Posted on: December 11, 2020

Lninefingers

Games: 202 Reviews: 2

Ultimately too tedious to be much "fun"

Crpgs are my favorite game category of all time. Baldurs gate, Fallout, even tactical-types like Jagged Alliance top my all-time list. As a slightly older gamer, Realms seemed like a natural fit, and I had read a fair amount beforehand about how hard and detailed it was, even among the genre. You can spend a solid hour creating and crafting your party, but I didnt mind. You can spend another hour researching how and what skills will be needed or useful. I didnt mind. You can spend even more time researching spells and their effects.. I think you see what I mean by now. All of these things are welcome in a hard-core old rpg, if done well, but they just arent. After hours of slogging through the actual game-play, the low-budget and admitted inexperience of the developers becomes glaringly apparent. The ideas and mechanics werent implemented in such a way to compliment each other, or even work at all in some cases. You will spend much more time fighting your inventory managment than you will actual enemies. Starting in the first dungeon, after finding a couple treasure chests and winning a few battles, you will have to treck back to town to sell what youve found, partially because you wont have room for it, but more so because you will be so weighted down, fighting becomes impossible. Quickly you have enough money to get the best starter armor and equipment, but the designers cleary didnt have this mind, because a full armor-set means even your strongest warrior will be weighed down to the point where they will not be able carry anything else in their inventory and still be effective. The designers werent expecting you to get full armor until youve leveled up a couple times and increased your strength. This hardly helps in any case, early on your spellcasters will fail nearly every spell barring a few. Battles with 10 enemies, all of them as strong as your best warrior are common early game. Again- ideas good, execution not so much. Your mileage may vary.

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Posted on: January 29, 2020

SirTawmis

Verified owner

Games: 271 Reviews: 48

Prepare for Adventure!

Realms of Arkania 2 was by far, one of my favorite RPG games - EVER. It became the center of what my own D&D games would have a feel for. The game is tough - and requires a lot of time, patience - and in some cases, when you head into the dungeons - some map making skills (graph paper will be your best friend). Lots of characters to interact with - at times, you will need to write down names and clues, because it's an older game, it doesn't give you "way points" on where to go next. Definitely a fun - but difficult - game! Prepare for weapons to break, losing shoes in the mud or mountains, and launching unusually sounding spells and being ambushed while your party sleeps!

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Posted on: October 20, 2010

Charly500

Verified owner

Games: 69 Reviews: 1

One of the Best

This is a game that I bought for £10 back in the day - a bargain believe me considering the hours of enjoyment I got out of it and still do today! I hadn't played the prequel and had no idea about the story or where the game came from (A German game book series I think) but it was instantly playable from the outset where you can be as involved as you like with the creation of your characters, or not at all if you prefer to pick a pre-made team. The atmosphere and setting is something akin to Conan the Barbarian or Dungeons & Dragons, but it retains its individuality as well. The story is complex and compelling but the best bit for me is just exploring as the game world is pretty open for you to go anywhere. I loved this game and the only complaint I have is that it becomes very difficult to complete the main quest towards the end, but that's OK if you are up for a challenge! Pick up your trusty sword, prepare your mind for magic and makes sure you pack some four-leaf lodeberries - there's adventure afoot!

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Posted on: July 14, 2015

GrandChupon

Games: 23 Reviews: 1

Old school and hard but buy it and play!

I played this game years ago when it first came out. I was in the store when my buddy came up to me and asked if he could borrow $10 because he was a little short on getting this game. Apparently he read about it in a review and had to have it. Forward several months later I got to try out this title and man o man I wasted a good chunk of my life on it. It can be very daunting but it is rewarding nonetheless. Very worthy of your money.

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Posted on: July 3, 2011

Blackrain

Verified owner

Games: 69 Reviews: 18

Difficult RPG of old.

This game had some difficult character creation setups for magical powers & melee, wasn't the greastest turn based combat in gaming, in most cases your underpowered and are killed quickly, magic users have a wide varity of spells but they fail to do anything good on the battlefield, you'll need summon spells and charm spells to use units against each other because combat sucks, most spells fail or your skill isn't high enough to hit & do damage. The game had ok midi music for it time & reminded me alot of the old school Might & Magic series but was nowhere near as good when it comes to gameplay & story. All i used to do was save my game before pick pocketing shop keepers in towns to get money to buy equipment, which really doesn't help you get any advantage over enemies because they all have high skill while your chararcters fumble and fail to complete an action with success no matter how high you set skills at chararcter creation. Combat is painfully slow & boring!

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Close, but not an exact hit

Realms of Arkania 1+2

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