The Legacy - Exploring

In my last post I had just started to seriously explore the starting level. Since then I have made some progress and noted a few things:

• I found a juju fetish lika a skeletal hand which when hold, protects me from being attacked by the zombies. That helped a lot to complete my exploration of the first level. 

• I found a key to my keyring and while it did not open the safe it was possible to open all locked doors with it.

• Here and there are more ammunition for my revolver and there are a few first aid kits littered around. Enough for me to feel safe right now.

• I have found several strange items like a rune, a skull and holy water. My guess is that the holy water is used for another undead but that remains to be seen. The other stuff might be used for ingredients.

After having got hold of the juju fetisch that kept the zombies from attacking, completing the first level was not hard. I decided to pursue my exploration in the basement. But before that I found a torchlight and with it the graphics finally returned to "normal". I cannot afford to carry it arround however since I have to hold the skeletal hand as well as a weapon in my hands so I have put it away in a corridor for now. 

I found two spells on scrolls lying around and put them into my spellbook. But I could never see anything in my spellist so I got a little confused until putting the spellbook in my hands, then the spells appeared. At least I know I can find spells this way.

I still tried to flee from every enemy but I did one experiment and started to killing them before getting myself killed. I don´t get any experience from killing enemies so I will avoid them unless I have to kill them in order to proceed. An important discovery.

In the basement I found batteries, holy water and lot of new documents about background information. The corridors was swarmed by gargoyels which was far more dangerous than the zombies. I found no way to defeat them. I tried to drink the whole water but to no effect. I tried to throw it but I am not sure I hit. The only interesting thing I found was a trapdoor that leads me to a cavern but since this is a one-way path I didn´t want to go down there unless I am sure to be able to return back. So I retraced my step to the ground level instead and looked for the stairs to the upper level. 

I don´t know how to kill these "gargoyles" yet

The upper level had corridors roamed mainly by ghosts but there where some other strange horrors there as well. Some of them even shots blue bolts against me. I had to use the same tactic like in all the other floors. Monsters cannot walk into doors so either you quickly sneak into rooms and let them pass or you lure them into or out of rooms before entering. It is possible to pass through a monster but it gives the monster a chance to hit you. During my exploration up here I quickly drained my health to less than half. But it was worth it because I talked to a ghost who told me they served the god M while they lived but was betrayed by him when dead and now had to walk these halls.

He said that the only way to get him free was to destroy the painting of the ritual that bound the souls.

Now, I had found this painting but had no clue what to do with it. And I had found matches on the floor somewhere and a can of oil somewhere on the same floor. Since I don´t make my own maps I had to search for them again and avoid all monsters while doing so. But finally I got hold of the items and returned to the painting. I threw the can of oil on i and the matches and it went up in flame. Yes! Finally something concrete done in this infested house. 

It gave me the benefit of getting rid of the ghosts but there where still other creatures lurking in the corridors. At least I had found some sort of document holder so I know can begin to store all the notes I find littered about in this house. Since I am not inclined to fight the monsters unless I have no other choice I let the revolver, a shotgun and a blade be left on the floor somewhere and instead only carried a kitchen knife. Hell, I don´t even know if these kind of weapons do any harm on the undead.

Just before I burned down the painting I noticed that my experience bar was full. I had no idea if it still accumulate but would not take the chance so I spended a few points on first aid kit, meditation, blade and firearms just enough to let it go down by 20% which was about what I got when burning the painting (yes I reloaded to try out this). 

My explorations continued. I saw a strange human walking around the corridors with its back to me all the time. I felt uneasy about that and tried to get around it somehow. I then stumbled into a room with a fusebox which I could switch on. And what a relief to finally see the graphics shine up as it should be.

In the southeast part of the house the game throws in some disorienting manouvers. To move forward you have to go backward etc. Also there are some lightnings that strike at certain places to stop you from entering without harm. After many attempts I managed to sneak around the area and found two green gems which I could not bring with me at this time (I had to know where to use them first since I have nowhere to store them if I am not to empty my hands).

Really annoying creatures shooting blue bolts at me

I also found the first secret door. Mostly by accident because the automap and the reality did not match. Behind the panel I found a new spell. Now I have three spells. I also found out by trial and error that I can defeat the winged demons in the corridor with my baseball bat weapon but I am not sure it is worth the injuries taken. I only found one First Aid Kit here, only enough to restore me to 75 % of full health.

