Dragon Lore 2 - The heart of the dragon man - Story deep dive - Ut

So a few weeks ago I did a Story Deep Dive on Dragon Lore: The Legend Begins. It was really bland, but I was hopeful that the sequel would improve. They advertised the sequel at the beginning of the game, so I guess they really believed in it. It came out two years later on Dec 31, 1996, called Dragon Lore 2: The Heart of the Dragon Man. Let’s check online to see what opinions were on the game at the time of its release. Oh look, GameSpot reviewed it! 3.1… Uh... Oh no... Well people can have different opinions so let’s go in and see for ourselves. Let’s begin! In the intro we learn that an Orc army is invading the Valley, and the Dragon Knights are the only ones able to stop them. We still play as our character from the original, Werner von Wallenrod, newly sworn in Dragon Knight, but wait! Cariachand, another Knight, questions Werner’s legitimacy as his Dragon, Maraach, had not been seen for years. We must find him to prove we are a real Dragon Knight, as well as compete in the tourney of the Seven Lances for some reason. The narrator of the intro, the Archwizard, then appears to us to give info on our goals. I asked about the dragon from the first game, but apparently she’s not Maraach, so the only lead we have to find him is an ancestral pact we must uncover. If we get that and combine it with the ring of fire, we can reveal him. We also learn that the winner of the Coronation Jousts gets to become Dragon Prince and lead the defense of the Valley. So with our quest laid out for us, we begin to suit up for our adventure. Now we can actually play. Hey, they added a button now for the menu. Wait, what? Turns out that’s the quit game button. Why does that need to be on the game screen? Oh well. The inventory is actually the bag on the bottom left of the screen. There’s a lot of things here, so I’ll explain them as it becomes necessary. We grab a multitude of weapons and armor and then meet back with the Archwizard. He gives us the ring of life and then we can be on our way. We fly away towards unknown lands. *Calming Music* Ahh… Calming music… Uh oh… *Suspenseful Music* *Plane Falling* May day may day! We’re going down! Noooooo!!! *Explosion* We land in a forest unscathed, but the baby dragon didn’t fare as well. Here’s where the problems start to present themselves. On this screen there are 2 items we need to pick up: some food and a gourd to hold water in. Can you find them? *Ticking Clock* *Ding* Right here and right here. I couldn’t see them but maybe others could. Now you’d think you can just click on them to pick them up, and you’d be right… If the game didn’t ask you to be pixel perfect. The only way I could pick up the items is if I waggled the mouse up and down clicking constantly to pick the item up. Good thing I have a walkthrough or I would’ve missed them. Also this isn’t really a problem, but when one picks up an item, it doesn’t disappear from the world, it’s still there. It only says you can’t have two of the same item if you try to pick it up. I have no explanation for why this is, but the only guess I have is that the developers didn’t want to make multiple versions of these screens. Moving on we reach a statue, and carving through it with a carving stone we reveal some writing, but it’s indecipherable. Time to introduce the magic system! We must cast a spell on the statue and lucky we have the one we need with the reading spell. Just click on the scroll and then the reading spell. Each magic spell costs us some mana, so we can’t spam magic like in the original. There’s 4 other spells, but strangely there is one that never gets used: the friendship spell. I guess I don’t get to make any friends… *Sad Music* Anyways we read the carved writing, but it doesn’t really matter for now, so let’s continue exploring. We reach a goblin camp and are confronted by said goblins. Goblin: "You wanna pass? Goblin: You pay!" Goblin: "HAND OVER THE DRAKS!" By lying to them about having a dragon overhead, we are able to scare them off. Once they are gone we can steal their food. We leave the camp and then are faced with one of the main problems of the game: the movement. And I thought the original’s was awkward. This one has movement play out in predefined directions and videos. So you’d just click where to go and that’s it right? Yes, but the directions it says you’re going in isn’t always right. I mean look at this. I turn right. Ok, now let’s go forward. Wait, what!?! This isn’t the direction I thought I was going at all. It’s very misleading and had me completely losing my place in the area. I was stuck moving aimlessly through this forest for at least an hour even when I knew where