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I played on a relatively new 3.2 GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and plenty of disc space, and a Nvidia Geforce 6800 GTO video card, with 256 Mb memory -- WinXP professional. It handled the game with no problem, even the scenes with hordes of spawned and summoned characters. I played version 1.3.

I had a few crashes and screen locks from which I had to reboot, and was trapped three or four times in clipping errors. The total was not enough to matter.

My character was a female elf Adept.

BUGS:

1. When I finished the Trial of Elders, I tried the Sword of Silence which I got as a reward. It caused a crash to desktop. So did the Sword of Flame I rented from the weapon shop. The Divine strike crystal (creates a flaming sword) caused the same crash when I applied it to several swords and axes. I tried this about ten times. Much later in the game, I was able to use the spell without a problem. I gathered from the error message that the flame animation would not load. The spell worked for the light elven spear, and I used that combination -- light elven spear plus Divine trike crystal spell as my main weapon through about the first half of the game. The extra reach over a sword seemed to be useful in a number of situations.

2. In the Temple of the Naga, the Naga Queen did not drop the exit key when she was killed. I had to replay that section. I recommend a saved game before entering the section.

3. I could not put on the rings and amulets as I wished.

4. In the final sequence at one of the gates, a number of the monsters you had to kill were spawned on the other side of the gate. I had to shoot arrows through the gates. One monster was trapped inside the wall. I only noticed because of a fluttering in the wall above one of the respawning pedestals. The wall stopped arrows and melee blows. I finally found that a lightning spell penetrated the wall and killed him. This was a potential game breaker -- the gate did not open until this kill.

5. When I loaded a game in a melee situation, a number of times I could not move my character until she was wounded. I could rotate her with the mouse. The same thing happened even with repeated loads.

In one case it was a potential game breaker because I was very strong against a weak opponent who could not hurt me. I turned her back with the mouse and eventually she got wounded.

6. As a fitting end to this game --- after killing the final monster, I invoked Galdryn's horn about a dozen times. Nothing happened, and I didn't see anything else in the area, so I read the walkthrough. It said invoke Galdryn's horn. I rebooted, reloaded, and, of course, this time it worked.

7. The automap forgets things. I particularly noticed in Fargrove that areas I had visited much earlier reverted to unexpored areas in the automap.

PLAYING TIPS:

1. Running around opponents counterclockwise seems to be the universal tactic. Counterclockwise because everybody in the game seems to be left-handed, and you can fire arrows and strike better to that side. None of the spell casting monsters leads a running opponent so the magic balls will miss you. Most of the crew in these large collections of monsters will kill each other. Apparently you only get credit for a monster kill if you have wounded the monster, so you fire arrows into the mass to get credit when the monster you hit is killed.

I described in the forum how I used this in the final battle of the shadow ruins. Another place it seemed essential was in the last room of the Elder's Trial in Arrindale. This room seemed impossible to me, so I read the walkthrough (essential -- I would never have discovered the bug) and discovered that the monsters quit spawning after a while. I ran around the outside wall. I intended to run until the creaking noise made by spawning stopped, jumping over opponents in my way, then save my game and fight it out. In fact, I ran a long time, and when I turned I was amazed to see only one monster left. This was when I should have fought the wizard on the platform, but I didn't. I used about 20 heal potions in this fight, but mostly due to poor jumping and bad decisions to stop and fight.

I also took most of the points off a fire drake with this method. Then the drake got stuck.

2. A lower level character can kill a Fire Drake as follows: In their area, there is a small tree or large bush with yellowish leaves which grows with two stems, leaving a gap in the foliage. This tree will stop fireballs, but you can fire arrows through the gaps. If you run and get the tree between you and the drake at the proper distance, you can sit there firing arrows until spawning monsters come along. I killed one drake which was throwing fireballs, and another which couldn't see me. I used a long range bow from the Ulm dungeon.

3. (mentioned elsewhere) You can equip the rings and amulets you want by dropping all the other rings and amulets, equipping what you want, then picking up what you dropped.

4. Move into the inventory mode (E) to pause the game. Spells and blows already cast will land but no new ones will start. Your celestial magic will continue to accumulate mana. Most important, paralyzing spells such as ice ball and gripping vines will dissipate. You can also take a potion or cast a spell while still in inventory mode. I also used it a lot to pause and think.

This seems like cheating, a little. I started doing it because I was getting killed by one ice ball. While I was frozen, the monsters kept casting other spells and striking, and I was killed before I ever had a chance to move.

