Product Description

In the ancient, decaying world of Drakan, the immortal Spirit Dragons are being held captive. Rynn, a brave female warrior, and Arohk, a fearless dragon, are called upon to save these spiritual leaders, as well as the last remnants of mankind. Embarking on an enchanted journey through eight vast, foreign environments, Rynn and Arohk use magical spells, resourcefulness, and more than 50 powerful weapons in their quest to save civilization. With an immersive story line, stunning graphics, and intense battles, Drakan: The Ancients' Gates places you within a world of magical creatures, mysterious lands, and courageous conquests.

You will journey across five vast worlds, each a free-roaming, 3-D environment, including an arctic tundra, swamplands, and a forgotten, decaying city. You will use more than 50 hand-to-hand weapons and five dragon weapons and cast 12 devastating spells as you battle your way to save humanity. Overcome obstacles and adversaries to gain skills as a fighter, archer, or mage. Tasks you will face range from logic puzzles to air-to-ground combat, all providing enormous depth of gameplay.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10349 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sony Computer Entertainment UK
• Released on: 2002-07-05
• Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.co.uk Review
The premise of Drakan will be nothing new to gamers: it follows the clichéd fantasy exploits of a girl and her dragon sent on a deadly quest. Sound familiar? Thankfully the success of such games doesn't always depend purely on the storyline; the actual execution and gameplay can make even the most jaded gamer overlook the poor scripting and clichés.

Drakan first appeared on the PC a few years ago and boasted fantastic graphics, huge atmospheric worlds to explore, and a dynamic in the gameplay that removed basic linear progression by allowing you to go anywhere by flying there on your companion, a dragon--those mountains in the distance were not beyond the gaming area, you could actually fly to them and explore them individually. Sadly the game was underappreciated and became lost in the myriad of third-person adventures that flooded the market at the time due to the continuing success of the Tomb Raider franchise.

This PS2 version is not a remake, nor is it a straight sequel. The Ancients' Gates offers up a brand new quest, and Drakan newcomers are eased into the action as the finer points of combat and dragon riding are taught to the player in the initial training level. It soon becomes apparent that the game lacks some of the creativity and the strategy of the PC original, having turned it into a much more linear hack-'n'-slash romp. Enemies charge head first at you with rather simplistic AI, and as you progress you collect a number of skill points that you can assign to perfecting various new skills.

Despite its more linear nature, though, the levels are vast and it's easy to get sidetracked on your missions. Graphically the landscapes are very atmospheric and range from the usual fare of caves and towns to swamps and icy tundras. A nice feature of the PS2 version allows players to cast spells by tracing out specific shapes with the analogue stick. Particle and lighting effects look fantastic during spell-casting and add a different slant to the combat when you get tired of swinging increasingly bigger swords.

Drakan is an enjoyable if not groundbreaking adventure and seems to lend itself fairly well to the console market, despite the long load times. Fans of the original game will find this a much more shallow experience, but newcomers will find much to keep them occupied with more than enough lands to explore in the colossal levels.--Chris Ryan

Manufacturer's Description
An unlikely pairing of heroes--one human, one dragon--is all that stands between the Desert Lords and total chaos. Meet Rynn, our brave heroine, and Arokh, a noble dragon. Together they have a strange sort of kinship that the world will need on their epic quest to defeat Caliph, the Emperor of the Desert Lords. Combining action and adventure as never before, Drakan is the only game to let you fly a dragon, clash swords with enemies, and cast astounding spells. A dramatic, complex storyline gradually unfolds through the game, as you uncover secrets on the journey towards a cataclysmic finale.

Customer Reviews

Possibly the best game of it's kind on PS2
Drakan is one of my favourite PS2 games, but it was a commercial flop on its release a few years back. It concerns a woman named Rynn and her friend and soul-bonded dragon, Arokh. A race of powerful, other-worldly sorcerers called the Desert Lords are trying to take over the land, and it’s down to Rynn and Arokh to stop them. It is an action-adventure not unlike Zelda, with a few role play elements thrown in for good measure.

The fighting is well implemented and comfortable. You can lock onto an enemy with the R2 button, and while doing so you can strafe, roll and move around the opponent. This also roughly tells you the enemy’s health from the colour of the lock-on cursor. Rynn can perform a decent range of attacks, which include combos done with the D-Pad and a range of magical spells - both aggressive and defensive. This includes the standard fireball or electrical attacks, aswell as some very useful spells like temporary invisibility or slowing down time. Rynn can also parry certain enemies' attacks, and she can strafe and roll around foes when locked on. Arokh has the standard fire attacks you would expect a dragon to; but you can also advance his abilities to gain attacks such as an electrical blast and an attack which drains your enemies’ life and gives it to you. He attacks enemies in the same manner as Rynn, but obviously utilising vertical movement as well as horizontal. The 'feel' of both characters is spot on, and the controls are excellent on both fronts. The range of weapons Rynn can wield is extensive. There are literally dozens of melee weapons which include axes, short swords, long swords, great axes and maces. You can also get a selection of bows, which can come in very useful for wearing enemies down from a distance. But it makes sure you are never too well-equipped, as you can only carry a limited number of items in your inventory. In a system much like Resident Evil you have a certain number of slots and you must manage your weapons, armour and items carefully. This is coupled with the fact that over time weapons begin to weaken and eventually break. You can go to the blacksmith to get them fixed, but they can never retain their original strength. Also, certain weapons can only be found once in the game (and a lot of them have unique magical properties), so you’re required to really think about the best equipment for a certain situation or task. You gain experience from every enemy you kill. After a while you will level up, and you can select which field you would like to progress in – archery, sorcery or melee weaponry. Until you level up sufficiently in a certain field you can’t get access to the better goods, e.g. a better bow, better spells or a bigger sword. But the twist here is that you cannot fully level up in every area, as there is a limit on the experience points you can receive. This means that you will have to prioritise which areas you excel in, perhaps leaving one out, or alternatively you could opt to be average across the board. Features like this help give the game a surprising amount of depth, and the way you approach the game on alternate plays through can differ somewhat.

