Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul (2000)

I think I even bought the original Evil Islands back in the day, but never managed to get very far.

It's supposed to be a fantasy RPG, but it actually feels more like a stealth game. You can crawl, target enemy limbs, characters leave footprints, and if they step into a pool of blood those footprints become bloody. At the same time, you're somehow not allowed to open your inventory outside of towns.

The limb damage system is surprisingly interesting. Injuries to your arms halve your attack and casting speed, while leg injuries slow your movement, making heavily wounded characters genuinely less dangerous instead of simply fighting at full efficiency until they die.

I wonder whether I originally dropped the game because it ran poorly on my weak PC or because it was simply too difficult. Even goblins can kill you within seconds early on. Maybe I also missed the fact that you can recruit a companion almost immediately. Regardless, the game is brutal. Most enemies can kill you in just a couple of critical hits, and since monsters never lose aggro, running away usually isn't an option.

The crafting system is remarkably elaborate for a 2000 game—something you'd expect from the post-Minecraft era. You buy blueprints and materials, then craft equipment from different resources. A simple stone axe, for example, can be made from "simple stone" or granite.

Money is scarce because monsters barely drop any loot. For most of the first act I was barely making enough to keep my equipment repaired.

I almost quit when my only remaining quest was recovering the caravan's gold. It's guarded by absurdly strong skeletons with incredible detection range. Eventually I succeeded simply because their patrol routes happened to line up in my favor.

Things improved after the ambush quest rewarded me with a full set of better armor. It's funny how Diablo III has giant beams of light marking magical items, while here I have to return to town just to discover that the helmet I picked up was enchanted.

The progression system is also rather odd. There are no traditional character levels, although your maximum HP increases with experience. Most perks are extremely expensive while offering negligible benefits. At first I planned to take the Sword perk, only to realize it grants the same +5 attack as simply investing points into the Melee skill. The only truly outstanding perk is innocently named Actions, which permanently increases both attack and casting speed by 15%.

The money problem eventually solved itself from an unexpected direction. Skeletons in the Dead City drop huge amounts of bones, which are valuable crafting materials. Selling those bones earned me more gold than every previous quest combined.

The Dead City also contains a dragon that rewards you with the Ancient Sword. Its base damage isn't impressive, but it constantly casts Weaken, reducing enemies' maximum health and making even difficult fights much easier.

The writing screams early-2000s edgy fantasy. The closest comparison I can think of is the Gothic series. Zak may be an amnesiac, but he's hardly a noble hero. He accepts his role only because the villagers would otherwise lynch him, and he's constantly looking for a way to escape. The villagers themselves aren't exactly grateful either, with the Elder repeatedly sending him against bandits and orcs.

I struggled with the Witch's granddaughter quest, so I decided to ignore it, visit the Magician, level up, and return stronger. Instead, I was immediately pushed into Act 2, searching for a lost Mayan princess in the snow.

The humiliation started all over again.

Zak suddenly couldn't hit anything, while my two new companions—a mage and an archer—essentially forced him into the role of tank despite him being completely unsuited for it, even with a freshly acquired set of metal armor.

At this point I finally understood why so many people recommend playing solo. Experience is divided between every party member, but only Zak carries over into the next act. By finishing Act 1 with a full party, he ended up with barely a third of the experience he could have earned alone.

I also realized why the game looked so strangely flat: the GOG version permanently disables dynamic shadows.

Because of the experience split, I eventually started leaving companions in town before turning in quests just so Zak would receive all the XP himself. Speaking of companions, the knight is particularly useful because you can strip his enchanted armor.

One system I genuinely liked was equipment upgrading, although the game barely explains it. Any item can be dismantled and rebuilt using better materials.

Even better, there's a bug: dismantling broken equipment actually gives you a huge amount of money instead of costing it.

Medieval recycling. 🤡

By the time I reached the mines, the game had largely stopped being fun. I wasn't even sure why I kept playing. My entire playthrough was nearly ruined by a troll in the Green Elves labyrinth. Either trolls move far too quickly or their detection range is absurdly high, because sneaking past them through those narrow valleys is almost impossible.

Then came Deidra, the magician. She killed me in three lightning bolts, which conveniently ignore steel armor, while my own attacks almost never connected because of her ridiculous defense. I only won thanks to a lucky critical hit.

And that's really what Evil Islands is all about.

Critical hits are another mechanic the game barely explains, but they seem to deal three to five times normal damage. Eventually I realized it's often more effective to build around landing criticals than increasing raw damage.

Eventually I reached the point where I could finally defeat blue trolls. The fights were painfully slow because only critical hits dealt meaningful damage, but at least I could outheal them. Unicorns were even worse: they deal lightning damage, which I had no resistance against, and can only be attacked with spears.

To the game's credit, it's one of the few RPGs that actually gives you reasons to use weapons other than swords.

Act 3 completely resets the difficulty curve. Random side quests reward more experience than the finale of Act 2, while the first couple of treasure chests contain more money than I earned during the entire previous act. It quickly catches your character up, but the scaling feels ridiculous. An hour earlier I was killing blue trolls, yet now random guards destroy me, and even packs of rats are dangerous.

At one point you're expected to sneak past banshees because they're far too strong to fight. Unfortunately, they patrol unpredictably and have what feels like 360-degree vision.

During the escape sequence, half my armor broke—including my pants—and repairs are only possible in town.

So I ended up fighting mind flayers bare-assed.

The best thing about Act 3 is an excellent spear you can obtain from one of your companions almost immediately. Otherwise it's more of the same critical-hit lottery. Either you crit first and win, or the enemy crits first and you die.

My guess is the developers wanted stealth to remain the primary solution throughout the game. Unfortunately, enemy vision and hearing become so exaggerated by the third act that stealth stops being enjoyable. It's also ridiculous that, even with Melee maxed out, Zak still struggles to hit ordinary Imperial Guards.

The final stretch is especially baffling. You have to disable a magical minefield, but doing so requires two spells the game never gives you automatically. Worse still, the only place where you can equip those spells is back in town.

Enjoy the trip.

Ironically, the story ends up being one of the game's strongest aspects. The final revelation—that Zak is the last surviving male of the Ancient race—neatly explains his amnesia, why he ended up where he did, and why he felt such a strong connection to the Ancient princess.

The only part that never really made sense to me was why the curse manifests as a flying demon.

It's also an incredibly strange final boss. Even after all the grinding and despite receiving armor specifically intended for the encounter, it still kills you in two hits. The Magician helps by attacking it three times before immediately dying himself, leaving you just a few seconds to finish the fight alone.

Evil Islands is one of those games that's full of fascinating ideas decades ahead of their time—stealth mechanics, limb injuries, deep crafting, meaningful weapon variety—but it's buried under poor balance, cryptic mechanics, and some of the most punishing difficulty spikes I've ever seen. I can absolutely see why it has a cult following. I can also completely understand why so many people never finished it.