Swords and Sorcery - Underworld - Definitive Edition

*Fantastic* old-school dungeon crawler/CRPG. Loads of interesting things to see and discover, and great combat to level up, find hidden loot and explore more secrets. A+!

Really a cool little blobber. You're gonna have to figure some things out though. Like the priest needs to make Holy Water asap. Edit: Put some real time in and this is the best blobber I ever played, besides maybe wizardry's when I first got addicted to games. And that was because, you know kid. And yes I own A lot of the more modern ones. So Many things are done with thought of the game mechanics. I mentioned the holy water thing above here is some other cool stuff. 1. Character power level. The game really purveys a sense of level of power progression. for instance my first encounter with a vampire was when my party were level 3. It dang near wiped the group. Later at level 7 those same vampires go down in 1 or 2 hits. And the game displays this power by having you travel through those areas which were oh so difficult at first to reach a higher threat level as you progress. Its catacombs under a city you see. And like most blobbers the different areas contain different threat levels. Now I know some of you people are rolling your eyes thinking tedium and no fast travel. but the levels are easily navigated with 2-4 random encounters traversing to the next level that usually only last 1 round when you get powerful. So your characters power is on display through these areas that used to be frightening. so many games these days just dont have that. all enemies scale with your party so you heroes never really feel powerful. 2. Magic. the developer was really clever here with s[ell materials. See both priest and wizards, sorry sorcerers acquire spell points of course but priest need holy water for most spells and sorcerers need runes. now the priest can make holy water from the heroes stash of regular water by casting a spell (no HW needed here). But it does use spell points, so after making a large batch spell points need to be recovered but the HW remains until used. sorcerers gain runes from defeated enemies. not sure wht all monsters are running around with bags of ruins so I use my imagination and pretend he/she make them from corpses. some kind of wierd magic rituals or whatever. What this does is make you think carefully about just using your most powerful spells every encounter because of the components required. 3. enemies. there are over 100 monsters ranging from the classic giant rats to major demons. And you can encounter 1 to maybe 8 or more. (not entirely sure here because the ui only shows 8 but i could swear sometimes others drop in) Now you dont know anything about the enemies until your priest cast an identify monster spell called read minds. And that information is kept in a party book called a bestiary (naturally) so you only have to cast it once on any creature. The monsters themselves have various abilities they use quite well. It is probably more random than it appears but you sure will get the impression of intelligent enemies. For instance everyone knows how powerful magic users can get in these types of games. well when you encounter mummies they immediately and magically use some of their bindings to cover the mouths of these same magic users. and only the priest can dispel negative effects so if the mummy attacks him/her anyone silenced stays that way for the remainder of the battle. So you are gonna duke it out martially and mummies are pretty tough. other monsters cause fear or summon more monsters, spread disease or poison etc. And it all plays out very cool. you never feel like you were cheated even in defeat. 4. Death. your heroes can and will die. any hit on a character that drops your hero below zero HP goes into a state of unconsciousness. If an unconscious hero is damaged....death...period. but resurection is fairly cheap at the chapel back in town. but remember you have to retrace your steps back to town. Until your mage (I aint gonna keep writing sorcerer because it is a tedious word) can cast a gateway to bring the party instantly back to town. This is a fairly powerful spell so you have to be pretty high level. 5. Equipment. no rpg worth its salt would be complete without more powerful equipment. But the outfitter in town sells basic equipment only. you are gonna have to find the cooler stuff. That outfitter does sale some much needed minor stuff that you wont be able to afford for a while. Half the fun is in levels 1-3 is acquiring enough gold to purchase this equipment. One such great example of this equipment is magic salt. you cant stuff a healing potion (there are none btw) down an unconscious part member. The developer ingeniuously addressed this with magic salt. You could imagine other members reaching into a belt pouch and tossing this on downed friends from a belt pouch. Magic salt very slightly heals the wounds of downed party members and burns them enough to shock them into consciousness. This is simply a brilliant design choice because remember unconscious heroes die if hit. The salt heals a whopping 4 hp. so your characters may very well go down again the next round but then again the party may reduce the threat enough to make everyone survive. and this happens quite a lot. BUY MAGIC SALT! you will thank me later. 6. The characters. They all play differently. the knight is similar to the paladin as far as fighting but at least one of them should weild the 2h weapons and they other the great shields and 1h weapons. the difference being the paladin can cast some priest spells. This allows him/her to heal minor post battle wounds to save the priest for the powerful stuff. and this game has powerful enemies in droves. The archer is absolutely deadly and the non spell casting heroes gain abilities. for instance, my archer now can notch 3 arrows and spread them across large groups of low level enemies. This is important because of the unconscious death thing. I have had my knight die to rats simply because there were so many of them. 7. the rogue. not merely a chump to disarm traps, this guy/gal might be the most powerful of all your heroes. he slips into the shadows almost 100% of the time thereby avoiding being a target, Then he rains absolute death on even powerful foes with his melee or ranged assassination. And unlike most games he stays hidden about 70% of the time to do it again the next round 8. Magic users. Undead of any type (yeah even lowly skeletons) can only be harmed by weapons blessed with holy water. the good news is, that blessing remains until camping and is immediately cast the next morning..but at the cost of holy water. Not the best of fighters the priest can help with staffs but is essential to keep your part alive with healing and removing debuffs. The mage has to be wise in casting spells. many games just get rptitive with the mage just spamming fireballs or whatever. here is another example of the developers brilliance, remember runes are burned up when using the powerful stuff. both the priest and mage have a few spells that dont require spell components. you get the idea. 8. The

