Shadows Heretic Kingdoms

[Renegen]

So, I've been trying out this diablo clone, it's pretty good. Nice pretty graphics, every line of dialog is voiced, some convoluted story, no bugs and a really cool gameplay gimmick that totally makes the game. The game doesn't have the loot whoring of other hack and slash RPGs, there's no multiplayer, you don't level as fast as other games, it doesn't have the monster diversity but what it has instead is the "party" system where you get to control on the fly any of 9 characters.

You play as a demon initially, summoned by some human that doesn't like you, the story really gets into it if you care, the world building is really strong. But this demon, he's a devourer of souls and the souls you capture are other characters you get to play, there are around 10 of them and you can bring 3 into battle besides yourself. This means that at any time you feel like it, you can use your melee demon, your mage, or a wolf berserker, or a trap laying archer, whatever you feel like playing.

Whereas most other diablo clones focus on having the best characters ever with the most customization, the depth comes in using the right character at the right time. And the fun comes out of always killing monsters a little bit different each time, it's a really nice twist on the genre that instead of going for everything to the max it's just about the joys of killing stuff, exploring and advancing the story. Oh and there's C&C. Highly Recommended.

 

[laclongquan]

More pics.

Specifically, more nekkid female pics if possible.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

This must have the best combat ever ,as I understand you there is no decent skill and item customization.And that UI copy lol

 

[Murk]

Man, I'm on the fence about this. On the one hand, it's the sequel to Kult. On the other hand, it looks like a generic diablo clone.

I guess I'll check out some gameplay vids and see whats up. Kult had shit combat, but novel systems and really great setting and background info/lore.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Some bad guy using his servants? Smell like Wizardry4...

Actually I might try it. But before it reach acceptable price (with enchantment of -75%) I already lost interest with it.
Van Hellsign1 was ok, looking for VH2 (they started selling Complete Edition recently) and might grab that one soon. Good to hear old devs remade thieir game and made new one and it doesn't suck.

 

[Renegen]

This must have the best combat ever ,as I understand you there is no decent skill and item customization.And that UI copy lol

Each character has 12 item slots, so there's that. It's just that the pace of everything is slower, after playing for 5 hours at least, half the item slots are still empty for me. And there is some skill customization, each skill has 2 upgrade paths you can invest in. Oh and new characters get unlocked all the time, so in terms of raw skills, there is a great selection, 40-50 skills basically. It's more about having 20 skills at anytime (4 characters) to tackle your enemies, and if you ever get bored you can switch to another character no matter how sub optimal.

For example, one character is this huge extremely slow 4 legged golem. His first skill is he pounds the ground and does aoe damage. You can upgrade the skill to also stun, then you can bash them. Since he's melee, he will also kill much faster, but he does get kited. His second skill is a rocket punch, you could focus that if you want, with enough specialization it practically 1 shots enemies. If you get bored or he starts to fall low health, you switch to your archer for the next kill, he has bonus gold generation, moves 2x faster and has a kiting playstyle.

The combat does feel good, this isn't cutesey Torchlight, there's weight to every swing you take. Part of the fun for me is that characters all feel balanced. This game isn't about finding that 1 aoe skill that's broken and rushing 20 points into it, each character has clear weaknesses and it's up to you to patch them up. Skills also do % damage, kinda like Diablo 3 I think, so their damage is never really unbalanced. It's more about choosing whether you want your walking golem to be a nuker with his rocket punch, or a super tank that does passive bleed damage when he gets hit, or someone that permastuns with his smash and mauls people to death. All these focuses are viable, but at the end you're still a slow lumbering golem.

 

[Grimwulf]

You play as a demon initially, summoned by some human that doesn't like you, the story really gets into it if you care, the world building is really strong. But this demon, he's a devourer of souls

Are you saying I get to play as

Spoiler

The Old One?

So the gameplay is based on using the right char in the right situation, and doing it "on the fly"? Kinda like top-down Jericho? Or is it more like faceroll-ish Diablo-clone, where your only mental efforts go for charbuild and using some abilities from time to time? Be honest here.
inb4: go find yourself, lazy ass.

 

[Renegen]

Well I "finished" the game, it turns out the game is in episodic form without ever explicitly saying it. I was wondering how the production values could be so high. The game ends with the completion of Chapter 3 and you get sent in a portal, your journal still has quests in it that can't be completed in this episode! I was lvl 16, probably took 15 hours to play? Maybe a bit more. The last few skills actually take lvl 20 to acquire, so it's best to just wait for the next episode, the game has a very engaging story and everything as mentioned.

The game doesn't hold your hand, some of the puzzles were somewhat hard, and you'll encounter them quite often in important areas. There's also a ton of side-quests and some are easy while others are not. Exploring as mentioned is a plus, the game has 3 main locales for the 3 chapters, desert, badlands and forest. A few of the monsters were also hard as balls, one of them in particular forced me to go in shadow world and then do a few things there then jump back into the normal world, and none of that was hinted to me and you could always just ignore that but it takes longer to kill them. The combat isn't really super hard but I died a few times on normal difficulty.

The characters available in this "episode" are:
Devourer, melee shadow dude
Fire magic girl
Fast goblin archer
Melee zombie golem
Wolf Berserker
Lightning lizard mage
Wood Elemental
Barbarian (didn't play)
Human archer (didn't play)
Wasp (didn't play)

It all makes sense why the game was so good, it's short. The website is misleading too because it leads you to believe there's more content. Wait for the full pack whenever that comes but it's good shit.

