Review #499: Drakan - The Ancient Gate

 Can badass dragons overcome questionable game design?

The heroes.

 Drakan The Ancient Gate is the PS2 exclusive sequel to the PC exclusive Drakan game. It's an action-adventure western RPG starring Rynn and her Dragon companion Arokh, both heroes sharing a bond and if either dies the other one dies as well. Unless you play the prequel, in which case the dragon won't die if its partner dies, it's a one-way street. But I digress, why make a direct sequel on another platform is beyond me, but here we are.

 The story is pretty sparse for a western RPG, and there's a lot of potential within the world of Drakan, having Arokh be a part of this 'elder breed' of Dragons that can open... ancient gates, or this bond between rider and dragon. And the main antagonists, the Desert Lord look great, but it's never expanded too much about them. Most of the time I was doing stuff because I was told to do it, not because I was invested in the world, as much as I wanted to. This is a game you will play because the exploration is great and the gameplay is competent, not because you want to get lost in its world.

Bows don't break, they just... run out of arrows.

 Rynn is proficient with the bow, with which she can aim in first person camera, bladed and blunt weapons, with which she can attack and parry and magic. The bow works well for what it is, either lock on with R2 and shoot away or aim in first person mode. Melee combat is a bit clunky, the parry doesn't work too well as in you have to predict an attack rather than react to it. More often than not I found myself running in circles around enemies, in the direction opposite of the hand they had a weapon in, slashing over and over again until they fell. And then there's magic. You have to hold Circle and then move the analog stick in different directions to cast runes and then equip your magic spell. It was too cumbersome for my liking, so I just ignored magic altogether. As a whole, I won't lie, the combat is merely competent. It's not great, it's not bad, but it's something you'll deal with rather than enjoy. In open-ended areas you can just ride Arokh and burn enemies to death from above anyways.

 The hot-slot system is a neat idea but has a few kinks. Basically, you can slot a few items of your inventory into this 'hotslot', and then, by tapping R1, you can then switch between these weapons, potions or what have you and equip them with X. The problem arises when you accidentally press R1, for instance, and then you're stuck with the menu, so you either equip another item or unequip the one you're using. In the heat of battle this can become extremely vexing.

Despite clunky controls, flying Arokh is more fun than it deserves to be.

 Ah, yes, Arokh, you red-dragon. In open areas, meaning outside dungeons like forests or caves, you can ride Arokh. He can shoot fire, or thunder, and there're a few enemy dragons that kinda demand you ride Arokh, unless you wanna be toast. Riding around Arokh is fun, even if the controls aren't particularly smooth, and it's always fun coming across secret areas by yourself, like the evil giant rooster enemy hidden in a cave on the first overworld. The game's world isn't particularly beautiful or original, but I'd lie if I didn't say that I didn't have fun trekking through mountains, caves and the such, alternating between walking or flying on Arokh's back.

 Leveling up in the game is a bit underwhelming, since your stats don't increase at all. You do gain the ability to equip certain armors that require you having a certain level, and you do gain a skill point to spend in either Melee, Archery or Spells but... it doesn't enhance your damage, it only allows you to equip better weapons, bows or spells. It kinda saps the fun of growing stronger. Another thing you have to keep in mind is that everything but Rynn's starting dagger breaks. Everything. So don't grow fond of any piece of equipment. And while you can fix it at a blacksmith, it'll lose 10% of its maximum durability, so it's a better idea to just replace whatever's broken.

Even when you leave Arokh, he may occasionally aid you in battle.

 One of the game's worst design choices is the inventory, there simply isn't enough space. You need at least four slots for an armor, more if you also want a shield, you also need to carry potions to heal yourself and you also need to take spare weapons with you, since they will probably break throughout the course of long dungeons. The game ill often leave weapons lying around, but they are probably not as good as the ones you could've purchased on a shop. This gets kinda annoying on the latter parts on the game, when you'll also be encumbered with plot-related items that take up space in your inventory, thus locking you out of carrying more spare weapons.

 Speaking of latter parts of the game, during the snowy overworld's section you'll eventually have to travel through an Ice Golem cave and... this part is absolutely terrible. Ice golems can snipe you from far, far away, and they can whittle down your health bar in a few seconds flat. I did not enjoy that part of the game. I was forced to cheese the game by saving constantly after clearing different sections. It's the only part in the game which I fell was poorly designed.

Armor is expensive, but at least it looks cool.

 And to play the game you need 1.5 MBs on your memory card, and you need a memory card. You can't transition between areas without a memory card, since it seems like it saves some of the world's data on your file? See, my game froze when I was travelling to a different area, and when I rebooted my game... I lost all my progress. Because the game didn't finish saving the world data on the memory card. It's such a baffling design choice, and one that cost me the ending of the game. And there's no way I'm replaying over 20 hours of the same game. I gave it a chance, it screwed me over, I'm not coming back. I'm not. And I just sounded like Tommy Wiseau typing that. I'm not happy.

 Overall, I thought Drakan was a very entertaining game. It doesn't have the best gameplay out there, it has a few questionable decisions, but adventuring through the land of...erm... Drakan? was fun. I loved coming across enemy encampments and looting them, I loved coming across stuff by myself, I loved delving deeper into caves and forests and I adored riding Arokh. Drakan: The Ancient Gate is a clear case of a game that is more than the sum of its parts.
 7.5 out of 10