Demonicon - Review Roundup

Not decided yet if I want this game or not. So I didn't have a clue what E is and what it does. :)
 
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Ah well…
Maybe I should have put it in more detail.

E (on the keyboard) is used for ranged attack and by hitting any hostile with any weapon, melee or ranged, you regain so called ES. That ES functions like mana and is needed to cast spells. So the "strategy" I used most is to waste "mana" on stun then regain it back with ranged attack and to move away from enemies fast, you need to roll.

Of course, you can always go melee, but I used most of EP (generally speaking that's experience points you use to improve skills and attributes) on noncombat skills like fasttalk, perception, blacksmith and lockpicking. Because of that my melee damage, health and resistances are not really good for close combat. Not yet at least.

The question you might ask is why am I playing like that. The answer is that for every successful skillcheck, you get EP. Means, if you successfully use fasttalk, you get some EP. Harvesting plants gets you more EP. Disabling traps also grants you EP. Yes you get EP from combat too, but while you can't pick a flower without plant lore, you can enter any combat. ;)

The game is not some masterpiece and definetly has some bad design here and there.
What's good is that bugs are almost nonexisting and the game didn't crash on me yet. You know me and my nitpicking so I couldn't miss that you can walk through the stairs in refugee camp for example, but that's just a minor glitch of no importance.

What's utterly bad, and I don't think anyone will say it's not, is the savegame system. The game saves automatically on killing a boss, on story progression and on, thanks to the hint in this thread, area transition. Since you can force a save by area transition, it's not as annoying as it could have been.

Too bad they didn't make something epic like Drakensang was.
 
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Some good info there, thanks man! But you know what's a really good news? You might remember or not, but I haven't played Drakensang past the first town so I have all this epicness to look forward to! :sing:
 
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@joxer - thanks for the info. I have invested quite heavily in melee (clubs.maces...what can I say, I like to smack things, hard). So far I have had little trouble with most combats, although I am playing on normal. I didn't know ranged attacks gave you ES, so good to know.

Can you use potions in your inventory in combat? I know you can access up to 4 from your quick access menu, but are you allowed to access your inventory and does combat freeze?

I tend to use nova to clear space and then freeze dangerous people etc. I am actually enjoying it, I must say. As you say though, it is no Dreakensang. Still makes me sad that they're gone.
 
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Some good info there, thanks man! But you know what's a really good news? You might remember or not, but I haven't played Drakensang past the first town so I have all this epicness to look forward to! :sing:
OMG
Blasphemer!!!
Install it now! :D

booboo, to use pots you have to assign them to key combos first. And you got me - I never tried assigning pots to keys during the combat. :(
Just to say Nova is a must later in the game, freezes won't be enough. ;)
And later I went almost completely melee since, well, I've upped combat attributes a lot with many points gathered throughout the game so smashing got faster then evading and throwing whatnot chakram or something.

Finished the game, Steam says I needed 18 hours for that, odd, it felt longer. Anyways, I didn't skip any sidequest and explored a lot.

The game has 2 endings. Now I really didn't want to fight the last boss all over again because of no autosave after you enter the area where the boss is (not difficult, but lasts long).
For those who want to see both endings and cba to replay the last boss:
you need to install RADtools (IIRC were called in ancient era as bink and smacker):
http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

You'll find all game vids in Steam's install folder, in my case it was:
D:\SteamGames\SteamApps\common\demonicon\data\video

Ending videos are named as "outro_xy".
 
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So an utterly average game...but possibly bug free if you take what certain posters say. Is it worth it or wait for a giant sale?
 
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The game has 2 endings....

I remember in one of the interviews or in the Kalypso forum, it was mentioned that there are 5 different endings! That does not seem to be the case.

Joxer, do the choices you make in the game have visible or rippled effect through the game?
 
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So an utterly average game…but possibly bug free if you take what certain posters say. Is it worth it or wait for a giant sale?
I would say wait for a Steam sale. It's just another average RPG to pass the time till better ones come out next year.:'(

I remember in one of the interviews or in the Kalypso forum, it was mentioned that there are 5 different endings! That does not seem to be the case.

