Inventory
When D'kor comes near an object, his little companion, a
fire-lizard, flies to this place and an appropriate hand-icon appears in the upper screen
area. The object can first be taken with the spacebar to take a closer look at it and its
text description, before it disappears with a new click in one compartment of the
extensive inventory.
The middle area of the inventory consists of different compartments,
in which usable and exchangeable objects are arranged. Left beside it there are 5
compartments for weapons, which must all be found during the game except the naked fists.
In the course of the game the added weapons can be additionally armed in their strength. A
blacksmith keeps ready to do that in return for artifacts.
If you cautionary want to hold your weapon or another usable object ready for use, you have to click on it with
the return key once and it will appear in a little
circle in the right upper corner of the screen and can be used without renewed opening the inventory.
During his explorations D'kor collects a lot of of herbs, food and
healing potions, which can strengthen his health. On the left side of the inventory this
is indicated in the circular health display (red). Additionally D'kor can increase his
other attributes in the course of the game - as there are reputation, knowledge and
strength - by his actions and interactions with others. If you click on one of the colored
circles you get a detailed overview of the respective attribute with scoring, the level
and the distance to the next higher level in points. D'kor can execute many actions not
until he achieved a certain level. He can move a stuck lever not until he became very
strong. D'kor achieves strength in fights or if he works physically, e.g. climbing or
shifting rocks. He attains knowledge by talking to the other inhabitants, he achieves
reputation each time, he completes something for others. In addition our hero can learn
more (8 additional) abilities, also indicated by a round Icon within the left lower corner
of the inventory.
On the right side of the
inventory we can find more important aids:
first there are different clothes, which can be changed, in
order not to be detected. Then different icons: D'kor's diary, where he enters all highlights and tasks and which during the game becomes
very voluminous. However he first must learn
the ability of writing, in order to get access to the diary. All maps, which he receives can be found behind the map icon and there is
also a main map about visitable places in
Pern. If D'kor wants to communicate with Zenth, his dragon, with
whom he constantly is in telepathic connection, click
the dragon icon. Here he can tell Zenth also, if he wants to fly to another place. This icons
can also be directly attained through function keys.
At the beginning D'kor barely has any attributes and abilities.
Therefore he first starts out to explore the native Weyrs, tries to collect as much
objects as possible and talks to all people. When asked for help or doing a favour he
should never reject this task, since this is the only way to increase his abilities. After
he managed to gather the other dragon riders to a meeting, he and the other riders were
ordered to look for potential Weyr woman which want to attend at the hatching ceremony.
Dialogues
Dialogues, mostly shown in close-ups, either run
automatically or D'kor has some options to
choose from. Conversations with that over 200
non-player-characters must be led especially
at the beginning frequently and in detail.
This conversations take, particularly at the beginning, the biggest
part. We not only get information here and can increase knowledge and reputation, but also
receive our tasks, which lead to a large number of subplots. The speech is in easily
understandable English subtitled with German text, adjustable in its speed. In the
dialogue close-ups we can watch speech that runs downright lip-synchronously and the
voices of the speakers fit the alive faces of the many characters.
Contrary to many presentations in adventures of other French
publishers lip movements and mimic of the actors are very close-to-reality, very alive -
up to pulling up the brow - and profit from the very variable features. Unfortunately it
occurs several times that the characters visibly move their mouths and also the speech
text is displayed however no tone comes from the loudspeakers.
At the beginning the quantity of characters to
talk with, their strange names and their requests may
confuse the gamer a bit. But reading the entries in the diary will give you a good overview and
you will soon feel perfectly included into
this complex story. Almost all coversations
insert a small piece into the mosaic of this extremely attracting
and exciting story.
And together with D'kor you experience ever more about connections
and background. What do e.g. missing ore supplies have to do with the disappearing of some
inhabitants and a mysterious illness? Is someone behind this all - whom can you still
trust now? The more reputation D'kor achieves, the more he is trusted by the inhabitants
and gets more information and items. If his knowledge status increases he is better
prepared to solve tasks.
The tasks can be concerned and
solved in different order. The game isn't
linear, however certain subplots must be completed, in order to be
able to make a large step further.
