Throne of Darkness

                  Reviewed by Nick Edmunds

Godzilla may have been the biggest thing to come out of Japan, but
Toshiro Mifune had more screen presence in his little finger.
Under the direction of Akira Kurasawa he personified the
archetypal image of the samurai that we have become familiar with
and films like The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress and Yojimbo
still influence much of what we see on the big screen today.  So
when a game comes along proclaiming itself as being "Seven Samurai
against evil" who could resist?

In the ancient land of Yamato, the ageing warlord, in his desire
to live forever, has relinquished his soul to the demon Zanshin.
Zanshin has unleashed his horde of monsters and undead warriors
drenching the land in the blood of your people.  The seven samurai
in your party are Yamato's only hope and must destroy Zanshin
before his darkness becomes complete.

The first task set by the Daimyo is to find and eliminate the
general of the force invading your citadel while gathering your
team of warriors and slaughtering hordes of the Dark Warlord's
minions as you go.  And there really are hordes of them; it would
appear that everyone who ever died in Japan has resurfaced and got
it in for you.  Enemies come so thick and fast that conventional
weapons alone are little use and you need to utilise magic or be
overwhelmed by sheer numbers.  Similarly a range of tactical
formations is available to your squad but they are such numpties
as to require constant babysitting.  Not because the enemy are any
cleverer than your blokes, their A.I. is simplistic to say the
least, but this isn't really a strategy game as you're fighting
numbers not intelligence.  As such there are no real puzzles other
than the constant collection of equipment and character attributes
in order to stand a chance with the masses of increasingly tough
monsters culminating in a boss every few levels.

Further levels stick rigidly to this theme and your team hack and
cast their way through traditional scenery with souped up
traditional weapons and spells.  The unrelenting carnage soon
begins to take its toll as equipment degrades with use and
monsters become harder and more numerous as you go along.  Thus a
visit to the Priests and Blacksmiths is often necessary for
healing and equipment repair.  This is where the teleport
technology comes in handy as you have constant access to any other
teleporter once encountered.

I also found the sub-title a little misleading, for while there
are indeed seven samurai, you only get to have four of them in
your squad at a time.  The remainder of the group sits around with
the Daimyo having a nice cuppa until you need them.  Fortunately
the ancient Japanese have something which the Star Trek Federation
have yet to master, a reliable teleporter.  So when you do need to
adjust your team you simply beam an injured party member back to
the sanctuary where the Daimyo will recuperate and even resurrect
them while you beam a fresh guy back.

Previously Japanese flavoured games have consisted mostly of Beat
'em Ups or followed the recent vogue for medieval strategy games.
However, Throne of Darkness (distributed by Sierra), is of the
genre referred to as an action RPG.  This style of game tends to
lack the substance of a true RPG, but makes up for this with body
count.  The action/RPG model pioneered by Diablo (Diablo II was
practically identical and reviewed Syntax issue 76) is given a
twist in ToD through it's adoption of Japanese mythology and I
believe Throne of Darkness to be the first game to utilise
Japanese historical dramas in this fashion.  Although the game
itself isn't exactly a new direction, as it has pretty much the
same storyline and control interface as the Diablo games just set
in a specific country.  While the control interface is simple
enough; left click, move/attack, and right click cast spell, this
one is complicated by its multi-character approach.

This review could easily have been one sentence; "Diablo with a
few mates in Japan", but it's not quite that simple.  For some
unfathomable reason I really enjoyed the Diablo series; they
managed to be addictive with little in the way of plot elements,
puzzles or quests.  Many others must have agreed with me on that
one because Diablo 2 was one of the fastest selling games ever.  I
also dig the Japanese feudal mythology setting, but while ToD
combines the two it just doesn't gel.  San Francisco-based
developer Click Entertainment made the decision to take a classic
game and give it a fashionable tweak - genius.  A plan with only
one small flaw: it didn't work.  ToD is a disappointment because
it's missing a hook to hold it together.














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