Although it's a mess at times, this game is one of the best games I've ever played and a true testament to treating the player like a mature, intelligent adult. As a player works his way through the huge levels, a lot of brain power and exploration is required to meet the requirements to make it to the next level. Your patience will be tested, but if you persevere, you'll be rewarded with something that is very rare in games these days: a sense of intellectual accomplishment. The game is about resource management and puzzle solving with waves and waves and waves of enemies thrown at you. Of course, this is where the game gets frustrating and loses its fun value. The enemies are very hard to kill and you will die hundreds of times without question. Sometimes it's a matter of reloading and hope the virtual dice are in your favour for damage received and given, sometimes it's a matter of reloading and changing your weapons and tactics, and often it's a matter of reloading and hoping your enemy gets stuck in a wall. If you’ve played Arena and Daggerfall, you’ll handle the battle just fine – just remember to save every 15 seconds. There are no waypoints flashing or narrators telling you what to do, so you genuinely feel just like the protagonist of the game and that’s the exceptional brilliance of the game: you're thrown into the fight for the Battlespire with not much more than your staff in your hand and you're expected to find the equipment and supplies you need to survive. Getting through a level is hard, but for the most part fair and logical. (To my shame, I consulted a walkthrough twice and in both instances I told myself, “Are you kidding me? That’s the solution?”) The game is far from perfect, but I cannot recommend it enough.
