Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession Retrospective Review
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I never gave up the Caverns west of Barovia. I just had to methodically write notes on the map and to find all teleporters and hidden doors. The graphics is so pixelated in large screen that it is hard to see what things really are. To find a hidden button is very hard and easy to miss. To find a secret passage is even harder. I have now started to strafe myself against the walls and have found several hidden doors that way. This cavern requires you to find four jade keys to open four special doors in order to proceed. I got stuck from time to time and to get myself going again I had to get some hints from an online map that pointed out something I had forgotten or missed totally. Like a secret door. That was the only way for me to proceed. It also turns out that I had to go back and recruit the priest in the entrance of the caves because she is the only one to open one of the last doors in this cavern.
My new system of just clicking on the enemies instead of my characters weapons have made combat much easier. The cavern was inhabited by skeletons and the occasional bone golem. Those golems are pretty tough but not with some magic missiles. I find that magic missiles feels quite overpowered. Most of the tougher enemies in the game could be taken out with only one missile if you´re lucky and at most two or three hits.
The cave hid some interesting stuff like some wands and a few magical weapons. At that time I didn´t have any of my mages with me but a low level spel is identify which I cast on every weapon/armour I find to know wether they are magical or now. If not, I will just drop them. There are also quite many potions littered around in the game and I have never used a single one of them because healing in this game is pretty easy. You could rest almost everywhere as long as you are not in vicinity of an enemy. That replenishes all your spells and also heals the party. It is fortunate this part of the game is pretty liberal since there are other areas that are hard with it.
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Strahds castle turned out to be a huge challenge. It was interconnected through several stairs to several levels both down and up and also to different towers. It was filled with guards which was tough to destroy but worst of all was the zombie lords. I have yet to defeat one. My tactic is to make the grouip invisible and to sneak past the zombie lords. I have found one key but there are lots of strange places to explore, a huge amount of secret doors so it will take time to complete all these levels at one. I felt quite bored to search through all of these levels and run up and down through the stairs. It was hard to follow since stairs is not marked on the automap so I had to manually make those notes.
I found several pieces of parchments and letters that Strahd had wrote himself and I am now certain of his true evil. He must be stopped.
I am struggling through this place right now and hope I have the energy to complete it and get out on the other side. I have no idea how much of the game remains but suspect I have at least completed over 50% by now.
