The Dark Eye: Demonicon Previews

After a heavy dose of silence, we're more than ready to welcome in a couple of new impressions pieces for Noumena Studios' The Dark Eye: Demonicon, courtesy of UK-based websites PS3 Home and Electronic Theatre. Here's a little something from the former:
The game itself is a rather dark and dreary RPG-fantasy title that is somewhat visually reminiscent of old favorites like Dark Souls or Demon's Souls. In other words, there's a distinctive focus on catacomb-like environments and other very mysterious and dark level designs which add greatly to the somewhat creepy feel of the game.

If you've seen any of the preview or teaser trailers then you should already know that this game borrows some of its artistic cues from the Lord of the Rings; this alone will probably perk up the interests of quite a few gamers. However, this doesn't mean that DE: D is a knock-off game; it definitely is an original title, even if it is constructed from borrowed elements.

And a snip from the latter:
In this one instance we already see that The Dark Eye Demonicon proposes some genuinely challenging moral dilemmas, but this facet of the videogame runs even deeper. A number of other instances were discussed with Electronic Theatre during our time with the videogame, but most notable was the mention of yet further resulting actions of the above circumstance: should the cannibal survive you will meet him again further down the line, however those who follow our path will instead come face-to-face with his mentor.

As stated in the introduction, The Dark Eye Demonicon does feature a character development system. However, it's likely to be very different to that which you might expect of an RPG: rather than levelling-up in the traditional manner, players earn XP to improve existing abilities. New skills can be purchases with AP and spells with GP, and this three toll system works in a similar fashion to Fable's use it or lose it' technique, where the more you use an ability the better you will become at it. The combat is real-time, with spells accessible via a menu wheel on the right trigger, allowing for players to specialise if they so wish, but using all of the assets in your arsenal is undoubtedly the better plan.

Thanks, Lady Vox!