Dungeon Lords Retrospective

[GameBanshee News]

RPGWatch is taking a look back at Heuristic Park's Dungeon Lords in an attempt to determine whether the game has aged nicely or not.

The dialogue system consists of clicking keywords and then reading voluminous text that appears on the left pane, then clicking on other words until you have exhausted all options or yourself, whichever comes first. Since you cannot be attacked while you are talking to people, you might as well ply everyone for as much information as possible. Once you have obtained your first quest, you open up your journal and find ... that you must have pressed the wrong key. No, that was the correct key, only there isn't any real 'journal' to speak of - just a single line with the most basic information. Worse yet, when you fail to enter Fargrove because the town is sealed, nothing changes in your journal or quest information.

Before you reached the gates of Fargrove, however, you likely noticed something else. Depending on the power of your computer, you likely experienced a quick freeze, stutter, jump, or something like lag ... and then were attacked. And if you just left your character standing still, you probably noticed that they got attacked by an endless stream of spawning enemies. Get used to it and get over it - that is just how the game plays. So by the time you have entered the sewers under Fargrove you will have experienced nearly everything the game has to offer - third person action-RPG combat, endless enemy spawning, symbol-matching lock-picking and trap-disarming, click-word dialogue, and one of the worst journals ever.