Depths of Peril Review
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The difficulty level sometimes spills into outright unbalanced scenarios as, in one game-ending example, multiple bands of Yeti attacked the city of Jorvik. All of the barbarian covenants laid aside their differences to stave off this brutal onslaught -- a noble sentiment, but to no avail. The invading creatures were several levels higher than myself and the other NPCs, and the creatures systematically destroyed every covenant's house, and murdered every merchant, guard, and quest-giver in the town. I (survived,) though I use that term loosely since I died and was resurrected a couple dozen times before the creatures finally grew disinterested and departed Jorvik. One other covenant had survived the attack, and with no merchants or quest-givers to further interact with (the Apothecary managed to resurrect, but her usefulness is limited) the other house and I were left at a stalemate. And by stalemate, I mean that I raided their home ceaselessly for an hour, teleporting back to my home for healing, and back into their home for slicing and dicing, until I finally resigned from beating my head against that wall. Game over.
On one side of the coin, it's baffling that all the town's NPCs could be permanently erased from Jorvik. On the other side of that coin, there's something to be said for dealing with permanent consequences, and the tension that adds to gameplay.