I still have no clue how to get out of the house or what I should do other than that the notes talks about evil gods and rituals. I guess I will have to perform some sort of ritual to get rid of the evil that lurks here but I have no clue of what I should do so I just continue to explore the maps. So far four levels have been discovered (starting floor, upper floor, basement and caverns).

When I thought I had done what I could on the upper floor for now, I took the stairs to the floor above and I was somewhat startled to realize this was some sort of Azylum. I had found papers talking about this addon in the 19th century.

This level was filled with security doors that for the most part was impossible to force open despite my efforts to put all experience points into force just to discover each room. Instead, I found a security card on the other side of the level but to my disappointment it only opened one of the doors. That door however eventually led to another stair up.

The corridors where filled with flesh-eating plants of some sort. They could be defeated but as always first aid kits are scarce so I wouldn´t kill anything unless I had to. And I had to, because behind one of them there was a room that led me to a severed hand with a candle. Even though its immediate use was not apparent i found out later on in a note that it was used in a ritual. Who these "formeless asthral spawns" were I don´t know. I had to leave it for now.

But there was also a crazy womand with an axe running around and when I met her she said I must die because I was of one of the family. I run away from her but returned back later on to kill her. That gave me her bloodied apron and an axe. I replaced my baseball bat with the axe and my bulletproof vest with the apron. I had somewhere read something about bloodied clothes in a note and also found a place on the level with an invisible but impassable barrier. With the apron worned I could get past. My joy over this "puzzle solving" was short though. There where two security doors behind which I was unable to open. After spending all my experience into the skill "force" I tried to force the doors. Eventually after many reloads I succeeded. Both room had some sort of green fungus. I had no idea what they where for but I suspect they will be important. I reloaded and continued with my character with my experience points intact.

I felt finished for now with this level and so I entered the next level upstairs. A level which I believe was some sort of museum. The first thing that laid before my feet when entering was a nice rifle. But with no ammunition. The corridors in this place was inhabited by slimes. The good thing about them was that they were "neutral". They did only attack if I attacked and otherwhise just went through their movement pattern. My melee weapon could not hurt them either but my magical firebolt could.

But I also met another kind of crab-like monster which was almost impossible to go past - the dodge skill failed miserably several times. I must find a way to kill them.

I like the game. I think the mix of RPG and adventure is nice so far. Even though I have not understood what I should do more than in general terms I have come across a reference of a golden torc which seems very important. I have yet to find it. Also I have not instructions for any rituals or anything for which I need ingredients or prepare certain procedures. 

What I do fear is that I have to return to all the strange items I have encountered and use them when it is time. I have no notes of where they are so I am not looking forward to search through every level for all the items I have left. Especially not when most monsters still roam these halls. 

But so far I am far from giving up and will continue my exploration in this game. For its meager pricetag it has given me many hours of enjoyment so far.

The Bards Tale - Remastered version

InXile recently released Bard´s Tale IV a kickstarter backed successor to the famous Bards Tale series. While it so far has received mixed reviews - where mostly original Bard´s Tale gamers feel the lack of soul from previous games and less character customization - it seems to be a game worth considering after the first patches has been released.

Not as well known is the fact that InXile also released a remastered version of the old Bard´s Tale series trilogy where graphics, UI and other improvements has been made. After having read a little about it and needing a secondary game to play on all the other computers here at home I decided to buy it.

Tha game can be played in almost any resolution and has full mouse support as well as the old keyboard support. The ability to save anywhere and not just in the tavern is a god send improvement. I don´t have the time for running back and forth just to save the game and loosing huge amount of gaming time when I die along the way. Those times are long gone with a family and work to take care of. Except for the saving mechanism the best improvement is the inclusion of an automap. At last! 

I loved to map old games before but time has changed so this is a very valuable addition. Some of you might remember my revisit to Bard´s tale 3 several years ago. The main problems I had with it was the extremely slow regeneration of spell points in combination with a ridiculously high random encounter rate. It was extremely frustrating and made me quit the game.

Bard´s Tale opens up with the classic original Bard´s tale tune and with improved graphics that scale very well into high resolutions. There are unfortunately no manual supplied to the game. You have to find it on the web but there are tooltips almost everywhere that describes the most vital parts of the game.

I started out a whole evening with rolling characters. After an hour or so I was finished. In my setup I had one warrior, paladin, rogue, bard, magician and conjurer. You have the typical setup of races like human, elf, orc, gnome, half-orc, dwarf etc but it is not obvious what their exact advantages are.

