I played this game back when I was a kid, but never got very far mainly because the gargoyles were so powerful and I couldn't free the shrines. I thought that it might just be because I was a 10 year old at the time, but now that I've returned to the game again, it actually seems like there is something broken with the game

I played one game and I was having no problem freeing shrines until I reached the shrine of Justice. It had around 10 Lesser and 2 Greater Gargoyles protecting it. I managed to kill all the Lessers, but the Greaters were untouchable. I ran out of ammo with three archers (around 300 shots) without causing a single point of damage. No magic spell had any effect on them. My melee fighters missed every round. The only damage I did to them came from them hurting themselves with fireball spells and 2 powder kegs that I set off I'm not convinced did much damage.

I started a new game, wanting to try things a bit differently now I had a better idea how to play. I went to liberate the shrine of compassion at the start of the game and I had the exact same problem. 2 Lesser Gargoyles who fell like flies with a Greater Gargoyle who was immune to everything I threw at it.

What's the deal with this? Do the Greater Gargoyles get bugged sometimes and become invincible? How are you supposed to fight them?

I've never encountered this bug, but in the early stages of the game, I found fighting the Shrine guardian gargoyles was often so tough that I would use the Orb of the Moons to jump into the Shrine area, use the Rune, then use the Orb again to get away. With the Shrine free, the Gargoyles go away of their own accord even of you leave the moonstone behind, and you can go back to collect it a little later.

I think "jump and steal and run" is a valid strat. you can equip rings of inviisbility before teleporting in, for extra security. I like that the game allows many ways to defeat problems. there's no "froced" battle with the gargoyles at the U6 shrines, if you come up with some other way around it.

The "jump in, heal shrine, jump out" strategy is definitely the way to go for a lot of the Shrines.

I played once trying to defeat the Shrines "honestly" by first defeating all of the Gargoyles before cleansing the shrine. I remember the Shrine of Sacrifice being particularly difficult. One of the issues I had was that winged Gargoyles are super OPed at the start. Almost nothing hits 'em. Your characters could swing at them 20x, and maybe *one* of those swings connects. Using a Storm Cloak or casting Negate Magic is also pretty essential against a team of winged Gargoyles unless you like Explosions being cast at your party every few turns.

I always assumed that's why we were given the Orb of the Moons to begin with. We're not really *supposed* to be fighting the OPed Gargoyles. Exploring the Pirate Cave is also pretty brutal unless you avoid all of the traps. We're not supposed to smash our way through each and every challenge in the game.