I needed to be. So finally, we meet someone friendly here: a gnome. Gnome: "Sincere, this zbomg be. Gnome knowledge now you need. Come then, follow me." *Upbeat Music with random animal noises interspersed throughout* He gives us some food, tells us to leave the forest we must kill a demon, and what that statue we found earlier does. It turns out that it’s the safest place to sleep. Time for more game mechanics! So for every movement one makes or attack one does in combat, our stamina depletes a little. To refill it we must eat rations or sleep, but one cannot just sleep anywhere. If you sleep somewhere dangerous, you could die. So on top of being lost, each wrong movement one makes gets them more tired so they waste their supplies. Fun! Thus we must rest at the statue, but sleeping doesn’t usually recover all of one’s stamina. So sleep again. But if you sleep twice in a row, you lose health! How does sleeping hurt me? How! That means I have to save and load whenever I make a mistake like going the wrong way for too long or else I’m losing valuable resources. I know in adventure games one saves often, but this one does it such an extreme that it’s tedious. Let’s keep going. We reach a talking tree, at least I think it’s a talking tree, it’s too dark to tell. It gives us a seed to plant where we kill the demon. Tree: "An evil demon feeds on my flesh. Near the tree stump, plant this seed." Tree: "If you succeed, you shall be freed." So now find the demon and we enter the combat part of Dragon Lore 2. Again, I thought I had it bad in the original, but they managed to make it even worse here. We equip our weapon and shield like usual and then just right click to attack. But the hit detection and feedback during combat is essentially non-existent. From what I read, clicking on different parts of the screen initiates different attacks, but I can’t tell the difference that any of them make. There’s also a parry system, but I couldn’t figure it out. It’s random chance if the enemy even responds to our attacks. Sometimes they flinch and other times they power through it. At least in the original one can easily not get hit. Here there is no skill involved, just pure luck. Not to mention that if we don’t cast a protection spell and weakness spell, it’s nigh impossible to win. And to add on to the frustration, each attack lowers our stamina, so even after defeating the demon, we must find the statue to rest at or die. But with the misleading movement system I am at a loss to find where it is. See how these issues stack on top of each other? So after many attempts I find the statue and rest. Now we’re supposed to go back to the gnome and get a magic acorn, thus we find our way there somehow. So he says he’ll give us a magic acorn, but then nothing happens. Gnome: "Though zbomg you be, your fate still interests me. Gnome: "Accept my gift: a magic acorn, that likes not magic!" I know a cutscene is supposed to play, but it doesn’t happen. What gives? Turns out that it’s a random glitch that happens that prevents us from receiving the item. The only solution: load up an older save and try again. So I’m forced to load my save from before fighting the demon and try again. I do this for a total of 30 min of trying over and over and over, and finally, we get the magic acorn. I wish I could’ve skipped it but the item is necessary for later in the game, but a player wouldn’t know that without a walkthrough, so someone could have unknowingly screwed themselves and not even have it be their fault. Bad design. Anyways we have to fight the demon again to get another item that doesn’t come into play ever, return to the tree, and they’ll transport us somewhere outside the forest. *Animal Noises* We end up with this creature to ride, but before riding it we must somehow have figured out to go the opposite direction to save someone from a monster. Luckily the fight is automatic so we don’t have to enter combat. He confesses to stealing the Purple Talon, whatever that is. Unfortunately the man dies after giving him some water. We take his dagger and ride the creature away from here. *Calming Flute Music* Ahh… calming music again… *Calming Flute Music* Disc 2 now. We reach the entrance to the city of Draconia, but are stopped by the guards. They take our mopatesh, the creature we rode on, but for a bribery we’ll get to keep the dagger. Guard 1: "Sergeant, he's trying to bribe us! We'd better arrest him." Guard 2: "Shut up, you! A dagger, you say? That confirms my suspicions." Guard 2: "You can keep it, but it'll cost you 20 draks." Corruption! We then stop another dragon knight from getting mad at a squire, but they called him a trogg, which I’m assuming is an insult, so you