Drakan: The Ancients' Gates

aka: Drakan 2, Drakan: TAG
Moby ID: 5724
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/23 2:27 PM )

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.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

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

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

One of the Best Adventures for the PS2

The Good
Players should immediately like this game. It looks good, sounds good, controls well, and is of a moderate difficulty. Furthermore it is interesting and a bit mysterious. The setting should be obvious to those who have the cover art available. The game is set in a swords and sorcery medieval-like age where dragons fly over rolling hills and mountains, and simple and humble villagers try to subsist by farming their modest crops. At the center of this world is castle with a queen - and she has a problem. The evil in this world has risen up and making a push for control of the world by enslaving the humans. To the rescue is Rynn and her dragon Arokh. They are charged by the queen to unlock a number of ancient portals to free the long-sleeping Dragon Mother so she can awaken her dragon brood and once again battle with the humans to save the world. The dragons are sleeping due to some catastrophe that happened centuries before.

The game boasts some impressive visuals for 2002. There is some draw-distance, but that should be expected out of just about any PS2 game. The music is a bit sparse, but there is a great theme that comes in just at the right spots, particularly at the end of the game - the music really raised the excitement level for the last few boss fights. The game controls like a third-person adventure game controls. Pushing up on the analog stick moves Rynn forward and pushing the analog stick left or right rotates her in that direction. Rynn can also mount her dragon, Arokh. He moves like Rynn does, but pressing the Y or X button will move him up and down, respectively. Controlling the dragon felt a bit like Zone of the Enders, but simplified. The dragon can attack land or air targets - this was allot of fun. Hovering above a group of enemies and torching them using the flame attack never got old. (The even scream and try to run away, hahahah!) Or if I was feeling a more noble mood I would land and take the enemies on sword to sword, or ax, or bow, or whatever they had.

What was most appealing about this adventure was the feeling that I was actually on an adventure. Moving about a huge world, travelling to different places, flying around on my dragon, all of this sounds simple, but this is what makes Drakan what it is. Simply put: fun.

The Bad
I think the primary complaint I have heard about this game is the overlong load times. There is no doubt about it, the load times are long. I estimate they are over a minute long. This may seem at first something quite terrible, however, the game does not load that often. Rynn can freely roam any area, enter just about any house or cave, and the game will only pause for a moment or two while it loads some information. I have played the game for over half-an-hour without encountering any loading.

Loading aside, there are some serious problems with this game, and all these problems go back to one source: rushed development. Firstly, the game was a bit on the short side. I was expecting a long, 40-hour experience, but I put in just a bit over 20 hours. (There is no in-game chronometer, I am just estimating). By first impressions there are a number of side-quests, and there are.... in the beginning of the game. Once you unlock the second or third portal the side quests all but stop. There is seemingly a large weapon selection. But by halfway through the game, you will have an idea of what few weapons you have left to get. And like the side-quests, the dialogue at the beginning of the game is quite good and quite frequent, but as you continue playing, it becomes less and less common. And don't expect to level-up like in an RPG. My melee skill was at level 8 and my bow skill was at level 4 when I beat the game, (I never leveled up my magic as it was not very helpful). I am not very into levelling-up my characters, but I would have liked a bit more in the way of rewards for killing the masses of enemies I was required to kill. Lastly, the combat a bit too oversimplified. You mash the square button to unleash a three hit combo, over, and over, and over, and over.... etc. By pressing the D-Pad in a direction while pressing the attack button, you can use a special attack, but Rynn can't move while doing this. You have to wait until the enemies come close enough then hit them with the attack. Very strange.

The Bottom Line
Flaws aside this game still receives a high rating. Why? Because this is a very fun game. I had tons of fun and will definitely revisit this title in the future. Perhaps it is because the game is a bit on the simple side, isn't very stressful, and doesn't require me to have a perfect memory of exactly what I did and where I was going the last time I played it, that makes it so much fun. Because there is a lack of loading screens I felt that this big huge world of Drakan was all connected. I didn't mind the load screens nearly as much as others and I think that the game benefited by taking this unorthodox path. I highly recommend this game to casual gamers and those who need a break from the overcomplicated and often times quite stressful games.

PlayStation 2 · by D P (129) · 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

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Commands & Colors: Ancients
Released 2018 on Macintosh, Windows
Ancients of Ooga
Released 2010 on Xbox 360, 2011 on Windows
Tower of the Ancients
Released 2000 on Windows
Legacy of the Ancients
Released 1987 on Commodore 64, 1987 on Apple II, 1989 on DOS
Rise of the Ancients
Released 2016 on Windows
Golem Gates
Released 2017 on Windows, 2019 on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One
Galaxy Gates
Released 1981 on Apple II
Dark Gates
Released 2015 on Windows, Linux
Breaking Gates
Released 2020 on Windows, 2021 on Android

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 5724
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

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.