Drova Review

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

Here a quick and comprehensive review of the game, for everyone that is still undecided.

Visuals:
There are some beautiful 2D games out there, but Drova isn't one of them. It lacks visual clarity and the overall effort put into the world and objects is on the lower end.

Sound:
This is one of the better aspects of Drova. The background music does what you would expect from background music, i.e. seamlessly fit into the game. Some of the pieces are oddly reminiscent of Gothic. Soundeffects are on par. No voiceover for the dialogues is a questionable choice, considering how much dialogue there is and how relatively cheap a voiceover is, even with real actors.

Story:
Drova has a very basic fantasy plot and world.
The setting is probably the best aspect of the story in Drova, as it lends itself very well for a game, despite also being a bunch of fantasy tropes and somewhat copied from Gothic.
The devs read up on some historical aspects of life medieval life, but did so very arbitrarily. The result is, that mainstream gamers are left confused and history enthusiasts have a good laugh because of the half baked implementation of historical concepts. For example: logging camps don't work the way the devs show in the game and people in logging camps don't behave that way. The ruin camp makes no sense at all when you take an objective look at it.
The dialogues are often unconvincing. For example, you will find many dialogues that offensively break immersion for the sake of giving you some sort of (unnecessary) tutorial. But the worst issue with the dialogue is the discrepancy between the way the npcs talk and what is really happening in the game. The writers tried to make the npcs sound tough, but that all seems like a joke when the npcs in reality act very nice and hold your hand almost all the time.
The characters are mostly one dimensional and not very memorable. Due to the poor 2D art they also all look very similar and due to the lack of voiceover, they also don't differ in sound, which doesn't help.
The quests are your standard rpg fare.
Now that all doesn't sound too good for the story, but remember, that this level is the industry standard. While by itself the story of Drova is quite bad, it is actually on a mediocre level when compared to all the other games out there.

Gameplay:
Exploration is easily the strongest gameplay aspect in Drova. There are a lot of things to find and due to the gothic style open world, with dangerous enemies, hidden caves etc., the first one or two exploration tours are really fun. Sadly, the rpg-system and the pacing of the game somewhat ruin the rewards from the exploration.
The rpg-system, which is a loose copy of the gothic system, has some very arbitrary and not well thought through elements. For example, there is a "combat power" value, that decides whether or not you can wear an item and a few other things. Outside of that, it's largey useless and makes no sense at all, other than to gate your progress. Depending on where you put your points in, you either have a very easy time, or a very hard time in Drova.
The pacing is quite atrocious, as you will quickly bounce inbetween oneshotting enemies and doing no damage at all.
The balancing is your usual rpg fare, i.e. range with melee weapons being king, ranged combat in general being the easy mode etc.
The combat is actually somewhat skill based, i.e. hit and don't get hit. However, it has many unnecessary elements that the developers copied from other games. There is a combo meter that charges when you do damage, which is ridiculous because all it does is help you do better when you are already doing good. There is endurance, which sounds like a good idea, but it only is used for very few actions like evading. Then there is a posture system that every game devs thinks he needs to implement since Sekiro. But that system might as well not be in the game and it wouldn't make a difference. Another thing that just helps you do better when you are already doing well.
The absolute worst aspect of Drova is without a doubt the locomotion. Other than walking at a set pace, you can't move in any other way. No climbing, no jumping, no swimming, no crawling. Nothing. Worst of all, in combat it feels like you are walking through knee-deep water all the time. Compared to cross-code, the locomotion in Drova is utterly unacceptable.

Summary:
A game with a lot of flaws. The low budget shows in a lot of ways. Compared to similar games (2D and 3D) it's on par with what is offered on todays video gaming market. Worth a buy for everyone who has free time and wants to play an rpg.

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by Bolts_Of_Steel:

.

Hi. Thanks for the detailed review. One thing I would like to ask though where you got to play the game since it isn't released yet and if you've played it from start to finish. How long did it roughly take you to play it? Does it offer any replay value and would you buy it at full price or wait for a discount? Does the world an story have a bit of an edginess to them or is closer to say modern day D&D?

[Dante]

Are there skill checks in dialogues?

Or choice in dialogues? In other words, if I say A, I can't say B?

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

I got the game from streamer steinwallen. He is kinda slow and coupled with uploading etc., I used the last 2 days that I had the game to finish it. I am kind of a powergamer, hence my take on handholding and unnecessary tutorials. Took me about 40 hours and I was somewhat thorough.
There are no skill checks in dialogues, but quite a few choices and multiple ways to do quests / dialogues. In a sense, that does give it some replay value.
You will likely want to play the game at least twice, once for each camp.
The game and the dialoguues are tryhard edgy, which, as stated in the review, clashes a bit with the handholding and effective niceness of the npcs and worlds.

Again, take all of that with a grain of salt, as it is the review of a power / metagamer that has played hundred of rpgs and probably has different expectations of a good rpg.

