DarkStone Restoration

Yes!

You did an amazing job restoring my childhood. I loved the original and I can't wait to sink countless more hours of my life on this version! 27 years!!! It really blows my mind! Thank you Paul.

As someone who grew up playing the PS1 port, then later hunting down the original PC CD, this is the definitive way to play Darkstone. A lot of quality of life fixes are here that make this version much, much easier to play than the original 1999 release, such as WASD character movement, very much bigger gold stacks, potions and food now stacking up to 10, quick cast spell slots that cast on the press of 1-8, and a movable ui to go with it. Also improved here are monster respawn rates that made experience gain and leveling really difficult before, and gold seems to be a bit easier to come by than i remember (though it's worth mentioning that it has been a while since i played the original extensively). Other improvements include controller support, split screen multiplayer(haven't tested this one personally), upscaled assets and textures, the ability to disable said upscaled assets and textures(if you prefer the original game look), a setting to disable most of the gameplay improvements(like WASD controls or auto gold pickups, if you want to party like its 1999) and a quest journal to track all those townspeople fetch quests and bounties. As the game is currently in early access, I won't be super critical of its rough edges as, well, its not finished yet, but I will mention a couple that I found that some might find a little annoying to work around. One such issue is the volume master slider doesn't seem to do anything, meaning that to mute the game you either have to go into your audio control panel(if you have one), or manually slide all the individual audio sliders down. Two more involve the controller, being 1) You can't remap any of the buttons or controls, and 2) The attack button and interact button are combined into one "Smart Action" button. The Smart Action button makes it so you can fight monsters, pick up loot, open doors, talk to people, etc all with the same button. The quirk that it has however, has to do with picking up items from the ground while monsters are nearby. If you try to pick something up that you're near or standing over, and a monster wanders just a little too close(which in practice isn't that close at all), instead of picking up, your character will just lock on and start chasing the monster. Hopefully this gets modified or improved upon by the dev. All in all, this is a very, very solid facelift for a classic dungeon crawler + hack n slash game, and I look forward to seeing it update and grow!

I remember playing this on the Playstation One when I was a kid. And when I got my PC back in 2018. I found this on the Steam market, or at least the original and, I don't know, I just could not play it. I looked for mods to help it, but to no avail. I don't know. I just couldn't grasp it, but with this one I don't know it. Feels like it's easier to understand and play. I'm not exactly sure what's the difference though. I do have a couple of complaints. First up, the most important complaint I have. Buying potions. It is not exactly the best is very tedious. You have to click on a potion then move the cursor over to the check mark or the X to confirm or deny. Rinse and repeat. I'm not sure which one of these options would be better, but I would like an option to where you can either buy multiple potions or instead of having to move the cursor over to the check mark to confirm the purchase, just. The ability to press space or E or something in order to confirm the purchase instead. It would make it a lot less tedious. The second, and probably something that no one probably encountered. But when I first booted up the game and I went to listen to the song, that the singing lady does. I didn't realize you could type in the amount. It was already set to the Max. And I thought OK, that's what I have to pay. Which was all right I guess, This song is a banger, but maybe a flashing cursor to signify that you can type in the amount. It's probably a nonissue for basically everyone, but for someone who's only brief encounter with the original is basically nonexistent. Anyone new coming in may not know. So far I can't really think of anything else. The UI is a tiny bit confusing to navigate but that's just something that can be remedied with playtime. Addendum: I just posted this but I just remembered something from the Playstation One game that would make this game just a bit easier is in the Playstation One variant You just have to press a button and itll select the nearest enemy or the one that you are facing for attack. selecting each individual one is a little tedious if there is a way you could make it to where you could attack the next one or just attack the nearest 1 Without having individually select each one I think that would be quite nice. But I'm not sure if that will break the experience of the game I just remember it from the Playstation One

Has been a total blast playing through this gem again after so many years! just finished a normal difficulty run earlier to day and now jumped up to next difficulty. Would like to see your party member use some of the spells and abilities a bit smarter and see the stash persist through game wins. But other than some irritants that I'm sure will be worked out it's just so cool to be able to play again. Wish more arpgs like the old ones would be made. (P.S don't forget to tip your bards :P)

Absolute classic. Getting to play through this again has brought back some great memories. There are some nice QOL changes that players rediscovering this title will definitely appreciate. I look forward to seeing how it further improves with the developer having come back to update the game. If you're new to the game, but have been a fan of the Diablo series (1 and 2 especially), I can't recommend the game enough. If you enjoyed the original release from over 25 years ago, definitely give this one a go again.

Restored nostalgia.

It's just as good as I remember it being back in the day. Good stuff