I remember following the development of this game through Spanish videogame magazines, specifically Hobby Consolas and always thought this would be an amazing game. When it finally came out, all my expectations were exceeded. Graphics: some of the tech in this was ahead of its time. This was doing shadow-casting dynamic lights before Doom 3, although Doom 3's method ended up being far superior to this one. Water looked amazing too and, afaik, didn't even use pixel shaders. Fire effects were quite impressive and this was the first game that I can think of that had blood splatters that ran down walls. Gameplay: a proto Dark Souls before even Demon's Souls was a thing. Difficult combat focused on 1v1 encounters, with a lock-on system and weapon durability. Although clunky and outdated for today's standards, it played rather well at the time, providing many hours of entertainment for those willing to become proficient at the combat mechanics. Characters had pretty decent freedom of movement, were well animated and had quite responsive movement. Sound: nothing special here, to be honest. Sound design is very serviceable and makes generous use of stock libraries. Sound quality is not the best, as it had to be compressed using the low-quality codecs of the time, so even in high-quality mode it sound nowhere near as good as modern games or even higher budgeted games of the time. Music: some memorable tracks here and there. During gameplay it provides you with a dynamic soundtrack. Not great, not terrible. Does its job. Level design: in my opinion, this is the star of the show. Game features some really well designed levels with fairly intricate architecture and well planned layouts. Although the Soulsborne games would eventually crush this game in that regard, it's still impressive how well designed these levels were. Top of my head, at the time, I think only Rune and Die by the Sword were providing direct competition to this game. Do not sleep on this gem, buy it!
