After reading the manual to Dawn of Magic, I thought to myself that here was something different from other action role-playing games. Different it was, of course, but there also was a sameness to other RPGs of this type. Let's spit it out: This has a Diablo resemblance in its action that I noticed after playing for about 20 minutes. Developer Sky Fallen Entertainment has created a mouse-clicking in-super-mode game that has tons of hack and slashing goodness that past clones are well-known for. Yet there are some features that make it a cut above, such as a unique magic system, a skills system, morphing, transmutation and crafting among its achievements.
The story is typical. Modo, an evil, I assume god, turned mortal; has plans to destroy the world. The introductory scene was quite impressive. There's nothing like a hulking monster with a flaming head to stir the gamers juices. Now enters the young mage, who must either save the world or aid Modo in his evil plans. Along the way, we have side quests that help you level or award loot. Some of these are more puzzle-like, and others are kill this or that monster to garner experience.
There are four character types to choose from: the Awkward Scholar, Weird Gypsy, Fat Frier and Baker's Wife. Actually, there is only a slight difference between characters in starting stats. I'm not sure why the names are what they are, unless it was to make them unique from other clones. Why a Baker's Wife would want to save the world is beyond me. Alignment is good, neutral or evil. Character types can be immortal or mortal. Believe me when I say, choose the immortal setting. This will save you lots of time and teeth-gnashing. Your primary attributes are strength, intellect and energy. Strength helps with melee attacks. Intellect is your health, and energy is your mana.
Leveling is pretty straightforward: You get skill points, spell points and a attribute point per level. The skill points go into the different skills and spell points into raising your different spells categories. Speaking of the first two, spells are in 12 different classes with eight spells per class, for a total of 96 spells. What is different is that you can make different combos and have eight ready in quick slots. This can get quite confusing at first, since you don't really know what you want. Also, raising these spells or even getting a spell requires scrolls that are scarce loot in the beginning of the game. The result being that you can have spell points but be unable to use them without those scrolls.
Skill points improve skills like teleportation, weapon mastery and crafting to name a few. There are eight types of skills to improve. Transmutation, morphing and tattoos are some of the other categories; morphing and tattoos alter the appearance and add improvement to your characterss abilities.
Was the game buggy? Well, if you call having your character getting stuck in difficult areas, then I can say I had one. Were there others? I can't say; though, I'm sure there could be depending on your system. I had read that the game crashes quite often, but for me, I never had that problem.
What did I like about this game? Spell effects were fun, handling the different skills, watching my character morph, following the story and even choosing what alignment — so I could be evil if I wanted — was interesting. Doing the side quests also was an enjoyable experience, as well as killing legions of monsters. Multiplayer is a nice choice, though I did not try it.
What didn't I like about this game? Killing the same legion of monsters and dying quite frequently. That's why I said go immortal, as you'll die a lot. My strategy was kill till I die and then run back, kill till I die, then repeat ad nauseam. I hated the fact you lost your money every time you died. Retaining health potions was nearly impossible, since you wipe them out just trying to stay alive. Sometimes you just had to run away from fights; there were just too many or too difficult a monster to fight. Spell-casting was dismal most times since the mobs usually got within melee range, requiring you to start bashing away.
The landscape was dreary, with objects getting in your way when running from creatures. Finding treasure was very random, especially when it came to scrolls. The point-and-click system was hit or miss, and exasperation was the order of the day. My one pet peeve was there was no banking system. Retaining gold was a hit or miss event, mostly miss with all the dying. I'm loathe to recommend this title and yet I can't say I don't. If you like hack and slash or unique spells systems, then Dawn of Magic may be worth your time and money.
Father of two, now grown children.What are my kind of games? Strategy, RTS, RPG, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and online games such as Dark Age of Camelot and Asheron's Call. Of my dislikes I would say puzzle games such as Myth, FPS type games such as Doom. Also simulation type games, and games that are just plain bad.
My knowledge of the industry mostly evolves around beta testing games, such as Earth & Beyond from EA, Saga of Ryzom, and companies like MSN and Acolade. Self taught web design is another interest I have. Family life is entertaining at times. It also can get weird as well, after you have been married 31 years.
