"Once the players pass thirty, they'll slowly start develop severe debuffs to their stats" I feel so called out by this.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

How's the hairline 😁

@lliamthrumble

5 ай бұрын

39... shit was real from the start.... why didn't I listen?

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

“Hairline” assumes that I still have hair :(

I have a lot of love for Darkstone. I never understood all the hate it got from publications at the time. There weren't many games like Diablo in that rogue like mold. It was a fun diversion for those looking for more of that sort of gameplay, while offering something atmospheric and yet not so grim and dark as Diablo. I read those reviews back in the day, and I found it silly that DS got docked points for committing the same sins as other titles of it's subgenre. I completely agree that Darkstone is flawed game, but I think it deserved a bit better. Love your review!

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

Sorry, I missed your comment before :D Thanks! It definitely has a lot of soul thanks to the music and curious art direction. I personally loved having the customizable 2nd party member too.

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

it’s rogue like? I’m a few mins into the video and already kills the deal for me.

Darkstone was my first video game so I absolutely love the game for mostly nostalgia

This quality of content deserve far, far more subscribers than now. I remember this game as something too slow and unobvious for casual players and too shallow for hardcore ones. All those aging and survival mechanics didn't make Darkstone into a "real" RPG, mostly blurring the focus on action.

This game was the perfect introduction to the hack 'n slash genre when I was young.

@KuittheGeek

9 ай бұрын

It still holds a special place in my heart because it was my first RPG when I was younger. I recently replayed it on the Steam Deck, and it was a lot of fun. I think I actually preferred it on the deck because I could remap some of the hotkeys to feel more natural. You couldn't do that back in the day, they didn't support key remapping.

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

This was around in the 60s?

Just finished Darkstone and since it seemed quite an obscure game I was genuinely surprised when I found such a well written review covering it. Great video!

This was the first game I played with its multiplayer features over the internet, it was such a blast

Thank you so much for doing research. Too many KZread channels just read Wikipedia and consider it good enough.

@soylentgreenb

Жыл бұрын

It was a big game in 1999, but it aged like fine milk and quickly became irrelevant. This is generally true; many big releases back in the day that sold because they were graphically or mechanically advanced are long forgotten as they were soon surpassed by something else. Today, we remember doom, but don't remember strife; remember Duke 3D but not Blood and so on; remember System shock, but not Ultima underworld (which is unfortunate, since that game was so ahead of its time that it's like finding rabbit fossils in pre-cambrian rock; it just shouldn't be able to exist).

I absolutely adore the music which starts to play in the town in the second half of the game. Overall I like Darkstone, solid hack & slash.

I remember the soundtrack to this being very atmospheric. I played a demo of it in 1998 and I remember how the loading screens between maps blew me away with how they were 3D animated.

@MrEdders123

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah I liked that little touch, unfortunately they last about 1.5 seconds on modern systems :P

@linuxgameplayxp6246

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 On my old PC they lasted up to 5 minutes depending on the map lol.

@dnangel4277

11 ай бұрын

Agreed!

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

You were blown away by loading screens? I find them annoying.

@linuxgameplayxp6246

Ай бұрын

@@majorgear1021 Back in 1998 this was a novelty and it was certainly better than looking at a still image with a loading bar underneath.

Great review quality, on par with much bigger channels. I actually paused the screen to read the old reviews from the Gaming magazines. remember buying this game and then having to wait months begging my dad to buy a 3D card for it to actually run on our pc. the full 3D world was definitely something that I respected back then in the late ‘90s. however, something about the gameplay just didnt work for me, who was a true Diablo 1 junkie at the time. Overall great memories from a time when games came in colorful boxes with big illustrated manuals. Cheers

Graphically very impressive for a top down rpg from 1999, I gotta say. Not that far off Neverwinter Nights. All though Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption was released around the same time and thats very good looking for its time as well, so maybe I'm just underestimating how games should look back then haha.

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah Redemption was stunning, both graphics and artwise. Keep in mind Darkstone would've been on a CRT as well.

I remember playing the Mobile Port on my Samsung Tablet. A damn shame that it was removed from the apple store. I do wish this game would have a remake for the PS5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch sometime in 2024, 2025, 2026 or 2027.

Never heard of this game but I really like the graphics lol, makes me nostalgic like if old runescape was an rpg lol

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

How is Runescape these days?

