Dark Messiah - Still brilliant

HiddenX

The Elder Spy
Staff Member
Original Sin Donor
Original Sin 2 Donor
Joined
October 18, 2006
Messages
19,813
Location
Germany
PC Gamer looks back at Dark Messiah of Might and Magic:

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is still a brilliant murder sim

The boot is as mighty as the sword in Arkane's splendid combat game.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic feels like it comes from Arkane’s adolescence. Dishonored and Prey are the more mature output of the same creative mind. Here is a fantasy action game with not a whole lot to say but an infectious enthusiasm for freewheeling violence. Intricate physics, AI and combat systems converge to create a world that is spectacularly lethal for everybody, except you. As adventuring wizard’s apprentice Sareth, you kick men and orcs with bone-shattering force into spike traps and off rope bridges. You combine directional movement and mouse swings to lop limbs with your sword just so. You emit fireballs from your palm and watch as enemies, stumbling over the flaming corpses of their comrades, catch fire too and flail and fall.

[...]
Thanks henriquejr!

More information.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
19,813
Location
Germany
Dark Messiah is brilliant - I've beaten it many times. Lots of hidden things to find BUT the combat is the showpiece here. Only play it on the hardest mode, battles are real intense. Scrounging for whatever is near to smash over your enemies face, kicking another into a trap and sword-fighting the third.. great stuff.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2007
Messages
211
I wouldn't call it brilliant, but it was fun. I remember it being very impressive from a visual standpoint at release. It was also a real beast to try to run at max settings.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,130
Location
Florida, US
I found it pretty seriously lacking in depth and real M&M focus ... but it was so much fun to blast stuff and kick things around!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
Strangely I was never able to finish it. I always enjoy it while playing but at some point stop feeling like starting it up.
 
Not a bad game, but not a M&M game either. But again...Ubi never understood the M&M universe, where alien blasters would mix with swords and magic.

Arkane was lucky enough to escape the fate of the many studios that were contracted by Ubi to work on the M&M (bankrupcy). Lucky enough to develop an interesting IP (that will go down the drain fast, now that they are owned by Bethesda).

I still want a proper M&M RPG, but as long Ubi owns the franchise, i doubt that we will see something decent anytime soon. Dark Messiah was a decent game, Heroes V was acceptable, M&M X: Legacy okayish, Heroes VI and VII were just horrendous, mostly because the technical problems and Ubi abandoning the support for them quite fast, leaving them in a bad state.

At least Dark Messiah came out in a pretty decent shape, with only 1 or 2 patches released later. Arkane was always decent on the tech side (well, the exception was Arx Fatalis, but they came a long way since then)
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2013
Messages
398
I love this game, played it a dozen times and I always enjoy it, just because it is fun without complications. And yes, too short.
 
Joined
Aug 18, 2011
Messages
111
I have heard good things about this game, and will have to try it sometime.
 
Joined
May 2, 2017
Messages
252
Back
Top Bottom