Silver (PC, 1999)
Graphics-7.5 Sound-8 Control-7/6* Challenge-7.5 Story-7
Level Design-7 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7 Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7
*Control over allies
+
Decent mouse-driven beat 'em up/hack 'n slash combat (quick attack/swing left or right/lunge forward and stab/back attack moves with LMB and directional movement while holding ctrl; block and dodge with RMB)
Fight alongside CPU controlled NPC allies
Eventually party-based (3 chars at once - the rest wait at a rebel camp (each char has different strengths and weaknesses), can select all (click and drag or alt+click or hit backspace) and make everyone attack the same enemy, can move gear between chars, can switch between them on the fly with numbers 1-3 and have the others fight alongside you, can give a couple of orders to selected members (shoot a set number of shots/magic attacks at an enemy with F5-F7 (F8 to make them keep shooting until the enemy is dead or moves out of line of sight or they run out of ammo/MP), disperse (D) can be toggled on to make them attack the same enemy or off to make them attack enemies near your own target) - can't set behaviors up to happen automatically in a menu however (see Secret of Mana or Evermore)))
Text+dialogue option (lets you speed things up when wanted but still listen to the good bits of dialogue) - shows NPC portraits which are similar in style to Warcraft 2
Decent-good dialogue overall (fully voiced, villain's henchman and the boatman are voiced by the evil narrator from Dungeon Keeper's voice actor?)
Can run by double clicking (later used in Diablo 2; since there's no stamina they might as well have let you auto-run though)
Option to auto-change ranged weapon when one runs out of ammo (however it doesn't work for spells so if an ally runs out of MP they'll just stand there and do nothing until you manually change their weapon)
Can drag a box around several item drops with RMB to pick them all up
Gear hotkeys let you switch quickly between melee and ranged weapons as well as shields (have to equip each one via the wheel menu when loading a game for it to work though and it maps wands and orb spells to the same number (8) so you can't use it to switch between the ice wand and fire magic for example)
Magic items (each holds an attack or defense spell) slowly regenerate their energy/MP and your char slowly regenerates MP as well (Ys/Diablo - the latter makes some spells like healing OP)
Shops (food, info, items; traders restock once in a while)
Context sensitive or always on toggle for the HUD
Energy-based special attacks via the special move items/icons (equip via the wheel menu, recharges slowly in-between uses but you can switch to another one to use several in a row)
Find a hub map some ways into the game (M hotkey brings it up, can be used to fast travel between visited locations and can be accessed from any screen as long as there aren't enemies on it)
Pretty nice pre-rendered environments for the time (similar to FF7)
Dodging and blocking (can cancel out of an attack animation with dodging or blocking but not running away or swinging again)
Pretty good cutscenes (the CGI ones are skippable) and background animations
Some memorable characters (grandfather, silver, teronus, sekune)
Summoning enemies (take them out to make lesser enemies stop spawning)
Summon golem scrolls
One environmental change switch (valve spanner item is used to drain the flooded lower Rain)
Sometimes different party dialogue depending on who's with you
Can choose not to let party characters join you
No attack combos (some weapons do more damage when slashing rather than stabbing)
Decent bosses overall (decent amount of patterns and some have two phases, Silver changes his magic weakness as the fight goes on, reflect shots against the final boss with your shield)
Item drops don't disappear
Turn into a god form of sorts before the final boss (merge with Nemesis - new suit of armor and sword+shield)
Werewolf transformation (no new movement abilities gained)
Pretty good arsenal of weapons including dual wielded swords
+/-
Frequent save points overall (multiple nameable slots) however each one can only be used once - there's also no place where you can rest and save back at the rebel camp or barracks in-between sub objectives
Mostly linear structure (starts off completely linear but opens up a bit after getting the map about 1.5 hours into it (can visit a small area near the rebel camp as well as explore near your house though the enemies there are very tough and numerous), some backtracking to previous areas to open up new paths in them with keys or key-style items, can fight the fire orb boss before getting the ice orb though you can't get to the orb behind it if you do, can skip the swamp boss for later)
Killathon - Often can't even go back to a previous room within a sub area until you've cleared the one you just entered
Deteriorating shields (can't be repaired?)
