Tags: Crafty Studios; Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (Remake)
I bet you didn't see this coming but Darth Roxor has written a review of Crafty Studios' "HD" remake of Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny, the game that was infamously released in pre-alpha state and is being desperately patched up as we speak. Have a couple of snippets:
Read the full article (and weep): RPG Codex Review: Realms of Arkania HD
I bet you didn't see this coming but Darth Roxor has written a review of Crafty Studios' "HD" remake of Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny, the game that was infamously released in pre-alpha state and is being desperately patched up as we speak. Have a couple of snippets:
The dungeons? They have been horribly streamlined. Why would the developers redesign the dungeons instead of porting them 1:1 from the old game is beyond me, especially considering how much the new ones suck. They have considerably fewer traps and hazards (nearly to the point of not having them at all, but who needs those when the encounter rates are tripled!), they have been reshaped (the brigand dungeon under the Thorwal academy is a straight-up corridor, and I wish I was joking – it even has secret doors that lengthen the master corridor), and the in-dungeon treasure chests store tons of healing and magic potions. While you still need a perceptive guy that can open locks (although why failing lockpicking gives xp, and to all the party members at that, is a mystery), the dungeons have overall become considerably more hack’n’slashy, less deadly and less fun.
Another incredibly poor aspect of the game is the towns. Navigating cities was already horrible in the original because all the buildings were identical and the best you could do was bring up a mini map to at least check their types. It is quite unbelievable, but the remake's developers managed to make even this aspect worse. The towns are now in full 3D, with terrain elevations, fences, market stalls, etc. You know what this means, right. It means that it’s hilariously easy to get stuck on random baskets that you walk over. I once managed to get mortally stuck on a basket mischievously placed right next to a wall and had to reload, another time I managed to get shot into space while accidentally stepping on a barrel. The good news is, however, that at least now the buildings are tagged, and you can move your party while looking at the map overview. But this just makes it all the easier to get stuck on random props. Providing, of course, that the map works in the first place because it sure as hell doesn’t, for example, in the city of Ljasdahl.
[...] I’ll be honest here, I didn’t finish this abomination. I’ve got a pretty high resistance for shovelware shitgames as long as I can get some laughs out of them. But when it came to this “game”, I simply had to surrender after about 11 hours of playing, or I would risk throwing myself out of the window in desperation. And besides, I figured finishing the game wouldn’t even matter that much because I knew what to expect from later stages in the context of it being a “total remake” (and seriously, anyone who would expect it to magically get better after this time would be a lunatic).
If there was anything listed in this review that you found even slightly positive, I can only tell you one thing. Don’t get this game. Don’t play it, don’t buy it and don’t talk about it because it doesn’t deserve anything other than a kick down a cliff. If there were any positive sides to this garbage, they are only there because they were already there in the original Realms of Arkania from 1992. There is not even the slightest reason to pick this “remake” over the original, and there is even less reason to give any money to the shameless and inept idiots who have brought this upon mankind.
Another incredibly poor aspect of the game is the towns. Navigating cities was already horrible in the original because all the buildings were identical and the best you could do was bring up a mini map to at least check their types. It is quite unbelievable, but the remake's developers managed to make even this aspect worse. The towns are now in full 3D, with terrain elevations, fences, market stalls, etc. You know what this means, right. It means that it’s hilariously easy to get stuck on random baskets that you walk over. I once managed to get mortally stuck on a basket mischievously placed right next to a wall and had to reload, another time I managed to get shot into space while accidentally stepping on a barrel. The good news is, however, that at least now the buildings are tagged, and you can move your party while looking at the map overview. But this just makes it all the easier to get stuck on random props. Providing, of course, that the map works in the first place because it sure as hell doesn’t, for example, in the city of Ljasdahl.
[...] I’ll be honest here, I didn’t finish this abomination. I’ve got a pretty high resistance for shovelware shitgames as long as I can get some laughs out of them. But when it came to this “game”, I simply had to surrender after about 11 hours of playing, or I would risk throwing myself out of the window in desperation. And besides, I figured finishing the game wouldn’t even matter that much because I knew what to expect from later stages in the context of it being a “total remake” (and seriously, anyone who would expect it to magically get better after this time would be a lunatic).
If there was anything listed in this review that you found even slightly positive, I can only tell you one thing. Don’t get this game. Don’t play it, don’t buy it and don’t talk about it because it doesn’t deserve anything other than a kick down a cliff. If there were any positive sides to this garbage, they are only there because they were already there in the original Realms of Arkania from 1992. There is not even the slightest reason to pick this “remake” over the original, and there is even less reason to give any money to the shameless and inept idiots who have brought this upon mankind.
Read the full article (and weep): RPG Codex Review: Realms of Arkania HD
When i saw this on the start of the review i knew this was going to be a good read.
to you for enduring through this. 
