Nox™

Bears virtually no resemblance to Diablo bar the top down perspective, so the constant referencing from release to now is mind-boggling. It's more like a top-down precursor to hero shooter gameplay than an ARPG, and was made for that PvP first. It came with an irreverent and fun static campaign clearly intended to ease you in to the pvp skills and then they bolted on an infinite procedural dungeon, both of which hold up as long as you're not expecting to grind for loot and levels. If you can get through the technical hurdles for multiplayer, you'll find yourself at max level with all the toys on an even playing field for capture the flag and such with people who probably have hundreds or thousands of hours of muscle memory. Which is a bit too harsh for me, but maybe some competitive types might thrive on that.

Nox is a perfect example on an old game that brings back only the brightest memories AND holds up impressively well even today, both visually and gameplay wise. While it isn't (and never was designed to be) as deep in terms of RPG elements and character development, it is nonetheless still a solid title that possesses many strong sides, such as an interesting plotline, a wonderful soundtrack and excellent, colorful graphics. Players will take on the role of Jack, an ordinary young man from our modern world that unknowingly has in his possession an artifact from a different dimension. When a malevolent necromancer witch summons the mentioned artifact into her own magical, fantasy world, Jack gets sucked into the world of Nox as well,and thus the adventure begins. In order to find a way to return home, Jack needs to stop the evil witch that unintentionally brought him into the foreign world of Nox. Gameplay wise, Nox is divided into three separate campaigns (for each separate class). Players can choose between a Warrior, a Conjurer and a Wizard. There is no skill tree but rather, certain spells can be learned from tomes or will be automatically assigned by gaining new levels (in case of the warrior). It feels as if Westwood deliberately made Nox as an action oriented type of an RPG with a minimal amount of any point destribution. Where this game really shines is the actual setting, with the world of Nox being really diverse in terms of level design. Players will get to clear dungeons filled with undead, explore wilderlands full of caves and forests, fight off savage Ogres and just get a chance to visit a few cities and a village (all filled with funny or just interesting NPC's with voiced dialogue lines). Combat is usually more fast paced and feels more like an isometric action game compared to similar RPG's. The game has alot of cool looking medieval items and dynamic looking spell effects. Nox is definitely worth a try for all RPG fans and old school gamers!

I replayed this game several times. You might think it's a Diablo 2 clone (the games came out within weeks of each other) but it's a skill-heavy game! You need to aim well, time your shield parries, dodge and jump. Quite difficult, but satisfying. No random generation; fun, varied and handcrafted levels instead(with secret areas). One of a kind vision system. No two spells are alike, and you can put them into traps or bombers! Great sound design, memorable music. Story is totally unsurprising, but the setting is well executed. Multiplayer focuses on modes like Capture The Flag and Free For All, but I don't think servers are up anymore. Classes from simplest to most complex: Warrior, Conjurer(bow+summoning), Wizard. They not only share little with each other in terms of mechanics. Opening (and some late game) levels are different depending on who you play as. The game has excellent pacing and keeps introducing new weapons, spells and enemies almost to the very end.

I played this game A LOT as a child, and have finished it so many times with each class. I highly recommend it. The movement and combat is smooth and different than other RPGs, and each class plays out differently.

A 2D top-down action game with some RPG elements and with the TrueVision system, but the gameplay was not so likeable like in Diablo or Torchlight. There are three character classes which are very locked to their roles. Warrior cannot cast spells and Wizard cannot equip swords and so on. When you level up, there are no point distribution to your attributes and no skill trees with unlockable skills. So there are no character builds at all so the character progress will be always the same with each class. There are many spells for conjurer and wizard classes, but just a couple of spells are enough to drain all mana, and this wont change in later game no matter how many EXP levels gained. There are mana potions but they are not always so common and you can carry only 10 of them. There are mana pillars for mana recharging but they are not always available in all game areas. The user interface has one good thing and many bad things. You can define different spell sets for the spell hotkeys and you can easily switch them with the mouse wheel. But inventory is clumsy, you cannot arrange your items and examining items is made difficult with a magnifying glass icon. Buying, selling and repairing stuff is also pain with so many mouse clicks. Equipments will wear down and they will break eventually, and the only way to repair them is to meet a shopkeeper. You cannot always return to the previous shopkeeper and the next one may be very far away. Besides, repairing and especially buying items are so expensive. Other minor annoyances are picking up items and the fast-moving enemies with little hit rectangles making difficult to hit them with arrows. There should be some replay value with three character classes, but the abovementioned issues don't really make worth it for me.