Can't ask NPCs questions
Use-based magic level progression (3 levels per orb; can switch between different spell levels after leveling one up with F1-F3, can't level up the wands)
The game doesn't pause while using the wheel menu - something to keep in mind for potions as they're in a sub menu
Critical hit chance
No platforming (no jumping)
Some unavoidable damage
One healing point (near your house)
Automatic side dodging when enemies fire at you however it's not always reliable
Can't lock onto enemies (there's also no circle strafe) - considering the picky hit detection when hovering over enemies it would've been useful
Unlimited ammo for the slingshot
About 10 seconds of loading when moving between areas via the hub map
Some sub areas are pretty short (routes to the ice orb and to the fire orb)
Strong and independent female party members
Can't farm for items/gold in most areas (can do it on one screen in Rain though it's rather slow)
Shows the villains interacting in some "meanwhile" scenes
No ability gating besides the temporary torch used to see in the cave though it's used more like a key (there's a ring of invisibility magic item but you don't need to use it to sneak past enemies)
Party members are gained a bit too frequently however the ones outside your party will level up to the active party's current level
Some chars aren't able to cast certain spells at a higher level at certain points of the game
Introduces a new villain right before the end
Find target command (shift) - doesn't seem to work?
Non-interactive escape segment after the final boss
Some gore
-
No area maps (the city of Rain is quite large and easy to get lost in thanks to the shifting camera angles when moving between screens, there are also a bunch of chests that are semi-hidden that you can't open until mid-game so you'll have to write down where they are outside of the game)
Various interface/control issues (can't speed up the manual scrolling of the screen, can't order allies to always run away or use certain healing items when near death - if they die they're knocked out until the end of the current battle, oddly distant and cumbersome camera angles are fairly common - can zoom in in the preferences menu but not while in-game (can't change the angles), aiming is a bit clunky in that you can't adjust it while performing a move, drinking a potion can sometimes be interrupted and if it happens the potion is wasted, can't walk backwards or strafe, no controller option on PC, sometimes have to use the arrow keys to scroll the screen - moving towards the edge doesn't work, no quest log/journal feature, can be tricky to aim at smaller moving+flying enemies in melee combat (for single ones the back attack tends to work), a bit hard to tell if you've selected a party member at times due to the selection circle blending into the background (who the currently controlled character is is much easier to see), when attacking with all chars selected your CPU ally/allies with ranged weapons will try to shoot at an enemy even though there's no line of sight instead of moving until they have it, annoyingly small hit detection on some enemies (fire orb boss for example) - if you miss-click your selected char starts moving towards the enemy instead of shooting and while holding ctrl helps you might then miss the shot and most weapons have limited ammo/cooldown periods, if you select a specific char while they're moving towards a selected target then they stop moving, the "shoot a set number or projectiles" mechanic (f5-f8) doesn't work for the ice wand - works for spells, your allies (besides grandfather in the early game) are usually passive when you don't control them and if you order everyone to attack they forget to dodge - it would've been better if you could at least make everyone dodge at the same time like you can make them move or attack at the same time, the wheel menu closes after each time you use a healing item and you can't map healing items to hotkeys, amulet of seeing (show/materialize the semi-hidden chests) could've been a passive item)