5. Don't spend your advancement points. This worked extremely well for me. I started because I killed a couple of the bosses in the Elder's Trial, and I didn't want to unbalance the game. I don't like games where you get so strong you just walk all over everything. But it works very well to keep your advancement points, and spend them only when you need a specific improvement. Thus I increased my skill when I found a chest I couldn't open, but not before. And I only increased my heavy weapon skill when I wanted to use one. I had the points to raise my Nether magic skill six levels when I wanted to start summoning fiends. This is much more efficient than spending the points at random, guessing what you will need. Also you can test things out, and reload if they don't work. Thus I discovered that no increase in heavy armor would allow my character to use a heavy pole, and the necrotic bow was not worth the million and a half advancement points it takes to get your archery skill high enough. I went into the final battle in the shadow ruins at level 17 but with 5.5 million unspent points. I managed to win, but I could have really beefed up anything specific I needed.

I leveled up my attributes every now and then, but it was good to wait because advancement points are easier to get later, and the increase in power from increased attributes seems to come very gradually. Of course, you should top up your attributes just before turning in a relic, and let them pay the higher attribute cost.

Speaking strictly for myself, I also upgrade my weapons and armor only when I think an improvement is needed.

6. This is cheating, I suppose, but I recommend you go to the Nether spell page in the walkthrough and print out the spells and their ingredients. You can get the spells by mixing the ingredients, even if you never bought the original spell. Finding the spells by random efforts is too tedious for me.

You can make nifty spells from all those bat wings and rat tails, etc. But they are only low level, so you need to start early. The summoning spells are fun, and the gripping vines is very useful if you want to block a door and be left alone for a little while.

Part 2

WALKTHROUGH:

The walkthrough worked extremely well for me. I particularly liked the organization -- you could find a specific point without having to read a lot of spoilers. I mainly used it to confirm things, but I would never have found some of the bugs without it. I needed help in a couple of places, but mainly -- do I really have to jump that ? Am I supposed to get a quest? Where is Staroxia ? -- things like that. I found no significant errors.

1. (trivial) The switch to open the door after releasing Valdane is a lever, not a loose brick.

2. In the Vale of Ruin, the automap shows a green dot, across from where you exit the valley with the moonbridge. When I got there, there was some sort of circular grove, and a lot of walking trees. I didn't stay to explore, but it looked like a breeding area. Maybe there is something there, and perhaps it should be mentioned in the walkthrough.

3. For the chess puzzle in the shadow ruins, I kept up with the runes by color rather than shape. Each of the pieces had an easily visible colored jewel. I believe the general principle is that pieces move like queens in chess ... along any row or column. or along any diagonal. If you step on a piece's color, and the piece, as a queen, could capture you in chess, then the gates close and the fight begins. Thus, if you step on a blue rune, and the blue piece can get to you along a row, column, or diagonal, then the gates close.

4. For the word puzzle, bargaining with the monster in the tomb of souls, I think the middle three words ... ***, suffocation, disease always keep that order, and the first and last, fire & ice, and agony also keep their order. That means there are only ten possible arrangements, one of which is the order you see. When I tested this, the default order was right on about the tenth reload, and I passed without losing any attribute points.

5. In the pillar puzzle in the Draedoth temple the description may be incomplete, or I may have had a different puzzle. I had to pull one of the levers twice ... 9a, I think, once to lower a pillar so I could open the gate, and again to raise it back up, so I could jump to the moving pillar. Unfortunately I did not keep a saved game to recheck this.

6. In the fight with Ikrella, I was vined for a long time, but I entered the inventory mode (E) to let it pass; the same with some of her paralyzing spells. My summoned flying angels were very useful ... mainly for attracting Ikrella and all the summoned creatures while I did things. I jumped directly onto the fire to destroy the soul stones.

I was vined, charmed, and paralyzed so often in this fight that it's hard to see how I could have won without the E key.

VERY TACKY FEATURES:

1. Little fish that bite you in the water and are worth 15 points. Their only purpose is to irritate the player.

2. You have to walk back out of several of the dungeons.

3. No campfire or burning hearth in Arrindale.

4. You have to walk all the way back to Fargrove to discover that you forgot to tell Emmindor that you placed the Horn of Galdryn.

5. You enter the long endgame sequence unexpectedly and at an inconvenient place. This is when I like to strengthen my character, play with things, finish up business, etc.

6. No moongate in Skuldoon, even though you have to go there several times.

7. No cheerleaders with fireworks when you exit the shadow ruins.


SUMMARY:

This game has some very good things and some very bad things, making it hard to evaluate. I thought the sound effects and graphics were very good, as was the lack of distracting music. The models were IMHO excellent, as good as those in any game. They looked more or less realistic, moved seamlessly and could stand close inspection. The armor and clothing, applied simply as materials to the model (skin tight, as it were), took some getting used to, but I came to like them. The voice acting was awful. The magic effects were good, though they often obscured vision.

The interface worked very well for me, w-a-s-d-q-e-f with the numeric hotkeys and the mouse, though I sometimes felt as if I were typing with my left hand.

