March 2002
- 30 -
Back to college again
Well, tomorrow I'm heading back
to Madison, so this will be my last update for a few months. I hope
I can get level 4 of Azenera done by the time I come back again, and maybe
even get a good way through level 5. Also, I won't be able to play
Drakan 2 again until I return, but I think I'm familiar enough with the
game to help people with problems and recommend some strategies.
So far I've played through as primarily a mage and as an archer, and I
plan on specializing in melee combat later. I don't know if it would
be possible to play a pure melee character in Drakan 2 because there are
giants that can toss you and kill you instantly, like the ones from the
first game, but in the sequel there's no skull splitter jump combo you
can use to defeat them easily. I wish they had included that move.
The giants probably aren't affected by the Fear spell, so I might have
to rely on Time Slow. But, all of this is something I can think about
in May, when I get back from college.
Azenera level 4 isn't done yet,
but I've been making some changes and improvements to the series, especially
level 3. As you may have realized, I kind of released level 3 before
it was completely finished, and there were a few rough edges and missing
elements, so I've fixed some stuff and hopefully now it will be better.
So, I'm releasing version 3.50 of Azenera, available on the Drakan links
page. Don't be fooled by the fact that level 4 shows up in the game
select screen, because it's really just a temporary placeholder to connect
the end of level 2 to the beginning of level 1 so that everything can be
reset. But even though it's only a temporary level, it still holds
a secret! Don't worry, after level 4 is complete I'll replace the
current level with the real one.
I've been looking at old Drakan
screenshots, and some of them look nothing like the finished game.
For example, most of the old ones on Gamespot
still use the original texture set! For example, this
could very well be a Drakan 1 level. This
level looks like it could be an early version of Surdana, but it looks
more like a kingdom near the Wartok Canyons from the original game.
And then we have this
screenshot, which looks like a level that isn't even in Drakan 2!
It kind of resembles the desert in the Valley of the Fallen, but that place
didn't have complex layer structures like the ones in the screenshot, and
it doesn't really look like Stratos either. Could it be an area which
was taken out of the game, like the Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic 2?
Could it be an early version of the level that later became Stratos?
It's a mystery! All I know is that I would never be able to make
a big level like one of those and then scrap it and start over, so it's
unlikely you'll ever see any unused Azenera stuff.
And now we get into the most
important thing: the control. How does Drakan 2 play, and how easy
is it to play the game and move around? Well, I'd have to say that
it's really not as good as Drakan 1, even with the targeting system.
The game just seems easier to control with a mouse and keyboard.
One thing I don't like about the new control system is the slower turn
speed. In the original, you can turn around very quickly using the
mouse, so it's easy to whirl around and face an enemy who is coming at
you from behind. In Drakan 2, if an enemy attacks from behind, you
have to run away or roll out of the way while pushing the analog stick
all the way to the left or right, or else you have to risk doing a backflip
over the enemy. Another thing, and this might just be because I'm
not as used to the Playstation 2 controller, is that it seems harder to
aim with long-range attacks, especially magic. If I'm trying to hit
a target I can't lock onto, such as a faraway enemy or an exploding barrel,
and it's not at my exact height level, I have to hold the right analog
stick in one position, no matter what control setup I'm using, and press
the attack button at the same time without changing my view. Bows
are better because they can be zoomed in and aimed more precisely, but
you can't easily move while you're aiming so you often have to target lock
onto an enemy while running backwards when it's charging at you, and it's
impossible to lead when you're target locked. The same problem happens
with dragon combat too, when your shots always go directly at enemies and
they always strafe away and dodge them. I guess I should learn to
use long-range attacks without having to target lock.
The plot of Drakan 2 is much
better than I expected it to be. The first game didn't have very
good voice acting, and none of the characters really made a lasting impression,
so the plot really wasn't very good, but the sequel's storyline is a vast
improvement. There are central characters that you talk to throughout
the game, and it really seems like you're in a living world with things
going on around you all the time. The graphics are good too.
The fog distance is much further than in the original game on most levels,
and the characters are much more detailed. The textures, however,
aren't so detailed, and sometimes you can see a texture repeat to form
a uniform square tile pattern. This happens mostly with grass textures
on flat ground and is especially apparent in the Kragmor level. The
sound and music in Drakan 2 are really well done. Many of the effects
have been kept from the first game, and they still fit in well with the
action as well as providing a sense of familiarity to those who have played
Drakan 1. The music is pretty good in most places, but it doesn't
sound like the original. I kind of miss the proud, vibrant background
music of Drakan 1, especially the Islands theme, but I do like the new
event-specific music that plays during ambushes and boss battles.
