Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

I remeber renting this game multiple times for the PS2 back when and it was just so fun, I had just finished Reading R.A Salvatore's The legend of Drizzt Sojourn and watching the Awful D&D movie and got Pizza for the weekend. Sorry for the nostalgia talk, But as far as this Enhanced edition of this game it runs great looks better then ever sounds wonderful and plays smoothly so I can not say it is bad at all. No crashes so far.

This is a solid 3 star game. I played this when it came out because of the hearty boasts of a good story, which I am a sucker for. Arguably, as a younger kid, this is what got me to accept D&D as "cool." There are a number of things it does great... with a catch to all but one. Robust amount of visual upgrades, though customization is purely preferential by the end. A diverse bestiary, if a little repetitive. Combat feels satisfying even by today's standards (which aren't that high). But the voice-acting... Holy CUSS. Khelben Blackstaff is Patrick Stewart and he is incredible. A good chunk of Hollywood does not have actors as good as this game and most games are awful in comparison. Cireka is semi-forgettable cuz you can't understand her, but Ygorl is Michael Clark Duncan. For the main characters, Rannek is Alduin from Skyrim (I know, it's not on GoG, but still), Zhai is Wonder Woman from Justice League, and Illius is a guy I didn't recognize, but was perfect for carrying exposition. This all helps a somewhat trope-ified story feel better than it is. The story of three misfits with uncanny ability forced together is called stale by some, but have they played cussing Mass Effect? People throw themselves at your feet to be in the party, there is NO beginning character arc for some of the most popular options, they're as flat as my white-boy gamer chest. Demon Stone isn't original, but its 3 main characters all feel driven and well made and each has a satisfying climactic event towards the end of the story. Defeating the Red Dragon, while a little clunky and frustrating, felt as awesome as any D&D team working together. The "Power of Friendship" ending is better than that found in Guardians of the Galaxy, to say the least (which is totally an RPG party). I would not recommend grabbing this solo unless you've played it before. Otherwise, you'll get it in a bundle w/D&D essentials or something and find a real hidden, if uncut gem.

This game is nice to play and the story is quite good for a short action game. But it has some flaws, I encounter several bugs, some annoying ohers disturbing, sometimes the speech is gone and I couldn't finish all trolls, well it took lots of time to finish them while they lie on ground on, I guess different ground level so you need to be the same but you can't see it(little snow piles). Also in Dragons lair, preoceeding after entereing the tower with the arhcers was stopped, i cold just watch seeing the femlae antagonist and the dragon fighting for eternity, and then I jumped in oblivion on the tower. Also the character developent feels more or less like in Enclave, and the number of 10 Levels also. bad point imo. Its not a bad game besides that, Easy to get in and the story lets you play on. the Characters are cool, too. but the KI is quiet stupid. Also difficulty is from very easy to strangely hard, no choice whatsoever. Cnclusion: worth playing once.

I want to love this game. I really, REALLY do. But good gravy. Okay, first off, I'm no stranger to difficulty. But there's several different kinds of difficult, and unfortunately Demon Stone strives for the "throw enemies with way too much health in large waves at the player with little to no strategy to fighting them" kind of difficulty in quite a few areas. This is unacceptable for a game made after the early-to-mid 90's. Other than that, the characters are fun, the writing is alright, the combat is servicable (when it's not having the God of War Syndrome of getting hit off-camera from a fixed camera angle), although the upgrades really don't seem to do much of anything beyond mediocre to middling changes. The graphics weren't stellar even for their time, but that's okay. At least it's not hard to tell where enemies are. Unfortuantely, the camera is fixed, so you could be running around looking for an enemy that you can't find because the camera won't move. Gets 2* because of the writing.

This game was released in 2004, but feels almost pre 2000. The fighting animations are very poorly done. There is very little weight to each hit, it's like hitting thin air. The voice acting is okay, though sometimes cringe worthy, but the worst part is the terrible lip syncing. There is very little RPG to this game. It's linear, which is okay, but this is essentially a left cliking simulator.