Drakkhen (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - LemonAmiga.com
113Drakkhen is a French 2D and 3D open world fantasy adventure game, published by Infograms in 1990. On the surface this might look as groundbreaking as a medieval version of Hunter, but was this the template for Elder Scrolls? or just a technical excuse for a grind fest? Lets find out.
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1. ๐๏ธ๐๏ธ*Johnny Smoesau* ๐๏ธ๐๏ธ
2. ๐ฅ Bloxyman22 ๐ฅ
3. ๐ฅ Sepp ๐ฅ
4. ๐ฅKim Lemon ๐ฅ
5. ๐ฅ Predseda ๐ฅ
6. ๐ฅPaul Henderson (Loki) ๐ฅ
7. ๐ฅ Eric Johnson ๐ฅ
8. ๐ฅBernhard Lukas ๐ฅ
9. ๐ฅRamon Schmitt ๐ฅ
Production Notes:
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Captured: 19th Feb 2021 - 6th March 2021 (at 60fps)
Narrated: 13th April 2021
Edited: 21st February 2021 - 7th March 2021, 8-15 October 2021
All of this was recorded at exactly 60fps, including the credits, but somehow the video rendered at 60.21fps, which made the video unplayable on youtube after about 40mins. I ended up rendering this at 50fps to fix it.
Sepp on Lemon Amiga sent me some PMs asking for tips, so this lead to a search for it. The first time I ever saw this, I moved the joystick and it did nothing, and I moved the mouse and couldnt get it to do anything useful, so I quit. I looked up the controls in the manual, and tried again. But I couldnt get past the drawbridge. So after reading two different hints guides on Lemon, I began to put together a quick walkthrough. Finally, after searching the internet for ages, I found someone had made a good in-game map; and from there, the host web site really gave a lot of good info on the dungeons. Armed with all of this info, I still had not got a clue how to play the game, and you can see my early attempts are in the video. Having gotten into the castle, I didnt know how to use the spells yet, so for most of the time I have my wizard and mage set to fire healing spells at my heroes. This means they will be recharged if hit be enemies, but it also means the spell casters didnt get any battle points, and took ages to level up.
Having explored the online map, I found the teleports, so I gave up heading east to the second castle, and instead used the teleport. This is probably a good time for newbies, as just one Gold Back ork on the road to the East leads to having to constantly restart from a save. After the swamp castle, the ice castle is due north, but you cant get into it without a ring. This can be found by finding the igloo due north of the armoury/shop. You can see it from the shop doorway. After that we go to the second swamp castle, to the East, and then back to the start castle again. I thought this was a good place to finish the video. The next part is to visit both of the desert castles, and then back to castle 2 again (the one which was empty before), and now you will have most of the gems. Simply visit the dragon road with all gems to finish the game. You can see a coloured ring of the gems on your inventory screen, as you can see at 1:05:40 in the video; where I had one gem collected.
Danscore:
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I spent about three weeks with Drakkhen, and by the end I was pretty invincible to most creatures roaming around in the grasslands and the swamp. There is some allure to this game, and having discovered the spells, there is more than one way to beat any enemy. However, trying to do so with the entire band means having to constantly wait to heal everybody, and often backtrack to exit the castle, to heal and also the ability to save your progress. Exploring with only a few members of your party is easier, but you'll only get the experience points for those people doing battle. There is also a third option of sending one guy in to do all the exploring, but then they may also get trapped or killed, and then you have to afford the costly process of reviving them. The player feels weak until they reach level 5, so before then it means relying on saves to endure journeys from A to B. Which means more grinding. And because most of the enemies in a castle don't respawn, it means using the door trap trick to milk enough EXP out of the hunchbacks to survive. It gets to the point later where you end up leaving the game running by itself in the background, like you might do with The Settlers, in order to stand outside on the grass section of the landscape, and soak up any randomly attacking enemies. But then you must check back occasionally. There is great atmosphere, depth and scope with Drakkhen, and the lack of in-game music on the Amiga version (unlike every other version) doesnt spoil the sense of something pulling you in to have one more try. The 200+ outdoor monsters are often fun to deal with, and some seem intentionally funny while others can be quite scary as they jump into view. You never get the sense that your party is enough to take on everything, and bumping into cross, or falling into a lake, can mean an easy game over. Getting lost in the landscape happens quickly, and without a map or guide, you'll get stuck. So despite the charm and atmosphere I give this 7/10.
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