A dark and mysterious world awaits you!
When I first loaded up Drova: Forsaken Kin, I was welcomed with some sort of familiarity. I felt like I have been here before. It wasn't a bad feeling, it was just that: a feeling. As I progressed through the opening moments, I already found myself wondering about the world I was in. "Why am I here?" This means that the story, the art, and the atmosphere already had me hooked. Drova is an action RPG with retro styled graphics that take me back to the older Diablos. With a loot system, crafting, side quests, and more, you feel right at home. The campaign itself is 40 hours! Well, a lot more if you are like me and take your time doing all the wrong things of exploration. Let's get into some nitty-gritty of the world of Drova and see if you should pick this up yourself.
The story itself is a big mystery throughout. Per it's description: Encounter a society where ancient restless spirits and divided factions battle for dominance. Uncover forgotten abilities and unravel the secrets of a past shrouded in mystery. You will be picking between two factions with their own objectives in the world. The Remnants and the people of Nemeton. I won't spoil what they are fighting for or such as that is what makes Drova pretty special. There are a bunch of times that you are just thrown right into the middle of things and you're not sure why. I dig this though as you as the player AND the character are trying to figure out what is going on at the same time. At one point, I was tricked and kidnapped, and forced to mine an underground tunnel to search for an ancient relic. Once we found the relic, we had to fight for our freedom as the evil doers were not going to let us survive. The cool thing about this quest is that I learned a few characters have gone missing through locals around the map. I figured I'd meet them randomly through the main story or such but it was by happenstance that I ran into my kidnapper. It seemed entirely possible to miss this.
Drova definitely rewards exploration but lets you know that if you stray too far from your quest, you will die. A lot. Did I die? Yes. A lot. I went into some quests I CLEARLY wasn't ready for and had to use NPCs or cowardice to my advantage. Since it is an action RPG, you will start off as a weakling with a stick or branch and then you'll be leveling up yourself and your skills to become a powerful warrior capable of taking down beasts and other humans alike with swords, daggers, and magic. With every level gained, you can input skill points into your damage/critical rates or you can learn skills from any of the trainers throughout the world. I'll admit that I was overwhelmed at first by which path I should take so I pumped all my skill points into strength instead of learning skills. It ended up being okay though because in no time I was slaying giant mosquitoes and ravenous murder dogs with no problem. The action itself isn't as fast paced as something like Diablo but is definitely more Dark Souls-like in a way. You should plan carefully as any of these enemies have the ability to eliminate you pretty quickly. But with the aid of crafting (potions, armor, traps, etc.) and cooking, you have a bunch of tools at your disposal to make life a bit easier.
Graphically speaking, Drova is a pixel art and retro-styled game. It fits the mood of dark and gloomy extremely well. I didn't have any visual bugs to my knowledge but I did notice some issues that would break on occasion. For example, when mining, there is a par you have to time your hits with, a lot of times it was not synced up and on the third hit, the animation would just stop and take me out of the system completely and I had to manually enter it again. It happened every time so I am not sure why. It was more irritating than anything but in terms of gameplay and visuals, it's a minuscule thing to be upset about. The characters look great in their pixely glory and all have their own distinct style between factions and baddies.
Drova allows for multiple playstyles and that usually brings multiple playthroughs. There are a lot of different ways to experience the world and I find this to be a great game to challenge yourself or do things differently a second time around. There is no hand holding here. The quests at hand will be noted for you in your journal and it's up to you to figure it out. There are a ton of secrets to be found, characters to meet and befriend. Or kill. Whichever. Drova let's you know that the game is difficult and it is. There were many times when I thought I was going to be stuck in a situation only to find out I just had to rethink my whole strategy (remember the cowardice mentioned above?) and try again. I got lost a few times, confused on where to go next or who to find but ultimately, I think that made for the better journey. I don't WANT to be given a marker in every game. I like to think. Drova forces you to do so.
Should you buy it?
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