know, anger is warranted. But the walkthrough says we have to help them. Quentin the Squire take us to an inn and discuss that Cariachand is trying to win over the princess, but the squire doesn’t believe his feelings are true. Quentin: "He courts the Princess Carmine with insistence, and assures her of his love." Quentin: "But he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't believe him." Quentin: "There is something dark and sinister behind all his fancy declarations." How would a squire see all this? Hmm... Anyways, we chat with the two Dragon Knights in the inn: Tanathya and Hellaynea. Tanathya does nothing but belittle us, and Hellaynea offers us some advice in exchange for a compliment, but right now we don’t have the knowledge to do so, so we’ll wait for that. We also see two people gambling, and here we are introduced to the gambling minigame. In Dragon Lore 2 you have money called Draks, and you need it to buy certain necessary items, as well as rations and potions. But you never know if you have enough or not, so I was forced to play this gambling minigame as it is the only consistent way to make money. I played it for at least two hours. This is irritating design. If the player doesn’t know when they have enough money, combined with the fear of missing items and other aspects I’ve yet to talk about, they are most likely going to overplay this minigame out of fear they won’t have enough money to continue later. Even after playing for that long, I always worried my money would just run out eventually. So I played and played. The minigame is essentially poker with dice, at least I think so, I don’t know how to play poker. Thus my first attempts failed as I learned the game. Eventually it became a trance of saving when winning and loading when losing. The game had very specific outcomes where I knew immediately if I was going to lose or win. I stopped at 408 draks, winning about 10 draks each time I won. That’s how much I played. I didn’t know where to put this, but due to a recording mistake, from here to here there will be no gameplay sound. Sorry! Also time to discuss another one of Dragon Lore 2’s game systems: "real time events". Once we entered the city of Draconia, a day counter began, which we can see in the inventory screen. At certain times of the day, special events will occur, ones that the player can easily miss. Even with a guide, my path through the days was different from the guide as time passed differently for me based on how I moved through the city. Thus there’s now the fear of missing an event on top of the fear of all the other systems. It’s not a good feeling. There were many I missed an event and had to plan differently to fit in the next day’s schedule. So with that explanation out of the way we go speak to someone else who’s practicing for the Coronation Jousts, Tochmar. He recommends we go see the armorer to get equipment, but let’s wait on that. Let’s go to the alchemist instead to have them analyze our magic acorn. He reveals that it has the power to negate one spell. Neato! We then enter the temple to ask about the Purple Talon. Turns out that someone named Nenisma might have it, and lucky us she owns a general store nearby! On our way there we fill up our gourd at the fountain and then it turns to night. Disc 3. Another complaint incoming. Disc switching. This game has so much disc switching. When the game changes from day to night, switch disc. When you enter certain buildings switch disc, it happens so much. It became such a hassle that I just copied the discs onto my hard drive to load them immediately. Anyways, with our plan to go to the store ruined by night, we instead go to talk to a beggar near the temple. He explains to us how he lost his leg to a goblin. We offer to help him and leave to find the goblin in question. Defeat him and take the dagger. It also poisoned us, but eventually it just went away for me, so it didn’t matter. Time to rest at the inn to start a new day! Near the general store we chat with a woman who tells us how to join the joust. Next, enter the store and confront Nenisma, who we have to get uncomfortably close to in order to speak. I mean this was a good enough distance, but okay. She hands over the purple dagger and we then go to the armory to buy a sacred pike. We have to buy it now as it won’t be available later. How is one supposed to know that? I have no idea... Talking to the armory owner gives us the compliment we need for Hellaynea: she is the favorite to win the tourney. The advice she gives: sign up for the tourney at the Hall of Heraldry, but we go only to found out that we’ve already been signed up by Prince Arthus, an old friend of our father. Less work for us! And