Introduction

I officially entered the world of PC gaming in 1998 and started picking up magazines to check out what I had missed for so many years, as well as keep an eye on upcoming games. I was still in high school at the time and couldn't afford to pick up many games, but I would wear out any demo disc I could get my hands on. Drakan: Order of the Flame was released in July 1999 and I recall reading many articles on the game as it seemed to have a decent amount of hype leading up to its release. The game received respectable reviews, but didn't exactly light the PC gaming world on fire (no pun intended). At some point I tried out the demo and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I never picked up the full version back in the day.

My fun experience with the demo, coupled with the outstanding premise the game provides, was enough to keep it on my radar, which is where it had remained for nearly 20 years. I recently played through the game and while it's a little rough around the edges, especially by today's standards, it's still a solid game if you enjoy the genre. The game has a cult following even after all these years, but it's not exactly a household name, so I wanted to write up a little review to wrap up my experience with it.

Not Just Another Pretty Face

A lot of the hype around the game in the '90s involved the main character, Rynn. Less than three years before Drakan released, the gaming world welcomed one of the most iconic heroines of all time: Lara Croft. After the original Tomb Raider, it seemed like every female lead in a video game was compared to Lara and Rynn was certainly no exception. But once you get past the obvious physical similarities, I couldn't find much overlap between the original Tomb Raider trilogy and Drakan.

Crank Up the Combat

Drakan is set in a fantasy world with lots of swords, axes, orcs, goblins, and, wait for it...DRAGONS! Most of your time in the game will be spent fighting a variety of enemies that you encounter while exploring the gigantic levels the game provides. I use the term "levels" very loosely here since this isn't a traditional level-by-level kinda game. It feels a lot like the Half-Life games where you reach a certain point on a map and you just transition into the next area. At times, especially when you're able to ride Arokh, the levels seem incredibly huge. And while they do cover a lot of ground, it's not exactly an open world game since you're on rails by having to complete certain objectives to unlock the next area. But still, there's plenty of optional areas with loot to grab and enemies to slaughter, if you're interested in exploring.

While you're exploring, there will be plenty of enemies to keep you on your toes. For the most part, the combat is very satisfying and it only gets better as you discover more and more powerful weapons over the course of the game. There are two very distinct combat modes. You can fight on foot with typical fantasy weapons with Rynn or you can fight in the air with the mighty dragon Arokh and his elemental breath attacks. I found the dragon combat to be incredibly fun and I felt so much more powerful with Arokh, which is good, since he's, you know, A DRAGON! Unfortunately, the game forces you to use Rynn most of the time since there are structures with entrances too small for Arokh and they make up the bulk of the game. Rynn's combat system is still pretty good though, but it does suffer from some clunky hit detection and erratic difficulty at times. I looked past most of that due to the game's age and since you can save anywhere, it was a mostly smooth ride.

Who Needs Puzzles?

The first Tomb Raider games were all about puzzles, many of which were complex, sometimes spanning an entire (huge) level. If you go into Drakan expecting puzzles because it's "just like Tomb Raider", you will be sorely disappointed. Sure, there are puzzles in the game, but for the most part they're of the "pull a switch" or "find the right key" variety. Some of the later levels have slightly more complex puzzles, but for the most part, it's Doom-esque puzzles more so than Tomb Raider.

Order of the Flame Something Something

I felt one of the weaker aspects of Drakan was the story and the way it's presented. The game provides very little background on Rynn and you're just sort of thrown into a quest to rescue her brother. Your first task is to awaken Arokh and in doing so, you get to learn a little bit about him. But Rynn is mostly left in the dark and the game does not provide much in the way of character development. There are cutscenes throughout the game, but they don't occur very often and by the end I barely even remembered why I had started my quest.

Although the story is mostly forgettable, the concept for Rynn and Arokh still stood out to me as fantastic. They seem like a great team and their dynamic provides some excellent gameplay opportunities.

But Wait, There's More!

Despite not being a huge hit as a PC-exclusive, the game did receive a sequel in the form of Drakan: The Ancients' Gates. The sequel was released exclusively for PlayStation 2 since by then the publisher, Psygnosis, had been taken over by Sony. I actually played through The Ancients' Gates back in December 2015 and now that I've played both games, I can safely say the sequel is the superior game in my mind. The gameplay is identical, but there were so many minor improvements to make it more enjoyable, such as introducing currency for buying / selling gear, experience points for some light RPG elements, and more diverse environments and enemies. The original game ran a lot smoother and I preferred having mouse / keyboard controls, but I couldn't help but feel it needed something...more.

Interestingly enough, the sequel took me nearly twice as long to complete (20 hours compared to 11 hours for the original game) and yet I thought the original game had started to wear out its welcome whereas the sequel kept me engaged right to the end. Surreal Software developed both games, so kudos to them for sticking with their idea and ironing it out when given the opportunity.

Conclusion

In the end, Drakan: Order of the Flame is a great option if you're a fan of '90s style action / adventure games. It provides some very satisfying dragon combat that's still hard to find in games even today. The barely-there story and the fact that it has a sequel that I preferred in almost every way means I'm not likely to ever revisit the game, but I'm certainly glad I finally played through it.

The franchise is presumably still owned by Sony and that means this PC-only release is likely lost forever to the sands of time. Luckily, the game runs extremely well on Windows 10 if you install the community patch, so it's highly playable if you can track down a copy.