The Darkness Below

Firstly, it's really just a Might & Magic 6-8 copy, but with Lands of Lore's item system (where every magic item is named) and it's skill progression and combat. So, if you loved Lands of Lore and the later Might and Magic games, you'll really love this. Music is creepy, the cinematic art that plays during dialog scenes is fantastic, and the randomized loot keeps the game fresh, I would imagine, for multiple play throughs. I do have some nitpicks though. Like the overall lack of spells for a good portion of the game. I'm about to hit lv 10 and my cleric still has nothing but a heal, a bless, and a buff. No cure poison, paralyze, burning, or any status nullifiers. My casters have 5 slots of level 2 spells, but not a single level 2 spell is available in either of the two towns I've been to. Class balancing is a little wonky too, since it took me 4 failed parties during the demo (Spent 5 hours playing that before racking up hours here in the real game, BTW) before I finally made one capable of beating the first goblin boss. One of my problems was that I foolishly picked a cleric, which was useless. I had to make a paladin instead, and use him as a cleric, since clerics, oddly, could…

This is a dungeon crawler RPG following the tradition of the originals from the 80s. It reminded me a lot of Bard's Tale and Might and Magic, which is a very good recommendation for fans of the genre like me. Battles are turn based and well balanced, considering enemies vs team abilities. There are a lot of locations, villages, towns and underground dungeons to explore, puzzles to solve and quests to keep you running around. Thankfully, the developer was generous with loot, gold, merchants and trainers, giving the player a wide selection of abilities, spells and fighting styles, which is something that adds a lot to the game's playability and fun. The main thing I would like improved, are the higher level spells. I only managed to get my cleric and wizard up to 2nd level spells, while they had slots up to the highest 5th level. Maybe I did something wrong but I got the feeling the magic users' progress or access to spells, could have been a bit better or faster. Congrats to the developer and all the people involved in the game!!! I had a good time with it and hope there will be a follow up.

Great game and if you like Eye of the beholder, this is for you! The game maneges to create that "I just need to se what's around the corner" vibe in the player, and when the game is best, it is abseloutly difficult to let it go. BUT Even though I highly recommended it, and enjoyed it, there are some issues which are imposible to ignore. Decided if you want to know, it may make you think twice about trying this. If you want to know look at the following... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The following are things I noted during my two gameplays, whereas number 2 was forced by the game do to a bug/bad gamedesign! But let's take it from the top: 1) The game has a time varible like in the real old school 1980's games, but the difference is, that while these games time varible was planed in that, if the game went into night time, there were still things you could do, or, certain shops that only opened at night - the time variable in this game feels like something thrown without much thought. -- In the game there are some side quests which can only be sorted by night, BUT, the time variable mostly brings a LOT of irritation in that you often miss shops or traveling…

Very tough in later stages. Make sure you pick correct party.

It's a banger! My only complaint is the resolution restrictions. This mad man is dedicated to the source material.

Fun retro clone to Beholder or Magica.