Drova - Forsaken Kin was an impulse purchase for me; not something I am prone to. However, I'd had my eyes out for a new RPG to try, and the moment I saw Drova I knew I had to try it. Drova is large enough to provide you an awesome experience, but small enough that you'll become familiar with its different locations. Combat is engaging; there's a lot of room for skill. If you find yourself struggling, you can often gain advantages through exploration and leveling up. I'm naturally averse to using consumable items, but Drova's crafting system reinforces helps make the opportunity cost seem far less steep; and you'll really need them for some of the most challenging fights. Many encounters are wholly optional, though advantageous. I like the experience and skill system, and that you can change allocations, though it's a bit of a process. Drova's characters are engaging and its story rich, and although I disliked a few elements I quite enjoyed it as a whole. I think Drova's ties to Celtic mythology are really neat, and I thoroughly enjoyed its implementation as someone not too familiar with it. Drova's aesthetic is quite unique, and I believe Celtic folklore is a major piece of it.

I'll echo the advice of another review I read prior to writing this: buy maps. Besides their brilliant art, maps are massively helpful in navigating Drova, as you would expect. Most of your questions will be answered by looking around in the game (sometimes literally, use right click searching frequently). I did look up a few things that were rather obscure, but most of those ended up being things I had kind of figured out but either misunderstood or forgot. It's a great game to play blind. I'll also echo another criticism I read: Drova has you backtrack a lot, and it can take a while. Travelling the map gets easier the further you get into the game, and that helps a lot, but sometimes its frustrating. Sometimes, however, its quite satisfying. I played the game in Iron mode and Classic difficulty. Classic seems like a "Normal" difficulty whereas Explorer seems to be "Easy". As the tooltip will tell you, Iron mode just has the game save (quite often) rather than you making your own saves. I think Classic and Iron mode are both well balanced; I only had 2 or 3 times I was frustrated by Iron mode setting me back a bit more than I expected. I've played many games with Ironman modes, and frankly Drova's Iron mode is more generous than many of those. You can also change modes at any time, but I didn't do so as I thought that may impact certain achievements. For the completionists among us, know that you'll have to play the game twice to get them all.

Drova is an excellent game, with minor flaws. Easily worth the price, and worth the time to play it. Perhaps even more than once. 9/10.

Drova - Forsaken Kin was an impulse purchase for me; not something I am prone to. However, I'd had my eyes out for a new RPG to try, and the moment I saw Drova I knew I had to try it. Drova is large enough to provide you an awesome experience, but small enough that you'll become familiar with its different locations. Combat is engaging; there's a lot of room for skill. If you find yourself struggling, you can often gain advantages through exploration and leveling up. I'm naturally averse to using consumable items, but Drova's crafting system reinforces helps make the opportunity cost seem far less steep; and you'll really need them for some of the most challenging fights. Many encounters are wholly optional, though advantageous. I like the experience and skill system, and that you can change allocations, though it's a bit of a process. Drova's characters are engaging and its story rich, and although I disliked a few elements I quite enjoyed it as a whole. I think Drova's ties to Celtic mythology are really neat, and I thoroughly enjoyed its implementation as someone not too familiar with it. Drova's aesthetic is quite unique, and I believe Celtic folklore is a major piece of it. I'll echo the advice of another review I read prior to writing this: buy maps. Besides their brilliant art, maps are massively helpful in navigating Drova, as you would expect. Most of your questions will be answered by looking around in the game (sometimes literally, use right click searching frequently). I did look up a few things that were rather obscure, but most of those ended up being things I had kind of figured out but either misunderstood or forgot. It's a great game to play blind. I'll also echo another criticism I read: Drova has you backtrack a lot, and it can take a while. Travelling the map gets easier the further you get into the game, and that helps a lot, but sometimes its frustrating. Sometimes, however, its quite satisfying. I played the game in Iron mode and Classic difficulty. Classic seems like a "Normal" difficulty whereas Explorer seems to be "Easy". As the tooltip will tell you, Iron mode just has the game save (quite often) rather than you making your own saves. I think Classic and Iron mode are both well balanced; I only had 2 or 3 times I was frustrated by Iron mode setting me back a bit more than I expected. I've played many games with Ironman modes, and frankly Drova's Iron mode is more generous than many of those. You can also change modes at any time, but I didn't do so as I thought that may impact certain achievements. For the completionists among us, know that you'll have to play the game twice to get them all. Drova is an excellent game, with minor flaws. Easily worth the price, and worth the time to play it. Perhaps even more than once. 9/10.