Some trial & error (the valve in the sewers doesn't stand out enough (the mouse pointer doesn't even change when hovering over it) - can miss it and end up wandering around in the city instead, finding the jewelled key in glass' palace, thrown potions don't work on the dragon boss, odd timing on the bell puzzle which opens a gate in Rain, lacks directions after getting the first orb - you're supposed to go to the oracle area and then south into a snow area (they could've added some clue from the guy who gave you the first orb or after talking to Duke again in the camp), lacks directions after the ice dragon - go back to camp, no explanation of the wheel interface or special moves in-game, sometimes hard to tell where a room's exits are meaning you'll have to search for them with the mouse pointer, no warning before entering a boss room and you can't escape from bosses - in the fire orb area for example you might encounter the boss before recruiting vivienne, surprise attacks)
Some backtracking and dead space
Unskippable game over (about 10 seconds) and in-game cutscenes
Mostly uninteractive environment (can't even speak to most NPCs in the first town and at some points you can't talk to NPCs after that, at least interactive parts tend to stand out well)
Odd how you can fire at some enemies without damaging them for some scenes (yellow imp shortly before you face his giant version, Silver right after he kills your grandfather)
Some plot oddities and annoying devices (can't help your grandfather with fighting Silver with the ice wand and the spellcaster NPC you just met, the oracle cheats you out of giving a full answer to the orbs' locations, can't not kill the werewolf boss? - the NPC near it says that he wants you to only wound it but maybe there's nothing to it)
Basic character models overall (blocky, low detail, jagged edges) but also heavily stylized - similar to FF7
Can't sell items
Hostile areas become easier after you've found the healing spell and longsword and after the mid-game or so become a bit repetitive,
Can sometimes shoot an enemy without them reacting from the entrance when entering a new room
HP potions are too expensive considering your MP (and thus the healing spell) regenerates on its own
Pretty cliché storyline at its core (rebels vs evil bad guy kidnapping women, magical mcguffin orbs)
Can't delete save games (shows an error message)
Some NPCs like thaddeus and the boatman are pretty underdeveloped
Drawn out dragon boss fight due to arrows and slingshot bullets not doing damage and not being able to hit it in melee+Jug not being able to use magic (had to have stocked up on knives and/or MP potions instead)
Keep finding apples even later on (worst healing item)
Kinda far between save points at times (glass' palace)
Fuge boss can get stuck in an easy loop
Bugs:
-Sometimes crashes (GOG ver.: crashed when revisiting the city of Rain, crashed three times after beating the fire orb boss and backtracking a bit as well as when trying to switch gear via the wheel menu, crashed again during the dragon boss fight when I was about to win)
-Game froze once after the sewers
-Sekune keeps firing at the fire boss when it's not on screen - she keeps shooting at the point where he last appeared
Level Design-7 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7 Originality-6.5
Overall Score-7
*Control over allies
+
Decent mouse-driven beat 'em up/hack 'n slash combat (quick attack/swing left or right/lunge forward and stab/back attack moves with LMB and directional movement while holding ctrl; block and dodge with RMB)
Fight alongside CPU controlled NPC allies
Eventually party-based (3 chars at once - the rest wait at a rebel camp (each char has different strengths and weaknesses), can select all (click and drag or alt+click or hit backspace) and make everyone attack the same enemy, can move gear between chars, can switch between them on the fly with numbers 1-3 and have the others fight alongside you, can give a couple of orders to selected members (shoot a set number of shots/magic attacks at an enemy with F5-F7 (F8 to make them keep shooting until the enemy is dead or moves out of line of sight or they run out of ammo/MP), disperse (D) can be toggled on to make them attack the same enemy or off to make them attack enemies near your own target) - can't set behaviors up to happen automatically in a menu however (see Secret of Mana or Evermore)))
Text+dialogue option (lets you speed things up when wanted but still listen to the good bits of dialogue) - shows NPC portraits which are similar in style to Warcraft 2
Decent-good dialogue overall (fully voiced, villain's henchman and the boatman are voiced by the evil narrator from Dungeon Keeper's voice actor?)
