I just completed
Nethergate: Resurrection from the Celts side. This was a fun little game, my first for this Easter school holiday period. It was shorter than say
Avernum: Escape from the Pit (119 hours for me) and
Avadon (79 hours) but was still a healthy time sink at 45 hours. Given the story can be experienced from the Roman side as well, this is a lot of content packed into an old-school turn-based, party based game.
Whilst I was attracted to the initial premise of "Roman vs Celtic" cultures in a much more realistic setting compared to my previous Spiderweb experiences, the game didn't quite deliver on this in the manner I'd originally imagined. There's a lot of exploration of the "sidhe" (faery) culture as well as many other familiar Spiderweb elements to make someone who has played any of Jeff's games before quite comfortable.
The game is quite cleverly written, full of Jeff's lively prose and quippy dry humour. I was very happy that the game offered a choice of companions to join the base created group of 4. I ended up finishing with Brigid in the party with a fairly standard group of 4. Two melee specialists (Swords/Spear) and two druids. I didn't end up with all of the spells, but I really enjoyed building the druids in this game. Serpent's Coil (slow) was instrumental to win some of the harder fights. Deviously, I appreciate that there are wands designed to hurt the party as well as assist (If you use Wands of Carrunos on enemies, it merely makes them stronger…)
There were also several riddles; one mathematical and another anagrammatic which I liked.
The dungeons in Annwn (Halls of the Dead and Battlefield) were especially well designed and challenging, full of interesting moments. I had to do this entire section without the "create food" spell actually which was a constant drain on spell power and energy potions. There's even a miniature Pre-Witcher3 "Wild Hunt" survival quest where the player is beset by a large pursuing group of wolves, which was great fun to play and experiment with.
One curious fact is that in quasi Might & Magic VI fashion, many of the fights in the final section are slightly trivialised by the player being given access to powerful range weapons - the crystal wand. The last battle wasn't quite as epic as from my previous Spiderweb games.
Another potentially negative factor overall was probably the interface - it is quite clunky and even after adjusting to it, the pause and delay would likely frustrate many players with the chunky movement style. Still, any keyboard and mouse player can easily make the adjustments. I liked that the player could use real-time combat as well to mop up mobs and weaker monsters to quicken the action.
One final little tid-bit: The existence of the talking skull was most amusing too given its coincidental close proximity in terms of release to Morte from Planescape Torment (1998 to December 1999 respectively)
Anyway, I'm happy to have played this one! I like its structure and will replay from the Romans perspective one day. Once again, kudos to Dhruin for his review that reminded me I needed to play it.
Pros:
Turn based, party based goodness. (can use real-time/wait command strategically)
Big open world to explore (so many small details and content to discover)
Signature Avernum like dungeons - lots to find!
Heaps of quests; many unusual and obscure. (I didn't do them all)
Additional companions (more than 4 characters possible)
Replayable from the other side…
Cons:
Slightly clunky, ancient UI.
Limited Sound (I use various background soundtracks in a playlist to compensate…)
I suspect I'll "reward" myself now by upgrading the graphics for my next game slightly by jumping into Tyranny.