Drakensang: Phileasson's Secret Review
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That said, Phileasson's Secret is fully voice acted, with a pretty good translation for the game's dialog, no Engrish in sight. Forgrimm returns as the narrator, and several new cast members have plenty to talk about. Like the River of Time, the voice acting is a bit uneven, with some performances being pretty good, like Phileasson, and others being a bit flat, like Amariel. There's not nearly as much dialog as the River of Time, but still they invested in better localization than I've seen for more well-promoted titles. Where this add-on falls apart is in its overall quest structure. It is essentially one long, linear combat romp with highly repetitive sequences against a low variety of enemies. It recycles a few enemies from the main game, such as rock goblins and golems, and offers a few that are essentially reskins of orcs and ogres, but it does add new enemies in adding horde mutants (using the werewolf skeleton) and horde leaders, as well as the scarab enemy type. The problem is not so much variety as the fact that the game throws a handful of warriors and archers at you over and over again, or offers a cave with basically the same elemental fight over and over.
The developers do add some variety, adding allies to join the party, different combat setups, special support structures with party-boosting and opponent-weakening effects. While the design of the fights and the variety of opponents of opponents are rather weak, the biggest problem lies in the fact that the add-on doesn't offer enough outside of these combat encounters. It's about ten hours long, and the majority of that time is spent in combat. There are hardly any quests not involving combat. The town if Tie'Shianna is barely fleshed out even in the more peaceful moments.
In pretty much every way, it feels like the design regressed to the first Drakensang title, which similarly leaned on filler combat over other kinds of content to fill your gameplay hours. Where the River of Time improved on that, Phileasson's Secret goes right back to this style of design. Similarly, the plot isn't as interesting, primarily due to the way it is structured and delivered here, and the lack of fleshing out the main characters' motivations and backgrounds.
That's why I have a harder time recommending this as post-game content than as during-game content. It's not great either way, but if you play it separately its flaws stand out, while if you play it as part of the main campaign as a first-time or repeat player it balances out better, as it offers an unexciting but very different experience from the core game, and that kind of variety helps.
If you're looking for an item- and adventure point-fest, it gives a fair amount of both, but not exactly top-level ones. One thing it does well is adding a uniqueness to the magical items, which I've always felt was a strength of the Das Schwarze Auge system. As an example, a "ring of water" will protect you from fire effects by putting a permanent raincloud above your head, and that hits exactly the right unique and quirky note fans might expect. The add-on also adds a temporary companion, but sadly they did not leap on the opportunity to add a permanent companion to the party. Obviously, Phileasson isn't going to end up traveling with you, but with a little rewriting and crafting of an interesting high elf guard or Thorwalian NPC, the developers could have expanded the options for the player party. One that would have been a big improvement, too, since the limited party options are one of the core game's biggest flaws, offering only four options for three follower slots.
Ultimatelly, missed opportunities is kind of the theme of this add-on. They picked a great, unique setting to work in, did a good job on the visuals and crafted a solid story, but effectively ruin it by offering it in the form of a tedious combat romp. This add-on is currently 10 bucks on Steam, and the core game is 20 bucks, and that totals up to a great value for one of the better RPGs released this year. But if you've already finished the main game, I wouldn't jump on this post-game content unless you're desperately itching for more.
