Twinkle
Liturgist
On very rare occasions, immensely abysmal games have been reviewed: Postal2 by Robert Coffey, Mistmare by Jeff Green, and Dungeon Lords by Denice Cook, three games which "...form an unholy trinity of the only games in CGW history to receive zero-star reviews."
From Wikipedia.
Trannies and gentlemen, you may know my strange affinity for LPing crappy games no one else would touch. But I shoot for a much higher target still. It's not a piece of overrated mediocrity (Dragon Age). Not a "so bad it's funny" AAA trainwreck (Dragon Age 2). Not a "could've been cool if devs prioritized gameplay over graphics" (Nocturne). It's just really bad in every possible way. For some reason bad games about Inquisition recently saw a surge in popularity, even Bioware is making one. That's not to say that the game didn't have any potentially redeeming qualities. Released just a few months before infamous Interplay "classic" Lionheart it shared the same premise - an alternate history setting which divergent from "our" Middle Ages after a certain cataclysmic event. Let's explore the backstory a bit:
It is near the end of the second millenium. The old continent has been ravaged by 600 years of menace: a horrible fog, destroying the minds of anyone who dares to enter it, is covering most of what was once called Europe. The Fog has claimed the lives of millions and pushed the civilization to the southern lands of the continent. The Holy Roman Republic, the only surviving state in the southern part of the continent, has been unable to fight the Fog, although it has been practicing powerful and useful liturgical magic for hundreds of years. In the 13th century, the Church has been able to eliminate the plague epidemic using its then-powerful Link towers, a spell-casting mechanism connecting all majors European cathedrals, but has been since able only to create a volatile northern border, preventing the Fog to spread to its southern lands.
Today the Holy Roman Republic is isolated: to the north, the Fogs prohibits all passage. Anyone wandering into the Fog has never returned, their minds destroyed by the Fog. Towns that border the Fog are protected with harmonic tolling, a magical spell cast using magically crafted church bells. To the south and east, warring nations of Northern Africa and Middle East make trade and communication extremely difficult.
To the west, the Fog has spread to the seas and prevents sea travel. No ships that have sailed through the Straights of Gibraltar to the west have ever returned. The self-contained Holy Roman Republic, ruled by the Church, enjoys relative prosperity, although significantly underdeveloped compared to the rest of the world. The state lives in feudalism; the Church, using its armed forces and the Inquisition, a special brand of sorcerer monks, controls the lives of people. Simple folk endure and assure each other that one day, The Prophecy, foretold of old, shall come to pass and the continent will be saved. Periodically, peasant revolt to try and shake the iron rule, but all are crushed.
So, to summarize: the Western Civilization is endangered, stagnating and coming to the brink of collapse. The magical Fog (think Stephen King) covers the majority of the continent, spawns horrible monsters and drives people mad. Spellcasting is real and is actively employed by the Church. Americas were never discovered. The Church regulates every aspect of lives of normal people, crushing everyone who dares to oppose it with powers of both might and magic. Curiously, Islamic nations were never affected by the horrors of the Fog. Only their warlike nature prevents them from uniting and delivering the fatal blow to the Holy Roman Republic.
Typically for European action-rpgs you control one fixed protagonist. His name is Isador, a 18 years old monk. He has a somewhat special background:
The last peasant revolt against the Church occurred in the northeastern realms of Carniola in 1978. After the clash between the peasant force and the Church army, the peasant leaders retreated to the edge of the Fog. When the scouts reached their camp, they found no survivors - except for a raving old man and a crying baby. The Church soldiers delivered the baby boy to a local orphanage. The nuns of the orphanage named the baby Isador - after a local saints, renowned for his good deeds. At the age of 18, Isador leaves the orphanage. Driven by a stro9ng desire to serve God, which had saved him from the horrors of the Fog, he enrolls in he Church army corps.
At the beginning of the game he is tabula rasa, not proficient in anything. Through character development player can make him more physically or magically inclined, but regardless of your preferences he'll end up being some kind of a battlemage who utilizes both spells and weapons in combat.
Skills and stats are only raised by learning by use. Player can't assign anything manually. The are multiple possibilities of raising his abilities outside of combat (books, special shrines, trainers etc.) Several non-combat skills exist (lockpicking, disarming traps, lore, persuasion etc.)
