Darkstone

I still have my copy of Darkstone for PS1, which is objectively inferior, but I loved it anyways. I wasn't going to miss the chance to play this game again. Darkstone is not a deep game. It's a fantasy hack'n'slash like Gauntlet (Man, I miss Gauntlet: Dark Legacy). Darkstone's story exists because it's expected, but no one actually cares. You're here to clean out the dungeons of monsters and head back to town with a heavy bag of swag. Rinse and repeat until you waste the BBEG. Then do it again! The key to this game's replay value is its randomized world layouts and quests. You never know which ones you're going to get each time you start a new game. Make no mistake, Darkstone's age shows, especially in its graphics and controls. Graphics aren't a deal breaker for me, and you can learn the controls with a little patience. But they will probably be a greater enemy than the minions you fight until you're familiar. There are no keybinds, and the hotkeys are all over the place. Make sure you download and read the manual first.

This is a really nice little game from a French studio, that was, mostly overshadowed by Diablo 2 released a year after. Undeservedly so. This game has something to offer. Graphics: quite decent for its time. Full 3D with freely rotating and zooming camera, nice effects and models. The animation is a bit repetitive though and the game reuses a lot of assets. Gameplay: it's a typical hack-n-slash beat'em up action-rpg. Four classes with their own skill sets, some skills are better suited for single-player, others for multiplayer. The characters play quite differently, though they're flexible enough, so that even the warrior can learn some magic and the wizard can swing some swords. The quests you'll have to complete to progress the game are semi-random: each of the four lands you need to travers has a small pool of quests and two of those are randomly picked for each land when you start the game, so your playthroughs will be different to some extent. Also, the game features some really cool puzzles from time to time. They're simple, but satisfactory to solve. Sound: the game has a surprisingly good and memorable scores, sometimes throwing some sick beats right at your face. Sound effects are not bad too, weird sometimes, but fitting for a monster-slashing dungeon crawl. Stability: now, this game have some issues. Minor sound lags once in a while, I had a crash but only once, quest items you get before getting the quest itself, nothing special. However, there are ways to lock you out from completing the game. Do save the game before giving NPCs quest items they ask, unless those are town folks asking to bring them stuff for a reward. I had multiple occasions when an NPC was supposed to give or drop something in exchange for something, but didn't. I missed two McGuffins required to complete this game this way, so be careful. Overall, the game is a nice way to spend a couple of evenings, and you can do it again some time later and have a different experience.

I first picked this game up at a Myer Megastore (kind of a mix of OfficeWorks and JB Hi-Fi) around the year 2000 in a $1 discount bin. Best $1 I'd ever spent, I put hours into this playing all the classes and never getting very far because it doesn't hold your hand hahaha - no objective markers so you know where to go or who to talk to. But it's a great experience with simple mechanics and a certain charm you don't get anymore.

Darkstone Is an Action RPG much like Diablo, more about frantic battles and loot than story or complexity. I'll start with the good, you have some dcent class choices, all the basics covered and an added bonus of skills that make the characters more unique as the game goes on. Also the Armory is set up so you can buy equipment for how you build your character, went higher Vitality than Strength, shop the priest equipment and you'll have what you need. The game also has a nice option for having an AI controlled partner in single player to help out, a nice twist on the usual solo goings of the genre if you don't play multiplayer. Sadly then there's the bad. The game is an unapologetic Diablo clone, you get spells from books and it has the click fest action, which isn;t bad in itself but there's not much identity to it. The classes are the basic Fighter, Thief, Mage and Cleric and they don't really have anything to break from the mold (save for the Sorceress' Lycanthropy skill that turns her from a squishy mage to a fast and deadly werewolf.) The Story is really Generic and the NPCs are nothing but: I'm the Arms merchant, I'm the Magic Merchant, I have a quest for you, You need me for a quest. Then there's the quests, They're fetch quests, though that's standard for the genre, they're poorly handled. I often found and had no clue what to do with it. I found a book of the Path and had to click it on the wandering peasants in town (who all look the same) until some one wanted it and gave me gold. The loot system seemed to be pretty boring, for hours I was just picking up mundane versions of the starter gear with not much interesting. And the Story is rather bad and poorly told, a guard will tell you that your parents died and the random peasants will tell you about Drak the Necromancer who can change into a Dragon. It is a loot fest Diablo clone but the story could at least have some mystery or be told in a way that makes you want to defeat Drak. Then there's the graphics, They're not pretty, the characters are blocky and look very unnatural, worse the aesthetics are very bland, You visit a generic town, tromp through generic forests and dungeons and fight the generic skeletons and wasps and goblins and help generic townsfolk. The game doesn't take any risks and the stumbling on the quest system really kills it. You will have some fun but there's so many better games in the genre.

I remember my friends and I having SO MUCH FUN with this silly game. Between the replay ability and customization, there still hasn't been anything quite like it. Just go in keeping in mind how long ago it was released and you'll enjoy it too.