Overall most helpful review

Posted on: November 12, 2020

duerer

Games: 420 Reviews: 10

Not good but FRIGGIN GREAT OLD GAME!

Talk about long forgotten classics. Yes, we all known the Gold Box games, we all know about Wizardries, Might and Magics and Bard's Tales... ... Uukrul belongs to this supergroup of excellent old RPGs. For the uninitiated: this game is a... - Bard's Tale-style party-based grid blobber - with a tactical GoldBox-like combat system, - with a very original and fun magic system (no AD&D here!), - sporting an unforgiving but very fair difficulty, - and the best ever dungeon design in the history of RPGs. Add a surprisingly usable user interface, and a not-too-terrible presentation, and you have a pleasant winner! A few notes on the party system: the game uses a fixed 4-member party with pre-determined roles. Yep, you can customize your stats, but cannot switch their classes (so no crazy 4mages setup here!). This is intentional, as the game is cleverly designed to take full advantage of your specialized guys. A few notes on difficulty: the game is the Dark Souls of RPGs. It auto-saves constantly, and you have ONE save. If a party member dies, you MUST make an effort to bring the guy back to the living, no save scumming here. All in all: This is not about min-max powergaming -- Uukrul is about heroic adventuring and constantly assessing your options. TL;DR: a very original and sadly unknown RPG sporting the MOST ORIGINAL DUNGEONS EVER. Not for the RPG newbie, but for the aficionado, it is a must buy.

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Posted on: November 15, 2020

eatitjones

Verified owner

Games: 172 Reviews: 3

More Dungeon Crawlers Like This Please

I never played The Dark Heart of Uukrul when it was new, so I'm definitely not blinded by nostalgia on this one. This is almost exactly what I want out of a dungeon crawler. The combat is decent while not frustratingly frequent. It uses a top-down perspective similar to the Gold Box games. Every round you get a move phase and an attack phase (use Space to cycle through the characters). Enemies can flee from combat. Character health is divided into Healthy, Weak, and Critical stages, and keeping everyone in the green is essential. The UI is surprisingly easy to read and use despite the game's age. Everything is done with keyboard, and the commands are always shown on screen. The viewport is big enough to see what's going on, without it dominating the window, and there's plenty of room for descriptive text when it comes up. The artwork is fairly simple, but it's always easy to tell what's happening and it's not an eyesore like some other games from this era. There are some very good illustrations when you encounter enemies or special NPCs. The environments look great, and contribute to the game's eerie atmosphere. The magic system is unique and a lot of fun. You have to type in the names of the spells you want to cast, and you'll end up consulting the manual pretty regularly. That might sound like a drag, but the manual features flavor text for each spell, and it really helps to immerse you in the setting. Priests in Uukrul are not your typical healbots; rather they pray to the various gods who might aid them (or might just smite them for their arrogance). The Dark Heart of Uukrul lacks the party creation options of Wizardry, but it does so much brilliantly that I don't even miss those options. I'm constantly looking forward to whatever new dangers and new mysteries lurk around every corner.

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Posted on: November 13, 2020

jusaledan

Games: 690 Reviews: 1

A true classic.

One of my first PC RPGs, I loved it and spent many hours playing the game (although I don't recall finishing it) still have the original disks, manual and copy protection sheet. Love the fact the priest could be smote by praying too much, and it was always sad to loose a hero because I couldn't get his body back in time to resurrect him.

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Posted on: November 14, 2020

MatrixRaven

Games: 1375 Reviews: 6

A crawl down memory lane!

Dark Heart of Uukrul made such an impression on me in its pixely perfection on my Apple //e, that I have been waiting, waiting, waiting for this day... and it's here! I thought this was one of those niche games and that hopes of having it resurrected on GOG were slim. Reading the other reviews, I am apparently in great company! This game has a lot of love, and it's all deserved. I think what hooked me on this one back in the day were the puzzles. This isn't just a move-kill-move-kill game. You have to use your brain along with your (in game) brawn in order to proceed. And... the dungeon design itself is just fantastic. When I got immersed, I got immersed for hours. Says a lot when this game is my 2nd favorite dungeon crawler rpg of all time from the days of classic Apple II gaming (Dungeon Master being the first). I finished Dungeon Master... I never finished Uukrul. Now, I've got a second chance!

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Posted on: November 20, 2020

Rej72380

Verified owner

Games: 536 Reviews: 1

Very Unique for a Dungeon Crawler

The Dark Heart of Uukrul is quite the classic CRPG experience which I am glad has seen the light of day in 2020. You assemble a party of four characters--A warrior, a paladin, a priest and a mage--and venture into a vast mountain city comprised entirely of caverns. The graphics for the game are some of the best the EGA/VGA color format can afford and it shows for sure. With very detailed portraits of the enemies you will be fighting and the vast multitude of enemy sprites, the game makes the most use of the graphics that were available at the time One aspect of the game, which is a cause for controversy is the sounds and music, or the lack thereof, in the game. The game has no music, no sound effects and no bells and whisles. While a lot of people may deride that as a fatal flaw, I consider it having to use my imagination as to what the sounds of battle and dungeon delving is like. That being, i recommend playing your favorite music over the game or if necessary, create your own soundtrack. As far as controls are concerned, it's just like any other CRPG of the day. You use keyboard commands for basic stuff such as combat, searching and casting magic. Also interesting of note is the game's inclusion of an automap function, which saves the player lots of graph paper in the process. Not to mention having your characters' inventories sortted by letter key. For the meat and potatoes of the game--The actual gameplay--it is actually very lenient in terms of overall difficulty. While the dungeons are complex mazes and there's a constant need to eat while exploring the dungeon, the game is pretty user-friendly. Monsters do not fight cheaply nor is your party ever in a constant state of being "XCOM'd" to put it in more modern terms. Also, the character classes are very balanced. Unlike priests and clerics in other CRPGs, priest in Uukrul don't cast magic to heal, but rely on an RNG-heavy prayer system to do things. Overall, the game is well worth the price you for it.

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