Darkstone

aka: Darkstone: Bruderschaft des Lichts, Darkstone: Evil Reigns
Moby ID: 591
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Darkstone is a Diablo clone. But there is a difference one will recognize immediately: it is in 3D. But this is not the only "improvement"--the second most important thing is probably that the player is in control of two characters. The other character is computer controlled and the player can switch between them at any time. Also, Darkstone has lots of new spells and skills. The player will be walking through huge woods, have to solve a lot of riddles and descend into deep and dark dungeons.

Spellings

  • 暗黑秘石 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

9 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 50 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 61 ratings with 4 reviews)

A fantastic multi-player RPG (good single-player, too)

The Good
The graphics are very attractive, and it looks like the developers actually gave some thought to camera and controls details before the game hit the shelves (e.g. when walking behind walls, or into houses, or even behind trees, anything obstructing your view is pleasantly faded to mostly-transparent, enabling you to keep a view of the action)

The depth of the game. In one play of the game you will not see everything present. For a start there are 4 difficulty levels to the game (which are only accessible once your characters reach preset limits). In practice this turned out to be that finishing the game on a certain difficulty generally raised your characters to the required levels for the next difficulty. The changes in difficulty weren't just more hit points for the enemies, or even more enemies (actually this last point didn't seem to happen at all). The actual case was that yes enemies became harder, but new types of creatures you'd never seen before appeared. Old monsters you were familiar with suddenly had defensive or offensive spells that made them horribly hard. In addition to this, new equipment would turn up for your party. And I'm not talking about a Longsword+4 instead on a Longsword+2. Whole new pieces of equipment with effects you've always wished you could have. New spells turned up that you'd never seen or heard of before. These pieces of equipment also gave your characters new appearances in game and kept the game alive. Truly one play of this game isn't enough.

Another feature that prolonged play was that the game consisted of about 20 quests (I can't remember the exact number). In playing the game to completion any time you would only see less than 10 of these quests. Next time you play a different collection would be presented to you (some familiar, some not).

The best best best thing about the game though was the multiplayer aspect. In single player you had two characters to control and this could be problematic at Hero level where hot keys for each were being used constantly along with mouse functionality. However, in multiplayer you only have one character. A blessing! (trust me). Combined with three friends you can wade through the game, replaying up the harder difficulty levels for as long as you can. There's no restriction that players must stay in the same area (in fact quite often can one player in the group be found doing some shopping back in town whilst the others battle it out with some creatures miles away). If you haven't tried this aspect of the game, I really suggest you do - it kept 4 of us at work entertained during our lunch hours for a VERY long time.

The Bad
Not much.

Spinning Camera O'Death: Once your character dies all your items drop to the floor, your map function would turn off and the camera would spin slowly about your corpse. Now, you could reappear in town again and trek your way back out to where you were, naked, but mostly what you need is for a fellow player (in multiplayer mode) to come and resurrect you. However, with no map and the headache-inducing camera many many times did I hear the following: "I can resurrect you now - where are you?" "I have NO idea. In a room by a corridor. Surrounded by items. Spinning..."

Single-player became almost impossibly hard on the patch-released Hero level (the highest difficulty).

The end of the game: To be honest, as you progress through the difficulty levels the end-of-story battle becomes more and more boring. You're following the same plot each time (recovering crystals to go battle evil person), but once you reach the final battle, it's really quite trivial (if you've already done it once, and worked out the easy way to win it). Quite often we completed the final battle with a "Oh... Did someone kill him already? Oh..."

Some spell effects can really kill the rendering. Quite often I found that, in multi-player, the Thief and Fighter would run off as soon as their magic-casting companions started casting destructive spells, just to get some framerate back into their games again.

The Bottom Line
An amazing roleplaying game. Some might compare it to Diablo, but in my opinion it is far far better. Try it out, but if you do don't just play it to completion once. Play some of the harder levels as well. You're missing out so much if you don't.

Windows · by Kic'N (4246) · 2001

Another Dungeoncrawler

The Good
I've been waivering over whether to call Darkstone a Diablo-clone or excuse its similarities as being merely inspired by Diablo. Having played a good deal of the game, I do have to say that it is a Diablo-clone, but Darkstone is a good game with some strengths of its own.

Darkstone does have the isometric view that Diablo had and it does involve exploring dungeons to advance your characters and complete quests, but it takes an innovative approach. Darkstone is fully 3D with camera controls similar to the Myth game. The zoom in/out feature is very useful and smooth. For the most part graphics look good when zoomed in on also.

You can control a party of two and it is highly recommended that you choose two different classes (fighter/thief, priest/amazon). This is well done and the characters look great. The AI is a little tricky, but for the most part it is good to have someone watching your back.

There are parts of Darkstone that take place outdoors as well. One of the quests I undertook was to help a village whose women had been turned to stoned by an evil witch. Once you have visited a location, there is an option to click on the location's name and your characters will run there.

The town, from which your characters set out, is very nice too. It seems well populated and key shops are grouped together. There is also a bank where you can store your money. In addition to purchasing weapons and magic, you can stay in an inn which restores your health/mana/food meters, and learn skills which help define your character. There is even a training ground where you can practice combat.

