Dungeon Siege
Dungeon Siege 1 is a very simple game in terms of gameplay. Meditative action without guts covering the whole battlegroud, plus some actions with your items, such as changing your equipement, reading a few books, and walking through the game in a rather thin corridor…
…would say someone and, despite that description works, that won’t be true in placing the accents.
Most noticeable part is the party work. Every character has only a little of story, but… you can play from a point of view from any of them, just as with your hero - you can even give a boot to your created character and beat the rest of the game just with your conpanions without hero! You can specify their roles, formations in groups, actions of each other like “to seek and destroy anyone” or “not to fight even when attacked”. It reveals you some interesting cases, nearly impossible in other games, such as “you are a healer, all others are stunned, so you run around, heal one, but get stunned instead, so he runs around instead, trying to rise someone else”… or “companions form a group around dragon by themselves, so you don’t need to correct their formation at all”. Yes, there were flaws, like, the big parties could not by themselves stand together on a lift, so you have to move some of them. But it’s still amazing how simple and at the same time workind that solution is, so you can imagine, how it was 17 years ago!
– Real player with 100.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action RPG Loot Games.
[My steam total is much less than I’ve actually played since you can play offline without Steam connection. EDIT: Game is of quite sufficient length. Longest mazes I’ve ever played.]
Fun game from 2002. I started as a huge Diablo 2 fan. I’m catching up and enjoying the era of now-cheap RPG/action games before upgrading my system to run more modern games. Just so I don’t spend before I really need to. (currently a Radeon X-600) This includes the Dungeon Siege series + Fallout, Torment, Torchlight 1/2, Baldur’s Gate, Titan Quest, Morrowind, Oblivion …before hitting Skyrim, D3, etc. Bottom line: In many ways, this fits in the older era. – So, those are your ganeral Action/RPG + hack/slash comparisons.
– Real player with 96.8 hrs in game
Divine Divinity
After finally finishing this gem of a game I can only but recommend this game to any RPG lover out there. Beneath the now dated graphics lies a sound game with a complex world, rich lore and funny little gameplay gimmicks that made me smile a lot.
The good:
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Rich lore, decent story (if a bit cliché by now)
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Plenty of content (Took me appr. 70 hours to finish)
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Pretty extensive and flexible RPG elements (create whatever character you like as you go)
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Easy to get into, but challenges along the way
– Real player with 74.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action RPG Open World Games.
Divine Divinity
Date of this review: 15 March 2018
Update (25 April 2018): Formatting fixes
DISCLAIMER: I would like to point out that I likely achieved 100% completion in this game. Because it is so old, there are not achivements so I can’t be sure, but I did complete every quest that is listed in online guides, and I fully explored every map.
===Notes About Me===
Graphics/Animation: I usually don’t care about; I still play NES games occasionally.
– Real player with 71.7 hrs in game
Dungeon Siege II
Dungeon Siege is a series of action-RPG, where every chapter feels very distinct from others. You can see the evolution, but there is so much diversity, that people who like DS1 may be strongly against DS2, DS2 fans might be opposing DS1 and DS3… At least, it is not that hot, as “apple vs. droid” holywar now.
Dungeon Siege II made much to expand all that was good in the DS I - the system of character development, an interesting setting of fallen and reshaping empires - just like from known history, only with magic, demons, and angels… To add pathos and glory, you know.
– Real player with 161.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action RPG Co-op Games.
Update 04-24-18:
Another special thanks goes to Killah not just for providing us the the expansions to DS2 & DS1 but also fixing the no mouse cursor issue in fullscreen and not being able to play the DS2 Broken World expansion in 1366x768. It is awesome to have someone work so hard to keep this legendary title running on newer systems.
I still own the physical Deluxe Edition of this DSI & DSII and was very excited to see them reach steam so that I can access and install it no matter where I might be in the world. I have probably put roughly 3k hours or more into this game alone.
