Drakensang: The River of Time Review
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Game pacing & Combat The River of Time's main plot is linear, but that doesn't necessarily mean the game is. Where its predecessor locked off most areas after you visited them, in The River of Time areas stay unlocked once you find them (primarily done in the main plot), and not only can you travel back to any area, you're supposed to do so regularly, as new quests unlock as you progress along the main storyline.
Like Drakensang: The Dark Eye, The River of Time is not a particularly challenging game, but this open approach means that you're free to search out challenges if you want them. The Dark Eye had one such instance the infamous rat basement but The River of Time is full of them, and does not appear to have any level scaling. This may be frustrating to gamers not used to this mode of design, but it is an absolute delight for RPG gamers who like having to plan and think to take on a monster that is way beyond their abilities. It can make the ending areas a bit of a letdown as they do not scale either, and can become very easy if you spent a lot of time on sidetracks, but this is something I personally can live with it, it feels like the game is rewarding you for your character progress rather than character progress being made meaningless by level scaling.
Similarly, where The Dark Eye would shower you with magical items and gifts like some kind of nervous dungeon master just looking to please his gamers, The River of Time's progression is slower, and better for it. Investing in the crafting skill is more worthwhile as the items you can make are often better than those available to you. It is still pretty easy to become obscenely rich, as I was hauling around over a thousand ducats by the end, enough to buy two sets of full plate. Similarly, the haul of magic items becomes quite rich by the end, and what you don't find you can buy. It's more reasonably paced than its predecessor, but still pretty loot-heavy.
The combat is real time with pause, in the classic style of turn-based mechanics running in realtime, with a pause function allowing the player to consider his/her tactics and issue commands to the party. I'd still have preferred a turn-based system for a pen and paper adaptation like this, but The River of Time keeps the (if it's not broke don't fix it) attitude its predecessor had, both having combat that is very similar to Infinity Engine's system.
This is probably the part of the game where polish and tweaking are most lacking. The party AI system has not been changed at all, still offering only two settings (aggressive or defensive), where one would really expect more options on the automatic use of skills and items. This means you generally have to minimanage your party through even the most tedious and easy of encounters, which makes combat quite a chore.
The enemy AI is still not particularly impressive, making it a bit too easy to manipulate the odds in your favor. The camera problems were briefly mentioned and are an unchanged annoyance. A steady tactical overview is not available, as the camera always pans to whoever you select, which is particularly annoying in tight spaces or if your party is spread out.
But while the mechanics are not improved, the design certainly is. Where The Dark Eye asked you to trudge through seemingly endless dungeons of trash mobs and sleep-inducing, repetitive fights, The River of Time almost completely avoids this drudgery, only offering a few instances of a dungeon of trash mobs (the Temple of Efferd being the only memorably annoying one).
Combat still serves as a filler every now and again, but generally fights are well-spaced and engaging, or even challenging. Dungeons vary the combat by throwing in a ton of puzzles and encounters. Most of these puzzles are well-designed, though some require at least a bit of knowledge in TDE-lore. This could be an annoyance to the many international players who don't know much of TDE, but Radon Labs seems to have seen this problem coming, and for most puzzles has a friendly NPC who offers to solve it for the player. This is kind of an ingame option to use a walkthrough, which is slightly insulting the player's intelligence, but when push comes to shove not really important in an age where solutions are just a google search away.
I wrote in my Drakensang: The Dark Eye review that (Drakensang would have been a much better game with less frequent and harder fights) and it bears repeating here, because that is exactly what they did and it really does make a huge difference. It doesn't make up for a flawed combat system, but this game is much improved due to the fights less frequent and harder, as well as due to the addition of unique elements and challenges to many of the fights boss battles as well as other fights.
One of my favorite scenarios in the game is the fight with the demon Zant, which comes at the end of a puzzle-filled and interesting dungeon. Before this fight, you should have gathered five seal stones, each of which can be used to weaken the demon and lock off one of his unique abilities. However, you are offered gold and items in return for any seal stone left unused by the end of the fight. This appeals directly to the player's greed always a fun move in a cRPG and the fight itself is quite tough. Basically the game is challenging you to make the fight as hard as you can stand I ended up using two stones and rewarding you directly for it. Even if the reward was a bit of a letdown.
Setting
The River of Time is set on the continent of Aventuria on the world of Ethra, a part of a 25-year old pen and paper setting, that has been constantly enriched through the addition of modules, lore and novels. The River of Time gratefully uses this lore, both in offering the player glimpses of its history and religions and in offering amusing fanservice to TDE fans, such as appearances by Archon Megalon and archmage Rakorium (both of whom were in Drakensang: The Dark Eye as well) and more subtle inside jokes, such as the fact that you have to fight a huge statue of Answin in your struggle to protect a cause he would later betray.
Aside from its depth, what I find appealing in Aventuria is that it is not standard high-fantasy fare, and doesn't present a world filled with tones of brown and red, with grimdark characters tromping through a (dark gritty fantasy). Those settings are enjoyable, but as they are trendy now it is nice to have a game that does things differently. The setting of TDE is a king of (whimsical) high fantasy, a mix of fairy tales, Tolkien lore and a more ebullient, light-hearted approach.
That's not to say that it lacks in villains, poverty, thieving, corruption and devious scheming. The plot is filled with backstabbers and plotters in every corner. It does mean the game is filled with overdrawn archetypes, including walking parodies such as Prancelot (another NPC who was also in the previous title) or the baron Dajin of Nadoret. Fighting your way into a keep to find the main hallway bedecked with paintings of dogs including a dog version of Michelangelo's the Creation of Adam is great if TDE's sense of humor clicks with you, but annoying if it doesn't. This type of setting won't appeal to everyone, but through no fault of Radon Lab, as they once again do a damn good job at getting the feel right.
Story & Companions
The story takes a completely different approach than Drakensang: The Dark Eye did. Whereas that title was your cliched "chosen one" tale, heaping praise on you for being the hero of Aventuria as you set out to save the entire planet, The River of Time's story happens on a much smaller scale.
The story is a prequel to the events of The Dark Eye, and it really is the story of Ardo's quest to recover a certain object. Ardo died at the beginning of the previous game, the protagonist being an old friend of his. It is introduced and narrated by another one of the characters from the previous game, Forgrimm (who is a companion in both games), who is relating the story to another companion from the previous game, Gladys. This serves to create an immediate connection for people who played the previous game, but even for those that didn't this form of narrative is entertaining enough.
Without wanting to give away too much, the story centers on a regional conflict, a problem that at the outset of the game seems simple enough (smoosh the pirate problem), but slowly, as you uncover more information, you discover it is part of a larger conspiracy. In addition to being a smaller scale, the main narrative actually follows Ardo and his two friends (Forgrimm and Cano), while you and one other person (Fayris or Jaakon) tag along. The main quest isn't about saving the world, but it isn't a frivolous problem either, and as far as I'm concerned the game is much better for telling a story that is more focused in scale and that uses the group dynamic much more strongly. I found the story of the previous game hard to get into and filled with needless ego-stroking, whereas this story is immediately engaging and well-paced.
The choice to scale down the number of companions really helped here. As mentioned, you only have four companions throughout the game, and less than that for significant parts of the game. Radon Labs seems to have opted for this so they could craft characters with much more personality than those in The Dark Eye. They are also much more involved in the game itself, actively making suggestions as well as speaking for themselves in dialogue, especially at the end of the game where Ardo really takes over and the protagonist is almost reduced to a companion himself.
