Challenge of the Five Realms

Zombiemane's review is spot on, and there's nothing I can add to his masterpiece review. I can only confirm that for the patient CRPG gamer this game is a must buy. I played it when it originally came out in 1992, and spent almost as much time playing it as I did Ultima VI and VII. It has a crowded, living world full of NPC's and a combat/stat system much like Realms of Arkania, difficult to get used to, but once you do you'll be restarting and enjoying every minute of it.

Challenge of the Five Realms is a product of a different era. There are no rails here. You're given the hints for finding the game's critical path, but It's extremely easy to lock yourself out of the critical path due to two early game events: leaving your home city before putting all of its affairs in order (for reasons I won't spoil), and the encroaching "plague of darkness" that slowly consumes the map starting from the southernmost tip. This is unthinkable by modern game design standards, and would normally lead to a poor experience if it weren't for a powerful storytelling trick: your realm is vast, and your father was not the man he led you to believe. You are the prince of Alonia. You grew up sheltered and pampered within the seat of your kingdom, fed lies about your father's greatness and the respect his subjects hold for him. Once your father is murdered and the kingdom is in turmoil, the truth emerges: the people who have been oppressed at every turn would sooner spit in your face than help you, and those who your father called ally are eager to take advantage of the power vacuum. Your entire kingdom bears the wounds of tyranny, and you will be spending quite a bit of time learning the truth of your provinces, righting past wrongs, and convincing others that you're a mean worthy of being a leader. On top of this, you must discover the lost portals to other worlds and strike bargains with princes whose kingdoms are presenting their own problems. Learning all of these secrets and how to deal with them takes time. Few people who played this game when it first came out succeeded on their first playthrough, but the secrets learned during the prior session allow you to make better use of your time and discover more of them. Decide early on if you want to play with a FAQ, or enjoy the original experience. Most of you will decide that your time is understandably precious, but remember one thing: you can't find games like this today.

This game - wow - I loved this. I still have my original 3.5" disk version. I no longer have a floppy disk drive, but GoG just remedied that. Thank you! It is mostly in the vein of Ultima VI and VII, but, I think, the story is much richer and more rewarding. I also enjoyed how the world map would begin to disappear into the darkness if you didn't do things in a timely manner. Really created a sense of urgency. The character creation - a choice of, 'would you do this or that' scenario - is worth the admission price, alone. Recommended!

I have been playing this game for almost 30 years, the story alone captivated me in my youth so much that I couldn't put it down. 5 different realms each with their own continents, races and character's with personalities that will make you laugh, cry and even want to slaughter them on the spot. Every interaction you have with the thousands of characters in this game has adverse effects, some will lie, some will only respond to threats, some will just attack you because they don't like your face. But the choices you make in the game when dealing with these characters will determine the outcome. But enough about the characters. You walk around towns and cities talking to everyone. Characters have one of a kind items you can only get from them and they have tasks that you have to complete for them to get said item, and if you just don't feel like giving some poor beggar a few gold you might miss out on a item that is DIRE to complete something much later in the game. There is a darkness coming from the south and if you don't get the stuff you need from a city it already engulfed you have no way of getting anything out of that city now. This was one of the first games to penalize you for being the bad guy and just killing anyone you see, you do it too many times and guess what? Game over For the spells in this game you have to collect components to learn, cast and bind spells. But if your Magic skills are too low when you try to learn you will lose a day and possibly destroy some of the components. This is very penalizing because you only have 100 days to finish the game, and some components are one of a kind so if you destroy it your done. This is in my top 5 games I've ever played I love it so much that I made the only let's play of this game on youtube, The game will leave you stumped at many parts of "wtf am I supposed to do" that I figured someone should help out those who just cant get past a certain part. BUY THIS GAME, PLAY THIS GAME, LOVE THIS GAME!