Drakensang provides a truly rewarding, fantastic gamer experience through and through, an RPG Keeper!
The trend of riding the wave of Wii and DS success, seems to be to create games everyone can play. Don't get me wrong, I hate games that are difficult to just be hard core, that is just frustrating and not fun. But games like Fable II, Oblivion and Fallout 3 could have been much more amazing games than they are. The trendy level matching design of how your oppenents are always matched with your level in these games is a great example of how to nueter the challenge and thought interactivity that are skillfully present in a good game. Knowing that you don't have to carefully build up your character in order to survive made my expierence with Oblivion and Fable II much less magical than the preceding ones. Play leveling really flat lined the challenge to a casual experience that became tedious although graphically amazing and interesting, but bland and without real challenge or strategy.
For example, wandering into the wrong area before your character is ready and getting a sound butt kicking is rare or non-existent in newer big title games these days. That is a huge part of what makes a quality RPG enjoyable for real RPG fans. You learn your surroundings, your capabilities and your adversaries...you explore, die, adjust, try again and interact, learn, get better, then go kick the butt of the baddies who owned you the day before! Now that is fun and rewarding and so much of what I love about Drakensang and good past RPGs in general.
I listen to many, many game geek podcasts and TV shows and have heard "Game Experts and Reviewers" discount Drakensang such as saying "Drakensang, do we care?" in a dismissive manner as they move onto games they are paid to promote. These guys represent a disturbing class of reviewers who are putting numbers next to games and effectively steering people to buy dumbed down games for people with little or no attention spans!
I fear Drakensang could be a dying breed...I hope not. Another example is Stalker and The Witcher, both great games that required thought and character building and I don't think they received the credit they deserve and are compared to pretty and overly hyped games unfairly.
I decided not to expand of what other have described about Drakensang's game play, I love it. But instead I just wanted to point out the biggest plus to me about Drakensang...it requires a little thought and a whole lot of exploration and discovery with real consequences, but in the process provides a truly rewarding, fantastic gamer experience through and through...wow, what a concept.
Bottom-line, if you are an RPG fan, this is a real GEM and if anyone in the industry is listening, please take note many gamers have brains and an attention spans of more than 5 minutes, really we do, and those who don't had stopped reading this post about 5 - minutes ago and are waving their Wii remote :o)
And for those that don't, please sit down a "Wii" will be with you shortly!
(NOTE: No disrepect to Wii's everywhere I have one, love it, but you get my point I hope.)