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Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon

Score: 78%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: Encore
Developer: Microids
Media: DVD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Adventure

Graphics & Sound:

Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon returns gamers back to the lore that Microids has laid out for us concerning the un-dead master, his children and his land.

The game's presentation is pretty top-notch. The visuals are dark and gloomy, as they should be, and the battered and destroyed buildings of Transylvania really help to show the country's recent hardships. As you go from the town to Vlad's castle and the cemetery, everything feels right. But then again, point-and-click adventures like this one are known for their high-quality graphics, thanks in part to the pre-rendered nature of the genre.

Audio is solid as well. While attempts at accurate lip-synching are all but ignored, the dialogue itself is on par with the rest of the series, and only feels stiff in a few locations. Meanwhile, the game's somber orchestral background music really stands out and steals the scene.


Gameplay:

Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon follows the tale of Father Arno Moriani who has been sent to Transylvania in order to investigate the life of a nurse who just died there for the consideration of sainthood.

Upon arriving at the little war-torn town, it is obvious that everyone has only good things to say about the nurse, and many claim that wishing over her grave with a lit candle will grant your desires. If this is true, then Martha's claims to do miracles, even after her death, will surly help her on her path to becoming a saint. But when you discover that she had an odd belief in vampires, your focus switches to uncovering this odd obsession the town has with children of the night, and disproving their existence.

Unfortunately for Father Arno Moriani, as he learns more about the folklore of becoming a vampire, he himself starts to believe it and he starts to realize that he is following "The Path of the Dragon," the means to becoming a vampire yourself.

All-in-all, Dracula 3 is a pretty solid adventure title with quite a few unique puzzles. A lot of the game's puzzles involve researching various documents, manuscripts and ancient prophecies, but the game also has its normal share of logic and door lock puzzles as well.


Difficulty:

Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon is pretty straightforward. Anyone in the right mindset should be able to make their way through the game's story. Sure there are a few puzzles that will take a bit more time to get through, but most of them have very logical answers.

I have to say though, there were a couple of times, particularly in the beginning of the game, where I wasn't exactly sure what I should be doing. After arriving at the Inn, you are basically left to roam around and talk to whomever you can. Well, there are quite a few people scattered about this village, and they are spaced out rather well. Some will be in the cemetery, some in the Inn itself and some just on the streets. Unfortunately, almost all of them have quite a few screens of walking between them, so gathering information isn't really a quick process. But I guess that just made the game a bit more tedious than hard.


Game Mechanics:

Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon plays like most adventure games and doesn't really stand out too much in the mechanics department. There are a couple of interesting features like Moriani's occasional panic attacks that can hinder your ability to actually perform the tasks you need to. While these complications aren't frequent, they are used in just the right places, and typically appropriately foreshadowed, like Moriani's claustrophobia, for example. But for the most part, if you've played any other point-and-click first-person adventure game, you won't have any problems booting up Dracula 3 and getting started.

If you've been playing the other Dracula games from this series (mind you Dracula: Origin isn't a part of this line), then this game's faithful continuation of Bram Stoker's universe is right up your alley.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows XP (Home and Pro) SP2/Vista, Pentium III 800 MHz or higher (Pentium IV recommended) 128 MB RAM (512 for Vista), 16x DVD-ROM drive, 4 GB free hard disk space, 800 x 600 16-bit color display, DirectX 9.0 compatible or higher 3d video card with 64 MB of video RAM, DirectX 9.0 16-bit sound card
 

Test System:



Alienware Aurora m9700 Laptop, Windows XP Professional, AMD Turion 64 Mobile 2.41 GHz, 2 GB Ram, Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS 256MB Video Cards, DirectX 9.0c

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Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated