Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern Preview

Just a few short years ago, nearly everyone wondered if the adventure genre would be able to compete against the flashy and fast-paced nature of other genres. Thankfully, a number of developers--both major and minor--stuck to their guns and continued to produce adventure games regardless of whether or not the market for adventure games appeared to be shrinking. LucasArts continued its long-standing tradition of great adventure games over the past few years with excellent releases such as Grim Fandango and, of course, the latest game in the Monkey Island series. Lesser-known developers--like small European developer Funcom, which was responsible for developing the highly acclaimed adventure game The Longest Journey--continued to produce adventure games regardless of the potential financial risk. Even though there might be an invisible death sentence looming over the adventure genre, there's no question that adventure games continue to grow and evolve by incorporating new features and emphasizing gameplay elements that appeal to a much wider audience. Red Storm Entertainment's upcoming game, Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern, serves as a perfect example of an adventure game that emphasizes more action-oriented gameplay than you would find in the typical adventure game.

Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern is based on the fantasy novels of famed author Anne McCaffrey. In her stories, dragons and humans live together under the common understanding that one takes care of the other. This understanding stems from an event called Thread, which occurs every 200 years on Pern. During this event, cometlike objects fall from the red star and inflict serious damage on the world of Pern. However, the humans quickly find out that dragon fire is capable of destroying the objects and preventing any damage from being done, so they begin to raise the dragons and genetically alter them to become enormous beasts with high levels of intelligence. To ensure an even closer relationship between human and dragon, a dragon and its rider are linked telepathically for life--when one is in trouble, the other knows it. Eventually, small communities called Weyrs begin to form around the queen dragon Morrath and her rider, the Weyrwoman, because the queen dragon is the only one capable of producing offspring.

As the game starts, you take control of D'kor, one of the younger dragonriders, who awakens from a long night of celebration over the passing of the Weyrwoman Nalaya. Unfortunately, D'kor's dragon, Zenth, must relay the information that Morrath, the queen dragon of the Weyr, may abandon her eggs because she's no longer connected to a Weyrwoman. However, much to the dismay of the older members of the Weyr, there are no potential Weyrwomen in the immediate area, so one must be selected from outside the Weyr and within the regular villages that populate Pern's landscape. D'kor and Zenth must scour the world of Pern to locate and retrieve any women who are worthy of being linked to Morrath. Along the way, various subplots begin to unfold--the emergence of a disease that's killing everyone in its path, as well as a conflict that appears to be brewing among different dragonriders within the Weyr.

Quests and Puzzles

The way that quests and puzzles are introduced in Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern is fairly standard in comparison to other adventure games, since the story only progresses if you manage to retrieve specific items or solve puzzles. In fact, your first task as D'kor--as simple as it may be--actually involves a number of different actions that help you become familiar with the game's basic mechanics and help you find new quests and puzzles to solve. Right off the bat, Zenth demands that you find some oil and a scrubbing brush located somewhere within his small dwelling in the Weyr. Assuming Zenth hasn't already berated you for neglecting your duties, you can head back to the area where he's resting, mix the oil with the water, and then proceed to brush his massive head. Zenth begins to tell you more about the story involving the Weyrwoman and the possibility of Morrath leaving her eggs, but more importantly, another quest is presented to you, and it involves calling all the dragonriders to a meeting and discovering what occurred during the previous night's celebration. Obviously, not all quests are going to be as simple as finding implements for cleaning your dragon, but it gives a good idea as to what kind of tasks you have to face to progress through the game.

Other quests in Dragonriders can be incredibly dynamic--some even require a few efforts before you may even realize what exactly is required. That's not necessarily a bad thing since most of the solutions to quests can be fairly intuitive, but they still take a while to solve since they involve multiple subquests and subpuzzles. One example of this occurs when you visit one of the major towns located outside the Weyr, where you must learn a skill from one of the local thieves to get past a set of guards--and to do so requires a little trickery on your own part. When you enter the town, you must find a group of craftsmen, who supply you with new boots and clothes to hide your dragonrider appearance--if you stay in your dragonrider clothing, you apparently frighten thieves as well as other townspeople. After you put on the new clothes and wait around the town square for a brief period of time, the thief attempts to steal your knife. All you have to do is run after the thief and capture him; then he decides to teach you the sneaking skill. With this new ability, you can sneak past the city guards with ease and continue on the quest you originally intended on solving.

