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Information Anvil of Dawn released on GOG

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Anvil of Dawn

The newest addition to GOG.com's catalogue is the 1995 first person real-time RPG Anvil of Dawn.

Anvil of Dawn, a classic DOS-era dungeon crawler with first-person perspective, sprite graphics, a vast and rich world to explore, and dozens of hours of great and motivating gameplay, is available on GOG.com for only $5.99

Every fantasy land needs a hero, it seems. There's always an evil entity of some sort that menaces the realm and its people. Surprisingly, the people never stand up to it. They prefer to wait for a group of adventurers, or even just one champion who knows the importance of wearing leg armor around archers. Inevitably someone comes to the rescue and saves the realm one spider-infested cellar at a time. Schematic as it may sound, we love to relive those adventures over and over again. Even if one dungeon looks pretty much the same as any other, you still get this rush of excitement when making your first steps on its dusty floor. It's not about originality of the concept. It's about the involving gameplay, that lets you forget about the world around you. Here's a perfect game to do just that!

Anvil of Dawn has everything you ever loved about 1990s role-playing games. It presents you with a large and diverse gameworld, full of monsters and enemies to slay, riches and powerful items to loot, quests to carry out, weapons to wield, spells to cast, and an evil overlord to challenge. It was praised for its great pacing allowing to keep the gamer entertained and intrigued, always presenting him with something new to do and achieve. The imaginative sprite-based graphics, solid gameplay mechanics, and many classic gameplay ideas make this title a shining example of well executed cRPG design that makes us call its period "the good old times". Highly recommended!​

Interestingly, Anvil of Dawn was designed by Thomas Holmes and Christopher Straka, the co-founders of Event Horizon who had been behind such games as Veil of Darkness, The Summoning, and DarkSpyre -- and yet Anvil of Dawn doesn't seem to be anywhere near as good as those titles. Or maybe it is? You can find out for just $5.99.
 
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RK47

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Has one of the most terrible combat ever.
I wouldn't recommend it.
Art wise, yes it's good, otherwise if you enjoy simplistic forward, attack, reverse...forward, attack, reverse. flow... OK.
I didn't last watching a Video LP of this, nor can I be bothered to play it.

At least Daggerfall was a sandbox.
 

Murk

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bags of stones. the game was built on the premise that real men have big balls, and so throughout the game the theme is made salient by having you collect big heavy stones and keep them in your sack.
 

the_dagon

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Has one of the most terrible combat ever.
I wouldn't recommend it.

I don't agree.

Same combat system as other old dungeon crawlers : Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, and the more recent Grimrock.
I think it's neither better, nor worse than the other ones...
 

RK47

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Yeah, dagon.
I've not played EoB extensively nor did I play DM, but LoL and AoD belongs in the same shit-list to me. Boring combat, peppered with some decent art and music.
Grimrock... I can't stand it after fighting the first skeleton warrior that takes 3 minute to kite and kill.
I understand if people are willing to tolerate this gameplay, but *I* don't.
*I* wouldn't recommend it.
 

Whisper

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Also, unlike Legend of Grimrock, in Anvil of dawn you do not need to kite a lot. Playing as mage it was more choosing right spells.

Since there are no "bosses" in Anvil of dawn, i didnt kite anyone in game as a mage, maximum was 1-2 steps back for few enemies.
 

Wyrmlord

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One of the big surprises in Anvil of Dawn was stepping on a pressure plate and finding a giant fist materialize out of the darkness and fly straight onto you.
 

RK47

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Also, unlike Legend of Grimrock, in Anvil of dawn you do not need to kite a lot. Playing as mage it was more choosing right spells.

Since there are no "bosses" in Anvil of dawn, i didnt kite anyone in game as a mage, maximum was 1-2 steps back for few enemies.

ok
anyway save ur money n just watch this guy play. Pretty good commentary n video quality.
 

groke

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Anvil of Dawn is a pretty little rpg-lite dungeon-crawler, I'm quite certain anyone who isn't massively autistic can enjoy it; it's definitively Good-For-What-It-Is. It's like Lands of Lore's younger ADD brother; LoL is a lot better at everything, though.

Whisper's a fuckn liar, though. You probably don't need to kite, but those horribly drawn-out movement and attack animations are practically begging for you to do so and any blobber-veteran does so instinctively anyway. I felt like I was making a mistake if I was being hit by the enemy at all.
 

Fowyr

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Good and enjoyable game. Just don't expect from it too much. Some dungeon crawling, a little of puzzles and some exploring.
 

Zed

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I honestly haven't played too much of the game in recent times, but the art is stellar.
 

Indranys

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The UI is nice and simple compared to similar games in its era, easy to use and navigate.
And I love the Ultima VII-esque inventory.
That's all I remember about this game after all these years.
 

Eyeball

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Actually, you should expect a SHITLOAD from it. True, the combat is largely a pile of back-and-forth wankery, but seriously, FUCK YOU! It's a lot better than Grimrock's and you Guys slobbered all over Grimrock's syphilitic knob. It also has a pretty good variety of spells, some of which are fairly hard to find, and the most fun in the game comes from playing a caster-heavy character (earth magic is recommended. Trust me on this.)

Stat system is really simple to the point of being night-nonexistent and character interaction is highly limited.

"But Eyeball," I hear you cry, "that sounds like crap. Why do you have such a hardon for this game?"

I will tell you in one Word: Atmosphere. Anvil of Dawn takes place in a war-torn formly peaceful land that has been ravaged by an evil warlord and his army and it gets the feeling of isolation and hopelessness completely right. Burnt Down villages, corrupted monasteries with mutant monks, vast cities whose Citizens have all been turned into murderous half-sentient piles of flesh, every dungeon is memorable, the music is spectacular in setting the tone and the game has some of the best art direction I can think of.

Anvil of Dawn is a true Jewel of old-school RPG crafting and video game storytelling and you'd be a fool to miss out on it.
 

Sceptic

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Great villain too, loved the little "friendly" chat you can have with him at the end.

And the comparison to LOL is bullshit. AOD has MUCH better puzzles and a better UI, more varied and interesting selections of spells (seriously, LOL's amounts to one healing spell and varying degrees of pure damage ones), actual weapon skills for each type of weapon, and lots of neat little touches in the game world, like the ones Eyeball described, but also you pick one of five PCs at the beginning, and then get to meet the others at various points throughout the game.

Also multiple endings.

It's not the most amazing game by any stretch, but it's very typical of Dreamforge (it's basically The Summoning in first person) and much better than Stonekeep, LOL, DM2 and the other shitty blobbers that were coming out at the time.
 

Lady_Error

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It's like Lands of Lore's younger ADD brother

Hmm, ADD and AD&D... a connection?

But seriously, I tried Anvil of Dawn a few months back and was not impressed. Despite the pretty graphics.
 

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