This game, at the time of writing, is 18 years old. We had a few similar games, but none that surpassed this one in quality. Even the HOMM series, which IS excellent, does not live up to this, as it lacks the 4x elements. Not only is it well balanced, but it also offers many different possibilities of playing and hours upon hours of entertainment.
I didn't play this a lot when it came out, so I had the chance to correct that now. The game is good and somewhat addictive, but has some flaws that turned me off after playing about 75% of it. - despite the manual, it seems that some creatures pop down to join you randomly; - Kind like the worst thing about TIE Fighter: you want to fight those, who normally were the good guys, but you end up fighting other dungeon keepers - gets to that magical place were it is frustrating in its difficult - clunky spell casting controls, which are clnky at time. Nonetheless, good game, and worth picking up. Oh, and BTW: the hi res works in this version.
Apart from the first 2, I played all these years ago. And these games still have the playability they had then. The first part suffers from a lack of proper spell casting system, and it lacks the type of map that was introduced in later installments, but these were limitations of the computers of those times that JVC actually attempted, with quite a lot of succces, into features. Addictive gameplay, even the first part if you can get past the VERY retro graphics and somewhat clunky controls.