When my party was finished and I had saved the game we went out to explore Skare Brae. Ahh...it was a fresh breeze that reminded me of my adventures 30 years back with my Commodore-64. It is exactly the same town and I still remembered some things but not all. Fortunately there is now a full featured auto-map included which also describe the things you find, for example labeling what kind of shop or temple you discovered. It writes down all hints and tips you found and so on. Perfect!

The original Bard´s Tale on Commodore 64

My first goal was to find the equipment shop because we started out with only some gold and no weapons. I had to find the shop through google and it was only around 10 steps northward. After having bought broadswords and scalemail to my warriors I was satisfied. Now begun the first hard part of just surviving. I tried to take on the easy fights to gain experience and get some gold. After half an hour I was eligible to raise to level 2 so we searched for the place where you can level up the characters. I also gradually improved the equipment of my warriors.

What struck me is that the shop only offers standard equipment. Best armour is plate mail and best weapon is the two-handed halberd. There is no magical items or expensive items to long for. I suppose I have to find all of these.

My strategy was to wait until level 3 to enter the sewers. The sewers is entered by ordering some wine "which easily goes down" from a special tavern. It was around this time that I read about how bad the rogue class was. Even if they had improved it by including the improvements made to the class in Bard´s tale III, I was not impressed by its ability to hide in shadows and automatically score a critical hit on next turn for only a few points of damage. At level four I switched out the rogue for another warrior instead. The only drawback I see is that I have to rely to magical means - and spellpoints - to disarm traps. But the successrate of the rogue is not that great in that department either.

I also eventually added a 7th magician instead of using the slot for wandering creatures after having read it was the best way to use that slot.

The much appreciated automap

I have only reached level two in the sewers and explored a little over half the town and already most of my times have been spent on levelling up my characters. At level up every character recieves a random amount of hitpoint, spellpoints and a one point increase in a random attribute as longas you haven´t reach 18 in that. I reload if my numbers are too low. This takes time so at least 10 minutes for one level up I would guess. Anyway everything is so extremely much easier and quicker than on my tapestation on the C-64 so in just a few hours I was already at level 7. Higher levels means extra attacks per round for warriors and paladins and new spell schools for the mages. But spells costs money and I cannot afford everyone to have the latest spells so I have to return to the sewers several times just to get more money.

Good items is hard to get by but I have slowly found some mithril armour parts which is more effective than the best armour the town shop can sell. I have yet to find real good magical weapons or items.

In this first part of the review I want to stress the really good, improved features of this version:

• Cloud saves - Every time I quit the saves are transferred to the cloud and I can continue playing from any of my three computers at any time. Worth gold if you have a family sharing the computers.

• Less random encounters and high ability to run away - Extremely useful and makes the game less frustrating

• Save anywhere - You can save the game anywhere and don´t have to return to the guild

• Automap - Saves you a lot of time than if you had to do this yourself

• Improved UI - Both mouse and keyboard support makes the game easier to play

I think this version from a technical standpoint is very successful. I have yet to really come deep into the game because I am still only exploring the sewers at level 8. I almost only play the game sporadically in small portions of time which makes the experience very stuttering but that is only due to my limited playing time.

Ravenloft: Strahd´s Possession - Won!

Last night I finally won the game. It was a race of time and of my patience. I had come to the stage where my patience dwindled and I just wanted to get the game over with.

Last time I had just returned from the castle and bought the Vistrani potion that was said to make me able to traverse the fog surrounding the land and make my possible escape from this damned place. I had no other leads than to return to the first area I came to in the beginning and enter the fog.

Undead forest

My group just prior to the end part

Right before entering I drank the potion and it was split among my group. I then saved the game and entered the fog. I came out on the other side and was immediately surrounded with moving, agressive trees that feriously attacked me from every side. I had to run from them to get my orientations right. When checking my automap I found out I had come to a totally new place called the undead woods. After running around for awhile I found a few seeds on the ground which seemed important and connected to the last ritual I had read from Sascha in the old church. The attacks from the trees quickly forced me out from this area though and I had to flee back to the village and rest the group and prepare for a fight against them but also to completely search this new area.