– Real player with 119.8 hrs in game
Beyond Divinity
A good game, not a great game. You’ll read a lot about the bad voice acting (some of it’s alright, really), the difficulty (not just the combat, but staying on track for any particular quest), and how dated it is. The last one is irrelevant, because by definition every game will become dated, so this is an invalid criticism. But yes, the game has plenty of flaws. This was my introduction to the Divinity universe, and although it had its ups and downs, it was an enjoyable ride.
Like I do with every game that feels worth beating, I tried to do everything the game had to offer, including all side quests, explore everything, and genuinely give it my time and attention. This is one of the few RPGs I’ve played all the way through in the last few years for which that approach didn’t really pay off. Sometimes it did, and I discovered a big, ugly and beautiful and visually interesting world. But other times it was exhausting and aimless and felt like a time-sink. The battlefields feature of the game is unusual, and doesn’t add anything worthwhile.
– Real player with 56.8 hrs in game
I really wanted to give this game a good review, since I simply adore Larian.
This is a really funny game, and if you love environmental gags and mocking fantasy tropes then this game is going to make you laugh.
However, I really can’t recommend it.
I am currently in Act 2, and I decided to uninstall. This game is a technical nightmare.
Audio glitches are still here from DD, except, instead of being constantly jumpscared by white noise like in DD, you simply lose all SFX for a while. This pretty much forces a save and quit.
– Real player with 52.1 hrs in game
Summoner
Someone gave me the PS2 version of this game many years ago. I remember when I first played it, I thought this game was awful. I set it aside and played through myriad other games until I became bored with them. One day, I wiped the dust from this game and gave it another try. I’m glad I did, it ended up being one of my favorite games of all time. It had its flaws, mainly it would hang/freeze (seemingly always after - but not a result of - forgeting to save for a while), the AI was sketchy, and in some areas the camera angle was locked which was irritating, also once you reached a certain level, leveling your characters was ridiculously tedious (although there was a conversational glitch of which to take advantage) so maxing your characters was near impossible (even with the glitch). However, the moody music, chain attacks, Fleece’s leg sweep/backstab, overall story arc, plot twists, dark and gloomy atmosphere, many weapons and armor choices, many build/growth options, and just about every other thing about this game make it one of the most enjoyable games I’ve ever played. I think I had three memory cards full of files from this game alone.
– Real player with 90.0 hrs in game
Absolute unknown gem of a game. Before you get it, though, remember that it came out over a decade ago. If you’re a graphics whore look somewhere else, and be aware that it needs a simple (less than 5 minutes) fix to run correctly on modern machines. It has its imperfections but they’re heavily outweighed by fun combat that you still have to think about, meaningful skill points, and the basic fun of summoning everything from a floating sword to the incarnation of death to help you in fights.
– Real player with 75.6 hrs in game
Darkstone
I want to start this review off by saying I am biased to it. I used to play this all the time on the original Playstation and loved it. I do recommend the game, but I want to warn potential players that it is a difficult and frustrating experience. The game is not easy, and you will often find yourself aggravated.
You cannot use the arrow keys or WASD to move. You have to use the mouse. You click a spot on the screen with the left mouse button, and your character moves to it. Or you can click and hold it down to auto move. Your character will walk or run wherever your mouse icon is, though it’s not perfect and they’ll often stop if something is in the way.
– Real player with 71.4 hrs in game
The fact that you are here on this store page, reading this review, likely means that you played this game back in the day, are interested in getting back into it, and are maybe worried about things like compatibility.
While the game worked fine for me, I would still recommend playtesting it yourself immediately after buying to make sure it actually boots up and functions, as this is a game designed for a much older version of Windows, and IIRC there have been some threads in the forums about having difficulty running the game. It comes with the territory. I would also recommend against installing mods that scale up the game’s resolution beyond its original capabilities. As enticing as it is to play this boomer game in 1080p or 4K, I could not get it to work, and nearly bricked my copy in the process. So maybe don’t do that.
– Real player with 21.8 hrs in game
Dawnthorn
Dawnthorn is a topdown, pixel-art ARPG with a character and experience firmly rooted in the 8bit era. It features action-adventure style gameplay. Players will experience hectic, item-driven real-time combat, and solve puzzles and challenges spanning one single room, or the entire game-world! The experience features over 9 unique dungeons, and a sprawling overworld linking everything together, filled to the brim with rich characters, subquests, mini-games, and dozens of secrets.
