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The best Action/RPG this year!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 30
Date: September 06, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Darkstone is the best Action/RPG of 1999. The 3D graphics are absolutely great (Direct3D or compatible 3D accelerator card required), and the 3D special effects are stunning. The player interface is smooth and easy. You have full control of camera angle in 360 degrees.

As you start to play Darkstone, you will have to complete a number of quests. You will have to find several crystals to form the Time Orb which will allow you to defeat the evil dragon Draak. The save/load feature is neat. By selecting a saved game, it shows you exactly where you were when you saved the game, so you can differentiate between different saved games.

In Darkstone, to your advantage, you will have two characters to use. Each one you can command separately, or you can command one and have the other commanded by the computer. Its great to have one character able to resurrect the other if need be.

Darkstone is a very fun game to play. There is a random quest generator which ensures you don't play the same game twice. The storyline is challenging enough so that you will want to play over and over. I highly recommend this wonderful game.

This game is totally addictive - I highly recommend it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: November 16, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you're a fan of Diablo, you will love Darkstone. It takes the great interface of Diablo and adds great new features (like a bank), lots of quests that can be intellectually stimulating, and interesting levels, creatures, as well as beautiful graphics. It's very replayable, and the new patch from Gathering of Developers has a hero level, which is harder than the three difficulty levels the game comes with. I'm definitely enjoying this game while waiting for Diablo II to come out.

Good game with some flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 02, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Darkstone is indeed a fine RPG game. Sadly, it was released with numerous bugs, only some of which are corrected by the game patch.

I share most of the opinions of those who have extolled it virtues, and shall not repeat them. Instead I wish to point out two of the game's most irksome shortcomings.

While it is nice to have the second character there to resurrect you, I have found that character #2 is much more proficient at getting himself killed. The AI controlling #2's actions is not the best. I recommend using #2 for his native skills and as a pack animal only.

Also, the default graphical cursor is slow and laggy, making melee with a dozen or so critters very difficult. The game comes with the option of switching to a hardware-controlled cursor, but this option does not work with all video cards.

In spite of all that, I have played through Darkstone many times already. The most fun I've had is picking the pockets of the dungeon creatures with my thief.

Why bother?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 14, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I have the same opinion about this game as I do the Hellfireexpansion for Diablo: If you are going to release an updated versionor expansion to something, it needs to be an improvement. This game isa Diablo clone with a few 3D tricks thrown in to make it shiny and new. There is nothing here that is worth wasting the price of entry. If you have Diablo already, dont bother with this. If you bought this and havent played Diablo, dont buy Diablo...

Fair game, for a diablo clone. Gets dull VERY quickly

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: December 15, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you've played Diablo through to the end so many times you begin to see the spiked monstrosity in your dreams, and STILL can't get enough - but really wish it could make use of your new 3D accelerator, this is the game for you! On the other hand, it's far more likely you'll play Darkstone for a few evenings, uninstall the game and begin having a blast playing Frisbee with the disc.

-Buy this game because you enjoy playing games with no particular point, because the only skill you wish to employ is marathon mouse-clicking, because you just can't get enough pointless quests for useless objects, or because you are completely indifferent to storyline 'Just point the way to the next monster! '

-DON'T buy this game if you're looking for a challenging fantasy game with an immersive storyline, or if you're looking for something new and interesting that will earn itself a place of honor on your hard drive.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Diablo, though it shared many of these shortcomings, it had a distinctly 'real' atmosphere. You felt a certain amount of immersion despite lack of an involved storyline. Perhaps had Darkstone been released years ago with Diablo it would have been a different story. Darkstone strikes me as being 'dated', and perhaps incomplete. Did the developer ship it out before it was complete? Who knows.

If you purchase this title, be sure it's from a place with a forgiving return policy. Speaking of which, anyone want to buy a copy? It's in perfect condition, barely used...

Why don't you have a 0 star rating? This game rates it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: December 31, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Here in Australia we pay big money for games. This one cost us $89, and it was barely worth $1. (It was a local impulse buy). Its as buggy as they come. It crashes between "cities" nearly every time. It only allows ONE person to have ONE save game. The interface is cludgy and despite its 3D the graphics are really sad.

We are RPG game lovers from way back but this one was a big disappointment. The fact that its a diablo clone was actually a plus for us as we really enjoyed that game. Its just sad that instead of improving on diablo they went the other way.

The font they use is too intricate and too small to read and I still dont know what half the buttons are as I cant make out the text!

In RPG's I like to roll my own character. Here they do it for you and take away half the fun of the game for you.

I am sad to say that there is nothing good to say about this game except that the box is pretty. Pretty enough to suck you into buying it and regretting it.

