Drakkhen

This is one my many childhood games, who forged the gamer I had become. I waited for it until now on GOG, but I can't say I'm pleased with this version. DOS version is probably the least interesting one, it lacks in graphics (less colors and details) and worst, the soundtrack is awful, lacking every single piece from the original work of sound designer Charles Callet. All you'll get is sad UC beeps. You'll hear the SNES version is better, with a rather good OST, and it is somewhat true. But this version is totally unfaithful to the original game. The SNES is the result of a cross-breed between the original game, a european classic CRPG (french devs), and elements from JRPG, because it was repacked by a japanese editor for a japanese platform. In my opinion, this soundtrack just don't fit. The real version, the one true fitting here, is the Amiga version. Better graphics, better sound FX, better music, the Amiga being the more technically capable platform at the time (and for many years), but this is also the original system the game was developped for. Everything the dev team created was done on the Amiga. The sound designer has done a great work, blurring boundaries between throaty reptilian sounds and music, being inspired by sacred music and some more modern styles (Vangelis). The result in one of the most successful attempts in game sound design at the time, fitting just exactly the story and universe. I'm waiting for the emulated Amiga version to complete another journey on Drakkhen.

In Drakkhen, the humans must prove themselves worthy of the dragons challenge, and what a challenge it is. Everything in this game wants to kill you. But you can literally walk out with nearly an entire room full of junk in the castle levels. Make sure to stuff every shield, candlestick and millions of pounds of useless arrows and spears onto your person, just because you can. :) You are absolutely not safe at night, the freaking constellations will literally come down and try to battle you. What's more, is you'll spend most of the journey wandering around in circles if you choose not to follow the roads. When there are roads, that is! The map helps, though not much. I may as well mention that you can't swim either, and every time you go too far into water, your party does their best Monty Python impression of human beings being utterly overcome by knee-high lakes and rivers. I love how the battle system works here though, you don't do much of anything. You just hope that your party has the best armor and weapons available and watch as all four of them more or less beat a lizardman or some other sort of monster to death. Unless they get taken out, which can be almost instantly with some monsters. If it looks really powerful, run if you know what's good for you! The music is quite awesome though, at least in the Super Nintendo version which is what I owned. The mixture of adventure game elements with first-person walking was also quite unique. The Castle levels offer a completely different style of gameplay and make for an intriguing adventure. You'll just have to watch your characters fight for hours at a time, while wandering around the map like an idiot. Where did that dragon tell me to go? It doesn't matter, because my characters are already drowning to death in knee-high water. If any of this sounds like fun to you, then pick this one up.

Man, I beat the SNES version and heard the story was poorly translated, so I wanted to try the GOG version. The SNES version blows it away! This version has NO map OR compass. With no landmarks at al land a pitiful draw distance good luck trying to navigate.You can't run from battles either, unlike the SNES version. The spells are named with barely legible "runes", like Ultima. The SNES version gives them regular names, like "minor heal". I can't think of any reason to play this version unless you want to read the story in the included manual.

Drakkhen on the PC has arguably the best translation of the 3 version(Amiga, DOS, SNES), That being said, I highly recommend reading the story provided in the manual before playing the game because it provides much needed context to starting the game. Drakkhen has a lot of highly innovative ideas for it's time but being the first of it's kind makes it feel VERY rough on the edges when viewed in 2020 The game itself has you create a party of 4 characters; Fighter, Scout, Cleric, and Magician. Figher, Cleric, and Magician are similar to what you might expect out of an older RPG, but Scout is kind of a hybrid between the previously mentioned 3 with a couple spells of Cleric and Magician with almost as much combat capability as a Fighter. Once you create a party you are thrust into the game's world. When you are outside, you take a first person perspective and the world is psuedo 3D. When a random encounter occurs the game stops letting you move around and your party members walk out onto the screen from the bottom. Navigating around the world is pretty difficult. Notable land marks are far and few inbetween. There is NO map and no compass. This makes it frustrating as hell sometimes. I spent over and hour just trying to find a castle once before I broke down and made my own map(in the forums if you need it) When you enter a castle/dungeon your characters are always on screen, but they can be moved independently to explore by themselves. The same rules for creature encounters apply indoors as outdoors. The combat is mostly auto attacks with occasional spells. The player really doesn't have too much control on it. The story is actually fairly interesting with a lot of bits of lore left around for the players to find. It's not cliche at all and the world is quite immersive for it's time; 1989. If you like old school RPGs from the late 80s to early 90s, I'd recommend giving Drakkhen a try. Otherwise I'd recommend staying away!