Balrum, From Introduction to Conclusion
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The individual behind the CRPG Revisited blog has taken Balcony Team's old-school, open world RPG Balrum through its paces, having cranked out a series of articles since early March that take us through the game's introduction to its end boss finale. The articles start with an intro, then move on to the first ten hours, somewhere in the middle, entering the mage guild, and the final battle. Rather than spoil anything from the end, I'll quote from an earlier point:
For the first time in the game I had to progress and not just avoid tougher obstacles as is common in this open world RPG. The tower was filled with ghosts. Fortunately I had found a necklace which deflects some of their chilling effects and I got my hunter skill level raised to two which meant I could get rid of my wolf pet. I trapped a bear instead and he is tougher but slower. Together we slowly explored the tower.
After the first level there was no turning back. It wasn´t possible to use the trapdoor to get out. I had to move forward. I was a little nervous about that but hoped everything would go well. Level two was a huge labyrinth which led me to many dead ends but with the help of the automap, patience and lots of food (remember you consume food, drinks and stamina (rest) allt the time). In the end I met my first "boss", a skeleton king.
What followed was the most interesting battle in this game so far. He was much stronger than me but by hurling fireballs at him whicle my bear clawed at him and tried to slow him down and by always retreating out of melee combat, I was able to slowly drain his energies. Pretty fast my mana dropped to zero and I had to run away to keep my distance and get myself time to drink mana potions. My pet bear also died pretty early. I then used my stun/freeze spell on him everytime I needed to drink more health and mana potions and run away to keep my distance. Sometimes the Skeleton king hurled fireballs at me or tried to stun me instead of moving forward. Those moments where critical but I always managed to get out even though my pool of potions was about to be depleted. At one time I had trapped my self into a dead end and saw the face of death emerging at me. The skeleton king was now weak but so was I. I finally mustered my last mana strength and used a teleportation potion on myself and by that I got on the other side of the king and could keep running away. Finally he died. It had cost me dozens of expensive potions but it was all worth it. Not regarding XP but by a few good items and by progressing.
