No one has rated this review as helpful yet
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 26.3 hrs on record
Posted: 13 Jan @ 6:15am

This is now a favorite. I loved Drova and I'm glad I kicked off 2025 with it. This is a focused, indie, old school "open world" RPG that I love. I'm 20+ hours into it and towards the end. It'll likely be one of my top games of 2025. I've played it entirely on the deck and love how little it eats the battery. Some notes.

The open world is small with a few distinct areas. This makes it fun to explore and learn its enemies and find secrets. You'll be going back and forth a bit, which means you keep finding new things you missed before. The game doesn't have a UI map or waypoints. Instead, you need to buy, earn, or find maps and mark them up with ink. I love this and find it works well for a world of this size and complexity.

Combat is tight and focused. You have an attack, dodge, and various side weapons. As you hit your enemy (and avoid being hit), you build focus (aka physical attack mana), which you can use on special attacks. You also gain passive boosts and techniques (like blocking). You cannot be stupid, but this isn't a Souls-like. It's the right challenge in my opinion.

Learning skills, crafting recipes, etc. is all based on finding the person to do so. You need to earn this, pay them, or trade them. Many are rewarded for quests. I really enjoyed how they did this and liked the potency of the abilities. I focused on Sword + Shield and Axe. But, there is also spear, sling shot, bow, daggers, and in late chapter 3, you get access to magic (previously you only get one-use spells). Magic is VERY fun, really changes combat, and makes a big difference. While it's odd to have to wait, I loved the mid-game shift that really kept the end-game fresh.

Gear progression really matters. You slowly increase your power, but you can also go after stronger enemies before you are "ready." I took out a bear in Act 1 and got an achievement for it.

Key to Note: You spend a lot of time in Act 1 and there isn't much story or driver at this point. It can feel sluggish. The reason is, you are dropped into the middle of the world with two rival factions. You must join one of them to get to Act 2, and both factions have a wide variety of requests before you can do so. You can focus on one to expedite things. I did all of one faction's (that I joined), and a lot of the other (to see stuff) and enjoyed that. Once Act 2 begins, the game begins moving at a much more rapid clip with more focused missions. Note that you shouldn't play this if you want a Witcher 3 quality story, but there are some neat moments.

This game is really a sweet spot for me. Everything is focused. It has an old school origin, but in no way feels dated or clunky. It reminds me a lot of Signalis in that sense (a favorite game of mine from two years ago)
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