Drakan: The Ancients' Gates

aka: Drakan 2, Drakan: TAG
Moby ID: 5724
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Description official description

After the dragon rider Rynn returns to her home village, she finds it destroyed, and all its inhabitants massacred. Her dragon, Arokh, tells her that he hears a voice that calls them to the city of Surdana. There, they find out that a race of three-faced monsters, called Desert Lords, have been terrorizing the human population recently. In order to fight them, the humans need powerful allies. But the gateway to the world of dragons has been sealed, and only a dragon of the Elder Breed can open it. Rynn and Arokh must now venture to the dragon world, restore the bond between humans and dragons, and defeat the Desert Lords.

Drakan: The Ancients' Gates is an action game with RPG elements. The player will take control of both Rynn and Arokh during the course of the game. Arokh's gameplay involves flying to distant lands and dealing with some of the more powerful foes. Rynn's gameplay has more RPG elements, as she can specialize in the arts of melee fighting, archery, or magic, acquiring experience from defeated enemies.

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

224 People (170 developers, 54 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 24 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 15 ratings with 4 reviews)

Drakan: The Ancients' Gates ROCKS!

The Good
Excellent gameplay. A storyline-guided adventure; interacting with game characters gives you hints and quests to help you on the way to game completion. Opponent difficulty increases throughout the game; improved armour and weapons become available as needed. So Rynn, the main character, is a bit of a Lara Croft clone... So what? Everyone likes Lara Croft anyway. And.. There's nothing like flying on a dragon, shooting spells from your hands or weapons, or taking on a monster ten times your size.

The Bad
NOTHING!

The Bottom Line
Sexy, lively, well-paced adventure with wonderful graphics, a great landscape and a good sense of humour. It's almost as much fun to watch someone play this game as it is to play it yourself.

PlayStation 2 · by Dan Duty (2) · 2003

A Promising RPG that Feels Unfinished.

The Good
Gameplay:

While simplistic, the game play is interesting enough to warrant some interest. There are two modes.

One is with Arok, where you will explore the land to discover what opposition you will find. Many opposing dragons will appear and attack, and you must be quick and smart enough to evade their attacks, while best using your own. This can be interesting enough, but feels somewhat limited in scope, as moving around can be quite cumbersome, without quick response.

Second is when Rynn is alone, and then you are playing a third person RPG. You have three paths to follow, or spread out your points on all three paths: Magician, Archer, and Warrior. Each must use their own skill to take advantage of, as a warrior must learn to dodge and parry, a magician must learn to stay away from the enemy and use magic to protect oneself, and an archer must stay some distance away from enemies and use landscape items, such as explosive barrels to advantage.

By about mid-way, the game gets into a rhythm of talking to people to get quests, exploring the land, and defeating bosses. The NPCs start out rather interesting and you wish you could have known them more, including your own PCs. Too bad it gets derailed later in the game as the rush to finish becomes apparent.

Graphics: The landscapes are serviceable and even have some surprises. The dragon motions are fluid and impressive. The backdrops feel real enough and add to atmosphere. Interiors are properly set and add to the tense feeling, especially the dark catacombs.

Sound: Voice acting is rather good. I never once winced when I heard the villains speak their evil voice. Smaller NPCs are convincing and don't feel like poor acting done on a dime.

The Bad
Gameplay: The worst sin of this game is the feel of not being finished. When you go after the enemy desert lords, the game just doesn't have the same feel. It is just fighting a few unconnected battles with some bosses and it never once feels as if this is a great and powerful enemy ready to crush you, as if felt early in the game. And the ending is absolutely disappointing, tacked on at the last minute. You won't feel very rewarded for all the effort it takes to open all the gates.

Meanwhile, the NPCs you meet early in the game seem to have no role in the end game, no wrap up of how they are. This includes your own player characters, as you get no more information about them as you had when you started, despite some early promise of depth. This leaves all the characters feeling two-dimensional.

The areas of the game also aren't very consistent with size. Some are vast areas that have much to explore. Others are so short; you will only be there for a few moments. This can lead to some areas wanting more, while others becoming repetitive as you kill the same number of enemies.

Bosses are all about cheap tricks. Very few are outright good fights with a lot of challenge. Most disappointing are Arok's fights that are just dodging and blast battles with little strategy involved. And there were promises of many such battles early in the game, but they never materialized. Maybe all the better.

Sound: Very repetitive pieces are the mainstay of the game. They give some atmosphere to the game with sound sets that fit the background, but then they repeat them so much throughout each area, they actually become annoying. Only the main song stays with you, and that is overused as well.

Story: It’s another, find all the pieces of some great puzzle, an over used device. Plus, the story has little point, with small promises here and there or some twists, none that really happen matter. And, without character development, who really cares.

The Bottom Line
Drakan it an action role-playing game that has a lot of promise. It feels as though it is wide open, but this is shown for a trick of mapping and become more blatantly linear as you progress. It feels as if the characters are going to burst out with new realizations and interesting insights, but none ever develop. It appears as if there is some grand enemy waiting to over run the land, but they seem to forget to bring their troops and their grand scheme is a cheap trick.

If you enjoy hack and slash, you might enjoy some of the game play, but don't expect much more, as they brought the promise, but not the fulfillment.

PlayStation 2 · by Dwango (298) · 2005

Who's a good looking game then?

The Good
The Ancients Gates is such a great game. I love the fantasy element. All the dragons and mystical lands, You just don't see films like that nowadays, so games are the next best thing. This is my 5th favorite game of all time, if you play the game, you'll see why.

The Bad
What's weird about the game is every time you pass through from one area to another you have to save the game. That is pretty annoying. Also when the characters speak, the mouths on the faces only move up and down even when they are making an "Ooooo" noise.

The Bottom Line
Drakan: The Ancients gates is so much of a good game I wouldn't be surprised is they make it into a movie one day.

PlayStation 2 · by M.Allen (83) · 2006

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Bug

The release of the European version of Drakan was delayed by a few months, in order to fix a rather large bug that can be found in the US version. This bug causes Arokh to disappear, making it impossible for the player to finish the game. It can occur when certain caves are entered without Arokh.

References

Some of the enemies seen in the previous game are seen various times throughout the game in special situations. For example, the hermit in the Shadowmire has a goblin in a suspended cage, also both the Inquisitor and Khossa Vole's ghost form are identical to the Death Magi from the previous game and Mezzidrel's appearance is very similar to that of Navaros' final form.

Information also contributed by M.Allen

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by NeoMoose.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Mobygamesisreanimated, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 29, 2002. Last modified February 14, 2024.