The graphics and visual effects deserve the next special mention. Right from the word go you are immersed in a rich, vibrant landscape, with swaying trees, sturdy crop fields, shorelines, towering keeps and cosy homesteads all lit by a dynamic day/night cycle. The ravages brought about by the baddies are shown in slaughtered peasants scattered about your path, overturned carts and burning buildings. The lights coming through the trees in a deep forest enchanting, the swirling lights of a healing temple awed. It is reminiscent of Ultima games with their attention to detail and lavishing atmosphere. The third person camera works wonderfully well, becoming a breeze to control very quickly, never hindering you in your attempt to bring justice to these lands. Combat in a forest or dungeon is never against the camera with trees and walls becoming transparent as needed, although sometimes it was a little too helpful by revealing enemies lurking around the next corner.

This places no restrictions on who fights in what way. All characters can wear armour, wield weapons and cast spells with a character's ability in doing an being determined by how often they use it. As my party grew I began to specialise my characters, assigning magic to two members and front line hacking to another two. Yet no matter how little my priest would use a weapon she could still take out a staff and defend herself well just as my could put away his axe to cast an acid-cloud on an approaching foe. This sheer versatility, this brave move to let the player decide exactly how they want their party to work is one of the strongest elements of the game. I loved it, as I did the inventory auto-arrange function, the pack mules you can buy to increase your carrying space and the absence of poison.

All is not progress however, although most of the problems I encountered were probably due to the uncompleted nature of the game. Bugs such as losing money for no reason and random exceptions should be ironed out in the finished version. No, the only faults I could find I probably wouldn’t have noticed if the game as a whole hadn’t set itself such high standards. The larger map (which you can use to get about) just doesn’t zoom out enough to adequately portray the huge levels and the autosave is far too infrequent leading to too much repetition of the same areas. The level of fogging also seems somewhat extreme as it hinders your orientation and hides too much of the beautiful graphics for my liking. The largest problem is one common to all RPG and most shooters as well: a large group of monsters can usually be beaten by retreating round a corner to pick the baddies off in more managable numbers.

This is one area where has not managed to evolve the RPG genre, but considering the amount they have done in all other areas they must leave themselves something to do for the sequel. All in all this is the best action RPG that I have ever played, making me happy just to be near such a lovingly produced game and enthralling me with its freshness and vigour. There are so many little touches in this game, so many well thought out enhancements and well implemented design decisions. I can’t wait to finish off this adventure when I get my hands on the completed project.

By Sam Gibson