Is this game a masterpiece for hardcore players? Yes! It is an isometric single-player fantasy action role-playing game with pixel art graphics. It looks like an old Amiga game, only with a much higher resolution. The core elements are the exploration of the world, conversations (in multiple choice) with the inhabitants, but also battles in which your skill with the gamepad is important. There are no scaling enemies, nor are there quest markers that constantly show you the way. Is it a new Gothic in 2D? You collect resources and use them to create new items, join one of the two factions and try to survive on the one hand and advance the story on the other. At the start of the game, we first create a character. Gender, skin color, voice, hair, face paint, beard and a name. If desired, we also have slightly improved character values in one area (happiness, health, money, strength... or a few healing remedies in the bag). We can also choose whether we want to play on normal difficulty (Classic) or prefer slightly easier battles (as an Explorer). One day, our hunters bring a glowing red crystal to the village. Our druids are very excited about the thing, apparently the crystal allows us to cross over into a parallel world - Drova. Some time later, two druids march off in the middle of the night with the crystal in their hands. For whatever reason, we follow them. We see the druids discover the fog-shrouded entrance to Drova, but instead of returning to the village, they set off. Curious as we are, we follow them into the mist... and finally arrive in Drova, with the red crystal but without the two druids. And so the story begins.

Drova is an action RPG with survival game elements. We have a quest log, there are overview maps of the surroundings (if we have a little ink we can even draw on them), we have an extensive inventory and can equip various items of equipment (clothing, ring, collars). The number of our character stats is manageable, but there are strength, dexterity and mental strength, plus health, stamina and focus (mana). We have an extensive talent tree where we can learn more and more (mainly combat) skills. Winning battles earns us experience points, which we can use to learn skills from trainers. Spells will soon be added if we find the appropriate (consumable) spell scrolls or learn spells ourselves. The area is full of resources - which we have to collect, of course. Coins, wood, berries, mushrooms, iron... defeated enemies leave behind objects such as leather and meat. Of course, we also need all this stuff to craft new items or cook food. This is the part that plays like a survival game.

The game can be played entirely with the gamepad (alternatively with mouse + keyboard). By pressing RS, we activate the observation mode, in which we recognize hidden things in the environment, such as footprints. We move more slowly to do this. We use Y to draw our weapon, RT to strike and LT to use our shield. We can use B to dodge and X to switch to our second set of equipment. Press LS to duck. My PlayStation DualSense controller worked great (it even displays the PlayStation icons), and the display on the 4K TV was excellent. There is no voice output, at least not intelligible, but some conversations are accompanied by strange sounds.

Conclusion:
Hardcore action RPG. Make decisions that hurt someone, there is no right or wrong, there is only one decision and its consequences. You decide where to go and what to do - no one is stopping you from going into an area with monsters that are way too strong. You may be warned by someone, but whether you believe the warning or not is up to you. You have a lot of freedom, a lot of items, quests and NPCs in a fantasy world that can captivate you for a long time if you get involved. And yes, Drova is a little reminiscent of Gothic.

Metaphor: ReFantazio, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard are gonna be fighting for best RPG of 2024, and sadly the actual best RPG released this year likely won't even be nominated.

This game gave me PTSD after forcing me to take care of little piglets and then butchering them. Vote for living in peace with the Might Boar. 10/10 Would recomend.

In a more serious note, this game is a hidden gem. I haven't felt this addicted to a game in a while.
This games is about free exploration mixed in with a fun combat system. The Celt mythology brings is a breath of new air as we rarely see it in games.

Drova came out of nowhere. I had heard nothing about the game before it showed up on my steam recommendations in the RPG section of the shop. Some friends already had it on their wishlist, so I looked closer into it and it turns out this was supposed to be a "2D-Gothic". Call me intrigued.

26 hours later, somewhere in early chapter 4, I feel like it's time for a review.

Very much a Gothic clone outside of combat - which will get its own section. There are all the fundamentals of walking, talking, gathering, crafting, lockpicking - the latter three can be improved by learning related skills from trainers. Experience is gained by killing things and completing quests, which gives additional learning points and HP. Puzzles are available in a range from braindead easy to barely possible without looking them up. Quests often have multiple ways to complete them and the game adapts to finding quest items before starting the quest.

