Greeted with a properly old school, before my time, 2D scene
setting introduction with equally old fashioned music I embarked on what was to
become an unexpected journey through some on screen squares.
Swords and Sorcery – Underworld Gold is a turned-based,
played-in-a-party, dungeon crawler, RPG that throws you back to the 1980s.
Sounds like a complicated description for a game? It is, and it doesn’t just
stop at the description. I’ll explain at this point that I have limited
background in this genre, with Baldur’s Gate being the only similar game that
I’ve played to any serious degree. I decided that because I am a man I’d crack on
none the less, and started a new game. Five minutes later I was confused and had
an overall feeling of nonchalance about what I had experienced. So in a very
unmanly resolution I decided to open the digital manual that was provided and looked
up at the learning curve that seemed to loom almost cliff-like above me. I had
forgotten how much gaming has missed out on having informative, useful manuals!
Within another ten minutes I had re-read the back-story, learnt about how to
choose and equip my party and most importantly how to fight the 115 monsters
the game boasts of. I was ready to depart Gladiator’s Inn and tackle the 20
15x15 maps that awaited my band of merry men (and a couple of women)..
Party creation can be as simple as choosing the existing
computer created characters or you can pick your own. I chose to forgo picking
six very rudely named custom party members and kept five of the original
suggestions, making only a priest called Ric! You get the option of rolling for
stats and choosing the race, class, gender and name for up to six characters along with keeping the original six,
although you can only take a total of six on your adventures at one time. The short back-story explains that an unexpected evil
world invasion has sprung upon the world and that you and your troupe are the
only thing between victory and unanimous death. Brilliant, high expectations
already... So venture out into the unknown I did with Ric and the crew.
The biggest shock for me was the repetition of the
map textures, however the quality of the pictorial graphics including
the mobs is fantastic for a retro game! Initially I thought I’d find
navigation nearly
impossible with the maze-like structure of the map and that I’d struggle
with
the controls; the direction can be controlled with mouse clicks but this
confused me at the start so I played with arrow keys, and indeed used
the
highlighted keyboard shortcuts through-out instead of the optional mouse
control - much easier.
After an hour or so I started to get the hang of
the
mechanics of Underworld Gold. Fighting is turn based and each different
enemy
has their own strengths and weaknesses, some of which are hard to work
out at
the start of the battle. And your party's experience and equipment
really do
make a massive difference to the outcome of the battle. Equipment can
either be
found after battle, whilst searching the tile you're on or bought from
vendors
with the money gained from being victorious against your foes. I found
that
some encounters, as they are called in the game, were very difficult and
soon
learnt that changing the order of your party and being tactical by
moving
characters in or out of melee really made a big difference. Although I
recommend regular saving and resting to avoid losing hours of
exploration to an
unseen 'boss' behind a locked door! Moving from level to level really
highlights this as the battle difficulty can ramp up at an alarming
rate, I lost many party members and once they are dead that's it, back
to an old save!
I wasn't anticipating to be impressed by Underworld Gold and
I honestly thought that playing through the game to review it would be a drag.
I was totally wrong. Once I embraced the graphical content and music (although
I turned it off after a while, but kept the sound effects on) and used trial
and error to find my way, I truly enjoyed playing. Underworld has the sort of
addictive nature that lets you play for hours and not realize it's long past
bedtime... If you are any sort of RPG or dungeon crawler fan, or are simply
looking for an interesting, exciting and original game then you will thoroughly
enjoy Swords and Sorcery – Underworld Gold.
(Underworld Gold is currently on offer at $4.95 reduced from
$14.95 at Olderbytes website until 27/01/13. There is also a sequel on the way!)
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