This game came out before diablo 2 (which truly set the standards for arpgs even to this day) and even Dungeon Siege which was the defacto litmus for a good minimalist 3d arpg or even Sacred. It is in all respects a diablo clone, but one of the very first before diablo 2 spurred the rest of them. A lot of devs of traditional western rpgs developers were still intimidated by how diablo changed things by speeding up the gameplay and pilfering; and the technical restraints at the time that made action rpg titles difficult to make. This game did nothing wrong in all respects, but it was sandwiched in between a changing trend in gaming as it was transforming to better tech and newer consoles. No to mention this was a great game on the ps1 even though it was a bad port that gutted a lot of the good stuff from the pc version. Ps1 didn’t have many games in this genre until the ps2 with champions of norrath, baldur’s gate dark alliance.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I'd love to cover Champions of Norrath, unfortunately I don't have a PS2 and it's notoriously demanding on emulators like PCSX2. Maybe when I get a new laptop...

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

@@MrEdders123CoN was one the games that convinced me to get a PS2 Fat with SATA hdd mod and a retrotink upscaler. Pcsx2 is probably good for a lot of games, but it wasn’t for the games that I wanted to play. That reminds me, I have only played Champions of Norrath:Return to Arms since I set all of that up last year. I need to play more games on it!

For anyone who wants to play this game today, its honestly pretty fun with friends. The game is dirt cheap on GOG and will run smoothly on a lot of modern systems, the only main issue is resolution. Multiplayer is incredibly easy because GameRanger works perfectly with Darkstone, so if you and your buddies are bored of the current ARPGs available, then its well worth a try. Seriously, it goes for around $6 normal price on GOG which almost makes it a steal.

Only just found your channel and you have a new sub, video essays are definitely my thing and this is the sort of game I would have loved back in the early "00s.

@MrEdders123

3 жыл бұрын

thanks! I'll be covering other obscure "Diablo clones" from the era in future videos (probably after the summer)

This game was so hype when it came out, this was truly the "3d future" in PC at the time hehe.

My first pc game when i was young after my late dad bought our family a pc. Loved watching him playing the game and him guiding me through the puzzles as at that time as I couldn't understand English that much. I always comeback to youtube to hear the ost throughout the game. Really fun times. I thought diablo 2 was boring as you can only play 1 character at the time and always favors darkstone to diablo 2 when i'm talking with my friends

@MrEdders123

21 күн бұрын

I suspect it would've done very well for the Playstation had that version featured co-op and not run horribly (I assume it was originally programmed for PC and porting it to PSX was extremely difficult due to the severe hardware limitations)

Diablo 1 also has similar semi-random quest system. There is a larger pool of quests but each new game you are getting only few quests from the pool. For example not every time you will get Butchers quests or Poisoned Well quests.

Thanks bro. Discovered your channel recently. Content is just superior. An word for the future: "Asghan" the dragon slayer ;D Maybe we'll see something about that... Regards from germany

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

Will definitely be seeing a lot of 90s action RPGs/fantasy hack and slash on this channel in the future ;D

Criminally underrated channel.

Amazing review! Thank you.

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! Is that Disciples 2 art?

To me, who played the Darkstone demo religiously in 1999, it was the perfect midpoint between Diablo I and Diablo II

Subscriber 202 here. Great videos so far! I'm looking forward to more in the future 👍

@MrEdders123

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Should have a Wheel of Time FPS video out within a week or so!

@woodeyelyegaming1401

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 awesome! I'm looking forward to it! I'll make sure I hit the bell notification button

Loved this game in early 00. Great review and channel. Subscribed!

This game looks and plays WAY better on PC.

I think about this game a lot more than I probably should, considering how little of it I played

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I think it has a nice atmosphere. I'd like to cover another game called Hexplore one day, which looks like it has a similar vibe.

I remember being 11 and playing the PS1 port of this game. Back before KZread, you had to play through the whole thing to unlock the music video for the song. I used to crank that shit hard lol.

The look of this game reminds me of Gauntlet Legends.

This game was something else.

@majorgear1021

Ай бұрын

There are many ways to read this comment.

@F_Yale

Ай бұрын

@@majorgear1021 To me it's positive childhood nostalgia.

Not me playing Diablo 2 with this in the background 😅

I remember getting this for christmas around 2001 for PS1 then another copy for christmas the year after lol. I also grabbed the GOG copy when that came out because I never did finish it and figured I'd get around to it like the rest of my backlog I'll never finish before I'm dead, thanks GOG and Steam sales!. Upon playing it again though I remembered how much I didn't enjoy it compared to other titles. I would then remember that every time I would go and play this for PS1 back then that I'd just want to go play DIablo 1 or 2 instead. The furthest I've even made it was through 2 or 3 dungeons before restarting to try a different class but I never went beyond that point. The games okay though and not horrible just there were so many better options at the time. Also the fact early 3D was ugly as all hell and that didn't do it any favors but at least the soundtrack and atmosphere noises I enjoyed.

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

I thought it had a nice atmosphere at the start of the game, especially with the music, but it didn't manage to maintain that. If I were making the video today I would've actually played a few hours of PS1 version for the sake of comparison, but I don't know if there's much difference beyond the control scheme and missing features.

