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Lord Dekks
Jan 24, 2005

BadAstronaut posted:

OK so just how massive is this story and how explorable is the world? I actually had this game - still lying in a box somewhere - and this could be the perfect thing to pick up and play in DOSBox on the move. What's the combat to story/RPG ratio? How is the combat, is the game very linear, and what could you say it is similar to?

It's been many many years since I last played it, but I am pretty sure the story lasted me a good couple of weeks and the game world was large. In terms of combat, I don't believe its random encounters, you can see enemies on the map and its only when they get into range of you that combat starts proper I do remember finding out on a subsequent playthrough that despite what I previous thought, Psionic spells are awesome once levelled.

Googled and found a review/retrospective that might be of interest here.

Also from that site is a good synposis:

"The world of Dark Sun is called Athas. It’s a desert world where the conditions are harsh, water is scarce, resources like metal are almost depleted and only the fittest, strongest and smartest can survive. That’s the reason there is no level-less commoner class in the Dark Sun setting, odds are even your cleaning lady is a level 3 fighter with a strength of 18/00. You’re already something special if you can survive in this environment at all, as the weak have long been weeded out. It’s basically the D&D version of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, except the apocalypse has never really stopped. Due to the depleted resources most weapons and armor are crafted from bones, stone, obsidian, wood, and leather, which makes metal weapons/armor, let alone enchanted weaponry, very, very rare."

Screenshots:




Lord Dekks fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Apr 7, 2012