Golden Treasure: The Great Green | PC Review

September 29, 2019September 30, 2019 Tomas Becks

You are a Draak. You are the most glorious, most dangerous creature to ever grace this earth. Everything your eyes see is yours to rule or eat. Every treasure that this world holds will be yours, if you survive. Because it’s not easy being a Draak. Becoming the greatest of them all requires a lot of harsh lessons. It requires you to learn on your feet and wings, and to use your claws, bite and fiery breath to survive and thrive.

If you make it through being a hatchling, you become a young adult. But that’s not making it any easier, as you need bigger and more dangerous prey to sustain you. You also need more Treasure to grow your reputation. This is Golden Treasure: The Great Green.

Child Of The Elements

How does a magnificent beast like yourself go about its business? You need to feed and to do so, you need to hunt. You need Treasure, so you need to explore. Become who you are destined to become! As with everything Draak, it is all determined by the elements. You are a child of these elements after all, whether you choose to be a healer or a destroyer.

You hunt by stalking your prey, hopefully getting close enough (Water) to be able to strike and kill without getting into a fight (Fire). If you do get into a fight, your connection to the elements gives you a variety of attacks with which you try to anticipate your opponent, who have their own elemental prowess. And hopefully you are healthy enough to survive their attacks too (Earth), because a young, arrogant Draak can get killed by a Scalebeast or a Treetail.

You Are Draak

Everything you do gives you experience, and your elemental-given skills increase. You can use them to expand your territory, maybe even challenge your neighbours and take their lands. Because you come from a wise race, your failures are just as valuable as your successes. Use your wisdom to engage with the other creatures roaming your lands and hopefully, one day, destroy those Tailless who dared to attack you and encroach on your territory. You will demand respect from your elders by your actions and your Treasure. You will rule this earth. Why? Because you are Draak!

RPG Meets Point And Click

Golden Treasure: The Great Green by Dreaming Door is not your regular point-and-click adventure, it’s more akin to a choose-your-own-adventure game with roguelike and RPG influences. It’s highly narrative-driven with painterly artwork and distinctly written storylines. You could almost call it a sort of dragon simulator, where you get to live out life as a dragon in the four stages of his or her life.

The RPG elements come to the fore in character building and combat. If you start the game as normal, then you begin by answering a set of in-character questions. Like in the old Ultima games, your answers determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie, in other words: which elements are you proficient in and which ones are you not. If you finish a chapter, you have the possibility to start there instead of at the beginning. In that case, you get points to distribute amongst your elements. Choose wisely, because it will affect your survival chances in the wild.

The Sun is your Father. The Earth is your Mother. All beings are your Prey.

Golden Treasure: The Great Green is a beautiful narrative game that stands out because of some remarkable writing. The RPG elements give it a replayability that is not often seen in narrative games. The writing is so special, the artwork truly beautiful, and there are multiple endings possible, so replaying the game is very rewarding. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Great Lumberer to feast on and an underwater labyrinth to explore.