One final note, Darkstone does not use class restrictions for items, only stat restrictions. Meaning that while a wizard can use a sword, he may have trouble due to strength and dexterity.

The Bad
This will be a long list :) but mostly some quibbles.

AI- While you control one character, the computer controls the other. In Fallout 2, you could tinker with the computer controlled character's AI. Here they seem to charge into combat. I had been hoping that my wizard would cast spells while my fighter hacked and slashed, but the wizard joined the fray with his staff. Also, I would have like to told the computer to attack a monster other than the one I was attacking, etc.

The Dungeon- At least so far anyway, it seems unoriginal. It is randomly generated but reuses similar elements from previous levels.

The interface- Mostly good, but a TERRIBLE font. The font they use on the interface is small and illegible. I had to return to the manual to know where to click. Also no spell/skill descriptions are given which means you have to return to the manual. Finally, a quest log would have been a brilliant addition, but that might have been copying Diablo too much.

Graphics- Once again, mostly good. But I've seen items hop over walls when chests are opened. Also characters seem to stand right on the objects which means you have to back them off to pick anything up. And, while characters look good, their shadows are pixellated.

Controls- Good 3D camera system, but I wish I could re-map the keyboard to use the standard w,a,s,d rather than the number pad, which is too close to the mouse.

The Bottom Line
This is a Diablo-clone, but wasn't Diablo a Gauntlet-clone? This is a fun dungeon crawl, slower paced than Diablo, but with more rpg elements. I would describe it as Diablo creeping towards Baldur's Gate.

Windows · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2001

Diablo 3-D

The Good
The game follows the Diablo style of addicting medieval-type, very light role-playing games. Anyone who liked Blizzard's innovative evolutionary step from NetHack will probably enjoy this immediate, slightly improved version. Many people will again find themselves spending hours trying to improve thier characters through numerous quests.

The 3-D graphics, while not the prettiest, perform their function and it is a very nice feature to be able to rotate and zoom your view around. No more lost rings like in Diablo. You can zoom out and look top-down to get a good tactical view, or zoom in when you're comfortable for a lovely over-the-shoulder-ish view.

The interface, much like Diablo's, is slick and user friendly, allowing for long click-fests with minimal interruption. The two button mouse system occcassional makes for errors (such as drinking a potion you wanted to save) and you can occassional become locked in certain modes (pickpocketing being a bad one), but overall its simplicity is for its own good.

The wandering in the wilderness makes the game feel larger than Diablo and allows for more space between players if they don't wish to be on the same team.

Even though they're just mainly gender variations of the original Diablo classes and the monk expansion , the total of eight character provides a bit more diversity than the base Diablo classes.

While not as truly random as Diablo (for levels tend to have same general patterns), the random dungeons and quests make for a little more replay value. Some quests are easy, some hard, and some nearly impossible without knowing the trick to them (SPOILER: Such as using 'fear' on the Hive quest).



The Bad
As with Diablo, Darkstrone really is an action game with stats rather than a role-playing game. Lacking any true role-playing inducing features and possessing a bare-bones story with NPCs that are merely walking sign posts, you'll often find yourself going back out not to save these pathetic folk, but to improve your all-powerful stats. Fans seeking a more intricate, truer role-playing game should look elsewhere. For more details on my issues with games like this, see my Diablo review.

If you thought the Diablo method of trying to make sure people don't abuse their characters seemed difficult, you should try Darkstone. Even with the newest versions, it's still a crap shoot whether or not your character will transfer from one machine to another. Worse, you may actually lose your characters should something happen to your machine that would cause a re-image. A friend lost his many-hours-to-build high level mage because Windows became corrupted and he reinstalled it. Copying back his character directory into Deathstone, the game, apparently seeking some specific combination of items to load the old save, wouldn't load the characters. Worse, it wiped out the file. This is more frustrating than any death you could have in-game. And, mind you, this was all on the SAME machine with just a re-image of the C: drive.

Some of the monsters later on are so class-specific that it's nearly impossible for a character of a certain class to take down the beastie. Playing alone, this makes for dangerous work, as the next creature may be totally resistant to magic, or may not take any damage from the type of weapon you choose. This, coupled with the obscene speed monssters move at at the higher levels makes for a frustrating time.

The Bottom Line
Diablo in the Third Dimension. A good game for Diablo fans to play with while waiting for Diablo II. Take one or two members from a choice of eight characters and try to free the world through action and magic.

Hardcore role-players should look elsewhere, however.

Windows · by Ray Soderlund (3501) · 2000

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Installing patch problem DreinIX (10472) Feb 25, 2008

Trivia

Music

After throwing a gold coin in the dish in front of the musicians in town, they will play a special song: The Darkstone Will Shine.

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  • Darkstone Realm
    "Fan site offers a multitude of resources for the avid Darkstone fan."

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  • MobyGames ID: 591
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Android, iPhone, iPad added by Sciere. PlayStation added by Boris Vidal.

Additional contributors: JRK, Sciere, CaesarZX, Patrick Bregger.

Game added December 17, 1999. Last modified March 15, 2024.