UPDATE: OK I've finished the Adventurous level. Here are a few more things to know about this game:
1. You will need to buy more memory cards, this game uses a lot of space. I used one card for years until I played this game. Now I'm up to four. The save files are huge for PS2. And the game doesn't recognize or use more than 8MB, so don't buy big cards. Get the 2 packs of 8MB.
2. One of the reasons I used so many cards is that I found a more efficient way to level up than what I said below. CoN is nearly impossible to beat without some leveling up, and you NEED the full set of high level armor for your character class if you're going to win (only bosses drop this reliably), plus you will need lots more money than the game gives.
Here's how: You save a boss fight right at the beginning or when the boss is nearly dead - then you defeat the boss over and over, reimporting your character each time. You will need to import to get to the Courageous level anyway, so the game is meant to be played this way. If you have more than one human playing it, then you need three saves to do this: 1 for your boss fight beginning, 1 for the boss fight ending, 1 for wherever your character came from originally (and will be reimported to later). You'll see what I mean if you do it. Only 10 saves fit on any memory card.
3. Innoruk (the ending boss) is really hard to beat. It takes a combinaion of arrows and melee to beat him. Run around the obstacles in the battlefield so he can't target you with ranged attacks. Then hit him with ranged attacks whenever you're far enough away. When he drops his hammer, THEN switch to melee.
What I did: I was using a Shadow Knight, I kept summoning high level skeletons to distract and slow him down, then hit him with arrows with disease bonus damage, and finally my melee weapon had disease and poison cloud on it (I'd saved these enhancements from the Ashen Plains). I was level 29, wearing the Malevolent Armor I'd found, and a sheild rated 80, which had a soul gem and bloodstone on it. It took on average 15 healing potions to beat him. I beat him 3 times out of 6. Wear 100% fire protection.
Finally, keep a save or two from some time ago, because this game did freeze on me once: in the City of Khathuun, whenever I cached an item in a particular place on the map. It took me days to figure it out and I couldn't advance until I fixed it. I had to restart the City from the beginning to fix it once it had gone bad. This is another reason to use the Import facility of the game, even if you're single player. That way you don't lose the items or experience you gained before the bug hit you.
Original review: ---------------------------
Do you remember how you could beat Sim Ant by just breeding a lot? You never had to take any other action to win? Well this game is almost the same, except to win, you have to have a lot of patience and replay sections until you get the items you want, and learn to "milk" the sorcerers.
What I mean is, some sorcerers will reanimate the monsters so you can kill them again, gaining more XP's, so if you want to level up in Final Fantasy style, you just have to dodge the spells, and wait for the sorcerer to reanimate his pals so you can cut them down again. And as for replaying sections... the whole game is centered around being fun to replay (and it is), so when you enter a dungeon, save first. Then if you don't get the gem you want (for example, if the skeletons don't randomly drop a bone chip for you this time), just load and do it again. You'll develop your finger reflexes, and your patience at the same time.
I've played this game in multiplayer and single player, as a barbarian, archer and shadow knight (and recently, I've played Wizard and Cleric in Act 1 just to try it).
The shadow knight is my favorite for funny quips. Many of the characters get annoying if you let them stand around too long (saying "Well, I might as well go home" or "Are we camping here for an item?"). But the shadow knight says funny stuff like "Now.. who should I kill next?" He also seems to get the best stuff in single player mode.
Running an archer in single player mode versus a barbarian and shadow knight will really show how the game favors defense for the archer and offense for the other two. For example, even with the barbarian, I've never seen Attack 71 weapons in Rondo's store, but with the shadow knight, I saw that even before I fought the first boss in Act 2. So the SK seems to be balanced in favor of offense.
I see several sets of Armor developing so far. There's a shadow knight set called "Malevolent" and a general set called "True", for example "True Gauntlets" or "Malevolent Gauntlets." There are no bonuses for wearing it all together. There are also sets of weapons such as "Fine Steel... Axe, Pick, Mace..."
There are lots of things that fall into the non-fun category in this game:
1. Boss monsters that drop random stuff, including nothing. Seems that if you are low level when you fight the big bosses, you not only have a hard fight, but you get worthless stuff. Many minibosses only drop money or minor items, no matter how many times you refight them or what your level is. In the same category: uneveness of experience from defeating monsters. For example, Innoruk at the end of the game, gives only a little experience. Seems odd to me.
2. Uneven distribution of XP in multiplayer mode. Just because an archer has a hard time aiming a bow in this game is no reason to rob him of XP unless he tanks. This problem is also present for the Wizard class, but not so much for the Cleric, whose Holy Strike will track targets, even at low levels.
3. Incredibly bad camera control when using a bow, and/or very bad bow and arrow simulation. Why does a foe have to be right at the center of the top of the screen to be hit by an arrow? And for that matter, why does it have to be within about 5 paces of the archer to be hit?
4. The game is buggy. Lots of people have mentioned this. Items positively disappear off the map. If you put your "cache" in a place where there are bodies or apples or bits of boxes - the game "cleans up" your items along with the bodies. I've also watched as items disappeared before I could pick them up off the floor. The game obviously suffered from "let's only fix the bugs that make it unplayable."
5. Spears. How annoying can you get? The best weapons in the game and they're just full of annoyances. If you have two sets of spears exactly the same, but the picture is different, they won't stack, so you can't equip them together, so you can just run out of them that much quicker. And I swear that the game cheats in certain fights, esp boss fights, and makes spears just unuseable. Maybe there's a special boss monster potion called "immunity to spears." Lucky the first fight with the Orc Leader isn't like that.
So here's the good stuff:
1. It's beautiful, and sounds really good. Caves echo nicely, armor makes metallic sounds in battle... Even in cut scenes, how your character looks changes based on what you have in hand and what you're wearing. Nice touch.
2. You can play two player with just two controllers and nothing else. If you want to play with 3-4 people, you'll need a multitap, but it's not needed for two.
3. The game hasn't ever frozen on me yet. I keep expecting it to, but it hasn't.
4. It's very linear. This might sound like a drawback, but actually, it's good. Unlike Final Fantasy, which can bore you to tears with "leveling up" on minimonsters, here you have to find a strategy. Once you're at a boss fight, there's nothing to do but win it. That means you may have to let your character get killed a few times to realy see your options. Which leads me to....
5. The game doesn't reduce your character's XP just for dying. So you don't have to keep loading the game every time you try again.
6. Very replayable. Randomness makes it fun the second, third, fourth, etc... time around. Even the number of enchanted monsters seems to change, and sometimes their strategies.
7. Simple, basic dungeon crawl with very little mental activity required. No puzzles to annoy you, just basic finger exercise. When you just want to unplug from daily life and NOT think, this is the game.
This game is fun waste of time. If you're looking for quick, get it over with, munchkin, no patience required, spend about 5 minutes in each dungeon and come out of it loaded with loot, then you should look elsewhere, and you should expect worse graphics. Because why should somebody work their fingers off programming a beautiful game for you if you're just going to spend 5 minutes looking at it? But if you're here to waste time in a very fun way, then get this game, and forgive the minor dents and scratches. |
Expedited Available
"Great game..."
"Old-school hack 'n slash"