Eragon English Demo

In most stories, especially in those featured in the D&D universe, dragons are pictured as powerful and vain creatures, which are usually the final obstacle between the heroes and untold treasure. In Eragon, on the other hand, the main protagonist is a legendary dragon rider, who holds the power to tame the beasts and make use of their devastating abilities.

As you might be aware, Eragon has been developed in response to the Broadway blockbuster with the same name, in order to give the fans an opportunity to take part themselves in the events pictured in the movie, as well as unleash the magical powers of the dragon rider. Naturally, this also means that you get to control it and even ride it in battle, which makes for some interesting gameplay mechanics.

The game features a third-person camera perspective, as well as a curious, but sometimes ineffective combat system. This is due to the fact that your attacks must be coordinated in order to achieve combos, which require you to press the attack keys in a predefined order. Obviously, this does not always go according to the plan and you often find yourself re-watching the plain attack animation over and over again, which quickly gets boring and annoying.

Although you usually have a partner with you, the sheer number of enemies can get overwhelming at times. In those situations, you have the ability to call the dragon to your aid and get rid of one enemy in the blink of an eye, since he gets picked up by the flying beast and taken out of the battlefield. There are also all sorts of quick-time events spread throughout the maps, where you get to call the dragon to clear the path for you or destroy certain obstacles.

Since the game was designed in order to be played on the consoles as well, you might be a bit disoriented on the computer, since the control layout is rather weird and you do not quite get to handle the camera angle. Hence, it is pretty difficult to get a proper view of the fight in some situations, while the characters respond in a very linear matter to the commands you issue. Thus, whenever you start attacking, the animation must go on in a straight line in front of the character, regardless if the enemy moved a few inches to the side in the meanwhile.

Thanks to the fact that the story adheres to the events seen in the movie, Eragon remains a fascinating journey to undertake, regardless of the inconveniences that plague the gameplay and the clunky controls in the PC version.