Can you please also do Silver from infogrames as well? That game introduced me to the fantasy ARPG.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I'll definitely cover Silver at some point, it had an interesting development.

Holy crap I haven't thought about Deathspank in years! Hard to believe they made three of those games

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I remember playing the first and getting annoyed by the Borderlands-esque humour. I imagine they were all fairly cheap to make, compared to a traditional CRPG.

This game needs a remaster!

This game was so fucking GOOD

🤘💯

I loved this game as a kid. What are good modern games like this? I loved the game play with two characters, the different roles, and improving / customizing the character builds overtime.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I'm not sure about similar games that let you have a single AI companion. There was a party-based Diablo clone called "Throne of Darkness", not sure if it's on GoG. There's also stuff like Seal of Evil or Hexplore with parties, but I think they're more like traditional CRPGs than Diablo. Didn't Torchlight 2 let you have a customizable pet/companion or something?

@dnangel4277

11 ай бұрын

Diablo IV!

My understanding is that all overland maps and dungeons are fully hand-crafted. Each possible set of quests comes with its own hand-crafted maps. The only true element of randomness is which set of quests you get, and even then the game tries not to give you the same set before you've experienced all 3 of them. Together with the 3 difficulty levels, this is designed so you can go through the game 3 times with the same character without seeing the same quest twice.

@MrEdders123

3 жыл бұрын

They're handcrafted and then selected from the pool, but the overland maps are designed in such a way as to allow 2 different combinations of quests per area. This is what leads to the compartmentalized look. As for whether it tries to avoid repeating quests I couldn't say for sure, I definitely got repeat quests on the second playthrough with lvl 30 characters. I just restarted with new characters since I had to experiement with them anyway.

@zeckul

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 That's interesting about the overland maps, I had never noticed that. It's not every day I meet someone who's played this game a significant amount hehehe. Thanks for the insightful review btw.

@jprec5174

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 on the ps1 each dungeon tier (quest) had its own map making the world feel much bigger. There was a map for dungeon 1-5, then dungron 6-10, all the way up to 30. This meant a lot of loading screens, but imo made the world feel bigger.

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

@@jprec5174 Dungeon loading times actually get longer and longer as you progress through the PC version, they can be pretty bad towards the end.

Well for me that game had the right amount of complexity as a kid and the cartoonish style made the easy eye focus on enemies a bit more scary when they pop in numbers you know they are too many to handle (from a kid perspective). Age and duration of weapons for the lack of stat to hit enemies was surely and issue as those where new concept coming from Diablo 2, like literally the game was broke in early version and weapons would melt upon minutes of battle alone, having that extra character handle by AI always fill the empty space of been a single-player game, wish more games improve on that department other than playing a summoner, ain't the same to have a secondary hero as a mercenary would fill doll in compare and having a pet to trade things to town was one of those features I haven't seen at all with Torchlight been that one exception. Voice acting was great to be honest, we are talking the year 1999 with so few game investing money in good voice actorss and soundcards been something great when you remind yourself about midi-sound cards been the standard not so far along. You should do a review on Magicka 1 with all DLCs, that game was amazing having a simple yet complex formula of 8 skills that combine each other along with extras on top like adding the effect to a weapon, self or to form a wall around you and is so funny to think in the later release of the game Magicka 2 they had to tune down the complexity and totally ruin that first experience. You could make an entire Diablo II universe and use the same mechanics to keep players engage into complex dynamics and avoid that silly click here and there to empty the map in a repetitive way.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I remember finding Magicka incredibly frustrating, probably due to the constant switching between abilities, and barely touched the rest of the series. The elements/powers combination was a big part of some other old RPGs, like Seal of Evil (Chinese-themed action RPG).

@ThunderKat

Жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 To master all the spells and combination you need more time than it would take playing single-player for a couple of days. Playing Co-Op with others was fun and game was indeed hard, only issue was the amount of DLS you need to buy to enjoy every single expansion to get the complete campaign experience. You can't even play it on a joystick to be honest we are talking 8 attacks buttons + shift + control + alt + space to get all combinations, well no clue I haven't play it on console so yep. But definitely a simple but yet complex mechanic around magic combinations, with counter to each element and on top dispels magic and walls that could reflect laser and absorb bullets and no rag dolls if you use wind to push enemies away, well done physic all around.

I never knew there was s pc version. I only remembered the psone version.

Darkstone was rather popular back then. Graphically it has aged like fine milk though. And all the compromises made for it to be 3D are obviously no longer worth it. It was right for the time but made the game quickly become irrelevant.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I quite like the graphics thanks to the exaggerated art style and bright colours, but yeah it's an example of the tradeoff between real-time 3d rendering and advanced 2d art (e.g. Diablo 2) in the late 90s/early 00s.

@danieladamczyk4024

Жыл бұрын

I bought this game this year, just for it looks and i wasn't dissapointed.

