Darklands - I haven't played it but it's on my backlog because of this review:
This review is written through the lens not of someone who played Darklands back when it first came out and has loved it ever since, but indeed by a player who only first learned about it from GOG and has spent a very modest amount of time (roughly three hours so far) with it. Hopefully this will serve as an objective look at a game that deserves to be played, and will help decide anyone else who, like me, had never heard of it before. It always surprises and pleases me when a game pops up on GOG which I've never heard of, but which is right up my alley in all the right ways. Darklands is such a game; as a long-time fan of both CRPGs, pen-and-paper roleplaying games, and any game or story with a dark or unique setting, I was more than willing to drop six bucks to try something new. While the modest-sized installer package was downloading, I also downloaded the included manual (as usual a superb quality PDF scan of the original) to take a look and see what I was in for. Within moments it was clear that I was in for something unique. Unlike most fantasy CRPGs of the era, Darklands does not take place in some grandiloquently named fantasy continent, but rather in the 15th century of the Germany of our very own Earth. It's a dark and mystical Germany filled with magical beasts and heretical witches and alchemical magic, but it is Germany nonetheless. It is immediately apparent from both the manual and gameplay that great pains were taken to root the world of Darklands in history; the currency is a bafflingly archaic system of pfenniges and groschen and florins, and time is kept in three hour increments according to the prayer routines of the then-prolific churches and monasteries. The game is also sprinkled with German terms, for which a lexicon is included at the end of the manual. These touches, among many others, immediately help to set Darklands apart from other games. But I've dwelled on setting enough; let's get down to brass tacks. In traditional RPG fashion, you will begin your adventure by creating a party of four adventurers (unless you use the quick-start pregenerated characters, but... come on now). To my surprise and delight, I found that generating characters was not based on choosing a class and rolling a row of attribute scores, but rather by choosing your character's upbringing and history. You start with how they were raised (nobility, urban aristocracy, rural commoner, etcetera) and move on to choosing their careers. Career choices start at age fifteen, consume five years of your character's pre-adventure lifetime, and determine what skills they were exposed to and which can be improved with allotted experience points. You can stop after one career choice or continue on for more and more five-year increments, starting the character late in their life with considerably more experience and equipment, but also that much closer to retirement age (which, apparently, can be reached through the course of gameplay). So you've fleshed out your four adventurers and are ready to begin. You start your adventure for glory and virtue with a text-based backstory scene in a tavern of a randomly selected German city in which your characters swear fealty to one another. It's a nice little moment that gives the party a sense of humanity and kinship, and serves as as good a starting point as any. From here, gameplay seems to take place mostly in three different forms; text-based encounters, the world map, and combat encounters. The text-based encounters are perhaps my favorite part about the game. Whenever something happens that isn't combat, you are presented with a screen full of writing lain over a beautiful pixel-watercolor scene and a number of options that take into account your many options and the capabilities of your characters. These encounters are what, to me, make the game feel most like a true role-playing game; they're more detailed and encompassing than a simple dialogue tree, and immediately bring to mind an actual tabletop RPG, or one of those old 'Lone Wolf' choose your own adventure books. Success or failure is usually determined by the skill of your characters (the game will automatically choose whoever is best suited for whichever option you select to take charge; brute character prying open the bars, charming rogue smooth-talking the guards, and such like), and there is the option to hold the Shift key while mousing over an option to get a vague idea of your chances of success or failure in times of doubt. Without these encounters, the game would not be nearly the stand-out experience it is in my mind. Combat will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played Baldur's Gate or any similar CRPG; your characters act in real-time on an isometric battlefield, and you can hit the Space bar at any time to pause the battle and issue orders. It's worth noting that I've never been a fan of this system and have always preferred turn-based, if only because I'm terrible at BG-style combat. However, the game does a great job of giving you many tactical options, and is paced well enough that you'll seldom get lost in the fray. Your beloved characters are also fairly autonomous, and can usually be trusted to act intelligently (or at least not self-destructively) when they've carried out your orders and are left to their own devices. You may be wondering about the magic and fantasy elements of this deeply historical game; fear not, adventurer, for they are most certainly present, but not in the usual way. Magic is wielded by your characters in one of two ways; the brewing of alchemical potions, or prayer by the religiously inclined to the holy Saints (of which there are many). If you're hoping to sling fireballs helter-skelter and flash-fry kobolds with arcs of chain lightning, Darklands will disappoint you. Magic of either flavor is a slow, deliberate, and often expensive process. The saints and alchemical formulae must be studied or purchased throughout the world, and in the case of alchemy, potions must be produced with all of their various ingredients, which can become exorbitantly expensive. I have had little experience with either system myself thus far, but in theory, I love them both. They are nothing if not true to the theme that Darklands works so hard to establish, and they serve to enhance the game rather than dominate it. It must be said that this game is not for the faint of heart. Like many other older CRPGs, it will take a time commitment to learn this game, its language and its movements and its ins-and-outs. Healing your characters takes a long time, there are a good many terms to be learned, and money is not at all easy to come by, at least not in the early game. If you're like me, you might have to work to let yourself become engrossed by it. However, once it has you, Darklands leaves its mark and becomes a constant source of enjoyment, excitement and surprise. Dark, unique, realistic and rewarding, Darklands is an excellent and impressive game, and any CRPG fan will find their six dollars more than well spent.