Advancing further in the game it will also be necessary to leave
Fort Weyr to visit other places. To do that, simply call your dragon and show him your
destination on the map of Pern. Zenth can only start from sufficient large places. There
he fetches D'kor, who will dress himself automatically into his dragon flier suit and
mounts Zenth in a beautiful animation who majestically rises - afterwards we likewise
experience the arrival in an animation. Although the viewing points of the dragon
animations are repeatedly changed, if you advance further in the game, or whether it is
day or night - after some time you nevertheless will become impatient after watching the
20th ascent or landing of Zenth. These animations cannot be aborted or shortened nor can
the dialogues. Here I can report of a small, quite funny bug: with some of Zenth's
landings the developer probably forgot to insert the dragon - D'kor comes thus in his
flier suit, in which he looks like Quax - the breakage pilot >from the 30s, all alone
flying through the air, as if he sits on an imaginary motorcycle. If the imaginary dragon
has landed, he extremely carefully scrambles down an unexisting dragon arm down to the
ground. But even this funny insert begins to be boring after watching it for the 3rd time.
Graphics
The graphics in Dragon Riders are not outstanding - rather moderate.
Not very detailed backgrounds of the extensive scenarios are assembled from often rough
textures and look somewhat clumsy blurred. Objects, which can be taken up, e.g. herbs, you
therefore can detect from far away, because they are clearly silhouetted against the
background. As usually in 3D-games, in which you can watch your hero, it often occurs that
he walks through rocks, furniture and other persons like David Copperfield through the
Chinese Wall. The constantly changing camera angle gives an exciting movie-like feeling -
but it also often leads to confusion and disorientation of the player. The many characters
in Dragon Riders are really fine creations and look authentic, particularly the face
animations and the lip synchronicity can convince. However actually I did not really miss
anything graphically, since the narration and development of this epic story much
too much captivated me.
I think that who demands a high
graphics quality must then also accept a
larger number of storage media. It is amazing that this extensive
story of 40 hours pure play time finds room on just one CD.
Music and Sound
The few music topics, which are repeatedly
played depending upon location, support the
atmosphere of a far away, different mythic world. They remind me a little of pieces from Cirque du Soleil. The few sound effects in the game support the three-dimensional impression
completely. Noises get more quiet or more
clear, you can hear them changing infinitely
variable from the left to the right, ever after D'kor moves.
So actually you are able to navigate D'kor through these noises by
letting him go, where the noise becomes louder. However the importunate noise of the
scavenging brooms at some places was bothering. One was almost pursued of it and heard it
at places, where there was no scavenging at all.
D'kors constant helpful companion - a small fire-lizard - that always tried to hold step with him
and to fly over his shoulder, reminded me from its peeping single sound repertoire of a budgie or a cockatiel.
Puzzles
Though the puzzles in Dragon Riders become more complex in the course of the game, but they do not belong to the heavy caliber by any means.
Basically the correct characters must be addressed at the right time.
If something doesn't work in the moment, yet can probably be solved
when achieving a higher ability level. You can
find hints about that in some dialogues. To move a
certain lever you already need a very strong man. Thus you must find yourself combat partners to increase your strength or simply by climbing x-times up and down a
rock will do and you also will receive sufficient
points of strength. Always, when reaching the next ability level, hearing
something important for the diary or finding a
potential Weyr woman, this step will be
displayed one the screen. Often objects must be found and given to another
person. This transfer takes place automatically, if you meet the matching man or woman. However this
find-and-give-puzzles are often nested. To shift the
car aside I need a draught animal - which I again can get only against an alive tunnel snake - to get a
tunnel snake ... etc.
Sometimes actions must be performed in a certain order to open a
door for example. From time to time you need marksmanship, in order to hunt a beetle with
an arrow for example. A game of dice can be won only after certain specifications.
Sometimes you can only continue if you don't wear the clothes of a dragon rider. It rarely
occurs that you get stuck and apparently no more possibilities are offered to go on.
However there are also dead ends from which no way leads back anymore. Some of them are
due to to programming errors others are intended, in order to increase the degree of
difficulty.
Here I can only recommend to use the few save slots advisedly
otherwise it can occur that you must repeat the game process of some hours. Actually I can
only advise to copy your older savegames after some playing time into an extra directory
for security reasons in order not to overwrite them.
Despite the bugs, e.g. the
metal caves cannot be left when visited a second time; in jail the action icon is overlaid
by the sneaking icon in such a way, so that you cannot operate a switch to get out (can be recovered on
a normal keyboard with the Ins/0-key - however not on my laptop keyboard) - thus despite this bugs, despite uncomfortable small number
of save slots, despite the moderate graphics and the not interruptible animations and dialogues - I
had a giant fun with Dragon Riders!
The action/skill elements are rare and can be mastered by the
average gamer (me too). The excellent told history of the dragon riders really spellbound
me a long time by its suspense and originality. A game, I really looked forward to
and which kept my thoughts busy, every time I did not play it (here I didn't have to
think: "later on you "must" play again Monkey Combat!").
Dragon
Riders - Chronicles of Pern 
