Navigating The Labyrinth

I'm very tentative on this game, but I am going with "not recommended" from the perspective of a player who has completed the two previous games. If you are new to the series and are considering starting with this one, this review may not apply as much to you. While I enjoyed the previous games in the series, they had a number of problems that have still not been addressed here, and it is becoming a bit wearisome. The camera glitches through buildings when you enter. Towns are cluttered with unclear graphics and non-interactive buildings. Outdoor areas are massive, but almost totally empty. Event tiles are completely unmarked, so slowly stepping on every single tile (including in those massive empty areas) is required. Loot is frequently underwhelming. There are multiple minor GUI bugs and oversights, giving the experience an unpolished feel. These are just some examples. I didn't mind overlooking these things before, but by the third game, they really should have been ironed out. This entry also makes the confusing decision to do away with all hybrid spellcasters, which I felt made character creation a bit stifling compared to Crossing the Sands. Out of eight classes, five are purely physical, and three of those are thief subtypes. The remaining three classes are all Wisdom-based primary spellcasters. The Intelligence stat has nearly no function in this game, again a very strange design choice. INT-boosting caster gear still exists, too, so itemization apparently wasn't properly updated for the new classes. Dragon Dropper approaches development with the mindset of releasing often and iterating on their design, which is good! I think that more indies should take that approach. However, I feel like they have gotten a bit too focused on releasing new content and not enough on iterating on the fundamentals. I think the best thing they could do for their next project is to slow down and take the time to really polish the engine and tighten up the design a bit. Since all of their games apparently share the same code base and are updated together, this would also benefit everything they've released so far. There's great potential here, but it still needs some firming up.

** COULDN'T POST ON TOWARD THE ICE DEMO ** I am now weary of this developer, I was looking forward to Toward the Ice until first two reviews pointed out problems. SO I download demo and the demo just stayed on loading screen. Gave up after Three Tries...... Really Disappointed I will look else where for these types of games *************************************************** General Like the Game A Lot Very relaxing dungeon crawler. A few things needed to improve it. A. Battle Text Box. I have to put the Battle Message speed down a lot otherwise the time between characters actions is so long. Because I put the speed the down, when the battle ends the Box disappears so fast I cant see final rewards. So if i want to see it I have play with slow battle settings which i don't like. The box should not be off this setting, it should either stay and let us close it or just fade out but fade in if you mouse over it. B. Keyboard Config There are problems with this. For example 'M" closes mini map instead of bring up big map. I have to click on mini map to bring up the the bigger map. There is nothing under control configuration to assign mini map or world map, they just don't exist. F = Flee can't change it. A = Attack can't change it. ? = NEED A QUICK SAVE OPTION ? = NEED A QUICK CAST OPTION FOR SPELLS (PARTYICULARLY HEALING) C. MINI MAP & MAP Please add more to maps outside of towns. The map feels empty.. not trees show up or rocks. You can not zoom in or out on big map.... D. HEALING AFTER BATTLE & FOOD The biggest thing I don't like about game after battle I have to open character then hit cast select heal click on portrait or name of character to heal. Then the screen closes instead of stay there for me to continue to heal. This gets annoying really fast. So many steps to heal your party. Maybe have a heal party button were it cast healing spells evenly amongst healers and party or at least keep screen open. I PERSONAL DISLIKE THE FOOD GIMMICK!!! EACH PIECE OF FOOD TAKES UP 1 INVENTORY SLOT! SO 6 APPLES TAKES UP 6 SLOTS IN INVENTORY! E. BIG GREY INFO BOX? Why have a big grey info box pop up... i.e. i heal a character. Why not put it in battle text box that i said to keep open? F. TWO SEPARATE AREAS TO HEAL AND RECOVER MANA The game has two areas one to recover health and one to recover mana. I dont like it but is the way game set up. G. WHY ARE CLASSES LIKE WARRIOR GAINGING MANA ON LEVEL UP? MY WARRIOR HAS 2 MANA???? HUH??

I had fun with the game. The character system is reasonably solid and the itemization is decent. The core combat loop is entertaining and there is good monster variety. The maps are often pretty barren and there are no treasure chests to find on the maps themselves so exploring thoroughly is not always rewarded. There are a few bugs and graphical anomalies but nothing that ruined my enjoyment. I did play it to the end which is certainly something in this day and age.