Posted on: May 24, 2020

craig_s_russell

Games: 509 Reviews: 42

Another good story by Ragnar Tørnquist

The Great - Story. Like all Ragnar Tørnquist games, the overwhelming thing you remember about this game is the characters and their story. - Voice acting. The actors sound like they're "living" the game, not just "reading" it from a script - Interaction between Alice and Edward is the lion's share of the gameplay, and it's all excellent - Alice. Usually sidekicks in a game are totally annoying, but the full experience of this game would not be possible without Alice. Thank heavens she's likeable and her voice acting is exceptionally good. - Sound, ambience & atmosphere are AAA+ - Graphics & visuals are also AAA+ - Modest hardware requirements. Played on Windows 10, 8GB RAM, Intel i5-8400, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. The Good - Mystery of what happened at Graavik - Hints of Edward's underlying mental health issues (I assume these will be developed in future games) - Hints of Edward's troubled childhood (apparently the root cause of his mental health issues) - Simple, straightforward controls. Keyboard/mouse and controller both supported equally well. - Plenty of options to tweak graphics settings The Bad - Price. This game is way too short to justify a price tag of $19.99. It took me under 5 hours to finish, and I tried to explore every nook and cranny of every building and location. This game is worth $14.99 max. - Edward is not a sympathetic character. He came across as selfish, self-absorbed and generally rude and ill-mannered. Perhaps that was the intent of Mr. Tørnquist. - Too many invisible walls or barriers in the environments. Much of the charm of this game is the fact it makes you "feel" like you're in a beautiful, deserted fjord, which is not an insignificant achievement. And I wanted to more freely explore to fjord and it surroundings than this game allowed. - Vague ending. No real clarity at all given on what really happened at Graavik. Some people seem to like this ambiguity. Personally I didn't. But it's still a game worth playing.

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Posted on: April 22, 2020

Klassy Kitten

Verified owner

Games: 707 Reviews: 21

2 stars for premise and attempt.

Decent walking simulator. Story is on hardcoded rails with no real choices. 90% of dialogue can not be skipped (I am a subtitle reader, not a listener, drove me nuts). While I enjoyed the premise of the story, the writing of Alice was over the top annoying at times. Between the spineless main character you are forced to play and the demanding child that bosses the character around, I just couldn't get into the story as much as I could. Seeing as there are zero dialogue choices theres no way to change the conversation. The atmosphere in the first 10 minutes starts out great, but starts to fray fast. Odd graphics choice in some places. 3d models with 2d imaging pasted infill (the box in the childs room is brutal example). Combine that with the poor lighting (entire last 1/3 of game has ridiculous lighting) and the atmosphere was too fragmented to enjoy. The 'draw' mechanic seems very poorly implemented. Half finished and abandoned? If you want a short story walking simulator with no choices and loose ends, then pick up the game. I recommend not full price. Its not long enough to warrant even that.

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Posted on: November 17, 2019

Tutenchaton

Verified owner

Games: 1560 Reviews: 20

Melancholic Walking Simulator

Draugen has a beautifully told, surprising, deeply melancholic story that captivated me. The story needs something to get going, but becomes very exciting towards the end. There is a reason for the playfulness and the strange behaviour of our companion Elizabeth, which is mentioned by other reviewers. However, this reason only becomes understandable at the end of the story. I don't want to spoil this reason here. The graphics are fabulous, atmospheric, colorful up to dark. The artists play with the mood of the player and put him in the state of the main character Edward. The music accompanies the romantically sad mood and is wonderfully mixed. A dream with the right headphones. If there's anything wrong, it's some graphic repetition in the textures that creates a chessboard effect at great distances. The screen space reflections make reflections of the banks and mountains disappear when looking down towards the water surface. This causes some immersion to be lost. Measured by the price, the playing time is a bit short with about 3-4 hours. Nevertheless I enjoyed this playing time very much. I can only recommend Draugen to friends of filmically staged walking simulators with a slow narrative speed. But the interested buyer should wait for a cheaper price than 19,99 Euro.

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Posted on: June 20, 2020

pa124

Verified owner

Games: 83 Reviews: 2

A quick saunter

At its best, Draugen is atmospheric and beautiful. It never feels empty and the world does feel lived in, really as if you were walking through a real town. Honestly I could spend hours just escaping to this tiny Norwegian town. The voice acting is convincing and your companion, Lisse, is particularly well played. Sometimes I would laugh out loud at her comments and increasingly it felt like interacting with a real person. Without wishing to spoil things, the main story is a bit obvious. The first major twist I saw coming within a minute of starting the game and the second I kinda guessed well before it was sprung. There is a story, and it can be quite gripping when paired with the beautiful, empty locale, but it won't stun you with twists and turns. Or take you that long, for that matter. Took me less than three hours. I'm looking forward to the sequel; I'd want some more exploration/investigation. I'd recommend this, but definitely don't expect it to take you more than an evening. Maybe I'll play it again, just to wander through an atmospheric little village.

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Posted on: December 30, 2021

adler.Kaos

Verified owner

Games: 264 Reviews: 1

Well. They tried...

I like to play story-based games a lot. But this game didn't pick me up. The story is not well written and the character sketch is as shallow as it could be. Since the game also has little to no other gameplay, there isn't much that I would remember positively. Art work is very nice, music fitting, and the idea actually promising, but the execution is lacking. The dialogues are annoying and I wanted to throw Alice out of the boat in the opening scene. I didn't enjoy any conversation with her, really just wanted her to disappear. I also found the storyline tiring to the point of being ill-conceived. Why am I there? What do I care about the fates of the local inhabitants? It remains vague until the end and is not clarified. Too bad, I can't give it a recommendation. 2 Stars for Art Design and Synchronisation.

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