The plot is comic book level, but it is coherent, and it is followed consistently through the whole game.

As I played it, the game was well balanced all the way through. It is a good feature that you can save your points. But there are plenty of ways to get many advancement points, and you can build your character to very high levels if you wish. And there are all sorts of high level weapons and armor to look for. The money was well balanced too.

I particularly liked the fact that the game was not 'dumbed down' particularly. For commercial reasons (I suppose) games these days are written so you can win any challenge you face in two minutes. Here, the water jumping puzzle and the final fight in the shadow ruins, the final room in the Elder's Trial, the elemental of evil, the fight with Ikrella ... these were all genuine challenges. What I like best is facing a clear cut situation that seems impossible until you think of the right strategy. There were several of those in this game. I just wish there were more, and that a greater variety of strategies was needed. The puzzles were just right for me.

This is the third D.W. Bradley game I have played. If there is a fourth, I feel sure it will contain some monsters with incredibly many hit points which yield incredibly many advancement points, some battles against huge hordes, puzzling inventory items, a lost lever, a beam of light, and provocative female humanoids.

CONCLUSION: Strictly as I played it, version 1.3 with no game stopping bugs, I would rate the game about 75/100. But for two flaws I would rate it much higher, maybe 85/100. The flaws are:

1. Non-stop hordes of spawned, summoned, and/or default monsters at inappropriate places. These make for some good battles, but they are often pointless and they keep you from looking around, thinking about the game or the puzzles, or just getting on with the game. I reached my peak of irritation in the lower level at Ulm, the jumping puzzle in the shadow ruins, and in the puzzle room just before Ikrella.

2. Major monsters getting stuck (clipping errors or game design), so you kill them just by standing off and firing arrows. This is thrilling once or twice, but 2/3 of my major kills came this way, and I even deliberately released them a couple of times so I could have the fight. I reached the point where I just got the firing rythym with my right hand, and used my left hand to eat or use the remote, and looked at whatever.

If all the bugs, unimplemented features, poor logging, automap etc. were fixed, it would be about 92/100. The game is fundamentally a dungeon crawl, though a very good one. There are no substantial innovations, and very few of those moments when you smile, sit back, and think 'Well how about that!'

There are many ways to play this type of game, but the real challenge is to finish at the lowest possible level. I started the battle with Ikrella at level 23 with about 2 million unspent points. I am not an ace rpg player (and I seldom play rts games), but I think I could get there at about level 15. I'm sure the good players could get there at a much lower level, but how much lower ?

FINALLY: I wrote this mainly because I finished the game and am not quite ready to leave that world. I originally meant to write up bugs for the sticky thread, but it expanded. I will leave it to the moderators, if it's worth the trouble, to move/copy all or parts to that thread. Anybody wants to quote anything somewhere, feel free.

Comments and discusiion welcome. I will hang around this forum for a while and answer anything addressed to me, and perhaps more. Otherwise, see you all at the Oblivion forum when the first patch is out.

thoon

I pretty much agree with all you have said...

I found this game very involving as a single player character... I felt saddened when I realized that my quests were over, and I just had the Ikrella bit left - with the inevitable run down to the final battle...

I really enjoyed the strike and sheild battles with the quest bosses... I was not so happy with 27 wolves or 18 spiders etc - but there was quite a variety of battles and a visual feast of creatures... I would look forward to an expansion of this game - or a similar game with equipping and fighting options as rewarding as this one...

I became a real gassy *#@%^ , casting numerous poison gas spells at all the multiples of bugs, bats, etc...

Spawning monsters killed the samuri I was trying to save several times, forcing several re-loads and a resetting of spawn and difficulty levels to their minimum settings (I hate doing that)

I really enjoyed the arena in skuldoon - trying out ninjitsu, various spells and weapon combinations, etc.

I have never been able to climb any mountains, but attempts left me feeling a bit sea-sick

It is impossible to get the barmaid in Fargrove to come into your room (damn)

the thief in the naga temple is a ba$tard to get that key from

I got lost in the shadow island areas for quite a long time the first time through... (I didn't know about this site or the walkthrough)

I drowned alot more than I care to mention -

ninjitsu rocks!

Yes, I got very involved. I also liked the one-on-one shield and strike fights. A lot. Fighting as a level 7 magic character, I almost had the top boss in upsairs Ulm when more characters came in.

Poison Cloud I missed because I didn't get started with Nether spells soon enough -- one of the reasons I mentioned them above.

Later in the game I set the spawning frequency to minimum, just to keep from being annoyed. And I never climbed a mountain despite trying for 30 minutes one time.

I would hate to admit how many times I got frozen to death before starting to use the E key.

You never found the code to get the bar maid into your room ? Too bad.

thoon