The in-game isometric visuals are ok. Exploring and gathering mechanics are actually fine, if a little primitive. The writing is mediocre at best. Instead of creating something unique, the game just combines all of the most tired fantasy cliches. Also, it's one of those games that don't understand that creating a bunch of weird-sounding deity names and toponyms does not equal good fantasy writing. The Lord Of The Rings, Dragon Age and Dark Crystal didn't become fantasy genre icons because they had weird-sounding names and titles, but because they all had some amazing stories and characters at the heart. And this game has neither the story, nor the characters to speak fondly of. There is no role-playing in this allegedly role-playing game. I understand that we play as a set character that comes with a history and a personality, but, damn, even small choices would make a difference. Consider Geralt of Rivia, also a set character, and how many options did he have during the Witcher trilogy. The writers didn't even bother to make a protagonist interesting, much less secondary and episodic characters. The quests are the most generic missions you could ever imagine. Kill X amount of rats, collect Y amount of herbs, etc. However, the biggest letdown is the combat. If the rest of the game was at least serviceable, the combat is frankly just embarrasing. This is some browser game level gameplay. Why couldn't they just keep the combat isometric, like the rest of the game? Were those cheap-a*s 3D models from 2002 really worth it? The combat itself is very primitive and makes something like King's Bounty Legend feel (and look) like a masterpiece in comparison. All in all, I wouldn't exactly call this game absolutely soulless, but it's so lacking in basically every aspect, from sounds and visuals to story and characters to actual gameplay and player engagement, I really don't understand why they even bothered with this 60+ hour open world RPG.

This RPG is quite unique in that it combines top-down-view exploration (similar to Baldur's Gate) with blobber-like combat (similar to Wizardry or JRPG's). This combination works surprisingly well. The world of Xulima is huge, ranging from icy regions, to forests, jungles, deserts, as well as towns and castles - all with beautiful, fairy-tale-like graphics. Exploration of extreme weather regions is actually dangerous since you run out of supplies much faster, adding a lot to the fun. What can be criticized about this game is that it has relatively few dungeon areas, as well as a somewhat formulaic design where the same elements are repeated on several maps (one castle, one town, one witch house). Also, the end game is not very well done and could have been trimmed down somewhat.

I spent over a week on this game but just got fed up with it and uninstalled it as it was just becoming too much of a chore to play. This is an old-school RPG with combat like Might and Magic but a travel interface like King's Bounty or Diablo. In a nutshell, you play a party of 6 characters (5 of which are customisable) who travel to an island called Xulima to investigate what happened to the temples of the gods who used to live there. The main character of your party is called Gaulen the explorer, a ranger type who receives a vision from his god which then results in him rounding up 5 bold companions and travelling to Xulima to put things right. The game then opens with your party landing on the beach. Pros: - I love the music for this game (at least what I've heard so far). - There is a lot to do (but it can get quite repetitive). - The minigames for lock picking and trap disarming are simple but effective. Cons: - Harsh difficulty. Some people might not see it this way, but getting into the game is difficult, as combat is unforgiving and money and resources are very tight, at least for a while. Enemies can one-shot even your front line warriors with a lucky critical hit early on, and even after a few levels, your squishy mages and clerics can still be one-shotted by ranged or magical attacks. An enemy that should be a reasonable challenge can end up wiping your party out if it happens to get lucky with its RNG rolls. Your party needs to consume food as they travel, so this has to be carefully managed. You also have to ensure you keep a good supply of healing potions, torches and lockpicks, and this is made even more taxing by the fact that the developers decided it would be a great idea to have some of these items increase in cost as the party gains levels, so a lockpick that costed 40 gold pieces when your characters were 1st level goes up to over 200 gold pieces by the time they're about 10th level. Consequently, money is fairly tight most of the time. Also, the game forces certain encounters on you periodically which cannot be avoided, which is a real pain in the butt. - Loot. Very limited. Merchants will typically only stock around 10 each of randomly generated weapons, armour pieces, and cloaks/rings/amulets, and this only refreshes every few days. It will take several levels just to get your characters reasonably outfitted with suitable armour/weapons because the merchants will not stock what you are looking for or else you can't afford it. Weapons and armour are also stat and skill locked (eg. a longsword might require a Swords skill of 6 and an Agility score of 16 to use) which also restricts their usage. Enemy loot drops are pathetic, but this is a problem in a number of CRPGs. How many times have you defeated a small army of heavily armed and armoured soldiers just to get a couple of dozen gold pieces for your troubles? - Game mechanics ****. Speed is by far the most important character attribute as it affects how soon your character takes their turn in combat as well as how many times they can attack during a battle. Even with you regularly putting points into your characters' Speed stats every level, you still encounter super fast enemies like giant wasps that literally attack several times before your fastest character even gets to take their turn. Min-maxing is encouraged over role playing as even your doddering elderly mage ends up having to become a literal speed ninja just to remain reasonably effective in a combat. Dual wielding or bonuses for just using a single weapon are not supported so a thief character ends up having to be played like a warrior, either using a shield or a two-handed weapon. The RNG system in combat seems (to me, anyway) to favour your enemies, as your characters seem to end up missing or fumbling their attacks (which causes damage to themselves) more often than what enemies do. - Writing - could be better, as there are a number of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Story seems quite thin. Almost no backstory given for Gaulen and his companions just to flesh them out a little more and better explain their background, motivations etc. - Repetitiveness. Combat gets very repetitive after a while, as the process remains mostly the same with just the numbers increasing. Towns seem fairly similar - same merchants, same places to explore etc. Even the main quest itself is repetitive in what you need to do. - Gaulen: You're stuck with him in your party as he is critical to the main story. He is the only character in your party who can take the Explorer class, but thankfully you can decide where his skill points go as he levels up. Unfortunately, even though he possesses a number of very useful non-combat skills, he never ends up being as useful in combat as your other characters. Summary: Old-school RPG which you will enjoy if you're familiar with the older Might & Magic games and are prepared to put up with frequent game saving and reloading.