[Gearwar]

I have only seen video footage of Drova, but in what reality would you ever compare this game to cross code?

[Sidian]

Originally posted by Bolts_Of_Steel:

I got the game from streamer steinwallen.

How? You don't own it on steam according to... well, steam.

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

This might shock some of you, but as a 2D action rpg, the game has to be at the very least compared to other 2D action rpgs. That being said, in reality, most gamers compare games regardless of their budget, team size, 2D/3D etc. Because games compete for the players time. As such every low budget rpg has to compete with every AAA rpg, like it or not. You only feel like being chivalrous about game comparisons when you have plenty of time to play all the games anyway.

There is a physical world beyond steam accounts.
I obviously can't use his account to post here and I also refuse to use the standard steam review mechanic, because the recommend/not recommend system is not good enough for a differentiated review.
Drova is recommended for rpg fans with a lot of free time. For people with a job / family / other projects, it's not really recommended because there are many other games that offer an experience that is just as enjoyable.

[dr_panties]

Don’t believe you. I will refer to credible reviews.

[Sidian]

Originally posted by Bolts_Of_Steel:

There is a physical world beyond steam accounts.

You are posting a review of a game that is on steam with your steam account in the steam forum of that game.

Originally posted by Bolts_Of_Steel:

I obviously can't use his account to post here and I also refuse to use the standard steam review mechanic

As younger people would say: sus.

The standard steam review mechanic is the place where potential buyers will go for reviews. Reviews in the steam forum by accounts who don't own the game are basically useless.

[Sgt.JESUS]

Bought the game on GOG, played 10 minutes and already i see this as a great game, pixel art is not as bad as OP say it is, in fact i found it very well done, movement speed is very good, not at all as OP say it is. Are you walking aroung with the walk button pressed?

You have a detective mode of sorts to explore and analyse things, which is a very nice touch, weapons have no durability, so thats a plus, you can break crates and things to get coins and food, food heals overtime and there are no survival mechanics in game, so no sleeping and hunger.
I analysed a hearth, so there is cooking and crafting, since i found a broken down furnace, thats only 10 minutes in and i thing i made a good buy, nice work devs.

Dialogues so far are good, i found a guy who literally drawn a crude map for me during a conversation, another tutorial was at the first camp where two guards debate which is better two handed weapons or sword and shield, they ask you your opinion and if you want you train a bit and learn about the fighting styles, i even got a sword after choosing sword and board as my favorite style. Very natural if you ask me, no immersion broke here.

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

The characters heads are made of like 30 pixels. You can literally count them. This is objectively one of the worse looking 2D games out there.

Also, try it out for yourself, the character does move slower than regular jogging speed in combat.

Detective mode is handholding. Also it's in the game because of the lacking visual clarity, forcing people to use this to look behind objects, since it's difficult to see stuff otherwise.
Some guy sounding mean and grumpy, but being nice enough to draw you a map? Handholding.
Some unbelievable totally not a tutorial, totally """""random"""" dialogue between two people just on an unavoidabble piece of the way, then talking about gameplay terms? Immersion killer.

Those aspects of the game just aren't good, doesn't mean it's not worth a try.

[ChubbiChibbai]

Very obvious hate / troll post.
Why is there a hate campaign against this game? I don't get it.

I disagree with almost all the things you wrote.

[Tozobi]

Originally posted by ChubbiChibbai:

Very obvious hate / troll post.
Why is there a hate campaign against this game? I don't get it.

I disagree with almost all the things you wrote.

I disagree with what you just wrote too. The guy gave an honest opinion. And actually, his conclusion is one of the reasons i bought the game. If beyond all other comments where negative aspects are pointed out, the idea is that this is an RPG-like that is on par with others even if not superior, this is actually a good selling point if you like games of this type. And I do. People do not need to give glowing reviews to offer an opinion that is helpful to a game.

The hate campaign you refer to has more to do with all that nonsensical culture war stuff with woke and anti-woke people in other posts than this review.

If you want another example of this, I also bought most Spiders RPGs for similar reasons. They may not be groundbreaking or equivalent to some major games out there, but not every game needs to be one to sell. And I guarantee you a lot of people who bought those too think so too.

[Hecabutter]

I haven't played Gothic 1 but this game reminds me of Arx Fatalis and I agree.
Worldbuilding, characters, plot are not memorable or interesting to my taste, the dialogues are not very immersive so I treat them as quest-giving bots sadly, though it's fine for what it is, I don't like the way game handles some late game areas, they're locked behind story progression (some to questlines for literally no reasons) and things do not spawn when you reach them in act 1, which is detrimental to satisfaction of exploration, also the scale of worldmap is way too small, it does a really ♥♥♥♥ job for an exploration focusing game, I could not pinpoint and comment points of interest in any meaningful ways than hitting F12 on my keyboard, I felt frustrated when I had to revisit locations over and over.