Great tribute to old school dungeons like Wizardry and Might and Magic. I found atmosphere close to Black Crypt, but game mechanisms are close to Might and Magic III. As it comes with this kind of games, It rewards grind somewhat - but it is by no means grindfest. Your are punished for grinding too much as experience gains are very small for weaker groups. You will do fine proceeding systematically, without need to spend too much time in area after fully mapped. Puzzles were not too easy, not too difficult. I finished game in ca 30 hours - maybe a bit short, but more than adequate for a price. It is not beast like Wizardry 7, but by no means small. If you are old school dungeon gamer, this will fit nicely. Dungeons are quite rare these days. BTW, Author provides great and prompt support for game even five years after going live. Rare sight these days and my commendation. I hope to see more games from Charles.

(Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42150626-Jarl%27s-Game-Treasury/]my curator[/url] for more reviews like this) This is a solid first person party-based dungeon crawler (also referred to as blobber) with a slightly wonky interface and aesthetics, but great gameplay. It took me 14 hours to finish the game, so it's a little on the shorter side. If you want to compare it to oldschool blobbers, the most comparable game would be Might and Magic 1-5. Movement is step-based, combat is turn-based, your party contains six characters, all of which you create yourself. The game offers several martial and magical classes. I went with a knight, paladin, archer, priestess, and two sorceresses. Generally, I found the martial classes (knight, archer) to be the most useful, while my magical classes were mostly there for backup and utility. If I replay this, I will only pick one sorceress because magic just doesn't pull its weight in combat compared to what a knight or archer can do. Knights are solid damage dealers throughout the game, and once you get the dwarven axe as a quest reward from the dwarf king, you can pretty much one-shot anything but endgame enemies. At high levels, knights get the berserk ability which deals some damage to themselves but also hits every enemy in melee range with a single action. Archers, likewise, can deal a lot of damage, can hit enemies in the back rows, and get an absolutely overpowered ability at high level that allows them to attack EVERY VISIBLE ENEMY in a single action. Combined with the elven bow you get as a quest reward, this is usually enough to wipe entire enemy stacks with your archer alone. Compare those powerful abilities to the spells casters get, and the martial classes absolutely win out. But where the casters shine is exploration and support. Sorcerers get a spell that lets you phase through walls and explore some hidden areas, while priests perform healing duties. Have at least one of each in your party, they're absolutely necessary. Late game sorcerers get the powerful combat spell imprison, which makes a targeted enemy unable to act until you attack it, effectively allowing you to shut off a boss enemy while taking out his henchmen. Gameplay is classic dungeon crawling fare. Your party explores cities and dungeons, fights enemies, discovers secrets, finds new items, etc. The exploration is solid and the combat is fun. Early on, it's very challenging, but it becomes easy once your knight and archer unlock their special abilities. It does become a little more challenging towards the end again, some of the boss fights are really tough - but none of them felt like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I could defeat them all with the proper use of spells and abilities. Overall the challenge felt fair. Leveling up and finding new items noticeably improves your characters' abilities, and I liked how important items are for your characters' power, especially your martial classes. Finding a better weapon is going to increase your damage potential greatly. The endgame dungeons focus more on puzzles than on combat, making you use magic items and spells to navigate bottomless pits and flooded rooms where currents move you away from the path you want to take. The puzzles felt fair and were easy enough to figure out. They offered a nice change of pace. The story is your average oldschool dungeon crawler fare: evil is afoot, you must defeat it. There are a few twists though, so the writing is a little more involved than just "kill foozle". My only criticism is that the interface feels a little clunky, and the dungeon graphics are a bit rough. Enemy art is great though, and some of the illustrated scenes you can find are absolutely gorgeous. They were illustrated by a professional comic book artist, and it shows. Despite being clunky, the interface also has some good things: when loading a save, a little star next to your save shows you which one's the most recent. And in combat, you can click on a skull to rapidly fast-forward to the end of combat (basically makes your characters auto-fight by melee-attacking the closest enemy until everyone is dead... be careful, it only works out in your favor when you massively outclass the enemy, usually it just kills you! It's a great way to skip through trivial encounters you out-leveled.) Overall, great game, thoroughly recommended to any fans of classic dungeon crawlers.

