Tag: Evil Islands

Completed Evil Islands.
The only good thing from Act 3 is that you can get a really good spear from one of the companions early. Otherwise, it’s the same critfest, if not worse. Either you crit and kill your enemy, or they crit you. My guess is that authors wanted it to be a stealthy game until the very end, but considering how well enemies see and hear you in the 3rd Act, it’s not very enjoyable. And it’s ridiculous that having maxed out melee, I still can’t land a hit on the Imperial Guardsman.
The last stretch has you deactivate a magic minefield. For some reason, they decided it’s a good idea that the only way to do that is to use two spells that you aren’t automatically given. And the only way to equip spells is to head back to town. way to equip spells is back in town. Have a great journey!
The actual story is surprisingly good. Zak is the male of the ancient race, which explains everything: how he lost his memory, why he ended up where he ended, why he was so attracted to the female of the ancient race. It’s just not clear why the curse is in the form of a flying demon. And it’s such a weird final boss. Even with all the levelling, and the armor given specifically for the final battle, it kills you in 2 hits. You have the Magician helping you, that hits it three times before he dies. So you just need to finish it off in the few seconds you have left.
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I’d thought I’ll never reach that point, but finally I can take on a blue troll. It takes time, as I can only can deal damage with crits. But at least I can outheal troll’s damage. Unicorns are even worse, since I don’t have a defence from their lightning, and they can be hit only with a spear. One thing you can give credit for: it’s a rare RPG that gives you a reason to use something besides swords.
Reached Act 3. I understand what they did, but I don’t like it: random quest in Act 3 gives you more XP than your final quests in Act 2, two chests on the first map give you more money that you could have accumulated in the previous act as well. It brings you up to speed, but while I killed blue trolls an hour ago, I can’t kill a random guard now, and die to a bunch of rats as well. Diablo 4 level of bullshit.
At one point you need to sneak past banshees, because they are too powerful for you. The problem is, they move in unpredictable manner, and have 360 vision.

Also, during the escape half of my armour got broken, including pants, and you can only repair them in town. So I fought mindflayers bareassed.

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Due to the XP splitting I resort to leaving my companions back in town before completing quests, to get all the XP. Speaking of companions, the knight is great because he has some enchanted armor you can get from him.

The game has an actually solid upgrade system, which is just isn’t explained well. You can disassemble any item you have, and reassemble it using superior materials.
Disassembling items usually costs money. But there’s a bug, disassembling broken items actually gives you ton of money back. Recycling in Middle Ages 🤡
Reached the mines. The game is decisively unfun at this point, I’m not sure why I’m even doing that to myself. Almost ruined my playthrough when a troll chased me in the “green elves labyrinth”. Either trolls move to fast or see too far, but it almost impossible to sneak by them in those narrow valleys.

Then there’s fight with the magician Deidra, that kills you in 3 shots, because lightning passes through steel plate, and my character couldn’t hit her due to her ridiculously high defence. The only thing that saved me was a lucky critical.

And the game is all about those criticals. Another thing that is never explained properly, but it seems they can do x3 or even x5 damage, so it’s often better just to focus on them.

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The writing is very much edgy early 2000s, the closest I can think of is probably Gothic series. The hero is a bit of a scoundrel, despite being amnesiac, accepting his role only because otherwise he’d be lynched, and looking for any way to escape. While the villagers try to screw him, the Elder by setting bandits or orcs on him directly.

I struggled with rescuing the Witch’s granddaughter sidequest, so I decided I’ll get to the Magician, level up and get back at the orcs. Instead, I was propelled to the 2nd Act, looking for lost Mayan princess in the snows. It’s humiliation all over again, as Zak can’t land a hit on enemies. And the two new companions are Archer and Mage, which makes Zak a tank, a role he’s clearly unfit for, even with a newly available set of metal armor.

I begin to understand why people play this game solo, despite it turning into a boring version of Diablo. Since the XP is divided between all characters and only Zak is transferred between acts, he has 3rd of the XP he could have if he completed the 1st Act alone.

I was wondering why the game looks so… flat. Turn out, GOG version has shadows permanently disabled.

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I almost dropped the game when the only quest I had was getting the gold back from the caravan. It’s guarded by overpowered skeletons, which spot you from afar. But at some point I just got lucky with their random patrolling.
The quest with the ambush provided full set of better armour, which did help to push through. It’s ironic how Diablo 3 had those pilars of light coming out of items, while here I have to go back to town to discovered I actually picked a magical helmet.
The experience system is quite weird. You don’t have levels per say, but your character HP does increase with XP. Most of the perks are extremely expensive and quite useless. At first I thought I’d take Sword perk, then I understood it gives same 5 points to attack as directly increasing the melee skill. The only amazing perk is unassumingly called Actions, and it’s a permanent 15% haste to both attacks and casting.
The money problem got solved from an unexpected angle. Skeletons you find in Dead City drop bones, a crafting material. And a lot of bones. By selling them, I got more money than from all the previous quests combined.

Also in the Dead City, a dragon gives you an Ancient Sword. Not much damage, but it constantly casts Weaken on enemies, which reduces their total HP, making them easier to kill.

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I think I even bought the original game back in the day, but never managed to progress far.
It’s supposed to be a fantasy RPG, but it actually feels more like espionage stealth: you can crawl, target enemy limbs, characters leave tracks, and if they step into pool of blood those will be bloody, but can’t open your inventory outside of cities.
The fact that you can get injured in arms or legs also means that it’s a rare system where badly damaged character is less deadly, as arm injury halves attack and cast speed.
I wonder if I dropped this game because it didn’t work well on my weak PC, or because it was too difficult. Even a goblin can kill the hero pretty quickly at first. Maybe I didn’t understand you can pick a companion early on. Still, it’s quite brutal, with characters dying from a couple of critical hits. And monsters have infinite agro, so you can’t just run away.
The game has elaborate crafting system, which you’d expect from a post Minecraft era more likely. You buy blueprints and materials, so a stone axe can be crafted from both simple stone, whatever that is, or granite.
Money is very limited, as monsters drop almost nothing. I barely have enough to keep my equipment repaired.
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