Nox™

Never played this before, but Nox holds up well if you like Diablo-style hack'n'slash games. Though really, it's only superficially like Diablo. For one, dungeons in the campaigns aren't randomly generated, and there's a lot higher emphasis on secrets and traps. Leveling is even more straight forward, so don't expect much in the way of build variety. That being said, each of the three classes plays very differently from one another, with their owns strengths and weaknesses. I suggest beginners play as a warrior or conjurer to get a feel for the game, as the mage is a bit trickier to master. Regardless, the game is fun and easy enough to pick up and play without reading the manual. Regarding stability, as of this review's date it worked straight "out of the box" on my Windows 10 desktop. The only caveat is that there was a constant 'flickering' of the UI elements, and music would sometimes glitch in the menus. To fix this, I had to play the game from 'GAME.EXE' and not GOG's default, which is 'NOX.EXE'. If you're having issues, try making a shortcut from the 'GAME.EXE' and use that instead. This fixed all issues for me.

In some ways, Nox was so ahead of its time that the industry still hasn't caught up. Not only is it a rare (but obvious) thought of genius for an hack-n-slash to use the mouse to direct spells, while the keys control movement; But, Nox has developed it to the point of responsiveness you won't often see outside of first-person shooters. And Nox did it in 2000. There are other things to say, of course. The art is quite lovely, if not astounding. The prevalence of voice acting is a nice touch. The dialogue and story are... Okay, if a bit unskilled in the writing. That's not what Nox is about, though. It's the gameplay. And the gameplay is outright fantastic, 25 years on.

This is one of my favorite games of all time. Somehow, I like it even more than Diablo 2. That is pretty strange since Diablo 2 is randomly generated, but that speaks to how much Nox speaks to me. Don't get me wrong, I love Diablo 2, but somehow I have probably played through Nox hundreds of times compared to maybe under 100 of Diablo. It's kind of a puzzle to me why I actually like Nox that much. But everything from the enemies, the way you control your characters, the fireballs, and electric bolts, are all so god-damn crisp and clean. You can probably eat off your moniter after a p*** session, it's that clean. If I were to ever do a speedrun of a game, this would be it.

This never got the success it truly deserved. In terms of gameplay, it's still more complex and way above 90% or more of its genre. The PvP is probably still unmatched. It's sad if you think about how little the genre has advanced (outside of graphics) since 2000.

I didn't expect much from Nox even though it received great reviews on GOG, but I was really hooked when I started to play. I went to work with only a few hours of sleep for a week because of Nox. It is a fun action RPG that is interesting and rewarding. Exploring and finding secrets is exciting. The best part is the battle mechanics which is fast. You can get a variety of weapons and equipment by buying or finding them. The weapon and equipment depreciation and repair system adds some strategy because you don't get a lot of gold in this game. The story is good, but not great. The music is also good, but not memorable. After you finish one path for a class, you can choose two other classes for some replay value. But, there are some negative points. First, the game is very linear. You cannot go where ever you want, whenever you want. You'll be locked in a area after you enter it and once a chapter ends, you cannot go back to that area again. I also felt the run and walk controls by the mouse was a little hard to control sometimes. Also there were some bugs or glitches. FMV had some black pixelation and the game flickered especially at the main menu. These bugs where not game-breaking, but just annoying. Overall I loved playing Nox. It was exciting, charming and easy to play. Not 100% perfect, but worth a play through.