 

[Terpsichore]

I'm trying to play this but the huge fps drops near some light sources (like torches) are aggravating me, are there some recommended ini tweaks or something?

 

[Blaine]

>Diablo clone
>no loot whoring
>slow leveling
>poor monster diversity

u fukkin wot m8

 

[abnaxus]

The characters available in this "episode" are:
Devourer, melee shadow dude
Fire magic girl
Fast goblin archer
Melee zombie golem
Wolf Berserker
Lightning lizard mage
Wood Elemental
Barbarian (didn't play)
Human archer (didn't play)
Wasp (didn't play)

Isn't Carissa Cantrecht (character from first game) playable too? Or is she the zombie golem?

 

[Renegen]

She's there for like 5 minutes.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Sounds good.... but you say its short, eh? :/

 

[Raghar]

Well I really don't know why someone deleted previous tread. I just posted a link on piratebay where these robbers had 20/100 discount. Because it has been deleted you might want to look at Bucaneer bay for free. Or not as you'd see in next few paragraphs.

I was really excited when I seen they created another game following the Heretic kingdoms. If you didn't see it. It was nice game that took rather unorthodox combat and gaming system and tried to be mix between something that allowed text conversation like Divine Divinity, and D2. Enemies for XP were really tight, textual conversations were not stupid, and only things that bit dragged it down was timing in combat, and the fun with spawning point in the first city, where reentering the map could get you in the middle of combat, and camping point was on the other hand of the city.

Well the great news is they repaired timing, thus the combat doesn't feel like stab stab stab stab stab, when you have high weapon speed and dexterity, now you could be even tactical, or not.

Well, the begining starts like Lufia. No problem with that, just the character should say more at the end of prologue. Also the initial tutorial looks shit.
Then we have chapter 1, or normal gameplay, and while the concept is very nice, there is a lot of to be desired. Like proper talking, mention of possibility of mending of active character (Do you remember that spacebar, do you think main character would forget about this ability?) Yet I didn't see it mentioned anywhere. (Thus I finished early stage in hard mode.)
However, it also rises some interesting questions. Like why some important facts are not even mentioned in dialogue?

Then there is a small problem. Healing herbs. In previous game, it had interesting system of possibility of partial patching up of main character. That has been replaced by world of warcraft like using healing herbs and getting continuous regeneration for a while. The small problem is, certain type of mechanic can make these healing herbs, which are insanely expensive anyway, nearly irrelevant.

And what about item hunting to get a new incredible skill, then setting proper set of skills in camp? Well the interesting skill system has been replaced by much more common system of skills that require minimal level, and can be used without prerequisite. They do have two expansions you can select to improve them, however. Most of them.

So considering some design decisions made it really really easy, developers must do something to compensate for it. Spiders. A lot and a lot of spiders. While they would normally deplete all healing herbs fast, if you survive them, they also refill alternative form of healing fast, if you can kill them fast.

Then there is of course problem of crashing. I guess after few patches, I'd look at it further. Meanwhile you can ask me questions about the previous game.

 

[Markman]

Just finished the first chapter and I kinda like it. Picked the archer as the first soul to feed upon and his first two skills are AoE slow and stun nukes that makes it a bit easy to kite. Only trouble I had was at the last chapter puzzle where the pathfinding was my biggest enemy. Made me waste almost my souls.

I like the twist with the devourer feeding on other heroes to fight for him and it bring more variation to usual stale powergaming type of play. Dont see it as a grind game like Diablo, its more of a story focused action romp with changing tactics/heroes on the fly till you finish the said story. Worth a playthrough or two, not a grind game where you spend several hundred hours derping in same levels for dps+1 item like Blizzardtards love to do.

 

[Lios]

Never played Kult.
Cause I wasn't aware that it exists, plus I tried running it once and Cthulhu graphics attacked the screen.
There was nothing I could do so I murdered it.

So I started Shadows a month ago without expectations and finished it today.
Production values are high indeed. Nice art style too, in a generic way of perception anyway.
Gameplay is valid, the gimmick with the team/puppets gets the whole thing rolling for sure.
I murdered the universe with a scottish muscleman, a dogman monarch and a midget with a bow and traps.
Plus the Devourer of course, what a guy.

I expected a sterile diablo 2 clone but I was positively surprised.
No endless xp farming and looting, which was nice.
Some neat little puzzles here and there for the flavor.
Alchemy was kinda pointless. Some puzzles were more rage inducing than fun and the guilty party for this must be sodomized as exemplification (I'm looking at you Trial of doubt).
Conversations were ok and don't need to be anything more.

I didn't know that it was only part 1 of a trilogy or whatever, and the production values are high indeed
so I kept wondering about the producer's mecenates and their hidden agendas
The ending was kinda rushed if not underwhelming
all in all maybe i'll buy it when a complete edition comes out
which means that i'll have to wait 5 years more or less since GamesFarm fights the good fight against the forces of darkness in the courts
but it's ok.
it's a good game but play it only if you can cook your own steak

 

[pippin]

The original Kult had compatibility issues with a number of graphics cards, and IIRC the GoG version had them as well. I don't know if there's a fix for that.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

it says 'book 1 - devourer of souls' at the end of every video on the steam page

 

[abnaxus]

Book 2 might never come out because of ShitComposter's insolvency.

Deep Silver will probably pick it up though.