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Grim DawnImpressions from an old ARPG fan(19 posts)(19 posts)
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Posted August 05, 2018
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Darucas: Blade & Sword and Silverfall (+addon) are worth a look
Ha, I just recalled yesterday about those China-setting diabloids - Prince of Qin, Seal of Evil, Blade & Sword, and decided to give 'em a second look (last time I played 'em about 15 or more years ago). There's also Throne of Darkness (I own it here on GOG) but still has it on my to-do list.

I read about Silverfall but it reminds me more of Two Worlds, with its 3D visuals and overall atmosphere. Kinda like Witcher devoid of RPG part and boosted with action part. Not my cup of tea (at least for now). Moreover, IIRC, Silverfall is kinda party-based (like Dungeon Siege), and I'm more inclined now to solo gameplay.

Another game I never heard of (but have read about yesterday) is The Chosen: Well of Souls. it's made by the same guys thta made Space Hack, and looks more polished and with more content than the former. May be it deserves some try.

Thanks for Revival links, I know this site and I already downloaded launcher and mod once, and it doesn't work for me (altough I followed the instructions scrupulously). I need to try it again, maybe.

P.S. I remember another French game ;) (along with Loki) Hexxplore, kinda bizarre voxel-graphic party-based ARPG, with good OST and pretty hard IIRC.

P.P.S. Well, and we have another 'undead apocalypse' ARPG - Zombasite. I still ponder about purchasing it, I liked Soldak's Din's Curse and Drox Operative, though having world interactivity set to Minimum :)
Post edited August 05, 2018 by Nyktouros
Posted August 05, 2018
Interesting, I'll try to find the ones you've mentionned! (I know Soldak's games, Zombasite has me intrigued, even though yeah, zombies!)

Lately I've also found Dawn of Magic 1/2, which I assume are best played in Russian ;), because the French or UK translations are... meh. And they are quite offbeat in tone!

Also, just stumbed on Iesabel, no idea what it's like.

Prince of Qin, Seal of Evil and Blade & Sword are best played with the dgVoodoo wrapper (http://www.dege.freeweb.hu/) on recent configurations though, or any working wrapper. Otherwise, even with comp. settings, they tend to get laggy. Maybe it's fine on Linux Wine. The only thing missing after that is the videos, which probably need a specific codec, but they are few and mostly watchable from the game folders.

Silverfall can be played with a party but it's not mandatory, although the difficulty seems more balanced around two characters (at least in the base campaign). Frankly, while it is a good HnS once you get into it, it's like GD, it begins with a *marsh* and *zombies*. And contrary to GD, you can't really skip it ^^'

Throne of Darkness is worth checking out, but it's both really smooth and fussy, I've never finished it but do intend to. The setting is way more focused (not as much as Diablo 1 though), it suffers a bit from the way its mechanics are conveyed - although, to be fair, it's also because it let's you play the way you want. It's geared around party-management but you can still play solo or with very few characters. But I've always found it harder than most, with a thick, gloomy, tense beat to it. I'd advise you read about the neat guides posted on its forum here, or read the Prima Guide.

Van Helsing is great too, and has the best storytelling (it even beats less HnS-y RPGs at it). It's a bit unbalanced I assume and the last third of the Final Cut (essentially the third original game in the trilogy) lacks the narrative/gameplay aspects of the previous parts, and thus a bit of the charm. But it's defintenly worth playing through, and while you've got two characters, mechanically it's actually your char+a buff ^^

And others! (Numen, Asura... I've finished Kult/Heretic Kingdoms two weeks ago, another flawed but ultimately gripping adventure with interesting themes and a unique 'attunement' system, closer to an Action-RPG than pure HnS.)

You may need a .NET Framework library (4.0?) for Revival/Launcher, maybe that's what is missing. Although generally you get a warning for that. There's also a 'Back to Hell' mod on Nexus, relying on the 1.2.1 Launcher this time.


Grim Dawn has at least brought up a whole bunch of interesting things to check :D
Posted August 05, 2018
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Darucas: ...
Oh, Dawn of Magic is horrible no matter on whatever language you play it :) I played it (at least the first one) when it came out. After Diablo it looks just ridiculous.

Jesabel, Blood Knights, Realms of Ancient War, Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars - they all seem to be arcade linear hack-&-slash or Gauntlet-style with no RPG/character build feature.

I do own Van Helsing Final Cut and gave it a try a couple of months ago but finished just two or three locations and got bored. I always lack a BIG COLORFUL inventory and skill menus. VH has everything rather small, and also lacks of interesting item prefixes/suffixes (as well as GD) and interesting skill system (as well as GD). Maybe only Catarina concept seems inventive and fun but it doesn't save all the rest. And it lags on my so-so system (turning almost all the visuals off or to minimal makes everything even more uninspiring).

Yes, I do know Numen (bought it a year ago on Gamersgate), mainly for its Ancient Greek theme (I'm a fan of Antiquity and mythology overall) but played it just an hour or so. Reserved it for a better time.

Asura is in my Wishlist (mythology!).

I own both Heretic Kingdoms (Kult and Shadows), tried to play both but quit soon, don't know clearly why :) Maybe they just wait for their time.

On Gamersgate I also own Avencast but it is rather bad.

And I found another thing named Legend: Hand of God with mixed reviews, looking at least decent.

P.S. Completely forgot to mention another gloomy-atmosphered half-decent Diablo clone - NightStone (not Darkstone that is diabloid too but I always disgust the low-poligonal early 3D graphics, it looks simply monstrously IMO).
Post edited August 05, 2018 by Nyktouros
Posted August 05, 2018
Ah, well maybe I won't finish DoW then ^^'

Haven't tried Hand of God yet, but I have it from Gamersgate too.
[i]
Asura[/i] is quite surprising in the way it's done, it's not pure HnS and feels a bit like a beat'em all. Watching a Let's Play should give you a good idea of what to expect.

Nightstone, that's one of those I've tried to remember (always wondered what the game was about after seeing the box in shops). I'll track it down. Darkstone, yeah, I like this one but... but ^^ Something doesn't totally hook me (and the quest journal is a mess, even if its by design to force you to keep track yourself - which is hard when characters are bland and many...). You can easily improve the looks by upscaling the res. with dgVoodoo again, but the polygons will only look way sharper!

There's one I've always wondered about - Shadowflare, which as far as I know has only ever had one episode finished on the four or five that were to be produced. I played it a long time ago but never finished the episode, and never found any trace of released sequels.
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Grim DawnImpressions from an old ARPG fan(19 posts)(19 posts)
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