* * * * * SPOILERS AHEAD, somewhere... * * * * * * * *

When I first saw the screenshots, I though that this game was total ripoff of Diablo2. All the same attributes, almost identically paper doll, items with sockets and even the GUI looked much like D2's GUI. Well, I wasn't too interested about the game then... but until recently I though: "What the ****... I liked D2, why wouldn't I like this? And that store is selling it for quite cheap..."

Well, some time after that I had the DD in my hands. I didn't have any great expections for the game. Well, the first shock was the installation. It neede 2.5 gigabytes of hard disk! "That game must be HUGE!" I thought.

After creating the character and playing sometime, my thought were:

+Nice, I can choose my gender
+Interface is much like D2's and it's quite simple
+Cool, I can pick some rogue's and wizard's skills too!

-Annoying walk/run animation
-Ugly camera angle (if you know what I mean...)

Well, the beginning wasn't so bad, so I decided to play some more... and more...


After couple of days:

+This world is actually quite large (though not as huge as 2.5 gigas could be...)
+Dialogue had some irony on it...
+This game isn't ripoff of D2

-I killed about 50 mind-controlled soldiers and nobody noticed that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />
-The dialogue is not quite professional. Sometimes there's options missing that I would have chosen (like I tried to tell the captain, that half of his army is mind-controlled.. but I couldn't). Also I had strange feeling that a teenager had wrote all those dialogues.


And my current opinion

-BUGS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!! I almost lost my game because of "Crash in Verdistis" bug. I also have over 5 quests I cannot complete and they are not marked as "Failed". And there's dozens of bugs everywhere. And the temporal storm skill doesn't do anything. Wasted 4 points for nothing. And Heaven's blessing dosn't give any resistance bonuses.
-The main plot is TOTALLY ripoff of Diablo (1)! (Boy of ruler has been turned into a demon with evil artifact and he's going to open portal to hell.)
-The game is totally unbalanced. At the beginning I had to constantly use "Hit-and-run" tactics to kill enemies. Suddenly I found an ID3 item, actully 3 items! I was still fighting with club... Now, at level 40 I'm killing almost every monster with single blow. Last challenging situtation I had at the graveyard after I had escaped Iona's dungeon.
-Railroading: Too many times the game tooks over the controls of character. This shouldn't happen. And some times I can't even choose my words.
-My game kept crashing every then and now (I have Radeon 8500...)
-The game wans't playtested enough (if it was even playtested...)
-No running button (only auto-run)
-It was quite diffuculty to walk in crowded ares or ares full of stuff.
-Admiring NPC were angry if I had weapon in hand while talking to them.
-Some voice-actors were quite lousy
-The game was quite heavy for my machine (1700xp, WinXP, 512DDR, Radeon8500) and yet it wasn't looking good (nor had any other superior quality).
-The game is full of cliché
+Divine one knows that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> (My favorite: "You mean that trolls, halflings, sprites and such aren't races? And since -WHEN- did wizards became a race?")
+The game was quite entertaining when it worked as it should have worked.
+I enjoyed the music quite much.

What to improve?
-Controls. Stand still and run buttons would have made it much comfortable to play
-Playtesting. There were dozens of major gamestopper bugs and some need for balancing the system.
-Dialogue. There was quite many 'missing choices' on dialogue. Why I had always be the hero? Why couldn't I just say NO to Zandalor? And my opinion wasn't asked when they killed me with the ritual.. =/

And something to ask:
-What's the difference between character classes? Aside the appearance, starting attributes and mana/life gain at levels...?
-What the heck is black ring and why I couldn't ask anybody about it?

Habba out. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />