A couple of flame breaths and most enemies are 'toast.' You get to make up for that when you have the opportunity for Arokh to battle non-flying foes. Footwork and dodging are also important as Rynn will rarely be in a situation to go toe-to-toe with her foes. Armored opponents fall much quicker when you have the foresight to switch Rynn's weapon to an armor-piercing one. When attacking an opponent with a shield, you must direct Rynn's attacks against the unshielded side or you'll simply hear a clank as your attack lands ineffectually. The game adds some thoughtful touches too. Monsters have their own fighting style and Rynn must adjust to each, balancing her reach, weapon speed, and type of attacks.

Rynn's weapons are rated for length and speed, and some have special abilities like flaming, which causes extra damage and lets you watch your foes burn. Rynn has several different attacks, some of which require a variety of key combinations and include jumps and rolls. There's very little mental adjustment to playing the different modes, although ground combat is the area where Drakan really shines. The controls for Rynn map well to controlling Arokh. You control her movements through a combination of keyboard, mouse, joystick, or gamepad, and I found that the default controls of keyboard and mouse worked quite well. Since it's a third-person game, the view is that of a camera from just behind Rynn. Personally I was just disappointed that it wasn't a role-playing game. As an action/adventure game crossover, Drakan definitely falls more into the action genre, much to the disappointment of many adventure game purists. The rest is a third-person hack-'n-slash action game with the puzzles and plot of an adventure game. Of course, only part of the game takes place astride a dragon.

The only thing they forgot to include was a fan to give that 'wind in the hair' feeling. What fan of fantasy games and literature hasn't dreamed of flying on the back of a giant fire-breathing dragon, burning your enemies from the sky or simply feeling the wind in your hair as you examine the beautiful vistas before you? Drakan: Order of the Flame fulfills this desire with a dragon to ride, enemies to flame, exquisite 3D graphics, 3D sound, and force-feedback joystick support. Together they follow the trail of Rynn's brother only to find that it leads to a dark and sinister plot to return an ancient evil to the land of Drakan. In her quest to rescue him she awakens and then bonds with Arokh, the dragon-hero of the now legendary Order of the Flame. Rynn is a protagonist of the Croft-ian variety (meaning female, well-endowed, and scantily-clad), whose brother is kidnapped by a vicious horde of orcs and wartoks.

Order of the flame