In a fairly standard fashion for action-RPGs you have health and stamina bars. Stamina is drained both in melee combat and spellcasting. It regenerates fairly quickly but to fully recover it Isador has to sleep or gulp a potion.
Combat system is very simplistic offering little manual control and governed by character's abilities and weapon stats. The latter part is good, probably, but the only thing you do in melee is watching bad slowass animations. You can switch between defensive and offensive modes depending on how much stamina you have left, but that's the extent of it. Magic is more fun offering a good range of buffs and offensive spells which aren't just recolored magic missiles. The good thing is that there are multiple schools of combat (which differ in stamina requirements, chance to hit and damage output) *cough Geralt* covering pretty every weapon you find in the game and even unarmed combat. The said schools are taught by some NPCs or learned by fighting with enemies who utilize them. The bad thing is that they are mostly of a cosmetic difference and schools that offer a fast barrage of strikes that keeps enemy in stunlock are almost always preferable. For some weapons you can choose between one-handed and two-handed grips.
Overall structure of the game is pretty linear, there is not much optional content there to explore. You have several chapters each taking place in some city that acts as a quest hub and wandering through randomly generated monster-filled fog areas outside.
That ties with probably the most aggravating thing about the game - harsh time limit on pretty much everything you do. At certain events time becomes "locked" and you can't do anything except story-related quests, not even interacting with non-critical NPCs. I understand it was done to counter exploitable nature of learn by use character development but it simply doesn't work. See, the game doesn't let you to save manually (without workarounds at least), it autosaves on regular intervals and when you exit the game. Sounds not too bad, right? Except when you die you get an option to resurrect your character at the beginning of the chapter while keeping all your loot and accumulated skills intact. It tries to balance by scaling monsters to your "level", hurr. Yet if you die in one spot several times you can opt for lowering monster strength in the menu. So a demigod fighting wimps is just a matter of minutes of dedicated clicking.
Well, whatever. I'm done ranting, let's start with the game proper.
Intro basically retells background fluff taken from the manual.
It begins in the military camp.
An officer approaches our hero.
Them choices.
Let's test our mettle first and find the sarge.
He tells Isador about managing stamina in combat and the importance of being prepared since you are unable to fiddle with inventory once you are in combat mode. I have no weapons yet.
A basic set of armor and a few training weapons are stored in the chest nearby.
OK, I equip this junk.
Hoorah!
Izzy managed to score one successful hit, but soon is quickly overwhelmed by relentless sarge and his blocking skills are too sucky.
Notice that time of day has changed. It happens after every lost combat encounter. Well, I need to boost my ego and thus I offer a duel to one of the fellow soldiers.
He's only level one and is hardly any more dangerous than a target dummy. Honor restored.
Time to complete the test of knowledge.
Uh, hello.
The whole test is just a lore dump. You don't have to pick answers on your own: Izzy will do everything automatically.
I guess that confirms that Islam is the superior religion. 
I completed the mandatory part. Now I'm free to dick around the base. Let's pilfer some chests - friendly people here don't mind.
Isador managed to pick locks on the very first attempt but it took him many hours. A mechanical warrior helps to boost combat prowess.
Meditating at shrines can be very beneficial too.
In his inventory Izzy always carries Holy Bible and a pair of weights. They can be used to upgrade his spiritual and corporeal aspects respectively without any need to use shrines or trainers.
Note the small stamina bar in the lower right corner. Intensive training and fighting drain maximum stamina limit. The only sure way to restore it is sleeping. For that reason Izzy carries a sleeping bag on him.
Let's train some more.
Uh huh. Note the gray interaction icon in the upper left corner. It means that I triggered the dreaded time lock and must complete a story-related quest.
Call of Duty: Medieval Warfare? Count me in.
And... the screen just fades to black.
Such a missed opportunity to provide emotionally engaging directed experience. Shit devs, what can I say.
I UNLEASHED MY INNER DOVAHKIIN, SIR.
So this is the first (sorta) choice in the game. What should we do?
A) Magic is for fags. Let's stay in the camp and pump sum iron.
or
b) Let's learn how to FUS-ROH-DAH fuckers into oblivion and enroll Hogwarts the academy ASAP.
)