Can run by double clicking (later used in Diablo 2; since there's no stamina they might as well have let you auto-run though)
Option to auto-change ranged weapon when one runs out of ammo (however it doesn't work for spells so if an ally runs out of MP they'll just stand there and do nothing until you manually change their weapon)
Can drag a box around several item drops with RMB to pick them all up
Gear hotkeys let you switch quickly between melee and ranged weapons as well as shields (have to equip each one via the wheel menu when loading a game for it to work though and it maps wands and orb spells to the same number (8) so you can't use it to switch between the ice wand and fire magic for example)
Magic items (each holds an attack or defense spell) slowly regenerate their energy/MP and your char slowly regenerates MP as well (Ys/Diablo - the latter makes some spells like healing OP)
Shops (food, info, items; traders restock once in a while)
Context sensitive or always on toggle for the HUD
Energy-based special attacks via the special move items/icons (equip via the wheel menu, recharges slowly in-between uses but you can switch to another one to use several in a row)
Find a hub map some ways into the game (M hotkey brings it up, can be used to fast travel between visited locations and can be accessed from any screen as long as there aren't enemies on it)
Pretty nice pre-rendered environments for the time (similar to FF7)
Dodging and blocking (can cancel out of an attack animation with dodging or blocking but not running away or swinging again)
Pretty good cutscenes (the CGI ones are skippable) and background animations
Some memorable characters (grandfather, silver, teronus, sekune)
Summoning enemies (take them out to make lesser enemies stop spawning)
Summon golem scrolls
One environmental change switch (valve spanner item is used to drain the flooded lower Rain)
Sometimes different party dialogue depending on who's with you
Can choose not to let party characters join you
No attack combos (some weapons do more damage when slashing rather than stabbing)
Decent bosses overall (decent amount of patterns and some have two phases, Silver changes his magic weakness as the fight goes on, reflect shots against the final boss with your shield)
Item drops don't disappear
Turn into a god form of sorts before the final boss (merge with Nemesis - new suit of armor and sword+shield)
Werewolf transformation (no new movement abilities gained)
Pretty good arsenal of weapons including dual wielded swords
+/-
Frequent save points overall (multiple nameable slots) however each one can only be used once - there's also no place where you can rest and save back at the rebel camp or barracks in-between sub objectives
Mostly linear structure (starts off completely linear but opens up a bit after getting the map about 1.5 hours into it (can visit a small area near the rebel camp as well as explore near your house though the enemies there are very tough and numerous), some backtracking to previous areas to open up new paths in them with keys or key-style items, can fight the fire orb boss before getting the ice orb though you can't get to the orb behind it if you do, can skip the swamp boss for later)
Killathon - Often can't even go back to a previous room within a sub area until you've cleared the one you just entered
Deteriorating shields (can't be repaired?)
Can't ask NPCs questions
Use-based magic level progression (3 levels per orb; can switch between different spell levels after leveling one up with F1-F3, can't level up the wands)
The game doesn't pause while using the wheel menu - something to keep in mind for potions as they're in a sub menu
Critical hit chance
No platforming (no jumping)
Some unavoidable damage
One healing point (near your house)
Automatic side dodging when enemies fire at you however it's not always reliable
Can't lock onto enemies (there's also no circle strafe) - considering the picky hit detection when hovering over enemies it would've been useful
Unlimited ammo for the slingshot
About 10 seconds of loading when moving between areas via the hub map
Some sub areas are pretty short (routes to the ice orb and to the fire orb)
Strong and independent female party members
Can't farm for items/gold in most areas (can do it on one screen in Rain though it's rather slow)
Shows the villains interacting in some "meanwhile" scenes
No ability gating besides the temporary torch used to see in the cave though it's used more like a key (there's a ring of invisibility magic item but you don't need to use it to sneak past enemies)
Party members are gained a bit too frequently however the ones outside your party will level up to the active party's current level
Some chars aren't able to cast certain spells at a higher level at certain points of the game
Introduces a new villain right before the end
Find target command (shift) - doesn't seem to work?
