequel.

It's a good game, but it's not as incredible as you're making it out to be.

>>14827310

How are the controls clunky? Severance is clunky because you can't even strafe normally, you have to lock on to an enemy to strafe and your character does it so ponderously. On the other hand, Drakan has the modern FPS-like movement and camera control scheme, attacks don't interrupt your movement, consumable items can be assigned with instant use hotkeys and you can cycle through your weapons without having to open your inventory.

>>14828782

I may not be remembering everything exactly; it was about a year ago when I played through it. All I remember about movement, especially during combat, is that it didn't feel very precise.

>>14827310

Even without armor, the wartok's shield charge only does about 20-30% damage on average. The damage is based on how close you are to the enemy. The lowest I've seen it do was 5%. Even when I was grinding against the enemy the highest I could make it go was 70%. Again, that's without armor. It also behaves like a counter-attack. So aside from the distance being a huge factor on how much damage it does, you can also control when it happens. Even if you cannot avoid them 100%, it's something you can definitely mitigate and minimize.

It's possible that you were playing on Hard or Too Hard difficulty and that's why you had a frustrating time with the combat which soured your experience with the game.

thats great but why i am playing it? dark souls is an outlier, every game needs compelling reasons to propel person to go forward

>>14831692

To have fun?

>>14831681

Honestly, I'm still unsure if it wasn't some bug with the game on my system, in general. Arokh's fire secondary was so OP, that it would decimate giants in a couple of seconds. At the end of the mines, when you're on the generator you have to take down, when the platforms started shaking, they'd sometimes throw me off so fast that Ryn would gib on one of the walls.