This an Revenant were my ARPG's besides Diablo 1 and 2 I played back in those days. Guess it's nostalgia why I like these games so much, cause as a game they are pretty bland in 2023.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

I like the fact there was a rash of singleplayer Diablo clones in the late 90s. Nothing special but some had interesting settings or were generally quite fun. Sadly they (and Diablo) became a lot more "gamified" and oriented towards the endless loot-whoring cycle, which I never enjoyed. I'll be covering more of them in the future.

Hot takes: The hunger mechanic is as contrived as D2's stamina, but it wouldn't be bad if eating gave some kind of temporary bonus, and different foods offered different bonuses. Eating the same food over and over could reduce the time you have that bonus. Aging would be cool if it gave the caster classes a Magic stat bonus. Aging should be slowed down tho. 6 months to clear a single dungeon, really? You said "Unlike Diablo, this games quests are randomized." Diablo had randomized quests. Quests like Magic Rock, Emphyeam Band, Arkaine's Valor, Lachdanan, Chamber of Bone, Butcher, or Poisoned Water Supply are randomly selected on a new game. I think the only quest thats 100% guaranteed is King Leoric, and of course Lazarus and Diablo.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

Diablo quests aren't as heavily randomized (there are fewer "seeds") as Darkstone, but yeah.

Hunger was always a big part of the original roguelikes, like Nethack. Age mechanics was a in a few other RPGs, like Might & Magic, where there were potions of youth, while some undead attacks aged the characters. Two playable characters are there for coop, so the game was balanced for the ground up for two chars.

Is there ost around? I havent find anything besides the Darkstone will shine

@MrEdders123

8 ай бұрын

GoG has a soundtrack as one of the extras. Can't recall if it's a rip from the game files.

the volume was kind of all over the place in this

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

Sorry, this is a problem with a lot of my older videos - I'm not very good at judging the volume, especially for people not using headphones. I've tried to improve the audio mixing over time but don't always get it right.

Now do Vampire The Masquerade 1!!!

@MrEdders123

11 ай бұрын

One day :)

I find the description "Diablo clone" as a genre is unfair, seeing as how Diablo was basically just a fancy graphics version of Angmar...

PS version have superb QoL's inmprovement: no money bullshit, fast repairing\inventory skills, better controls, intresting selling artifacts mechanic, minor balance\world change, etc. But it succ huge cockundus at battle spells\skill usage, only 2 slots and pain in the ass to change them, worser than diablo1. Also damn that resetting camera.

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I was considering getting some footage of the PS1 version but every review said it was just a horrible port of the PC game. I'd probably have done it as a point of comparison had I been making 1-2hr videos at the time though.

I played this before diablo

"epic story driven RPGs like SILVER".... SILVER... EPIC story?? O_o either i did miss that part when i played it back then but... okay

@MrEdders123

Жыл бұрын

Their words. I'll do a Silver video next year hopefully.

@Zanji1234

Жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 marketing blurr :-D though the batlle system was kinda funny when you had to move your mouse to attack and stuff xD

I wouldn't call DeathSpank unfunny by design, rather painfully-self aware. We've all heard the jokes, told better by more competent writers in better games.

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

I'm just deeply biased against comedy in (fantasy) games in general. I feel a lot of settings are ruined by the writers being too self-conscious and trying to excuse their bad or derivative writing with memes or metajokes, which just makes it worse.

@MasioDurza

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrEdders123 Agreed.

It came out on mobile and i played the sh!t out of it, dunno why but it just disapeared one day.

@MrEdders123

2 жыл бұрын

It's been a while since I made the video but I believe the mobile port was incompatible with later iOS and android releases, and the developer never updated it (I think they were shut down). I would've played a bit of it for the video otherwise :(

Id love your reviews if they didnt pepper in left leaning partisan declaritive statements... never know why it would apply to games from the 80s and 90s. Feels pathologic at times.

@MrEdders123

5 ай бұрын

Uhh, "left-leaning" youtubers tend not to comment positively on the excessive cleavage and oversized anatomy of female characters in games. 🙃

@lliamthrumble

5 ай бұрын

@@MrEdders123 uhhhh "youtubers"? As though everyone who produces content thinks the same way and all believe the same thing and have decided discourse isn't needed on what they think is settled facts?? Yeah... Thats why I said left leaning. Research and learn just like you do with your videos. Making blanket ambiguous statements as a nod to the hive mind is awkward since you're talking about games from 30 years ago.

I am an ex-roleplayer age 51 years, when watching this... I scorn whoever did not throw money at my channel, coz those `debuffs by aging´ make it horror to watch! Still, good review. Thanks for sharing.

@MrEdders123

4 ай бұрын

I feel a constant sense of dread playing stuff like Might and Magic because of the aging mechanic 🤣