Non-interactive escape segment after the final boss
Some gore
-
No area maps (the city of Rain is quite large and easy to get lost in thanks to the shifting camera angles when moving between screens, there are also a bunch of chests that are semi-hidden that you can't open until mid-game so you'll have to write down where they are outside of the game)
Various interface/control issues (can't speed up the manual scrolling of the screen, can't order allies to always run away or use certain healing items when near death - if they die they're knocked out until the end of the current battle, oddly distant and cumbersome camera angles are fairly common - can zoom in in the preferences menu but not while in-game (can't change the angles), aiming is a bit clunky in that you can't adjust it while performing a move, drinking a potion can sometimes be interrupted and if it happens the potion is wasted, can't walk backwards or strafe, no controller option on PC, sometimes have to use the arrow keys to scroll the screen - moving towards the edge doesn't work, no quest log/journal feature, can be tricky to aim at smaller moving+flying enemies in melee combat (for single ones the back attack tends to work), a bit hard to tell if you've selected a party member at times due to the selection circle blending into the background (who the currently controlled character is is much easier to see), when attacking with all chars selected your CPU ally/allies with ranged weapons will try to shoot at an enemy even though there's no line of sight instead of moving until they have it, annoyingly small hit detection on some enemies (fire orb boss for example) - if you miss-click your selected char starts moving towards the enemy instead of shooting and while holding ctrl helps you might then miss the shot and most weapons have limited ammo/cooldown periods, if you select a specific char while they're moving towards a selected target then they stop moving, the "shoot a set number or projectiles" mechanic (f5-f8) doesn't work for the ice wand - works for spells, your allies (besides grandfather in the early game) are usually passive when you don't control them and if you order everyone to attack they forget to dodge - it would've been better if you could at least make everyone dodge at the same time like you can make them move or attack at the same time, the wheel menu closes after each time you use a healing item and you can't map healing items to hotkeys, amulet of seeing (show/materialize the semi-hidden chests) could've been a passive item)
Some trial & error (the valve in the sewers doesn't stand out enough (the mouse pointer doesn't even change when hovering over it) - can miss it and end up wandering around in the city instead, finding the jewelled key in glass' palace, thrown potions don't work on the dragon boss, odd timing on the bell puzzle which opens a gate in Rain, lacks directions after getting the first orb - you're supposed to go to the oracle area and then south into a snow area (they could've added some clue from the guy who gave you the first orb or after talking to Duke again in the camp), lacks directions after the ice dragon - go back to camp, no explanation of the wheel interface or special moves in-game, sometimes hard to tell where a room's exits are meaning you'll have to search for them with the mouse pointer, no warning before entering a boss room and you can't escape from bosses - in the fire orb area for example you might encounter the boss before recruiting vivienne, surprise attacks)
Some backtracking and dead space
Unskippable game over (about 10 seconds) and in-game cutscenes
Mostly uninteractive environment (can't even speak to most NPCs in the first town and at some points you can't talk to NPCs after that, at least interactive parts tend to stand out well)
Odd how you can fire at some enemies without damaging them for some scenes (yellow imp shortly before you face his giant version, Silver right after he kills your grandfather)
Some plot oddities and annoying devices (can't help your grandfather with fighting Silver with the ice wand and the spellcaster NPC you just met, the oracle cheats you out of giving a full answer to the orbs' locations, can't not kill the werewolf boss? - the NPC near it says that he wants you to only wound it but maybe there's nothing to it)
Basic character models overall (blocky, low detail, jagged edges) but also heavily stylized - similar to FF7
Can't sell items
Hostile areas become easier after you've found the healing spell and longsword and after the mid-game or so become a bit repetitive,
Can sometimes shoot an enemy without them reacting from the entrance when entering a new room
HP potions are too expensive considering your MP (and thus the healing spell) regenerates on its own
Pretty cliché storyline at its core (rebels vs evil bad guy kidnapping women, magical mcguffin orbs)
Can't delete save games (shows an error message)
Some NPCs like thaddeus and the boatman are pretty underdeveloped
Drawn out dragon boss fight due to arrows and slingshot bullets not doing damage and not being able to hit it in melee+Jug not being able to use magic (had to have stocked up on knives and/or MP potions instead)
Keep finding apples even later on (worst healing item)
Kinda far between save points at times (glass' palace)
Fuge boss can get stuck in an easy loop
Bugs:
-Sometimes crashes (GOG ver.: crashed when revisiting the city of Rain, crashed three times after beating the fire orb boss and backtracking a bit as well as when trying to switch gear via the wheel menu, crashed again during the dragon boss fight when I was about to win)
-Game froze once after the sewers
-Sekune keeps firing at the fire boss when it's not on screen - she keeps shooting at the point where he last appeared