Joxer, do the choices you make in the game have visible or rippled effect through the game?
Well joxer is right there are only two endings as for choices all that happens is certain characters say different things. They will either like you are hate you.

The game itself doesn't change much.
 
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So an utterly average game…but possibly bug free if you take what certain posters say. Is it worth it or wait for a giant sale?
That needs to be mentioned, yes. I've played for 8 hours or so and haven't noticed any serious bugs. I'm actually just remembering 2: missing quest marker for a certain side quest; wrong voice output in one sentence in a dialog

If you like TDE and don't dislike ARPGs, buy it now. Otherwise wait for a sale.
 
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Yeah, but actually it's not a big deal in the game (so far). The plot takes place after Rhazzazors defeat and after Ayla von Schattengrund liberated Warunk.

Oh. I've read about her liberation of Warunk in the "Aventurischer Bote".
 
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Alrik buy the game!

I remember in one of the interviews or in the Kalypso forum, it was mentioned that there are 5 different endings! That does not seem to be the case.

Joxer, do the choices you make in the game have visible or rippled effect through the game?

It's like main character has 0 or 1 end and some (irrelevant) others are 00, 01, 10 or 11 but actually won't affect your her's fate.

And sadly, your choices won't have any major impact, for example you may spare a villain but nothing really significant happens later apart from a few textlines nor you meet him/her. It's not on the level of TW2 where the game depending on your choice takes a completely different course. Not saying every game should be TW2, but would be nice to know what happened later with someone you've decided not to kill.

8.5 from the initial post is far too generous, I'd give it somewhere between 6-7 since it's fun, has almost no bugs, enemy spawns are not endless and the story might seem cliche but is not boring or annoying. Cons are already numbered in the thread, but I'll add lack of more different locations, inability to choose at least hero's gender if not also his/her class, and very easy (no challenge at all) puzzles.
 
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I've pushed on despite the saving woes (I'm sure this is what the dev's predicted. "Where else are starved PC RPG fans gonna go? They'll take what we have regardless!").

Guess it's not bad. Kind of fun. Still enjoy agonizing over where to put my APs.

The save issue stills sucks. However, if you simply follow the main quests, you'll see that it auto-saves frequently between quest stages. And again, it saves if you change map areas (the loading screen has to show — so this doesn't include switching between outdoor and indoor/underground areas on the same map).
 
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Haha, ok… one thing needs to be told.

I'm in chapter 2 right now, which starts in a swamp. On some spots there are plants on the ground which act as traps. You can locate them when you have the skill and you get some poison (?) damage when you go near them. So far, so good… BUT: There's always a mechanical lever (MECHANICAL LEVER!) nearby where you can disarm the plants (DISARM PLANTS!) if your skill is good enough.

That's weird.
 
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Haha, ok… one thing needs to be told.

I'm in chapter 2 right now, which starts in a swamp. On some spots there are plants on the ground which act as traps. You can locate them when you have the skill and you get some poison (?) damage when you go near them. So far, so good… BUT: There's always a mechanical lever (MECHANICAL LEVER!) nearby where you can disarm the plants (DISARM PLANTS!) if your skill is good enough.

That's weird.

No, that's lazy developers and an insult to the player.
 
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Is it an actual lever that's supposed to be part of the game world, or just a lever icon that's signifying that you can use your disarm skill? (Not that it makes sense for a disarm traps skill to apply to poisonous plants, regardless...) Sounds hilarious, a screenshot would be interesting.
 
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Is it an actual lever that's supposed to be part of the game world, or just a lever icon that's signifying that you can use your disarm skill?
It's an actual lever.
I'll post a screenshot if I can go to this place again.

Edit: couldn't go back, sorry.
 
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That's weird. I have never heard of any mechanic allowing such a thing in Aventuria.
 
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It has nothing to do with mechanics Alrik and everything to do with (I'm feeling more generous than SpoonFULL :)) budget constrains.
 
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