Bought this without having any prior familiarity with the title out of unvarnished RPG withdrawal alone. It didn't work on my win7-64bit box upon purchase, and after two months, I was beginning to worry I'd bought a lemon. Happily, GOG patched the installer sometime last week, and all I can say after a morning of play is: this is a surprisingly playable, entertaining game. Why surprising? Because it has less than subtle design flaws that would kill most games. I know every snobby game review features a perfunctory complaint about the camera (even if they're writing about Zork), but let me assure you that this game truly does have camera issues. Glaring, safety-orange camera issues. Perhaps because the camera is so bad, however, constant correction on the user's part (to make sure enemies or destinations remain in frame) becomes an element of gameplay. Add to this the pathfinding code they use, which is rarely capable of so much as an "L" shape trajectory (which frankly does become tiresome in cramped spaces, when you can't even click on an adjacent room without coming to a dead stop). Pathfinding is also hard for the player, who must play by memory or pen-and-paper maps to navigate frequently "samey-looking" areas. You also get a tiny inventory, limited save slots, irritating targeting, and a fairly linear story arc. In spite of all these amateur-hour shortcomings, the game is a pleasure to play. The combat is fun, the story tries to build upon the cliches of fantasy RPGs, and the sound-design and sound-track are well above average. Anyway... I'm only 6 hours in, so take this review with a grain of salt, but I'd already rate it higher than the only other game this reminds me of (in terms of game type, graphical shortcomings, and general pain-in-the-assy-ness) : Neverwinter Nights 2. If you're fiending for some turn-of-the-century RPG play and don't want to load up a game you've beaten a million times already, give this little rough gem a shot.
