Drakensang Online is the online version of the Drakensang franchise, the famous Hack & Slash RPG saga which was born 2009 with Drakensang: The Dark Eye.With this multiplayer version of the game, published in 2011, Bigpoint tried to bring the old-school Diablo-style Hack & Slash RPG atmosphere to a online experience.

And today we have decided to try the game for ourselves, and discover for ourselves why its fans like it so much and if it's actually worth it, so let's find it out together.

Enter into the game is very simple, you just have to register an account on the official website of the game and click on the big "play" button, or log in with your Facebook account, which facilitates even more the process. Once inside the game you can choose between 4 different characters, each with a unique game style: the Ranger, competent in both melee and ranged combat, the Spellweaver, the typical spellcaster, the Dragon Knight, a powerful melee tank, and the Steam Technician, a mid range fighter who uses steam machines. After choosing a class you can choose the sex of your character, with the exception of the Steam Technician (they can only be a dwarf male), and customize some details of its appearance, as the hairstyle or the size of his body.

In your first steps in the game you will remember games like Diablo, Torchlight or Path of Exile, with a storyline to follow, quests, hordes and hordes of monster, random loot drop, things to break, fast-paced button mashing action combat and a lot more; and all this right in your browser.

In fact,without knowing that the game is a browser based title, we would easily believe that is a classic client based MMO as the animations are very smooth and the graphics are sleek. Of course they aren't probably on par with the most recent high-budget productions, but the game is able to stand up to many of the most popular MMOs.

Drakensang Online characters are detailed and well animated, the monster design is interesting, but the environments design is where the game truly shines; they are dense of small and beautiful details like grass and vegetation, small passages, light and shadows effects and interesting elements here and there which make each zone a pleasure to explore.

Although not innovative at all, the combat system is extremely simple and fun. To attack and interact with your environment just you have to use the left button of your mouse and your right click to use a pre-selected special ability. You can assign any skill to your mouse's buttons, and the numeric keys on your keyboard have assigned the consumables. The controls are responsive well and are quite accurate; Yet the accuracy depends on the connection you have and if you can play without lag.

We had fun playing with the ranger, kiting enemies, hitting them from afar with our skill and jumping back in the fight to finish the job. As it is typical in this genre, you will have to fight constantly big groups of monsters which can be defeated just a couple of hits, which makes the pace of the game very fast and much less tedious than in most MMORPGs, where you can spend considerable time in defeating an enemy.

On the other hand the sound of the game is average, but polished enough to help with the immersion; but unfortunately some monsters' sounds and calls are terrible.

In Drakensang Online you can choose between two types of servers: PvP and PvE. If you're new to the game we strongly recommend you to start on the PvE server, unless you look for an extreme PvP experience, as it is totally possible that you will be brutally ganked over and over even just outside the first village. At first we tried to play on the PvP server... but the constant attacks of other players precluded us yo play consistently, so we had to switch to the PvE server in order to be able to play.

The game also offers some nice features aimed to keep you interested, such as a gear upgrade system, armor dyes, a costume system which let you buy (probably only with premium currency) costumes to display over your armor, capes, mounts and pets to collect, dungeons etc. A particular nice thing is that you can get Andermant (the Premium ingame currency) by defeating enemies (although it is a very low chance) which allows that with time and patience you can get Premium items just by playing the game.

One thing that we didn't like at all is that the health potions (which are often the only thing between you and certain death) can only be purchased with Andermant or dropped by monster; however, the drop rate is quite low and the Andermant price is so high that it's very hard to keep up with your needs, so your chances are either: grind some levels until you are above the quests level and able to complete them without using too many potions, or buy Andermant with real money and use them to purchase potions.

CONCLUSION

This title is a pleasant surprise for the Hack & Slash crowd. You will find your favourite gameplay style right in your browser, ready to be played on almost any machine. The graphics are polished, the controls smooth and there are enough features to keep you interested for a while. And if you are looking for a very hardcore experience, the game offers full PvP servers as well. However, there are some strange downsides, like the need of premium currency in order to buy health potions. Anyway, if you love the classic Diablo-style gameplay, you should definitely give it a shot.

RATINGS

• Graphics: 7


• Gameplay: 7


• Sound: 6

• The good: Old school Hack&Slash atmosphere and gameplay in your browser | Beautiful environments rich of details


• The bad: Health potions can only be bought with premium currency

Overall: 7

Remember that we are celebrating a leveling contest for this game right here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 14th, 2014 at 2:03 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.