Потенциально хорошая игра к сожалению испорчена очень хреновым геймдизайном. Начало и середина неплохи, но при этом для дальнейшего продвижение приходится очень долго гриндить однотипных мобов на арене, что быстро утомляет. Последняя же четверть игры это лютый ад и ♥♥♥♥♥♥: разработчик почему-то решил, что будет охуенной идеей завязать прохождение финальных локаций на головоломках, которых до этого не было вообще. И это ещё полбеды, но головоломки эти в большинстве своём нелогичны и подчиняются правилам, известным только их создателю. В итоге последние часа четыре игрок [spoiler]ищет невидимые телепорты, ходит сквозь все попадающиеся стены[/spoiler] и пытается понять, чего вообще от него хочет геймдизайнер. Так что половину прохождения последних квестов проводишь в обсуждениях игры, читая прохождение. При этом финальные локации создавались с расчётом на то, что у вас в группе будет как минимум один маг, без него игра в принципе непроходима, как я понял. Ну и в принципе хотелось бы отметить очень странный баланс абсолютно всего. Маг во второй половине игры нужен исключительно для телепортации и хождения сквозь стены, рога тоже быстро становится бесполезной. Прокачка в принципе сломана: для прокачки с 1 по 17 уровень тебе нужно условно 800к экспы. И вот ты полтора часа реального времени гриндишь собак на арене, а потом с удивлением обнаруживаешь, что для повышения с 17 до 18 уровня тебе нужно ещё 900к опыта. Ну и просто куча багов. Слишком быстро нажал на автобой — зависание, перезаходи. Враги застанили всю команду — зависание, перезаходи. Просто идешь по городу — зависание, перезаходи. Переходишь с одной локации в другую — игра крашится, перезаходи. Подытожу: посоветовать игру могу лишь мазохистам, желающим вспомнить, как игрались РПГ 90-х. Те, которые нужно было проходить с мануалом, для которых не выпускали никаких патчей, при создании которых ещё не думали об удобстве игры, а делали как на душу ляжет. В общем, очень специфичная игра. В 2023 году играется как говно, лучше перепройти Меч и Магию.

Very good game Cant wait for Swords and sorcery- Sovereign

Awesome if you liked Might and magic 3!

This game just hits the spot for old timers and new fans alike! I love pretty much everything about this game save for the action figure/horny for ladies art. That aside, this game has really made my weekend and I look forward to hours of fun in this playground of yesteryear!

If you're old like me you will most likely enjoy this game.

There's challenging and than there's massive wastes of time. Grinding is ok if you get rewarded down the road for your time but this is too much like real life or mine anyways, -work your ass off with no satisfaction. Avoid.