Drakkhen

"In the words of John Lennon, "It's not too bad""

Put most simply, Drakkhen is a strange game. The battle system is weird. The story is confusing and hard to follow. The enemies have peculiar graphics and sound effects. And yet, on some levels, the game still manages to work. It is, of course, by no stretch of the imagination a great RPG. In fact, by most standards (and this is including mine) Drakkhen isn't even a good RPG. In the end, however, Drakkhen is a game that those who are big fans of the genre might at least appreciate.

Two aspects of Drakkhen in particular will draw the player's attention very quickly. The first of these is that the game has very little in the way of a story. The quest opens first with character creation, where you create a party of four characters - one of each of the four classes in the game: fighter, scout, priest, and magician. The computer randomly "rolls" several values, and you can simply assign them to particular stats. You can also assign a name to each of the characters, and this is essentially all there is in the way of character development throughout the entire game.

The game's basic path sets the four heroes on a quest to find 9 tears in the land of the Drakkhen, which are a mix between man and dragon. The game opens by speaking a little of the backdrop, and then setting you forth on the mission to find these gems. There are a few shakeups in the quest as the game progresses, but the designers put so little emphasis on them that you will hardly notice. In fact, the story moves along so poorly that you will very rarely be able to figure out where you are supposed to be heading. This is made worse by the fact that all of the names of the Drakkhen princes and princesses are nightmares of pronunciation that are all very similar. It can be very difficult and time consuming to play this game without a guide.

The second big difference between Drakkhen and other RPGs is its odd combat system. Basically, in battle you have limited control over a single member of your party at a time; the other 3 will be very highly automated. The only control you have over these other members is that you can tell them which attacks you want them to use. Many battles you can win just by doing nothing at all, letting the computer take care of the enemies.

In all honesty, at first I loathed this battle system. Early in the game, there is very little you can do to make your other characters effective at all, since battles are carried out in real time and you can only control one character at a time. Once your magic users become more powerful, however, you can just automate them on their spell (I say spell, singular, because there really is only one (maybe two) attack spells in the game) and they will avoid direct attacks and focus on shooting the enemy from afar with magic. This way, you can handle your melee range fighters reasonably well and still have solid control on the battle overall. If you are having a hard time visualizing the battle system, think of Secret of Mana, without the ability to manually strike with your weapon (this is always automated). I still probably prefer turn based (ala final fantasy) type battles to those in Drakkhen, but it is at least an interesting innovation.

Other than that, Drakkhen is pretty similar to any other RPG from the early 1990s with a few minor differences. There are random battles in the overworld map, which is unique because you travel through it entirely in a first person, mode 7 point of view. For the time, this was quite a graphical feat, but nowadays, of course, it looks pretty silly and dated (as does pretty much all mode 7, in my opinion). Time outside flows in somewhat real time, with a day and a night. This adds a little strategy to the game, because you run into stronger monsters more frequently at night. Unfortunately, this can also be bad, because the random encounters at night can also kill and/or break the equipment of your party surprisingly often, which can be quite annoying. It is important to save frequently and to run from especially powerful enemies.

Inside castles, the view switches to more of a Secret of Mana type display, with all four of your characters on the screen at once. You use the one character you currently control to navigate through the dungeon, opening doors, hitting switches, or engaging the party in battles. The dungeons are fairly linear, but still somewhat enjoyable to play through, with some "hidden" tidbits of information or items scattered throughout.

A major problem with Drakkhen is that the game is quite short if you know where exactly you are supposed to be going. If you are playing with a guide (I would recommend that you do, since it can be frustrating not knowing where to go all the time), you can probably finish Drakkhen in 5-10 hours. Also, once you get the hang of the battle system, you will more or less be able to kill most monsters fairly easily, with the exception of those that quickly fly around the battle screen. You probably won't find yourself playing Drakkhen many times after you finish it once.

As far as sound is concerned, Drakkhen certainly has its ups and downs. For the most part, the music is pretty solid. The overworld tracks change whenever you move from region to region or from day to night. All of these tunes are pretty mellow and unobtrusive, so you probably won't pay them much notice; but, in the long run, they make for some nice overworld music. The music in dungeons is also pretty decent. What really hurts the game is that the sound effects are absolute garbage. Almost every monster in the game has the same horrible groaning sound effect that plays throughout the battle. It will probably drive you crazy by the end of the game. The other effects are hardly worth mentioning, but also average at best.

Finally, as I mentioned before, Drakkhen relies pretty heavily on the novelty of mode 7 to make its graphics look impressive. At the time, of course, this probably worked, but nowadays it hasn't held up too well. I would probably have rather had this game rely more on well made sprites and a static overworld than the first person viewpoint the designers chose. Nevertheless, the graphics for the time were at least impressive, if not very pretty. The sprites for monsters and your party also aren't bad at all for 1991. In short, for an older game, the graphics aren't that bad.

Let's face it, you probably didn't read this review unless you are already a fairly large RPG fan, and it is this type of gamer (and only this type of gamer) to which I would recommend Drakkhen. There are plenty of other good RPGs out for the SNES, so even if you are a big fan of the genre, I would only recommend playing Drakkhen if you've already played most of the important ones and are looking for a new game that is somewhat interesting and enjoyable for a quick fix. Be aware though, it probably won't last too long.

6/10 - Mediocre

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/13/04