Super FamiComplete #18: Drakkhen (Redux)

Title: Drakkhen

Release Date: 5/24/91

Developer: Kemco

Publisher: Kemco

So this game is the first, when revisiting this blog, that I am not replaying at all. I have had plenty of experience with this game as a kiddo, and revisiting it is a pleasure that I would rather forego.

This game is something, that's for sure. This is the second pure RPG on this blog, and it is well known for its inscrutability. It is so inscrutable that it is almost hard to describe the game itself. When I was a kid, my buddy had this game and loved it, even though I don't think he really understood it either, but he liked the D&D aesthetic and the mini-light shows that would erupt when you challenged monsters. I would watch him throw his head against the wall for hours until he ran out of stamina. Now personally, I can't get beyond nine minutes into the game before some monster, an invisible wall, or a lake (yes bodies of water are quite deadly if you just waltz into them), wipes out my party. Death comes quickly and frequently in this game, and often it feels very unpreventable.

Background
Apparently this title is originally a port from an AMIGA/ Atari ST game of the same name. It was made more popular, though, in a DOS release that was developed shortly after. I believe if I was playing this on a computer rather than a console, I might actually like it. It makes more sense to control this game with a keyboard and a mouse rather than a controller. It is like Populous all over again trying to control four party members at once, and navigate complex menus with just a controller. It is like trying to jam a circle PC game into a square console hole; sometimes it just doesn't work.

Now the game was originally developed by Infogrames, the French publisher who also made the original Alone in the Dark, but for the console it was developed and ported by Kemco. Kemco is known, mostly, for their Top Gear series (a series we are actually hitting soon on the blog when it moves forward again), and being one of those studios that was mainly used for ports. A lot of their ports, it seems, were esoteric RPGs like this one, as they also handled most of the Shadowgate games.

Now, I will give this game credit, it does have a lot of innovations to it that were relatively rare and/or novel for the time period. For one, the game has a day/night cycle. It also is the first RPG to use a faux-3D effect, and though it is not true 3D, they are able to play with the size of the sprites to give you that impression that they are moving from foreground to background most convincingly. Finally, this game is like a really shitty Breath of the Wild in that it plops you into the game world and you can travel most anywhere. Like that game, though, you will die often and frequently, but unlike that game, you will find the system so counter-intuitive that you will, more often than not, just give up shortly after playing.

Gameplay
Generally, the screen for the game looks like this...

The game uses some linear perspective, tricky vectors, and some character scaling to make the game appear as if it takes place on a 3D map. For a game of this era, this is kind of cool. Generally, unless you call your party members to battle or to explore the screen, the game takes place from a quasi-first person perspective. You wander the map, bumping into things, able to explore all around the game's world. The only time your party takes to the screen is when you interact with the world in some way: they encounter a monster, they find a place they can enter, you call them to the screen, and, my personal favorite, they wander into water where they all simply drown and die.


Being an RPG, you will randomly encounter monsters. When encountered, the music will stop, your players will take the screen, and the bad guy will literally glide in from one of the sides. Some of these monsters range from the very simple such as packs of rats, crocodiles, and snakes, to the, in some cases, really strange such as the Shadow Man, Star Dragons, giant super-boss Dragons, and Demon Dog Heads.

Now my least favorite enemies, and I remember them from when I was a kid, were ones that still kind of creep me out. The game features a day and night cycle, and the type of enemies you encounter change depending on when you are traveling. Definitely kind of neat. Well if it is a starry night, look out, because this might happen to you in the game...

The constellations suddenly come alive and a creepy space monster comes and ruins your game. The music changes, and it is really just a creepy experience. These monsters, from what I have seen, are almost impossible to kill, and they are rather terrifying. My buddy, when I was a kid, would rush to the console and reset the game whenever they appeared, because he was so terrified. 

You may also have seen the picture before of the "Shadowman." He, in some cases, is kind of viewed as the "Superboss" of the game. He also appears at random and is near impossible to kill. The song of his arrival, as well, is super creepy. Plus he kind of crawls out of the ground.

Of course, what would be a game called Drakkhen without the titular dragons that appear in the game. Each area has a dragon assigned to it. While these dragons are key for the storyline, sometimes they can attack you. They are, you guessed it, impossible to kill and will slaughter your party.

This is one of my big bone of contentions in the game, because most of these enemies appear at random, which puts a successful run of Drakkhen as mainly RNG based. Any of these enemies can appear at random (more often the more dangerous ones appear at night, but the Drakkhen can appear whenever), and it isn't like you can just run from battle. Instead, your characters will automatically battle, will get picked off one by one, and that is it. You can't directly control your characters in battle, but instead it is determined by their stats and active rolls as the battle continues. So you can be having a really good run, moving from one dungeon to the next, and suddenly encounter Mr. Shadow Man who just wrecks your shit and kills your party. It isn't like you can just not travel at night or wait it out; you have to keep the game moving.

Now when you enter a dungeon, the game shifts from first person perspective to the party screen. You can choose to move your party individually or as a group, which you might have to do for certain puzzles (or if your group gets separated by traps). As an idea, this is kind of fun; it is like you are controlling your own D&D party. In practice, this is awful. The first dungeon, which is a keep you start just a short jaunt away from and fight your first Dragon hybrid, is perfect evidence of this. You start with a door in front of you, and if your characters get separated at all, that one character will enter a fight isolated and without the benefit of the group (a death sentence). Sometimes, this will happen anyway. The first boss, the dragon hybrid dude, is a bit of a crap shoot because sometimes my group would enter his chamber as a unit, gang up on him, and slaughter him. Other times, they would almost conga-line into the room and get picked off one at a time. It was ridiculous and incredibly un-fun. It is like this game actively does not want to be played.

I am sure there are some Drakkhen purists out there who can read the signs and just get this game, but it is certainly not me.



Story
Now the story of the game is rather straightforward. You are a group of heroes traveling between the four areas of the continent of Drakkhen. You basically complete jobs for the rulers of each area, known as the Drakkhen (original I know). There's an earth Drakkhen, water Drakkhen, fire Drakkhen and air Drakkhen. Once you do that, the game is over. I got as far as this picture below this, and that is it.

This thing has terrible music doesn't it?

This game has barely a soundtrack, and mainly beeps and boops at you. 

Ads, Art, Commercial

No commercials, but a bit of art and advertising. 

Final Verdict

This is a frustrating game because I get what they were going for when making it. They wanted a console/computer version of a D&D campaign. Your quest is nebulous, you get the chance to explore the world it is set in, fight a bunch of monsters, raid dungeons, and collect some treasure. This game, though, has the worst DM at the head of it, who withholds too much information and is willing to just slaughter your party if you go off their script just a little bit.

Other than that, there is not much to say about this game. It is a really tough game to control, and it comes of as just confusing to the player. You have no real indication of what to do, how to accomplish your goals, or even how to level up/gain strength. It is just a terrible mess of a game to wade through, and one that I was dreading from the very moment I started this blog.