Status Chovus Mar 20, 2023
Finally beat after starting it around 10 years ago, playing the SNES version on my PSP. Back then I didn't have a mobile phone so I played it without any online help, and did not draw my own maps. I managed to get all the way to level 10, rescue the dwarf prince and bring him back to level 5. …
Finally beat after starting it around 10 years ago, playing the SNES version on my PSP. Back then I didn't have a mobile phone so I played it without any online help, and did not draw my own maps. I managed to get all the way to level 10, rescue the dwarf prince and bring him back to level 5. Then when faced with the prospect of finding my way back without any maps I decided to quit playing. But now I used online maps and a walkthrough to reach the end.
I used my experience playing old school 2nd edition games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind dale to create my party of 4:
Myself as a human paladin, though I chose an elf portrait. Stupid race restriction rules. 17 str, 13 int, 13 wis, 16 dex, 15 con, 17 cha. He ended at level 8 with +5 longsword, +3 drow shield, plate mail, +3 bracers of defense, helm, medallion of luck, ring +3, ring of feather fall, and drow boots. Both of those rings improved AC and his ended up being -9, nearly untouchable. He never got high enough to use any spells.
Valcaria the neutral good elf fighter/thief. 15 str, 18 int, 16 wis, 16 dex, 15 con, 11 cha. She spent most time in the front row until I got a dwarf to join, then she became an archer. End levels were 7/8. Her end gear: drow bow, 14 arrows, plate mail, helm, ring of feather fall, ring of protection +2 (does not improve AC, maybe only saving throws?), boots, shield, +3 nightstalker sword. I cannot remember if her lockpicking was useful at all.
Crysta the lawful good elf cleric; 16 str, 14 int, 16 wis, 16 dex, 17 con, 18 cha. She ended at level 8 using -3 cursed sling, holy symbol in off hand, banded armor, helm, boots, shield, +3 mace, ring of sustenance, ring +2. Her inventory was filled with rocks for ammo. Occasionally she took a spot in the front when a regular front liner was too hurt. She was invaluable for healing and I liked the auto heal casting during resting; far less tedious than other games. Casting any single target spell manually was very tedious though. Her create food was a god send because the party had been struggling with food up until I started playing again. Otherwise I mostly used empower (bless), aid, cure paralysis, meditation (mass aid) and mass protection vs evil.
Endora the lawful good human mage, level 9. 11 str, 18 int, 12 wis, 11 dex, 10 con, 11 cha. It took a lot of save state scumming to get such sweet stats for the other characters, while here it was 18 int or reroll. I didn't get lucky like Val again. Her gear included +5 robe, ring of sustenance, ring of protection+2 (no AC), +5 dagger, +4 adamantium dart, and a bunch more regular darts and magic wands. According to the walkthrough I missed a +4 dagger early on but I did not want to go back for that. She mostly threw weapons but it was a huge pain that she could only throw 4 before I needed to go into her inventory to manually equip more. Sometimes I did that while waiting for the others to be ready to attack again, and other times I let her cast a nuke right after throwing. I used all magic missile, acid arrow, fireball, ice storm and cone of cold. It was more awkward not having all the same spells because the game did not pause during spell selection. She actually mostly soloed a mindflayer when everyone else was paralyzed.
The other 2 party slots were dwarf warriors that joined along the way. Dohrum had better stats so I put him in the front. He was wrecking with the +5 halberd but also taking a lot of hits and getting paralyzed almost constantly. Later I had him use the +4 longsword, +1 shield, +3 banded mail, +2 bracers, ring of feather fall, and unidentified necklace. His AC was down to -5. Taghor stayed in the back as an archer, but the 2 switched places on occasion when D needed healing. He had plate mail, bow, 10 arrows, ring of protection +2 (no AC) and some spears and darts to throw if he ran out of arrows.
I had no trouble beating the end game enemies with such awesome tanks. On the last floor was some kind of magnet trap that was stealing my stuff. I decided to drop everything outside the room and take stuff back 1 at a time, but both my defense bracers were lost somehow. I loaded a backup and found I could simply not loot the stuff in the trap to go around it and kill the enemies. I was a little disappointed that my team didn't get more levels up, especially how the cleric never got level 5 spells. I had a ton of scrolls that I never used. Then I fought the final boss and it took a couple tries to win. I had the cleric buff everyone up, then had both tanks drink strength and speed potions. I did read the walkthrough and see the strategy about pushing the boss into a trap with the quest wand, but I wanted to try killing him the hard way. I got him second try with Valcaria and Tag dying. The frontline tanks kicked his ass. I am not sure how effective the projectiles and spells were as he seemed to be reflecting them; at least he was when he got stuck and I tried to cheese a few hits. He could probably be worn down enough through hit and run attack to kill without anyone dying. However I did have several scrolls of resurrection and a surviving cleric, so everyone lived.
This was a very mixed game for me. The biggest flaw by far was the lack of any in game map. Damn, even Might and Magic and Wizadry had that. The dungeons were not nearly as labyrinthine though, but there was still no excuse to make such a user unfriendly feature. After this was the awkward interface that was clearly designed for a mouse, not controller, and the absurd concept of having to pick up each individual arrow, rock and dart to slowly drag back into the appropriate character's inventory. Imagine playing a shooter where you had to pick up every shell casing one at a time after each fight. It was a colossal waste of time and good example of a game being too realistic. Apart from that there was a severe lack of item and spell descriptions. I didn't even get my stuff identified until just before the end. The game needed an examine button for items, identify spell for the mage, and a clear description of all spells. I can only assume they were giving me the proper +1 boosts based on my knowledge of the core D&D rules. Otherwise the game was somewhat fun, like a poor man's Might and Magic 3. The puzzles were not too difficult, or at least optional, and it was not hard to find hidden switches. I do not know how much different the PC version is, but at least the controls would be better.
5.0/10
