Throne of Darkness

                      Reviewed by Alex

When I got this game, I was not to sure what to expect but I gave
it the benefit of the doubt.  Which - for once- turned out to be a
good idea.

As I later found out, ToD was created by a company started by 2
people who worked on Diablo II but left.  And that shows, from the
moment you start the game it reeks of Diablo but to say it's a
clone would not give the game the credit it should get.

Graphically the game looks very much like Diablo, you have the
isometric top view, the character info and inventory that looks a
lot like what know from Diablo.  The game is set in
Japanese/Chinese surroundings, which look extremely well done.

The biggest difference however with Diablo, and also the reason it
is not a Diablo clone, is that instead of doing it all alone you
have a party.  You start the game with 2 and after the first
castle you will eventually have 7 characters, each its own class:
Brick, Berserker, Ninja, Archer, Leader, Swordsman and Wizard.  At
any given time you can only have 4 in your "on screen party", so 3
are always camped at your Daimyo, who is your ruler and for who
you are trying to destroy the evil in the land.

@~In case anyone else, like me, wondered what a 'brick' was, Alex
@~sent this explanataion from the manual : 'The strongest of all
@~the seven Samurai, the Brick is said to have the strength of a
@~demon. With the coming of the Dark Warlord, Zanshin, he will have
@~the chance to prove this: a few swift blows from his tetsubo or
@~iron cudgel are enough to smash even the largest of boulders into
@~the sand.' ... Sue

With a simple click of a button you can transport party members to
the Daimyo, who is in the holy room of your castle, where they can
heal, get mana back and even be resurrected.  While some of them
are healing up you transport those ready back into your party.  As

long as there is one person alive in your party you're in
business.

All characters can use some sort of magic, although as one would
expect, the Wizard is the best caster of the group.  All can use a
bow, but the archer is the best one. this goes for all weapons and
classes, they all can use any weapon (as long as you meet the
stats) but each class excels at what it's best in.

A big difference to most games is how experience points are
shared, a kill will not give the 4 party members each a share,
instead the more damage you do the more exp you get.  This means
that all members need to do their job or you will soon see some of
them drop behind, and you don't want that since a well balanced
party of almost the same level is your only way to success.

In my case this meant that for the first 15 levels the wizard was
always lagging behind but once he got enough mana and powerful
spells he often was the one leveling first.

Unlike the Wizards, that archer had no problems leveling, with his
bow he did so much damage and unlike the fighters he did not get
much damage back it meant he would be almost full time in the
party while the fighters would keep swapping between the Daimyo
and the party.

The idea behind this is really great, the executing of it (having
a party instead of soloing) has been executed very well, a few
things irritate like not having a place for all the gold pieces
but each character holding what they picked up but besides little
things like that it is all done very well.

On of the coolest things about this game however is the
blacksmith. As you kill monsters you pick up items, either
weapons, armor or specific magical items like tooth or diamonds or
horns chopped off the monster.

Now the weapons and armor you can't use or are too low you give to
your blacksmith, give him enough and he can create new items for

you.  Many of the items either created or picked up have slots in
them.

Now say you have a character who is very affected by lightning and
you got a horn from a monster and that horn affects lightning.
Take a piece of armor that has a spare slot from your character
and give it to the blacksmith. Then give him the horn and he will
combine the 2 items giving you a piece of armor that has say 33%
resistance to lightning.  This way you can make your own
customized armor or weapons, want a bow with a fire effect..find
an fire effect item and let the blacksmith combine them.

Of course items can also break and of course the blacksmith can
fix them, how much it will cost you in money and time depends of
course on the item in question, and how much you tweaked it.

Like Diablo there is a quest system/board where you can see the
quests you're on and how far you completed them, again this looks
very much like Diablo.

Gain a level and you can give skill points to your skills in
exactly the same way as Diablo.

From what I have played so far of the game I must say it is very
refreshing after played Diablo.  I assume you can compare it to
Diablo online but since I never tried that I can't be too sure
about it.

I am about to raid the third castle, not sure how far in the game
I am yet, but so far I have had a lot of fun, having forgotten to
save game for a few levels is a clear enough sign that I am
enjoying myself.  So if you like Diablo but want a bit more then
this is the game for you, if you thought Diablo was no fun then
this game might just have that little extra that will make it fun.

Minimum Requirements:
Hard Disc Space Required: 700 Mb
Recommended swap space for gameplay: 40 Mb


Minimum Specs:
266Mhz CPU - 32MB RAM

Suggested Specs:
400Mhz CPU - 64MB RAM

**REQUIRED** Peripherals:
4X CD-ROM drive
DirectSound-Compatible Sound Card

Supported Operating Systems:
Win95B
Win98
Win2K
WinNT Service Pack 4.0
WinME

Supported Video Cards:
8MB DirectX-Compatible Video Card
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