Beat in about 1hr using walkthrough and maps. This was such an odd concept for a game; taking a party of 8 into a 2D side scrolling almost action game where only 1 character could be on screen at a time. Would have made more sense as a proper turn based rpg. The concept could have worked better if the party was split at the beginning and each character had to solo their own level. What was made though was a boring travesty that completely missed the points of being an rpg, adventure or action game.

The biggest problem was navigation, especially the lack of any in game map. The rooms were far too samey looking and some doors showed multiple directions that led to the same place. It was very easy to get lost and I doubt I would have had the patience to play this without online maps. Game worlds should either be simple or distinctive enough to not require a map, or have an in game map. There was not much of interest to find or do. No story elements, environment descriptions, or dialogue, and the loot was boring. Most treasure was just for score. The potions, scrolls, ammo and wand at least had some use, and the rings gave AC boosts according to the walkthrough, but the game did not tell me anything except after drinking a potion. There were no sweet weapon or armor upgrades to be found either. Combat was not fun, with the outcome being entirely random despite looking like an action game. Sometimes the characters wrecked enemies and sometimes they missed repeatedly while losing hp shockingly fast. Short enemies (spiders and midgets) could only be hit while also pressing down and forward, which annoyingly made the character move into them with each attack and it seemed like the enemies had distinct advantage at grappling range. The ghost enemies had to be up attacked but I found instead that we switched places in a silly dance and just continued on without killing them. I found the dwarf to be the best warrior for whatever reason. Could have simply been RNG favoring him. I did switch around between all of the warriors as they took damage, with only the cleric, rogue and mage never fighting. I did not try the throwing weapons but did shoot the bow a few times. It was slightly more awkward to shoot than necessary. I used it to snipe 1 or 2 enemies from across pits, and to kill a couple of those annoying mages that kept backing away. Unfortunately, most enemies were too aggressive to be worth shooting, especially those deadly dragons. Casting spells was done from the menu as long as the appropriate character was in the front row. While only the lead character was on screen fighting, all of the 4 front row characters could take damage. Casting spells was tedious and did not seem to have any limits other than very generous mana pools that never restored. I used some magic missile and burning hands, and web on trolls to paralyze for easy melee kills. No idea if charm or sleep could even work, and his suicide spell was dumb and should not have been included. Now I have not read the books so I don't know if that spell is a thing there, but it is definitely not a D&D spell. I only used about 25% of his mana, so definitely could have nuked more. He also levitated instead of jumped so was the best choice for the few times I had to jump over pits. I used about 50% of cleric mana on heals and protection from dragon breath, which was the only way to survive those young dragons. I used protection from evil for 1 trap sequence and never used her nuke, hold or resurrection. It took a few attempts to beat the final boss. Not that it was difficult, it was absurdly easy. I just had to switch to the cleric and throw the staff after the sceen flashed, which was the same controls as shooting the bow. The difficulty came from figuring out that I had to throw it.

Infinitely respawning enemies ruined the combat even more, while the vast pool of magic and lack of much cool to find ruined the sense of dungeon crawling. There was no reason not to use the same character in lead for the entire game by keeping him healed, so all the other warrior characters really just served as extra lives for the off chance that you let someone die permanently. There was a 1 use healing waterfall a little less than half way through the game, and I found it far more engaging trying to get there without using any healing magic by rotating the party around to make use of everyone's hp. But that was only for 1 time and because I knew it was coming ahead of time. The game would have been much better with more limited magic castings, significantly longer game with many more places and enemies, with rest points along the way to restore hp and mana. Make it a real long grueling dungeon crawl with unique side objectives and tasks for each character. A boulder blocking the way to a bonus room, which only the highest str character could move. A small hole for the rogue, acrobatic climbing, traps, pretty much non combat skill and ability checks for the characters. But instead all we got was a half baked idea poorly implemented as this game. Not quite as bad as Lord of the Rings for SNES, even though that game had better sense of adventure and progression.

4.0/10