The Darkness Below

I liked the game. I love games of this kind. I like: - the atmosphere, the design, a lot of weapons and armor, magic, good quests, generally addictive. I dont like: - there are no lines in conversations, some skills don't seem to be used, at first it's not clear how to get some skills (fixed in the last update)

This is a dungeon crawler RPG following the tradition of the originals from the 80s. It reminded me a lot of Bard's Tale and Might and Magic, which is a very good recommendation for fans of the genre like me. Battles are turn based and well balanced, considering enemies vs team abilities. There are a lot of locations, villages, towns and underground dungeons to explore, puzzles to solve and quests to keep you running around. Thankfully, the developer was generous with loot, gold, merchants and trainers, giving the player a wide selection of abilities, spells and fighting styles, which is something that adds a lot to the game's playability and fun. The main thing I would like improved, are the higher level spells. I only managed to get my cleric and wizard up to 2nd level spells, while they had slots up to the highest 5th level. Maybe I did something wrong but I got the feeling the magic users' progress or access to spells, could have been a bit better or faster. Congrats to the developer and all the people involved in the game!!! I had a good time with it and hope there will be a follow up.

Firstly, it's really just a Might & Magic 6-8 copy, but with Lands of Lore's item system (where every magic item is named) and it's skill progression and combat. So, if you loved Lands of Lore and the later Might and Magic games, you'll really love this. Music is creepy, the cinematic art that plays during dialog scenes is fantastic, and the randomized loot keeps the game fresh, I would imagine, for multiple play throughs. I do have some nitpicks though. Like the overall lack of spells for a good portion of the game. I'm about to hit lv 10 and my cleric still has nothing but a heal, a bless, and a buff. No cure poison, paralyze, burning, or any status nullifiers. My casters have 5 slots of level 2 spells, but not a single level 2 spell is available in either of the two towns I've been to. Class balancing is a little wonky too, since it took me 4 failed parties during the demo (Spent 5 hours playing that before racking up hours here in the real game, BTW) before I finally made one capable of beating the first goblin boss. One of my problems was that I foolishly picked a cleric, which was useless. I had to make a paladin instead, and use him as a cleric, since clerics, oddly, could only equip leather armor and their low HP made them paper dolls. It's funny that Paladins have the same number of spells as a cleric and no actual drawback to having them be your healer instead of a true cleric. Crazy. Also Barbarians can only grandmaster in scale armor, but to learn scale armor you need 20 Technique. The problem is Barbarians worst stat is technique and they don't gain any in level up. So you COULD play as an elf, who can hit 20 technique if you reroll a hundred times, but then your strength is so low you would barely do any damage, thus making your barbarian a useless fighter. It would make more sense having Barbarians grandmaster Chain Mail, which is lighter in D&D rules, and they can use without needing 20 technique. Once again, crazy. I also don't like how Paladins/Clerics need to have a holy symbol to cast spells. Yeah yeah, eye of the Beholder, I know. But here, shields can give you damage boosts as well as protection, so I actually care about using them. One other small gripe is quest givers aren't marked, so I often forget who gave me a quest and have to consult the forums. Still, even with those gripes, it's an amazing indie CRPG. Like I said, if you're a fan of Lands of Lore or Might and Magic, this is a must play. Really fun and addicting, with a lot of atmosphere and challenge. It just needs some tweaks.