Revenant

Revenant has a lot of things going for it. It has very good voice acting, great environments and the gameplay itself isn't half bad. At least that's the way it starts. Most people I know that have played Revenant usually didn't get that far into it. It is a very unbalanced mess of broken mechanics and half baked ideas. The storyline starts off very strong with it's premise of the player being a resurrected god king. But it eventually devolves into a very generic video game plot. It doesn't help the story ends on a very unsatisfying note. But the biggest broken aspect of Revenant is the gameplay. The enemies respawn constantly, the difficulty spikes halfway through the game to the point of being punishingly unfair, and the frequent loading screens and repetitive maze dungeons grow extremely stale very fast. It becomes a game about testing your patience. To put it into perspective there's a boss fight partway through that strips you of your weapons and forces you to fight a very challenging enemy with your fists. And it's not optional. So ontop of being a stat based RPG, every playthrough you must level up your fists just to get past that fight or use a cheatcode. The game in general feels very unpolished and like they didn't test it very well. If you're really curious I suppose it's worth playing but I could never stomach finishing it. And every time I try and replay the game I just remember how frustrating it gets and I stop playing it. As much as people claim Revenant is a forgotten gem, to me it represents one of the reasons why games from the 90s are frequently forgotten.

I wanted to go for 3.5 stars, but I don't think it's possible, so I'll give it 4. The good: -music: really, really good, -gameplay: it's very dynamic, because you use your keyboard to fight rather than the mouse, -interesting story, with some plot twists and a bit of lore about the island, -magic system concept (combining talismans), -multiplayer... though there were only deathmatches, and don't expect too many people online now, I mean, it's been 16 years since the release after all, -good visuals... for its time, anyway, -voice acting, -lots of hidden stuff to find, -varied locations, -day and night cycle... it was nice to see it in the 90s, but it wasn't utilised. The bad: The game is extremely linear, and dialogue choices don't change anything to the point where you wonder why they even exist. As the game progresses, we are introduced to other characters (which you can only play in multiplayer deathmatches), we talk to them, but they don't have any impact on the story whatsoever and we can't play them in single player mode. That's a huge shame, there was so much potential to make the game better. The game is also flooded with half-baked ideas. There are weapon skills, but I don't think they matter all that much except magic (you can't cast better spells if your invoke level is low). You can use a bow, but in story mode, you literally only use it once. You can lockpick chests, but again, lockpick skill is pointless. Then there are TONS of mazes in the game, and they get old quickly. It's pretty obvious Revenant was rushed and unfinished (not something unusual for Eidos, sadly). Just judging by the game options, it looks like there were meant to be more combos. Spells could have used a *bit* more balancing. The ending also hints a possible sequel, but sadly, after 16 years, it will probably not happen.

After several attempts on multiple platforms, I've found a lovely little "Easter Egg" that pretty much explains the effort put into updating this software's compatibility in order to run on modern systems. While attempting to tweak the game to run (at all) I found a fairly self-explanatory author's note.... Launcher.exe, "Properties," "Version," "Comments." The author simply states -and I quote: "If it doesn't work, bite me." Cute. Four workstations, three different OS, all possible compatibility modes and options -all resulted in the same Crash-to-Desktop Error. The Support page on GOG is totally devoid of assistance or solutions for the issue, and my request for aid has gone unanswered for weeks. I *loved* this game back when I bought it nearly 20 years ago -and immediately purchased it when it appeared on GoG. In all fairness,,, it is a fantastic game, but I would suggest waiting until it's been made ACTUALLY compatible with modern systems before spending the $6 and a dozen fruitless hours to see the launcher screen, a blank screen, and your desktop again with the ever-so-helpful "Would you like to send an error report to Microsoft's 'ignore forever" department?" message, [Sigh] I don't know what combination of hardware and OS they made their test-run of this game which convinced them to declare it ready for wide-spread release -but a good chunk of effort indicates that you better have a *precisely* identical setup... and even then, according to the programmer assigned to this project, there's bound to be a hefty degree of frustration getting it to run. It's an awful shame, especially considering how desperately I tried on multiple systems to achieve the same, frustrating error. Despite being a bit buggy back in its heyday, this gem of a game really deserved better treatment and back-end coding than "Screw it, I'm tired of working on it -ship it as-is,"

Isometric action-RPG with awesome immersion, story and gameplay. Fighting is fun: the characters don't sit in one place and just move their arms, but lunge and jump around (try unarmed fighting, muchly fun). The magic system is pretty in-depth, and involves combining magical symbols to form spells. The spells themselves are varied and feel useful and powerful. Building a character (allocating stat points, choosing equipment) is deep and rewarding, with plenty of options to succeed and fail. The story is interesting, and I enjoyed its pacing: though there are a few twists, it never felt rushed. I had much fun with the game back when it was launched, and, again, a few years ago. For me, this is a 10/10 due to the story and atmosphere.