Bad, bad game, I cried for hours

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The game had a few cool features. I liked the fact that you didn't have to remember how to get to different locations, you simply had to visit it once and it was added to a list of destinations for you to pick from. The other cool feature was that it was a game...other than that, it felt like "Get item, kill monsters, go to next level, get items, return with items, kill monsters" The plot (as far as I got, as much as I tried to force myself to continue onward eventually even my self-loathing has a peak) was weak, the NPC's dialogue was horrid...I'm old school in that I actually care about plot in an RPG call me bizzare...if you want a good RPG, go get Might and Magic, or wait for Diablo 2. (though I always did like the M&M's better)

Addictive, with good graphics, but not much of a plot.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: January 19, 2000
Author: Amazon User

If you want a basic hack and slash dungeon game, where the puzzles don't require much thought, then this game is for you. If, however, you're looking for a game with character development and a good story line with intricate details and subplots, then you probably won't enjoy this game very much. I've played all of the Might and Magic games, except for the first two, and even the earlier M&M games were better than this.

The quests and storyline are very cliche'. Most of the skills you can train in aren't very useful. I have a fighter with 7th level repair and she still can't repair anything without breaking it. Trade and armsmaster are probably the most useful skills, as well as learning, which helps you level faster. One plus is that when you level, you can up your stats even if you can't afford to train.

A huge improvement would be if we could edit our own levels and quests, but the game doesn't even include that.

The 3D-graphics aren't too bad, once you get over the hilarious way the characters look (imagine a Barbie or Ken doll crossed with Japanese animation, and you'll get the idea.)

Another plus is the hack and slash portions of the game are addictive. If only the plot was better.

(Diablo +3D) - 99% fun = Darkstone

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: February 03, 2000
Author: Amazon User

1 1/2 Stars. I bought this after reading PC Gamer's review that gave it a 90% and Editor's Choice award. After playing the game for several days, I went back to the review and saw that the reviewer was the magazine's wargames specialist, who probably never played Diablo and unfortunately has no good concept of how an action/RPG should play.

This game is a tremendous disappointment. While it does contain 3D graphics, the modern 1999 display is actually inferior to the 2D 1996 game that inspired it. The display in Diablo is much easier to see and actually has a better, scarier atmosphere than Darkstone.

The 3D effects in this game would be ok, but for an huge problem, which is that you lose your preset front-forward camera angle any time you change directions. The character ends up going sideways and the perspective is lousy and difficult to follow. I understand that Tomb Raider 2 had this same problem with the camera angles. In any event, it is so distracting that it takes much of the fun out of the game. Ditto with the label on your character - when scanning for treasure near your character after a fight with the cursor, it pulls up a little note with your character's name on it, which is very annoying and makes it much harder to find loot.

The puzzles in this game are boring and the distance between receiving the clue and reaching a point in the game where you can actually solve the quest is far too long - often several different levels in the game.

Diablo had atomosphere and was creepy; when stalkers suddenly appeared and attacked, I jumped. I cringed when the horned demons made a run at me. By contrast, there is little suspense in this game. Most of the early levels feature endless rat killing, which gets old quickly. By attempting to be realistic with the lighting, the display is harder to focus on; think permanent cursed Cap of Night: -75% light radius.

Magic is trickier to use and less intuitive than in Diablo. Although I was focusing on archery more than anything else, I never could figure out precisely how to cast spells, based on the poor instructions in the manual. Although Darkstone allows for acquiring a broad range of skills, rather than just the one assigned to each character class in Diablo, most of the skills are neither interesting nor particularly useful.

Magic items and loot are less interesting than in Diablo and are much more expensive. It takes a long while to be able to acquire enough gold to buy anything useful or powerful (which I never really did, as I got too bored with the game to stick with it long enough to acquire a Big Weapon).

All in all, if you have Diablo, you will have more fun replaying it for the umpteenth time than trying to deal with this lousy clone, while waiting for Diablo II to arrive in February or June or October or Christmas 2001 or whenever. If you do not have Diablo, buy it - it is truly the most fun game ever made and despite the aging technology, is superior to this game in every way.

Tiding me over till Diablo II

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: February 09, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Not perfect by any means, but it has addicted me. Graphics are OK. Voice-overs are not the kind Blizzard has made us come to expect. Not the best story. But I am enjoying it- and for thirty bucks that says a lot.

True, they also won't win any points for originality... all though there are a number of game play innovations that I hope the staff at Diablo II won't ignore(upgrading weapons, skills, better mapping, running, and that feature that autopilots you to certain places you've been before). Single player was fun- featuring the ability to use two characters, but as with almost games I play nowadays- multiplayer is what I care about. And with two good friends- We had quite a blast romping through the dungeons at Heat.net, all though its difficult to get a game going there as it hasn't achieved a high level of popularity. What made it even better was that the three of us were using Roger Wilco to communicate. It felt like we were in our High school Dungeons and Dragons days even though we were in different states.

Well until Diablo II comes out (as many have said) you could do a lot worse than this game.

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