Fans of adventure games should feel right at home with Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern. Nearly all of the 170 characters play a vital role in telling their part of the story as well as serving as catalysts for quests in which you're required to talk to them. But, Dragonriders' gameplay doesn't just consist of conversation and basic treasure hunting. In fact, parts of the game make you feel as if you're playing an action or role-playing game rather than a run-of-the-mill adventure game.

This is an Adventure Game?

You probably shouldn't be too surprised that Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern has features that are typically found in action role-playing games. After all, the game already bears a striking resemblance to other action games, with its third-person perspective and full three-dimensional environments. After completing your first quest, one of the first things you'll notice onscreen is a message, which indicates that your knowledge, reputation, or strength has increased. Generally, your knowledge increases by just talking to different people located throughout Pern and by learning more about the surrounding area. When you agree to undertake a quest or if you make a promise to another character in the game, your reputation increases, and of course, as you defeat enemies, your strength increases. These statistics may seem trivial, but they actually play an incredibly important role in the game because you can't advance to different areas of Pern or solve some puzzles without having high individual attribute levels. Early in the game, you encounter a woman who is weaving an enormous tapestry within the lower levels of the Weyr. She tells you that she's collecting information so that she can complete a map of Pern. She needs someone--someone reliable--to go out and collect information. If your reputation hasn't increased since the beginning of the game, she won't bother asking you to gather the information for her. But if your reputation meter is high, she won't hesitate to ask.

Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern's battle system really isn't something you might expect to find in an adventure game. Throughout the game, you encounter characters who not only give you weapons but also teach you valuable skills that enable you to use the weapons more effectively. A friend located in the room next to D'kor's is responsible for giving you a small knife and teaching you basic combat skills, such as strafing around the opponent and learning when and how to strike an opponent. Unfortunately, combat is a source of major frustration in the game's current pre-beta build, as it often causes the game to crash whenever an enemy creature attempts to strike you. However, these problems should be addressed before Dragonriders' final release.

Combat is important because when it's successfully executed, it increases D'kor's strength, which can later be used to solve puzzles that require a simple display of strength. For example, when you decide to travel to one of the island towns, you find a boat located on a beach next to a fisherman who happens to be sitting on top of a small rock peninsula. If you talk to him, the fisherman reveals that his boat is stranded on the beach, but he doesn't have enough strength to push it off, so he basically asks you to push it into the water for him. Again, if your strength hasn't reached a higher level, the fisherman just laughs at your inability to move the boat. The attribute feature helps add to the exploration element of the game, as it forces you to search every part of a town or the Weyr to raise your stats and progress further in the game.

Final Thoughts

If there's anything to complain about in Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern, it's the lack of any real interaction between you and the dragon. You can call upon the dragon for advice and information on the location you're in, and you can ask it to pick you up and take you to another destination--however, you can't actually take control of the dragon. All you do is select a town on the map, and the dragon automatically takes you there. A few aspects about dragon flight make the game a little more interesting--the dragon can't land in just any place, so you need to be in a perfectly open space for the dragon to be able to spread its wings.

In the current build, there are more than a few problems with the camera. Oftentimes, the camera keeps a static position, as it does in just about every other adventure game, but the problem is that it is often placed in an area that makes it difficult to see where doors, stairs, or exits are located. Numerous times, you are forced to move D'kor around in circles in hopes of accidentally stumbling upon the door you entered through.

Visually, Dragonriders looks amazing. Though the dragons lack certain details, they're absolutely massive, and they're designed in such a manner that different parts of their skin move independently of other parts. For example, when Zenth wakes up, he shakes his head, which causes the skin on his neck to flap back and forth while the skin on his belly moves in an opposite direction. Human characters have surprisingly detailed facial features, complete with unique expressions that change depending on the conversation, as well as a detailed lip-synching system that even includes tongue movement. But perhaps the most impressive visual feature in Dragonriders is the environments--they're enormous (they have to be to accommodate the dragons), and they have a striking level of detail. Textures are clean, and when you're not in a town center, there are plenty of structures, such as windmills and cabins, dotting the landscape. There are even small bugs and lizards that scatter across the ground as you traverse through small caves or over rolling hills. Major towns are alive and often populated with up to eight characters onscreen at once, which is quite significant when you take into account the detail of the surrounding area and the detail of the character models. However, there is some significant slowdown in areas that don't have any fogging effects or areas that are in the open but are filled with too many nonplayer characters.

Red Storm's Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern is an excellent example of an adventure game that is reaching out to an audience unlike the traditional adventure-game audience. There are still plenty of adventure-game elements in the game, as shown by the extensive amount of dialogue and the many characters you have to talk to, yet the attributes system and the action-game style of combat offer interesting new twists to the genre.