Nox™

Well, I barely remember anything from it since the last time I played it. (Which was not a very long time ago.) To me, I think that already says something. Much less wacky and much more stupid than I was hoping for. I don't recommend.

Yes it has good music and ok visuals for a time, but controls are frustrating and story just trolls you. Half of the game I was able to make, but after stupid npc escorting mission I was done. I don't like controls, I don't like stuff breaking left and right, I don't like story and lore, I don't like most of voice acting too. Yes it have some interesting mechanics, like that you can move all the objects on screen and use it to solve some environmental puzzles, or when you break a wall in the crypt bunch of bones and sculls roll around. But I think I've seen enough.

Terrible control scheme and ponderous mechanics and topped with the hilariously ugly character models. Diablo 1 has better graphics and art style. The reviews are horridly nostalgia based, as most are here. Simply put there are better games in the genre and if you didn't play it when it was first released you still have no reason to play Nox now.

Ripping off Diablo has never been so much fun! You play as Jack, some dude in a T-shirt that gets sucked through a portal and ends up having to fight for justice and... well actually he mostly gets drafted into service by a flying ship captain. We've all been there. Playing is basically just like Diablo, you control your character via clicking on the isometric representation of the fantasy realm, fighting using various skills and monitoring your health and mana. The big difference is that the game mechanics are simplified, and you read a book to earn a skill or spell rather than invest in it with points. The game is somewhat linear, except for the main path the three choosable characters (warrior, conjurer and wizard) traverse on, as the locations and their order of appearance is a bit different. As for the ambient, isn't much more cheerful and easygoing than in Diablo, while still retaining the feeling of danger. And when you die, your inventory contents literally explode on the flour. Fun! In conclusion, a fun isometric Diablo-like action RPG that has aged quite well. Oh, and sorry for the pun in the title, too much carbon moNOXide does that.

Nox is often overlooked by RPG fans ... and rightfully so :) It wouldn't be fair to say that Nox doesn't have any historical value. It's a great case to study "what makes an RPG?" as it hits so many points on the RPG-elements checklist but is never makes it to be considered an RPG at the slightest. It just feels that the developers treated RPG mechanics as an actual checklist pushed down by management and never intended for gameplay to revolve around said mechanics. The only character development choice you make is when you pick the starting class. Leveling up raises the stats in a pre-determined way. The story is there but it serves as little purpose as it does in classic DooM games. Once you start the chapter you can forget about the short briefing entirely. Going down the RPG checklist there are even NPC interactions and dialogs... well monologues. Interacting with some NPCs will give you a couple of sentences of poorly voiced text and that's it. Well sometimes you will run into a shop. That's an RPG thing, right? Balance and core mechanics are all over the place. You never feel like your character is really progressing. Spells cost a lot of mana and have a warmup delay (animation is somewhat cool I must admit) and one would expect that magic should wreck havoc but it is actually nothing to write home about (apart from fireball spell) - it's faster to just beat most enemies with a stick. There is a wide variety of utility spells but a lot of them are close to useless or are not worth the effort to switch to in combat that is a little bit too fast for such decisions. As a final word, expect a top-down arcade (yes, there is even plenty of platforming!) instead of an action-RPG and you might feel less disappointed. If you are going in for the later, it's best to skip this title for something better. Unless you feel like locating secrets hidden behind destructible walls as a core gameplay mechanic is your thing.