Saturday, April 23, 2011

Dracula Resurrection

Dracula Resurrection is the first game in the Dracula trilogy (Dracula 2: The Last Sanctuary, Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon). It is also the direct predecessor to The Last Sanctuary, but both these games do not seem to be set in the same universe as The Path of the Dragon. I have really enjoyed everyone of these games and it is now one of my favourite classical adventure series, but Dracula Resurrection is the obvious best title in the series.



Dracula Resurrection, like its sequel, is chock full of content but not nearly as big a game. And almost in direct opposition to its sequel it is very open world, and while for the most part you have to approach the puzzles in a linear fashion it never seems forced and you always seem to have many avenues to explore at the same time. In fact, the game is so open world that it is separated into just two main areas both of which are so big that I would be surprised if you did not get a little lost at times. This world features Dracula's castle as well as the surrounding village and underground tunnel system, with some parts of each being shown in both games. All of these locations with great looking horrific visuals.


One of the main things you will be doing, of course, is solving puzzles; And while there are no action sequences this time around there are still a wide variety of logic and inventory based puzzles. I found these puzzles to be simply fantastic, mostly understandable (with really no place I got stuck at in the entire game), challenging, and quite unique at times. Some puzzles are also obviously a little broken, but happily not in a way that should impede your progress (but as far as I know these puzzles could have been fixed in some patch).


Like its successor it has an unimaginable number of cut scenes, and for almost everything you do you will see a new one; Travelling to a new location, there is probably a cut scene; Opening a particularly important chest, another cut scene; Pulled some lever, even more cut scenes. Not that this is a bad thing, the cut scenes are great, with improved visuals and of course a different perspective giving the game the ability to better convey emotion and action. This time around there is the obvious improvement of less arm flailing, but with a slightly more corny dialogue. And the plot is not really anything to get excited about with far too much stereotypical over confidence by Dracula (expectantly considering how incredibly easy it is to defeat him and his minions at every turn).

The most important (and quite iconic) object
in the series and the best wallpaper I was
able to rip from the game.

Technical:
Getting it to Run (on a Windows 7 x64):
Run it in Windows 98/ME compatibility mode.

Windowed Mode:
Not supported.

Alt+Tab:
Hard to accomplish but no ill side effects. It seems that when the game senses that focus has been lost it automatically brings the game back into focus. To get around this you must have a window open behind the game (either setup beforehand or by opening Task Manager) and when focus is lost (by either Alt+Tabing or by opening the Task Manager Window) instantly click this window and then you should be able to use your computer like normal (just don't close the currently focused window or it might reopen the game). This can be tricky to pull off, I rapidly click almost instantly after initiating the focus loss, but if it does not work just try again.

The one area of the that Alt+Tabing does not work well is during change CD screens (only happens once). If focus is lost during this screen the game with crash.

My mini-review of Dracula Resurrection.


20 comments:

  1. It doesnt work on win7 64bit with any compatibly modes. the intro runs to fast. part 2 and part 3 works on win7 64bot.

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  2. It worked fine for me and that is exactly the system I use.

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  3. Strange. Do you use a dual core cpu and 4g ram too?

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  4. Actually yes, that is exactly what I have.

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  5. Have you a ATI or Geforce Graphic Card? I use a Geforce GT120M Graphic Card.

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  6. Info: I use Dracula Resurrection v1.26 German.
    All Movies and talks in Game runs to fast. Where is the problem? Very strange.

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  7. I think I might just of been playing version one, but it is no longer installed.

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  8. I have found the problem. The German Version v 1.26 doesnt work in Win7 64Bit. The English Version v 1.24 works in Win7 64Bit. There are the .4xm files in the data folder witch are bad compiled in 1.26. I search a German Version v 1.24.

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  9. Oh well that is great you found the problem, wish you luck in finding the new version.

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  10. Hi I have a problem with this game..When I get down with lift and I take a threebranch.I can't get forward because the game freezes and I can't do anything with it :S.Please help,I really like this game :(.My system: Geforce 220GT,win7 64x,and I ran it with compatibility mode.

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  11. Hi Nomadforce.
    I am not an expert at this but I do have a few suggestions.
    You can try other compatibility setting, just to get past that one spot you do not even need a game that looks or plays well (it just needs to not crash).
    See about patching to the newer version, or even an older version.
    You cold look for a save game file that is right after the location you keep getting stuck at. This site, which I just found in a Google search, looks legit and has tons of save game files for Dracula Resurrection. (http://www.nicouzouf.com/en/?id=draculatheresurrection).

    Hope at least one of these suggestions help you, please comment again with the results.

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  12. Hmm,I tried every compatibility modes ,and I've even tried your Alt+Tab suggestion,but the game still freezes.But if I keep pushing the Alt+Tab then a screen appears:Directx SetDisplay Mode() error.So maybe my directx is too modern for the game?

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  13. That's it I found my way now I had to tap the Ctrl+ Esc then return to the game and again and again..and while I was doing this the intro slowly started then I've found myself in the next room!:D

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  14. Some awesome looking deals on Amazon for boxed Dracula trilogy (just ordered myself a copy, this series is worth having a physical copy of).
    They give very few pictures so I am not sure what to expect, but even with shipping you will likely spend less on the whole package than if you bought just Dracula 3 digitally.

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  15. Hi, Jonathon, can you help? I can install and play the game nicely, but how can I uninstall it from Win 7 64-bit? The unwise.exe simply won't work, it keeps telling me it's not designed for 64-bit systems.

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  16. I don't remember what I did to uninstall it. Assuming that compatibility settings did nothing, and assuming that Control Panel>Programs and Features was no help. Just delete the folder. You might miss out of getting rid of a few registry entries or a settings/save file or two, but it will return at least 99.9999% of the used space and have no ill consequences.

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    Replies
    1. Turns out there's a text file named install in each game's folder detailing all installed files and registry keys. I deleted those, deleted the files and finally, ran ccleaner on top to remove extra details. :) Thanks for the answer.

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