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Is Nightmare of Druaga in stores yet?
- Thread starter Vieo
- Start date
I'm enjoying it so far, although I've only played for an hour or so. There's nothing really surprising about the game so far, it's a more-or-less standard console roguelike. There are the usual dark mazes, enemies that run up to attack you, items that you need to identify before you use, and so forth. It looks like the item creation system is good, since you have the ability to combine not only weapon, but whatever item you want. Weapons that have been combined more than 15 times get special properties, although i wasn't to clear on what those properties were.
The only real disappointment here was that you get the "return to town" item as soon as you enter a dungeon. This makes the game a bit less rough than, say, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, where you had to find the "Return To Town" items in the dungeons. OTOH, enemies can attack you before you get a chance to use any item, so it balances out.
Another new aspect, compared to what I've played, is that your vision lessens as you use up turns. The beginning state is only two ticks away from being completely blind! In order to regain your sight, you need to offer items to Ishtar, so you have to balance progressing through a dungeon against finding items. Keys and doors are easy to find, but the more time you spend on a floor, the more you get attacked, and the more time you need to heal, and the more blind you get. Also, this effect carries from one floor to the next, unlike the Grim Reaper from CMD2, or the floor collapse from Azure Dreams. IMO, this is a big improvement, as it emphasizes the overall survival strategy, rather than the floor-to-floor emphasis that the other two carry.
There are also restricted quests, where your level and items are lost temporarily. You are only allowed to bring the number of items that the quest states, and you revert to level 1 apparently, although I suppose that could also be set by the quest. You are awarded if you complete the quest, though, and you also regain your items and levels. It sounds like you don't permenently lose anything you're carrying when you take up a quest, unlike CMD2.
Final note - it sounds like any item that you carry when you die is normally lost forever. However, you are able to engrave certain items, so that they remain where you die. But the number of items you can engrave s heavily restricted, so death is still a serious affair.
As for graphics and sound, eh. As with most games of this type, they do the job, and that's as much as I can say for them.
The only real disappointment here was that you get the "return to town" item as soon as you enter a dungeon. This makes the game a bit less rough than, say, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, where you had to find the "Return To Town" items in the dungeons. OTOH, enemies can attack you before you get a chance to use any item, so it balances out.
Another new aspect, compared to what I've played, is that your vision lessens as you use up turns. The beginning state is only two ticks away from being completely blind! In order to regain your sight, you need to offer items to Ishtar, so you have to balance progressing through a dungeon against finding items. Keys and doors are easy to find, but the more time you spend on a floor, the more you get attacked, and the more time you need to heal, and the more blind you get. Also, this effect carries from one floor to the next, unlike the Grim Reaper from CMD2, or the floor collapse from Azure Dreams. IMO, this is a big improvement, as it emphasizes the overall survival strategy, rather than the floor-to-floor emphasis that the other two carry.
There are also restricted quests, where your level and items are lost temporarily. You are only allowed to bring the number of items that the quest states, and you revert to level 1 apparently, although I suppose that could also be set by the quest. You are awarded if you complete the quest, though, and you also regain your items and levels. It sounds like you don't permenently lose anything you're carrying when you take up a quest, unlike CMD2.
Final note - it sounds like any item that you carry when you die is normally lost forever. However, you are able to engrave certain items, so that they remain where you die. But the number of items you can engrave s heavily restricted, so death is still a serious affair.
As for graphics and sound, eh. As with most games of this type, they do the job, and that's as much as I can say for them.