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Das Schwarze Auge: Schatten u"ber Riva / Realms of Arkania III: Shadows Over Riva - PC-DOS (1996) |
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The final episode of the trilogy leads the by now tested band of adventurers to the titular harbor town of Riva, where a complex mystery with the discriminated clan of the Holberkians at its center unfolds. The Holberkians are elven-orcish hybrids, who used to serve the town by arranging trade and negotiations with surrounding orc tribes. In consequence of the hysteria around the Svelltdale being besieged by the orcs, however, much suspicion has grown against them, and not only did humans move away from the now ghettoized minority's housings, but their lives also became less than save thanks to conspiracy theories and lynch mobs. Upon their arrival in Riva, the heroes are hired by a priestess to investigate the role of the Holberkians in the orcish activities around town. Soon they stumble upon a complicated network of intrigues and entanglements around a mysterious guild and its "trademaster", an elven vampire, pirates, worms and a rat catcher. Shadows Over Riva is the first and only part in the series with no pen & paper writers involved, so Attic could concentrate on creating a plot suited for a computer game this time. On the flipside, this means they took a few liberties from the original game world, the events and elements not present in any official The Dark Eye publication are explained away by making the quest a top-secret mission whose circumstances and consequences never become known to the outside world. Attic also tried to streamline the gameplay itself to better fit the requirements asked from a computer game rather than relying too much on its pen & paper roots. The adventure is composed much tighter, as well stylistic as in actual terrain covered. The party isn't allow to leave Riva and its immediate vicinity throughout the game, eliminating the travel mode, which was loved by the hardcore fans, but earned a lot of critique from more mainstream-oriented gamers, especially on the international market. In consequence, most of the skills required during travels become useless in this game. Attic tried to counter this (and the overall problem of useless abilities) by integrating skills into events and encounters through the main quest more often. But most of these are once more focused on picking one character from the group for some entertaining episode, rather than serving an actual purpose.  As always, the final save from Star Trail can be imported into the sequel, this time even without any major bugs to fear. Yet, the English version for some reasons converts all character's experience points back to the original dimensions. But instead of a more or less complicated algorithm to determine the equivalent amount of experience, heroes are stuck with a fixed value for their current level. This can be very frustrating for heroes who were just about to reach a new level at the end of the former adventure. As soon as the game starts, it's easy to forget about it, though. The game is much more embedded with adventure elements, and character levels stop mattering that much, especially with an imported party. The focus lies much more on solving a criminal case and exploring the town of and its surroundings. Other than the rather generic settlements in the former games, Riva is designed as a very unique town (and follows closely the description in contemporary P&P source books). Movement is now completely free and feels much more natural, with comforting features like strafing. Riva is one of the first RPG towns to convey a breathtaking atmosphere, despite still not a single soul being displayed in the 3D window. In fact, this only strengthens the oppressive mood of a town bending under the suspense of suspected treachery and a possible invasion. Attic was obviously going for a horror vibe with this game, and some of the dungeons are genuinely creepy. The view can now also be enjoyed in full screen, although that makes maneuvering the menus a bit bothersome. It is totally worth it, though.  Almost all the people in Riva can be visited in their homes and questioned about the case, and each of them has an individual drawn portrait to go with the conversation. Some of those drawings are a bit more than just inspired, and so they invite for a fun spot-the-celebrity game. The game also supports 640x480 resolution, but it is only used for the ingame help and a few hi-res illustrations. Most of these are there to depict Game Over scenes, but sometimes important story points are also presented this way. Shadows over Riva could have been the visually most well-rounded part of the series if it wasn't for the occasional render image and of course the FMVs, which, like most of the time, have aged quite terribly and stick out as inappropriate.  Once again Attic didn't change the formula for the tactical combat. Only the automatic options got expanded upon greatly. When entering computer combat mode, now the player can adjust the settings for the use of magic and ranged weapons for each individual character. It is also possible to have the characters switch the weapon type only when necessary, like when they're caught surrounded with a bow in their hands. The game deactivates auto combat for some encounters it considers "boss fights", tough. Unfortunately, exactly those are boringly easy more often than not.  The most significant improvement for the interface is the item distribution tool. While any items were just dropped into the inventory of the first available character, now the player can easily and swiftly manage the inventory of the group whenever equipment is picked up, bought or sold. Additionally, containers finally can also be used to store temporarily unused stuff, which takes a huge burden off the limited space available. This feature has to be deployed with care, though, as many locations get locked off during the course of the adventure.  Of course in 1996, the game was released exclusively on CD, which makes Shadow over Riva the only game that is always contained in its definitive version in reissues. On the flipside of the coin it is also the only game in the trilogy with noticeable load times. They're not very long on any reasonably fast system, not even when played through an emulator, but often it is required to change locations or access menus quite frequently, so it tends to get annoying nonetheless. Riva also contains the complete detailed manual inside the game itself, which makes it ideal for digital distribution. The help pages are presented in VESA high resolution, and the interface is comfortable enough to make the online help a viable option even when a printed manual is available.  Sir-Tech's English version was released in early 1997. Internationally, the game earned a lot of criticism for its outdated presentation. While the title was conceived as a budget title in Germany and sold through the low-price publisher Topware, the International version was marketed for full price. Shadows over Riva does a lot of things different than its predecessor, and feels a whole lot more like an adventure game (after the first two titles were still advertised as the remedy against this trend). Some fans of the series have shunned it because of that, but actually it becomes a valuable addition to the Northland Trilogy especially for being different, and its atmosphere and narration are by far the most dense among the three games. There are a handful of more objective problems, though: Riva is an amazing city, but halfway through, the developers obviously ran out of interesting things to do in it, and the last portion of the game becomes a downright dungeon rush. At least most of the dungeons are well designed, with one really boring exception, but that one can luckily be skipped for the most part. Especially aggravating are two or three time activated encounters, as it is not always made clear that all the player can really do to advance the plot is to running around and wasting time. |
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