The original game didn't have any such music.
In Drakan 2, you can buy items
such as weapons, armor, and potions with money you collect in the world,
and you can sell them too. You can even buy back unique weapons that
you sell. This is a good system that lets you get more choice in
what items to get, but there are some things about it you have to watch
out for. First of all, you always sell items for less than you pay
for them, and this is a common system that is used in many other games
like the Final Fantasy series. It keeps you from making dumb purchases,
and it makes sense because second-hand goods are usually cheaper in any
economic system. But in Drakan 2, you have to be especially careful
because there is literally a limited amount of money in the world.
Enemies don't regenerate, and neither do treasure chests, so you can't
go back to old areas and get more money. The same goes for experience
as well.
The inventory system from the
original Drakan is back, and a new experience system has been added.
You can only keep a certain amount of stuff in your inventory so you have
to either drop or sell the items you don't want or need right now, and
as you defeat enemies, you gain experience that you can use to increase
your skills so that you can use better melee weapons, bows, or magic spells.
The necessity of inventory management and character specialization adds
a much-welcomed element of strategy to the game, but it has the unfortunate
downside of making Rynn appear substantially weaker than she was in the
original Drakan. You see, in Drakan 1, there were no weapons or armor
in the world that you could pick up and not be able to use. You were
a master of all melee weapons and bows right from the start, and at the
end, you didn't have to decide whether you wanted to use the mithril great
sword or the energy bow, because you could equip them both. In Drakan
2, you'll never be able to use the best swords, bows, and spells in the
same game. The inventory system remains pretty much the same from
Drakan 1 to Drakan 2, but with one important difference. In the original
game, the armor and weapon you currently have equipped take up no space
in the inventory and only show up on Rynn, but in Drakan 2, they remain
in the inventory when equipped. Armor always takes up four spaces
in both games, and weapons can take up to three, so you actually get seven
more inventory spaces in Drakan 1 than you do in the sequel. Then
there is the matter of the starting weapon. In Drakan 1, you could
drop the starting weapon, Atimar's Blade, but in Drakan 2, you can't get
rid of your starting dagger until late in the game, and even then, if you
pick it up again you won't be able to drop it.
I just got Drakan: the Ancients'
Gates for the PS2 and I've been playing it, and I bet you're just waiting
to read my scathing critique of the game. Well, here it is.
It's a really good game, and I think the fact that I'm writing this entry
on the 27th instead of the 23rd, because I've been too busy with Drakan
2, speaks for itself about how good this game is. First, I'm going
to talk about the underlying game system and the gameplay. One thing
I like is that this game is much less linear than the first one.
In Drakan 1, you followed a path from the first level to the final one,
pretty much on a straight path, and you never had a reason to go back to
previously visited areas. You would find weapons and armor along
the way and use it until it wore out or you found something better.
Also, there were very few friendly characters, and most of them would end
up dying right after they met you. In Drakan 2, however, there is
a central kingdom you can go to for most of the game, and while you never
have to revisit old caves and quest areas, you do end up going back to
town often. Drakan 2 is still ultimately a linear game, though, because
there are several quests you have to complete in order to advance, and
there are some places you can't revisit after you've finished your work
there. But there are many sidequests and lots of stuff you might
miss the first time you play it, as well as the experience and money systems,
so it still has a lot of open-endedness.
Well, I have returned once again
to Minnesota. I'll be here for the next week, and I'll keep updating
this site as usual. My links section has suddenly morphed back into
the old format somehow, so I'll have to copy it back. It does that
because I'm working from two computers many miles away from each other,
and this page is still based on the old style. Don't worry, I've
changed it back. Azenera level 4 isn't done yet, but I'm almost done
forming the caverns and landscapes. I did change around level 1 a
bit and add some stuff to level 3, so I'll post an updated version of the
series with the updated levels. As for this site, I got rid of the
hit counter because a few months ago, it suddenly reset itself back to
0 so it's not really accurate anymore, and it was never really accurate
because The Sine Wave is my browser's home page and I use it to get to
most of my links, so a good percentage of the total hit count was caused
by me anyway. Since I know I'll be staring at whatever entries are
on the front page for the next two months after I go back to college, I'll
be sure not to make any of them completely dumb like some of the January
entries were.