The world you explore is both vast and diverse. The landscape ranges from an arid desert-like wasteland, through green valleys and hilltops, to a snowy mountain range and to a group of floating islands in the sky. There’s a lot to the environments and a lot to explore, so they almost always feel challenging and interesting, as oppose to overly-large and empty. You will, on your travels, meet many NPCs. They all have something to say and many of them will ask you to undertake quests or favours for them; such as the mad scientist who asks you to collect dragon eggs, or the townsfolk who ask you to rid their town of an evil sorcerer called ‘The Inquisitor’. Also, if you explore each area thoroughly you will encounter hidden goodies, such as a giant chicken who has a large horde of gold, or a remote monastery that have a few problems in the crypt. The land in Drakan is expansive, and if you explore a little you will find there is plenty to keep yourself occupied outside of the main quest.

Graphically, this game is quite average (particularly by today’s standards). It is probably about on par with the GTA games, but it’s fairly impressive in scale and some of the views are very attractive. I can’t say I noticed any slowdown or any other technical issues which mar the game. The voices are pretty well done; Rynn is quite chatty and comments on lots of stuff, often dropping in a quirky, sometimes amusing line. The script is good overall, although it sometimes takes itself a mite too seriously, and can look a bit beardy for it. The soundtrack is good in my opinion; the main theme is pretty memorable, and a lot of music during the game is fairly subliminal background music – its purpose is to subtly set the scene and provide atmosphere, more than anything. The sound effects are decent enough, with appropriate clangs and thuds where necessary. Overall, I have no complaints to level at the soundtrack.

The enemies you face in the game are fairly diverse; there are massive spiders, lizard-men, huge & fearsome troll-like monsters, enemy dragons, skeletal warriors and the Desert Lords, amongst others. The design and range of them is broad, and in a few instances the game demonstrates it can fit a fair few characters on screen at once. There are also a plentiful number of bosses throughout the game, from powerful demi-humans you battle as Rynn, to ancient and impressive beasts you face as Arokh. The AI on the characters, both friend and foe, is very basic. Usually if an enemy has a ranged weapon, it will simply stay back and fire at you, and if it has a melee weapon it will approach you as fast as possible to try to bludgeon or chop you. There’s not a lot more to it than that, but I can’t say I mind; it’s hardly the sort of game where you need good AI, and doesn’t really affect the experience anyway.

One minor annoyance I had with the game was the fact that when you go into your inventory screen the game does not pause, but instead carries on in real-time. They have got around this by adding a quick-select menu assigned to holding down the R1 button; here you can store items you want quick access to such as a choice of sword or bow, or healing/magic items. It works well enough and I suppose in a way adds another drop to the planning you need to undertake. It just means that you can’t really dither when you’re in the menu screen, unless you’re in a safe location. Another gripe is that it takes so much or the memory card to save – about 1.5mb!! Don’t know why it takes so much, but it can be obstructive if you have to re-shuffle your saves. Lastly, it needs to be said that the loading takes far too long. Admittedly, you only have to wait when you go between one of the vast landmasses, but you do have to wait about a minute to get going again. This does spoil the effect somewhat.

Overall I can thoroughly recommend Drakan: The Ancient’s Gates to anyone who’s a fan of a good fantasy adventure, with action, exploration and role-playing elements all thrown into the mix. You can pick it up quite cheap these days and it’s probably over 20 hours on first play through, so for £10 or £15 it’s an absolute bargain. Highly recommended.

Drakan - What a Game!
I was a little wary of buying this game, I must admit - flying on a dragon sounds, well, a little twee, BUT how wrong I was! The first thing that struck me about this game was the attention to detail in the scenery - it's really beautiful, and diverse enough in the different worlds to capture attention for quite a while,(the only gripe I possibly have about this is that perhaps there could have been a little more detail UNDER the water, but there again it was not crucial to the story!) The heroine, Rynn, is great - not too butch and not saccharine sweet! Some fave points about this were:

Choosing from a wide range of awe-inspiring weapons
Casting handy spells
Fighting the terryfying and hideous "Flesh Mage
Flying on a dragon (of course)

All in all, a hugely entertaining and enjoyable game!

An Excellent game
Drakan: The Ancient Gates is the continuing story of Rynn, the young rider of Araohk, as she searches for her kidnapped brother. The story sounds slack, but it works really well and I don't want to give to much away as it has a few good twists. The game itself is stunning in some places, its Visuals vastly overshadowing its predessesor and its control system given a wonderful simplicty. The original game on the PC had several control glitches which made it hard to manouver sometimes. Gone are these probelems as the speedy PS2 handles the game perfectly.
Essentially, the game is a 3D platformer, but with rather than tackle the levels in a linear ground based form you can alternate to riding Araohk, Rynn's mighty ally, a powerful Dragon from an ancient (and long destroyed) order of Dragons.
Mostly, its a sword-fighting game against well realised bad guys and mosters with bows and axes thrown in for good measure. When flying, the combat system takes on a much faster ariel role. With the ability to bombard the happless foes with fireballs and lava from above while dueling with other flying beasts and massive catapualts. The flying system is quite like Zone of the Enders (another great if a little short game) with the options for targeting and chasing. This also comes into affect on the ground when Rynn, who when getting into trouble for the beasts below can call up an Air-strike. All in all, its not short, its medium length and is over all too soon.