Darkstone Opinions please

I have been trying to find out more about this rpg which looks ok on youtube.
The reviews i have seen claim that it is a Diablo clone, but i have never played Diablo.
Ayone played this game and have some opinions on it ?

It is a decent game, pretty good, but the graphics feel worse to me than those 2D isometric games ... early 3D attempts really suffer badly. Get by that and it it pretty decent.

It's a fun action rpg that is actually pretty challenging---but Mike hits the nail on the head about the graphics--they are pretty primitive. I still found it to be an enjoyable game, but never beat it--the gameplay is much more serious than the comical pointy-toed avatars might lead you to think.

DoddTheSlayer said:

The reviews i have seen claim that it is a Diablo clone, but i have never played Diablo.

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"Diablo clone" means that the game's main feature is real-time combat with a seemingly endless flow of enemies. The focus is on action, you are sometimes surrounded by 10 critters, whom you spectacularly finish off one after the other.

Darkstone was part of the first wave of Diablo clones (Darkstone, Hexplore and especially Nox - one of my favourite games). They were largely understimated because everybody was waiting for Diablo 2, which came out just a couple of months later.

The current high profile Diablo clone is Sacred 2.

I was about to say that I remember liking it, but then I realized I was thinking of Revenant. But I will say this: If you haven't played Diablo II, then play Diablo II. No other game in the genre has even come close to the heights of awesomely complex, randomly generated hack-n-slash that D2 offers. I'm worried D3 won't be able to match said heights, let alone exceed them. But since D3 probably isn't coming out until 2015, I don't worry so much. Maybe the world won't even be around anymore by then.

I found Diablo 2 rather boring. I'm a pure SP type though.

Ditto all the comments above. I had fun with it back in the day but it's primitive by modern standards. Nox stands up better (awesome game!) and Sacred, Div Div, Titan Quest, Sacred 2 all do it better.

If you decide to give Darkstone a try, then make sure to pay the girl in town to sing for you

How is Hexplore? I've played everything else mentioned - and Nox is my definite fave, but am always willing to give something new a try ...

No idea, I have it but I never tried it. It was supposed to be primarily a coop MP game I think ?!

Gorath said:

No idea, I have it but I never tried it. It was supposed to be primarily a coop MP game I think ?!

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Hehe ... well, it is on the way from Goozex so I will find out first hand in the next couple of weeks ... looks like a great game for a netbook install!

DoddTheSlayer said:

I have been trying to find out more about this rpg which looks ok on youtube.
The reviews i have seen claim that it is a Diablo clone, but i have never played Diablo.
Ayone played this game and have some opinions on it ?

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I have a boxed copy of the game; picked it up back in 1999 when it was released. It's a decent fun game for an action rpg. As Magerette mentioned it's challenging especially the end. I do agree with the comments by Drhuin and Txa1265 though.

Edited to add: Darkstone Info, patches, & Utilities

You will want to be sure and pick up the Patch; either v1.04 to v1.0.5b-us or v1.0.5 to v1.05b-us dependent on what your CD version is.

There is an Official Quest Editor for the game along with an Html Tutorial.

The game runs under win95/98 and Win2000. If I'm not mistaken I believe I had it running under Win XP Pro as well.

Each time you start a game everything is randomly generated.
From the Manual:

The Adventure Contimues After Clicking "End"
In a game of DARKSTONE there are 7 quests to complete, with 21 different scenarios for for each of these quests. When you start a new game 7 the quests chosen by the program will be different from those in the previous game.

Each time too, a new environment is generated. The lands and mazes change topology from one game to the next. The monsters, weapons and traps don't appear in the same places.

In other words, there are new adventures all the time in Darkstone, and never two the same. This ensures that you continue to gain the same enjoyment out of playing Darkstone, even after several games.

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Clipped From VaultNetwork interview as found in Reuben Kee's walkthrough:

There are 22 scenario-led quests in total. Each time you start a new game, you will evolve inside eight of them, which are chosen randomly. This ensures that every time you replay the game, the quests are different, the placement of the enemies and objects are different and this leads to great replayability and longevity ... Items are important in the game as there are 20 secondary quests in the game which entail you finding special items. These items are richly rewarded and offer the player the chance to be able to afford the serious weapons, armor and spells.

The game contains 31 levels of dungeon, arranged into seven 4-level chunks and one 3-level endgame chunk. Technically, it's all one dungeon, as the levels are sequentially numbered and each chunk is tougher than the last, but they're not connected. So you'll have to explore more of the outdoor region if you want to find the next dungeon entrance ... Both the main-path and the incidental quests are randomized..."

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In single player mode you can control either a single character or two characters with the second one controlled by the AI. You have a choice of 8 Classes. Be warned that your characters age during the game but there are ways to reduce this effect. There are also some puzzle aspects to a few of the quests.

You can get a Demo of the game here: Darkstone Review & Demo

If you cannot seem to get to the download page try here: Darkstone Demo

If you want to read specific details and particulars about the game before purchasing it you might try doing a google search for "replacement docs".

Ubbax
"We don't stop playing because we grow old...
We grow old because we stop playing." -George Bernard Shaw

Ok thanks for the responses. I will look at the other clones also.

If you're going clone exploring, it's Titan Quest plus the Immortal Throne expansion FTW. It's running cheap atm also-- probably the best place to start exploring the genre since it does everything well and it's the most modern--well, other than Sacred 2, which just came out like minutes ago. (Disclaimer: these are all hack and slashes--combat and grind, leveling and loot--not rpgs per se.)

I pretty much agree with everyone here. I think they still have some skins you can download to customize your characters with. They had competitions back when the website was active for who could make the best skins. This was before I knew anything about skinning or mods and I thought it was pretty cool feature.

When I played the demo, the coolest thing was giving money to the bard in the middle of town. After that I had to get this game. It was a little silly and the song wasn't that great but I had never seen a game try that before. Sacred 2 also did a little music video in their game, reminded me of Darkstone, but with more metal

magerette said:

If you're going clone exploring, it's Titan Quest plus the Immortal Throne expansion FTW.

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Those are rather recent ... there were 'Diablo clones', then Sacred as the first round of 'Diable II clones', and then TQ and that generation of 'post clones'.

Clone Wars ?

I honestly disliked Darkstone. I hated the fact that the quests you got were completely random. Sounds ok, but it was a pain since in the initial release there was a couple that were insanely hard and one in particular that was bugged and could be a game breaker.

I really hated the voice acting. I will never forget the opening cinematic in all it's cheesy glory....."Drak is back........"

"If you're going clone exploring, it's Titan Quest plus the Immortal Throne expansion FTW."

I looked at Titan Quest on You Tube and it was pretty hectic. Has some good music to play when you visit the official site.

I was addicted to TQ for over a year--seriously --so I'm not the best impartial source, but I still say if you haven't played Diablo or any of the Diablo clones, it's a good place to start--either that, or Divine Divinity, which is a lot more rpg-ish--but you probably have already played that one Dodd. If not, that would be an excellent beginning.

@Mike--yeah, I guess TQ is a "next-gen' Diablo clone.