Well, the first game I never managed to get it to run, altough the box stated that my version contained all patches and bugfixes. So I don`t know how it is.
The second one, well...
In the very beginning there`s a fight I never could win. So I gave up after trying a few dozen times!

It`s sad, because I played the pen & paper version in the early 90s and it was much fun.
Oh, btw, the original german name is "Das Schwarze Auge" which translates as "The black eye". I don`t know why it`s called "The dark eye" in english.

Thanks. Yeah, they changed the name due to "black eye" meaning a bruised eye (injury) to many English speakers.

So it`s like in the sentence "to beat one black and blue", right?
Interesting, the differencies in languages.

Yes, you got it

With The Black Eye being a literal translation, is there a connotation of menace or evil in the German title Das Schwarze Auge?

Hm, according to the german Wikipedia article, the name "Das Schwarze Auge" is somehow connected to the "Palantiri" in "Lord of the Rings".

Wow, that's interesting. Never expected a link between that universe and these games! Thanks for that info.

Being a huge fan of European games in general, The Dark Eye has always fascinated me. While I have many friends and co-workers producing work regarding D&D, I've always wanted to do the same with The Dark Eye. Who knows...?

One problem I have with D&D is the magic system. It`s not easy to handle, I guess it must be a nightmare for the game master to keep track of the memorized and used spells. It also needs you to anticipate what spells are needed, or else you`re gonna get stuck or die.
In "Das Schwarze Auge" you have "Astralenergie" (similar to mana) which limits your abillity to cast spells, but allows you to use every spell you know, as long as you have enuff Astralenergie. This makes the magic system more flexible and usefull and prevents you from getting stuck, only because you didn`t know that you have to use specific spells and memorize them.

Steam have both games:

Drakensang 1 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/12640/Drakensang/
Drakensang: RIver of Time - https://store.steampowered.com/app/33770/Drakensang_The_River_of_Time/

and the expansion to River of Time, Phileasson's Secret -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/33780/Drakensang__Phileassons_Secret/

Many thanks! Yeah, I'll probably try to get them physically first and hopefully they run on my system. I'm trying to limit my Steam purchases to only games that are hard to find physically and aren't on GOG.

Was actually making a comparison to the D&D system when I reviewed D:TDA, but firstly for the importance of random chance, which is higher in D&D, with the d20 rolls and critical failures, too much roll of the dice and too little character development in the outcome. But that's definitely the other, and perhaps more obvious, thing, and it's actually what tends to set aside D&D from any... reasonable system, that spell preparation instead of mana thing.

Drakensang: The Dark Eye (Hm, guess they actually put it the other way around officially?)
Ah, yeah, those static attribute D&D rules are even worse, yes (but wouldn't call them JRPG-like, there you have no say in it but characters do develop, quite massively usually). But being able to add a point to an attribute every 4 levels doesn't change what I was talking about, the weight of random chance. And, of course, what you said, spell preparation.
Now it may make sense to say that actually casting a spell takes a long time and requires meditation or something, so you need to have it prepared to be able to cast it in the heat of combat, but in that case a) this would only apply for spells cast during combat or other moments when time is critical, while for other stuff you'd be able to take your time to cast whatever, and b) you'd need to just prepare a spell once and then cast it as many times as desired, perhaps with each spell having a certain complexity and the character having a total complexity limit, so you could mix and match at will.

So, if i might ask...

If there have been a number of The Dark Eye tabletop, pen and paper, and video games, why do you feel The Dark Eye hasn't become more internationally known?

I mean, how many non-American/-British PnP games have become pretty internationally known, while having games, books etc?

In case you can wait a little longer:

"Okay here are some more games identified:
Drakensang - https://api.gog.com/products?ids=1100566473"
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_that_are_unofficially_confirmed_for_release_in_the_future_part_2/post7452