Status Chovus Nov 8, 2020
Beat. Something about this game is vaguely familiar. I may have rented it as a kid, or at least seen it on the store shelf. When I loaded the game to get a feel of what type of game it is and how well it works on my emulator, I was immediately put off by the camera controls. Before I …
Beat. Something about this game is vaguely familiar. I may have rented it as a kid, or at least seen it on the store shelf. When I loaded the game to get a feel of what type of game it is and how well it works on my emulator, I was immediately put off by the camera controls. Before I started playing for real I checked out a couple walkthroughs for basic info and they pointed out the option to change the camera controls to rotate so the D pad moves you in the direction pressed while L and R turn your facing. That works for me and I did not have trouble navigating. I used fists for most of the early game rather than the breakable swords. In fact I ended up selling most of the swords except for the 2 strongest types, which I used up in the final dungeon. I even had a huge stack of hardening potions that would have given me many more uses of the muramasa, but I found the unbreakable muramasa before I was even down to my last blade. I played more like a mage, killing with fire magic whenever possible. I never bought ice, barrier or heal. I found thunder but as a point blank area spell I did not find it useful; if I have to be that close I might as well sword them. I used the walkthrough to keep tabs on loot I missed, plan out what to buy by looking at future loot lists, and help with some of the puzzles. That is how I found out about the secret warp spell at the beginning, and at that point I was getting annoyed with the limited inventory. So I backtracked the few floors back to the beginning just to get that spell. It was extremely useful for getting around, selling loot and bypassing puzzles and traps. I later bought quake and stop magic. Quake never came in handy and by the end game I was killing everything with fire, or stop + sword if fire did not work. I found the double spell and used it on the hydra boss, who was laughably easy with my max magic resist. I never got a chance to use it on the final boss because I was chugging healing potions. I did not buy any weapons, armor or consumables, other than a few early sledgehammers which were probably not necessary. I had almost 300 healing potions by the end of the game and had barely used any before the final boss. No need when you can run and rest.
Ended at level 71 with 83 arm strength (went to 90 during the final boss fight), 83 knowledge, 99 magic resist (I grinded that periodically and it did not take too long), 850k gold and the best equipment.
I enjoyed the game and especially liked the sense of dungeon exploration. Some of the puzzles were a little obtuse or annoying, and the combat was fun, especially when you slow the game down rather than zip around on the high speed setting. The biggest problem I seen was lack of dungeon crawling challenge. Sure I died a fair bit to powerful monsters and being a little too careless around traps, but the whole rest anywhere to recover health makes it too easy. Especially considering the amount of healing potions and money I had; would have given those far more value if I had to rely on them to recover after foolishly falling into a pit.
7.5/10