we get to see the herald and his animatronic movement. *Squeaky Sounds* Now to return the Purple Talon to the temple, which nets us some Draks and a meeting with the Clairvoyant: someone who can see into our past and future, but says it in a confusing way. We do so, and I leave not knowing much, but he does give us half of the pact we need to find Maraach! Spend the rest of the day talking to random people and day turns to night. All we do is go to the temple and ask about The Lost Labyrinth, an underground tunnel system below the city that no one knows the location of. Go to bed, and it’s the day of the tournament. Squire: "Hear ye! Hear ye! Here begins, on this tenth day of the cycle of the gryphon," Squire: "the tourney of the Seven Lances!" Squire: "Seven Knights shall do battle in the arena." Squire: "Flock to the arena in droves to see the finest jousts in the Valley!" Pick our opponent, our gear, and then enter the match. *Intense, Anticipatory Music* Herald: "Let the tourney begin!" This looks like a completely different game! Time to explain the jousting minigame. So we are on a mopatesh and we move automatically towards our opponent. To jab them, we must move our mouse to angle it just right to hit them. After some tries I get a consistent strategy to win. Outside of that, the choice of what mopatesh and weapon you choose doesn’t really matter. I stuck with the same equipment each match and still won. Now do this 5 more times, except on the last match it is impossible to win against Tanathya, at least I’m pretty sure. Couldn’t do it no matter how hard I tried. *Stomping* Werner: "Ahh!" *Metal Clinking* *Thud* Once Tanathya is crowned the winner, we get paid 50 draks for every time we won and get congratulated by Prince Arthus and Dame Melichande, but something is bothering her and she leaves. Melichande: "Forgive me, but I must retire now." We also learn of the next jousting tournament in 10 days and get asked by Hellaynea to train with her. We agree, but I’ll tell you now that we never do. There isn’t really any point. We have nothing to do at night so we walk around aimlessly to pass the time. Next day, we talk to the woman by the general store, and learn her name is Cinders. She’s the Herald’s daughter, and that she recommended to him the squire we were assigned, Big Pete. I’ve also gambled with him, for hours, so I know him pretty well I must say. He wins sometimes and loses other times. She asks to put a good word for him with her father so he can approve of them being together. Cinders: "I beg you, please speak to my father on his behalf." Cinders: "I know him. He will listen to a Knight's opinion." Before that, let’s go talk to Nenisma at the store to learn that the Lost Labyrinth is only accessible at night. Good to keep in mind. Next, we give high praise to Big Pete at the Hall of Heraldry and the Herald is surprised. Cinders thanks us. After, go back to the alchemist and find out that a magician is going around trying to gather info on us, so that’s not good. Alchemist: "A gaze that was both *high pitch* ageless and *low pitch* deceitful." Alchemist: "The man was a magician, believe me." We go to the temple to talk to the Clairvoyant. Still don’t really get what he’s trying to say but oh well. Nighttime! At the fountain we find a ghost. *Suspenseful Violin Music* Someone: "Ahh..." He wants us to help put him to rest, but we must find his remains in order to do so and get someone at the temple to perform the ritual to put him at peace. Where are the remains? In the Lost Labyrinth... Fortunately I bought the items we need so we can enter right away. And of course… It’s a maze. Someone: "Ahh..." A bad one. Someone: *Gasp* The movement system is already confusing, but then make it where each movement has you somewhere completely different, but still somehow looks the same? On top of losing stamina for each move? It’s awful. At least I’m using a walkthrough. At a certain point we encounter two goblins we must fight, so hopefully you knew to stock up on potions. We get the skull and leave. Took about 20 minutes of mostly walking around hallways. Daytime, go to temple, give skull to priest, we meet the Clairvoyant again, and he gives us the same speech. I think he’s running out of material. That squire we saved a while ago, Quentin, is at the inn today, telling us Cariachand is evil. I think we knew that when he questioned our legitimacy, but I guess confirmation helps. Wander around until night, see the ghost finally get to move on, and receive a stone he left behind. We talk to Big Pete at the game table and learn how his problems with Cinder’s father eat away at him. Big Pete: "Oh, sir Knight, I'm ashamed." We then hire him as our