I'd call this Souls-lite. It has the usual block, parry, dodge along light and heavy attacks and some spells and consumables. Fights are much more forgiving than in Souls games, though. It's pretty solid in its execution and a lot less clunky than that of the usual Gothic and spiritual successors. But unfortunately it also falls into the traps of Souls-like games. Difficulty is not created by cool mechanics, but simply by throwing more and more enemies and ground effects at the player until dodging everything is impossible and these big fights become gear checks rather than skill checks.

Much like Gothic there are no quest markers to guide you. There are areas you can go to but really shouldn't, which is ususally indicated by simply getting wrecked. You will receive a map and the option to place some markers, but if you really want to know your way around the game, you should take notes - outside of the game. The questlogs are short and often miss key information - in a game with that many named NPCs it's just impossible to remember who was where, if the quest log doesn't tell you. Some quest givers also change location between chapters or when completing certain quests, which makes turning in quests occasionally harder than the actual quest objective. Top that off with vague or even missleading directions in the logs and a rather small community with very little material to look up online and some quests became basically impossible to complete. But those cases are fortunately rare.

Without spoiling too much, this is basically Gothic. You're a nobody stranded in a strange place with nothing but rags on you and a piece of wood in your hand. You have a crystal that you need to take to some druids, but you are not allowed to see them before joining one of the camps. Then things escalate quickly.

This is a tough one. There are many choices to be made and the world reacts to your actions. It often feels like the story could play out entirely different if you only made a few different decisions. But then along comes chapter 3, takes away all agency of the player and forces things to happen to progress the story. This made me think that choice might have been an illusion after all. That amount of railroading should not happen in a game like this.

Once again this is very much Gothic. Other than learning skills for gathering and crafting, you can put LP into weapon skills or attributes. Gear is locked behind basic prowess, meaning you need a certain amount of attributes levelled, but it doesn't matter where you put your LP into. You can also acquire special attacks or spells throughout the game, though they felt rather secondary so far. The main milestones of progress are getting a new weapon skill or crossing the limit to equip the next best weapon, which always feel great.

Great effort by a small team. It captures the spirit of the old Gothic games with more engaging combat. I'd like to see improved quest log entries and I wish the agency in chapter 3 was not reduced to 0, but other than that I'm having a lot of fun. Well worth the time and money.

Yılların eskitemediği Kült Klasiği Gothic 1-2 nin 2 boyutlu versiyonu ile karşı karşıyayız. Fazla söze gerek yok, o oyunları sevdiyseniz Drova'yı da seveceksiniz.

Diğer oyunların çoğunda olmayan bir keşif hissine, yaşayan dünyaya ve gerçekten güçsüz bir ana karaktere sahip olmasıdır Gothiclerin( ve Risen -ELEX 1 in) özelliği ve Drova bunların hepsini çok güzel yansıtıyor 2B, piksel grafikli bir oyun olmasına rağmen.
Oyunun dövüşleri affetmiyor ve özellikle başlarda uzun bir süre, birisi yan baksa bile ölüyorsunuz. Savaşlarınızı dikkatli seçmeli ve güçlenip, düzgün ekipman bulana kadar gideceğiniz yerlere dikkat etmeniz gerekiyor. Oyunda düzgün zırh ve silahların etkisi muazzam, hasar bile veremediğiniz tipleri biraz güçlendikten sonra, dikkatli davranıp yenebileceğinizi keşfedince gelen his oyun boyunca kendini koruyor. Başlarda az da olsa yavaş yavaş tuzak ve zehir tarzı şeylerle savaşı iyice lehimize çevirebiliyoruz. En güçlü kısmı da büyüler, en başta nadir bulunan parşömenler ile yapabildiğimiz büyüleri oyunun sonlarına doğru yapabilme şansı bulunca değmeyin keyfimize.

Oyunun oldukça geniş bir dünyası var ve her adımda hazineler, düşmanlar, görevler ile dolu. Gizem içinde gizem, hazine içinde hazine, problem içinde problem var here köşede. Keşif hissi hiç azalmıyor ve hep ödüllendiriyor iyi kötü. Şehirlerin kendilerine kuralları var ve her istediğinizi her zaman yapamıyorsunuz, alamıyorsunuz. Sıfırdan başlayan bir karakter olarak kendinizi kanıtlamanız ve taraf seçmeniz gerekiyor. Bunları yaparken de açıkçası her yol açık önümüzde, kalleşçe de yapabiliriz, onurlu bir şekilde de.

