Childlike without being childish, this tale of mysticism, spirituality and personal freedom in a totalitarian fable-like world has aged extremely well. Slap on a keyboard mapping software to use a controller for added comfort, and you're set for an all-ages adventure with rock-solid gaming mechanics that is as charming today as it was in the days of yore.
I should have known better, having already purchased the game in my youth to get my Commandos fix and having gotten bored with it. Years later, I tried it again at GOG, again to scratch a Commandos itch, thinking I might be able to appreciate the game better, but alas, history repeated itself. At face value, this is Commandos in the Middle Ages, but the story is cartoonish, as are the characters, the repetitive ambush missions are an irksome, frequent intermission between missions, and it's far too easy to slash your way through problems with some swordplay or staff swinging. It has the ingredients of a good game, but the whole just doesn't seem to gel together, and even the innovative features, like leaving your Merry Men in their training camp, becomes unwieldy and cumbersome after the novelty wears off. The fact that I had to use a third-party program so that the game was even playable (the infamous field of vision slowdown) didn't help at all. Not one of my finest purchases, and the lowest common denominator of a strategy game, I'm afraid.
Mediocre on almost all accounts. Inconsistent voice acting (though Earl Boen, of Monkey Island fame, is a pleasant treat as always. Clumsy and time-consuming inventory management. Money is useless for over half the game. The learning curve's pacing is all over the place, with features such as resting and alchemy being revealed all of a sudden with no rhyme or reason. Combat is a tiresome affair. Zero dramatic tension throughout the entire story, with characters you just can't bring yourself to care about and a haphazard plot that leaves you cold throughout. On the plus side, I suppose there's this hilarious witch who provides some genuinely amusing levity in an otherwise uninspired and uninspiring game. Only get this if you're an RPG addict and the game happens to be on sale.
It helps to be more than passingly acquainted with the Dark Eye tabletop RPG mechanics, as this game does not hold your hand in the least, but it's a very solid old-school RPG experience, with turn-based combat, realistic gameplay features, serviceable graphics, and a couple of catchy tunes (which quickly become irritatingly repetitive, unfortunately). There's no main character, so all your party members will largely react and make decisions on their own, which is interesting and different, if a bit antithetical to the "rp" in RPG. A word of caution: Make sure you have a majority of magic users in your party before the end, and make sure to keep one save before delving into the final "level", as there's a cruel, game-stopping bug in the second-to-last fight that will keep you from finishing the game. Consider yourself warned.
This is a very good entry in the point & click genre. A delightful, fairytalelike story with a moody atmosphere, feylike soundtrack, interesting fantasy setting and a very likeable and well-rounded duo of main characters, who greatly complement each other in the narrative. It is not a difficult game, and sports some innovative features that stand out from the somewhat staid interface dogmas of the genre, so you get to enjoy the story without too much frustration at getting stuck. It's too bad GOG couldn't provide the German voiceovers, but the English voice actors do a fine job of it. Definitely not to be missed by p&c enthusiasts and casual gamers alike.