squire. Even though we’ve already done that… This game goes out of order too much. Big Pete: "This is the best day of my life." We wander around again until nighttime again. All this walking around has gotten the layout of Draconia stuck in my brain. I know it too well. The innkeeper then gives us a letter telling us to go to the palace where when we arrive Dame Melichande meets us. She asks us to show our Ring of Fire which we do, but then Prince Arthus comes in and attacks us! He then transforms and uses a spell to stop us but with the magic acorn we can fight back. One combat sequence later and we find out it was an imposter, most likely the person trying to gather info on us! *Victorious Music* After, Melichande reveals to us that she is our mother! *Record Scratch* Plot twist! *Emotional Music* She also gives us the second half of the pact, so we can now summon Maraach! Combine the pact with the Ring of Fire and… Nooooo! Oh. In the distance, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Maraach! We promise to live up to our father’s legacy and that we will win the Coronation Jousts. He gives us the Cristallyn which with the Adamoster helps restore balance to the world, now if only we could find it. He then warns us of Diakonov, but we took care of him in the first game, so I don’t know why that matters anymore. We are then returned to Draconia. We talk to our mother and Prince Arthus to get an allowance and slowly receive the sword of fire." Prince Arthus: "I am proud of you, Werner. You reward the trust I always had in you." Prince Arthus: "Now it is time to find your father's legacy. Take Braisearc'h, and may the sword of fire lead you" Next we talk to the Herald to convince him to let Cinders marry Big Pete. We succeed and now they can live happily ever after. Herald: "You make a wonderful matchmaker." Walk around until night so we can… Enter the Lost Labyrinth again! Someone: *Gasp* They already made us go once, but they have to make us go twice? Alright… Go through the maze, solve some puzzles, fight a stone monster, good thing I stocked up on potions, get the Adamoster, and leave, for good this time. During daytime we must sell off all our unnecessary items to make way for tons of potions. Another complaint! Limited inventory. The player can’t hold everything, so one would have to sell off stuff eventually. But what do you sell? You don’t really know without a walkthrough. So do that and fill any remaining space with life potions. It’ll make sense later. I spent every drak I had... Waste a few days and nights walking around... The next tournament! Same as usual, except Werner makes out with Hellaynea. I guess there was romance there, if you consider one compliment romance. *Romantic Music* Also everyone knows I have Maraach now somehow, I didn’t tell anyone… Tanathya: "I can't wait to put Marrach's ally to the test." Do the jousts as usual, and then we see Hellaynea’s match against Cariachand. We’ve never seen anyone else’s match so I bet this will go well. *Dramatic Music* *Snap* *Dramatic Music* Hellaynea: "Ugh!" *Dramatic Music* Yeah, that went about as well as I thought. Hellaynea: "Oh… my dear Werner… Hellaynea: "I ddd… die with only one regret: that I… ne ne never told you of… of my lo lo lo love." *Crowd yells* Using the Cristallyn saves her life, but then it says we are with her dead body. The game can’t make up its mind. Prince Arthus warns us not to take revenge on Cariachand. Okay. Then the Princess comes up and reveals she was Quentin! How surprising… She then says Cariachand is evil again and gives us a medallion. She then makes out with Werner, right next to Hellaynea’s body… Classy Werner, real classy… With no time to spare we fly off with Maraach to the Coronation Jousts. After a long battle cutscene, we win! But Duke Eragg then challenges us to a duel! … To the death! *Dramatic Sting* Prince Arthus says we have to, even though just like 10 min ago he said not to, but who cares about continuity. The final combat sequence! It’s not hard, more tedious than anything. If I hadn’t filled my inventory with life potions there’d be no way of winning. Cariachand dies, his dragon vows vengeance, then leaves. The archwizard from the beginning of the game comes in and asks "Have I missed something?" *Laugh Track* Turns out Cariachand and his dragon were under the control of Diakonov, hidden somewhere. We now return to Castle Von Wallenrod to be crowned Dragon Prince. *Victorious Music* The Princess proposes to Werner, but we decline, as I think there was more romance between Werner and Hellaynea than Werner and the Princess, despite how little romance there was. Yeah! I did it!!! It’s over! *Celebratory Music* Or is it? Someone: "Prince Wallenrod! Something terrible has happened! The Obsidian Gates have opened! Someone: "Saur Keakham's hordes are swarming into the Valley!" The End! That, that was most likely the longest adventure game I’ve ever played, and one of the most flawed. Where do I even begin? A non-horror game has never made me so anxious. A movement system that seems tailor-made to get you lost, a glitch that makes you play one section over and over to get past, many items unseeable if you don't know you need them almost always missable/necessary, a money system with a gambling minigame to get more and never knowing if you have enough, a combat system more about luck and knowing to stock up on potions, limited inventory, a maze you have to go through twice, a day/night system where you can miss vital events, the game sometimes going out of order or repeating events, a stamina system where you need rations to stay fed or die, and sleeping more than once a day hurts you. Every step I worried would be the one that would end my game and I'd have to start over, whether it be my own error or the game itself breaking. But somehow, after 10-11 hours, I finished it. I went into this hoping that it could improve a little from the original, and they tried, oh how they tried. I’ll give it this, it was ambitious. So many systems on top of each other, but they all have the effect of making playing a hassle rather than improving the player’s experience. The story has slightly better characters than the original, but still misses the mark. Rarely are personalities and relationships developed. Werner and Hellaynea’s romance is built in one scene about a compliment and doesn’t conclude until the end of the game. The romance with the Princess was even more out of character as earlier it’s set up more as an apprenticeship than anything. The only one that was handled well was the side story about Cinders and Big Pete. We are introduced to them separately as individuals rather than forcing the romance from the get go. We have a small, friendly chat with Cinders about what she’s reading to create some kind of friendship. This makes sense why the next conversation she trusts you enough to ask for help with Big Pete and the Herald. Big Pete we are introduced through the gambling minigame, and while I don’t like the minigame, it works as a channel to connect with Big Pete. By the time the player hires Big Pete as a squire, even if it goes out of order, they most likely have gambled with him for a while, presumably getting to know him. Hiring him when no one else would further serves to create a friendship between Werner and Big Pete. We then support him as a friend to move past it by speaking good of him with the Herald. It then culminates with getting the Herald to accept their engagement, ending the story. It’s nothing exceptional, but it leverages two of it’s mechanics to tell a decent story. The day/night system helps pace the storyline over several in-game days to not have the player rush through it. Then the gambling minigame as context for one of the relationships. Now thinking about it, there was more build-up to Hellaynea’s and Werner’s romance, it’s just I didn’t participate in it. The jousting practice everyday was supposed to be Werner bonding with Hellaynea, but I didn’t want to spend more game-time than necessary, so unfortunately I didn’t get that extra context. But it did actually handle it okay. So it did some interesting things narrative-wise. It’s an awful experience to play through, don’t get me wrong. Up there with the Quivering in most frustrating, but it tries. It tries so much, and ultimately that was its downfall. So many systems, and not enough time to implement them so that they all gel together. This game needed more than 2 years of development. I’m kind of disappointed that the developers never got to finish the trilogy with the third game. It most likely was going to have Diakonov as the ultimate villain working with the orcs to take over the Valley. I don’t think it would have been good, but interesting to see how it would have ended. Thus Dragon Lore 2 will most likely remain an obscure oddity of adventure game’s past, but one that at least deserves to be remembered for what made it flawed, even if not remembered in a good light. Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed this video, perhaps you’d like to support me on Patreon or Ko-fi. Patreon is if you want to support me monthly and Ko-fi is for one time support. Any amount helps this channel keep going. Anyways, please like, comment, and subscribe for more content coming soon. If you click on my channel icon, you can see all my other videos. Well, that’s all I had to say, so see ya around!