Players take on the role of a headstrong young archetypal hero who, though from a prosperous time of bounty, has dedicated himself to righting a great wrong committed centuries ago. He comes armed only with fierce will and the promise of youth. Will these alone be enough?
Loria
Yup, this is indeed a love child between Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3.
Performance & bugs:
Thanks to the nostalgic look, this game does not require a powerfull system to run and I personally did not encounter any game breaking bugs yet. Others have, but that’s normal. Depending on your operating system and hardware, user specific bugs can occur in any game. Still, the developer is paying great attention to bug reports and suggestions and is working hard to fix them all and make improvements when the demand is reasonable.
– Real player with 36.8 hrs in game
Loria is an RTS game in an age where the genre is mostly centered around Starcraft and Warcraft, two extremely old blizzard games. Loria wears it’s inspiration on its sleeve, looking, sounding and playing very much like an updated Warcraft 2, and for that, I love it. It really does stratch the nostalgic itch that I had for that game. It might be similar to Warcraft 2, but it brings a lot of modern inprovements, such as being able to select a total of 24 units rather than 9, pathing improvements (although it still feels very Warcraft 2 like).
– Real player with 26.6 hrs in game
Sacred Gold
So, it’s time to rewrite the review on the eve of Sacred’s 15th anniversary (27 February).
That game has a feel of its time: in 2004 you couldn’t expect very realistic graphics and 3D models, tons of scripts, so the main “languages” of the games were texts (plot, lore books, quests…) and locations. Both features were implemented greatly, and it’s the main reason why I personally love this game.
Comparing this game to the others, I can easily highlight its dignity - it never tries to “throw” its story about its past and present times into your face. In many others NPCs will tell you a lot about, like, how exactly they are suffering from villains, how many cows died because of plague, syphilis and profuse diarrhea, you may see orcs setting fire on villages, etc. Definitely not this case. Not any quest or book tries by itself to make you feel exceedingly excited for what happens in the world. But people’s problems are related to each other, so if you will compare all the information you get about the location, you would surely realize how exactly this place lived in past years, what precisely is a “hard time” for this hamlet and how “hard times” are exerting on this land. And when you comprehend it, that gives you a feel of complex live of kingdom’s inmates. I was frightened when the picture came to me, also I conceived what really we are doing while serving for the Crown. Any other game I’d played before was never able to evoke those feeling in me for imaginary setting; previously it was a privilege of books or cinemas. Quests added in original company by addon “Sacred Underworld” follow the same right direction, but, unfortunately, Menelgond ones (in addon company) are much less related to each other, thus losing that point.
– Real player with 657.7 hrs in game
Caveat before I start: There may be difficulty getting the game to play on Windows 10. I’ll give instructions for what fixed it for me at the end of this review.
This is one of my favorite older games.
Positives:
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Movement is mouse-driven. (I personally hate aswd.)
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Eight classes to play.
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Each class has a different starting point and slightly different story line.
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Each class is unique from the others with very different skills.
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Very large, open-world with many dungeons as well.
– Real player with 270.4 hrs in game
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition
Titan Quest is the grandfather of Grim Dawn and despite the latter adding its own features and flavour, Titan Quest is an epic, mythological arpg that’s not to be missed. It world is huge, the class system is interesting, leveling progress is rewarding and the combat feels punchy. If you like the idea of facing off against Medusa and the hydra or fine tuning your character build, looking for that last piece of loot or class synergy, don’t miss Titan Quest. I far prefer it to the Diablo series.
100% recommended, I just hope they add more dlc in future.
– Real player with 340.8 hrs in game
BUYER BEWARE: This game now backdoors Epic Online Services onto your computer. If you are like me this is a deal breaker. I bought this game over 10 years ago and I’ve really enjoyed it (the game is great), but EOS is a red line. I want nothing to do with Epic Games and refuse to have their software on my system. It is outrageous that THQ Nordic installed this on my machine without my permission or even a warning. BUYER BEWARE.
– Real player with 114.0 hrs in game