NPC lerin kendi düzenleri var ve bunlara uyuyorlar gün içerisinde, birisiyle özel olarak "konuşmak" istediğinizde tenhada kıstırabilirsiniz veya evinden uzaklaşınca o çok lazım görev eşyasını "ödünç" alabilirsiniz. Hepsi daha yüce bir amaç uğruna! Yakalanırsanız canınız yanacak ama söylemedi demeyin. Özellikle oyunun başlarında.

Görevler fazla olmasa da çeşitli. Boş görev yok 10 tane kurt, 5 tane kuş kes gibi. Görevleri yapmanın tek yolu yok ve bu diğer yolları bulunca diğer karakterlerde bunlara göre tepki veriyor.

Oyunun ufak tefek problemleri var, kontroller biraz karışık gelebilir klavye ile. Fazla bug yok ama olanlar genelde görevlerle ilgili. Grafik tarzı herkese hitap edecek türde değil, çevre ve düşman tasarımı iyi olsa da insan karakterlerde pek bir şey belli olmuyor. Müzikler idare eder ama sayı olarak az, bir süre sonra tekrar ediyor. Ve bu tarz oyunların genel problemi olan oyun sonu boşluğu burada da var. Özellikle çok fazla keşif yönüne yüklenirseniz oyunun son anlarında boş ovalarda bir ileri bir geri koşturuyorsunuz.

- Take Gothic 1 or 2
- Strip out its clumsy combat with a more interesting and challenging one.
- Turn the 3rd person view to an isometric pixelated one.

Congratulations you have just made Drova - Forsaken Kin!

I don't like pixelated 2D games.
I couldn't stop playing this game.

What have you done to me?

Solid game with Gothic vibes for solid price.

An unassuming gem of a game that was a splendid experience.

Excellent reactivity, great characters, and a decent story that pays excellent homage to the Gothic series.

I sincerely hope that there'll be another Drova game in the future, with a bigger budget. It's fantastic to see Gothic's mechanics live on to inspire other developers.

This is the kind of gem that readily puts big budget studios to shame. Not least the ideologically captured ones desperate to regurgitate their personal agendas and politicking onto an audience held at ransom to the sunk cost fallacy.

Only criticisms are that travelling around the map could benefit from a faster, more streamlined experience. Teleportation runes, a mount, or even a 'run' spell would make it substantially less of a slog to get around.

Also, access to magic happens surprisingly late-game, leaving you with little interest to play around with the less useful spells (such as magic missile), and just generally less time to feel your character's build (if you're aiming for a primarily mind- and magic-based build) come into its own.

But sack the cutscene voice-over guy. His pronunciation and voice-acting is toe-curlingly awful.

And, for once, I'm not going to bang on about typos and grammar because, surprisingly, there were few truly annoying mistakes (though the usual failure to understand the difference between 'lying' and 'laying' and their appropriate use cropped up, but not enough to make me want to lose my proverbial marbles). A preference of mine would have been for this otherwise wonderful fellow European developer to opt for international (read: British) English over the ever-ubiquitous American alternative.

But, I can always find something to moan about.

Rock on, Just2D :)

I think I might wipe the cobwebs off the Gothic series and give it a replay. It's been far too long.

This game is extremely well crafted. Combat is difficult but very rewarding. Exploration is great, things are hidden everywhere. Almost no bugs. If you die you lose maybe 30 seconds because the game is always auto saving your progress. It feels like everything they put in the game is there for a reason and was well thought out balanced for difficulty and rewarding you for playing. Its just one of those games where you can tell the developers love what they do.

Finished it twice. In a row.
GOTY 2024, at least in its category.

It's hard, but fair. The story is compelling, the two sides aren't just "the good guys" and "the bad guys". There's a ton of stuff to find with exploration - to the point I saw a lot a of new stuff during my second, Iron-man playthrough. The puzzles are good, a bit on the simple side sometimes, but make sense.

It has basically everything you'd ask for in such a game, and is well worth the 25€ price tag.