The Darkness Below

Fun retro clone to Beholder or Magica.

Great game and if you like Eye of the beholder, this is for you! The game maneges to create that "I just need to se what's around the corner" vibe in the player, and when the game is best, it is abseloutly difficult to let it go. BUT Even though I highly recommended it, and enjoyed it, there are some issues which are imposible to ignore. Decided if you want to know, it may make you think twice about trying this. If you want to know look at the following... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The following are things I noted during my two gameplays, whereas number 2 was forced by the game do to a bug/bad gamedesign! But let's take it from the top: 1) The game has a time varible like in the real old school 1980's games, but the difference is, that while these games time varible was planed in that, if the game went into night time, there were still things you could do, or, certain shops that only opened at night - the time variable in this game feels like something thrown without much thought. -- In the game there are some side quests which can only be sorted by night, BUT, the time variable mostly brings a LOT of irritation in that you often miss shops or traveling because they are closed, and then you nothing else to do then litterly use the wait function, and that gets real fast pretty boring. -- I think my party all in all spent like a week of game time just standing waiting ... 2) Inventory is way to small -- especially in the 3 level dungeons there are times when you have to leave a dungeon to sell stuff and then come back. -- why not just introduce bags of holding??? 3) With all the traveling, food can be an issue in the start of the game -- again, you find yourself forced to leave a dungeon to go get food. -- gets better once you learn the "create food" spell, which is esential. 4) In two of the late game dungeons, suddenly, every enemy can paralyse! It's like somebody got lazy and just decided the enemy can either paralyze or make your mind go mad. -- Like with "create food", this makes it vital to keep/buy all "protect against paralyse/mind mad" stuff in the begining of the game, and then the late game will be a breeze. 5) There are no indication which spell books are for cleric, wizard and paladin. This again seems lazy, because only by trial and error can you find out which spells you can use, and realize that all those which you thought you could use once leveled up, are only useable for fx. the paladin which you don't have in your party... 6) The game gives the impression that you can go and explore, to get more xp, or just because you are curios. Well DON'T. If you don't follow the quest line, you risk ending up like me: I explored to get xp, and then found out one of the enemys I killed, was a part of a later essential quest, and because of that I could NOT get the item which moved the game forward. Goodbye 20 hours gameplay, and hallo new game... 7) And lsatly - the game is not finished!!!! There are two levels of spells, one of which are in the game, but with no trainers. There are one city which hints at quests, but the quests can not be started. There are one dungeon which ends abrubtly by water, and no mean forward... 8) If some of the above gets fixed, this game has every chance to be there with the best, but as of right now --It's entertaining, recommendable but it lacks a lot which especially becomes obvisous if you have to play through it twice.

this game brings back fond memories.

[h1]Excellent tribute to classic CRPGs[/h1] If you're into the niche of classic, grid-based dungeon crawlers and are lucky enough to have found this gem, you're in for a treat. This looks and plays a lot like Westwood Studios' games like [i]Eye of the Beholder[/i] (1991) trilogy and [i]Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos[/i] (1993) or Sir-Tech's [i]Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny[/i] (1992) so that should be reason enough to pick it up. I feel like this game gets a lot more right than it does wrong, and I'm only 13% through it and I'm recommending it because I've tried out so many dungeon crawlers that weren't what I was looking for. I really enjoy the pacing, the game's system, its simplicity but ultimately its presentation and atmosphere. This game is low-res looking which gives a nice cozy VGA feeling, especially when paired with a wrapper to put some CRT shaders on it to soften the jaggies. While I would like more granular key binding customization, hot keys and the like, those are wishlist items. Not going to rattle on, it's worth the price of admission as is.

Thenk you, this is realy very exciting!!

Gra w stylu mm3-5. Zwiedzanie lochów, czyszczenie map, proste zagadki. Idziesz naprzód uczysz się nowych umiejętności, zdobywasz lepszy ekwipunek... Proste, bez zbytniego skomplikowania i to nieuchwytne coś, co nie pozwala się oderwać od gry. Polecam fanom starych RPGów.

Very tough in later stages. Make sure you pick correct party.