When returning I took the fight with the trees and unleashed up to ten magical missiles, six fireballs and four ice storms. Even tough I killed 6 or 7 trees the place was full of them and I had to repeat my run-and-rest-procedure until I had found every item of interest in the wood. Still the trees would never be entirely wiped out so I gave up on those. Instead I found a teleporter in the east part that took me to another part of the forest. Here I fought both trees and found more seeds in the ground but also a stone circle with a tree inside. Besided the tree where four piles of stones. One for each of the seeds I had found. I had to run away to rest and then reenter this place, carefully saving at strategic positions along the way. I knew I would be assulted by all trees while planting my seeds but I had no choice. I ran to the stone circle and begun to plant the seeds in the middle of the stone circles. Meanwhile the trees could sneak into the circle and attack me but I killed a few and was drained of all my spells but not before completing the ritual. 

The tree lightened up and revealed the holy symbol of Ravenkind: My weapon to destroy Strahd. I run as quickly as possible from this very difficult area back to the village to rest and then headed for the castle. This was my final visit.

Ravenloft castle

This time I had to get up a few stairs in front of a lock I had never opened before. But by using my bat key I opened it and was led to the dungeons. Now started my search for Strahd. I explored every room, opened every door and fought every undead. Except for the ridiculous hard level draining monsters which names I have forgotten. I make myself invisible and try to run past them instead. At this stage in the game I followed the cluebook to know where to run to press two hidden buttons to open a locked door. Everywhere there where powerful leveldraining undead which was impossible to defeat for me so I just ran and ran. After a few tries I managed to enter the final crypt. Now it was between me and the evil vampire lord Strahd.

Lord Strahd himself in combat

I equipped myself with the Ravenkind before I finally found Strahd. As all evil denizens in roleplaying games he mocks me before he intends to kill me. He then attacks by hurling fireballs and disappears and reappears. I was killed the first two times when I fought him with conventional weapons and magic without any effect. Then I used only the Ravenkind which bursted out a fire beam. After only three hits Strahd died on the floor and I could take the final amulet that was stolen in the beginning of the game. 

But what was I suppose to do now ? Well. Impatient as I was to complete the game now I looked through the cluebook and the only thing I was to do was to read a book I had found that depended on a few special items I had found. Amongst then a feather and an elven crown. After reading the book the ending sequence started. 

 

The end was a joy until a mist flowed down to a chest and a terrible laughter was heard. I finally made it but will there be a natural connection in the sequel Stone Prophet or will it it not ? I don´t know but I will find out in the future. Right now I need a pause from this type of game and my next post will hold my review.

Ravenloft: Strahd´s Possession - To the bitter end

If you thought I would have given up on Ravenloft you are both right and wrong. Yes, it has been over a month since my last post but I had planned to continue my adventure when time allowed. Which is right now. And it was a very tough restart. To continue in the castle of Strahd with all the stairs leading up and down and never really knowing where to go was not the most attractive start. However, I did load my last save and I really did try to continue - alas with the help of a map of the castle and with some hints on where to go.

So after 30 minutes I felt like I was going forward again. I had already explored a large part of the castle. The problem was to find the stairs I had not explored yet when they are not marked on the automap. I found the last keys required to progress and finally found a prisoner in a tower that I released. He was thankful and offered to help me if I would contact his network in the village tavern. I also found another prisoner which I released which offered to join me but I declined. I never found Strahd tough. This wasn´t meant to be any final battle.

I was quite surprised that my only achievment in the castle would be to get a contact for the Raven network. I returned back to the village and immediately set out for the tavern where the raven group was said to be located. I had already been give a code word to say to the bartender and so I did. I was instructed to a meeting point in a deserted house in the village. There I met three people who demanded me to be blindfolded by using a drug if they would take me to their leader. I had no choice but to do as they said if I would like to get any hints of what to do. So I did.

The leader - a Raven - told me that only one item could destroy the vampire lord Strahd and that is the holy symbol of Ravenkind. Noone knows where it is though except for the now dead priest Sasha that had prepared three manuscripts detailing the whereabouts of the symbol but in encrypted texts. The leader could give me a key leading to a closed door in the old church where he believed those manuscripts could be. He also gave me a scrying glass to decypher the texts should I find them. Needless to say, our new goal was to head straight for the church because I remember there was one door I couldn´t open there. There was only one problem. The meeting place with the raven had left me in the greater catacombs beneath the village of Barovia and I had to find a way out. It was a huge complex filled with terror.

In order to leave the place I had to find different keys that unlocked doors leading to my freedom but I was also told when I finally found a way out that I should carefully look for money to buy the vistani potion to pass through the fog that surround the lands. I had to go back down to the catacombs again and after carefully searching every place I finally found 15 coins which was exactly what I needed to buy the potion. I was almost to give up that search I can tell you and I had to check in an online map where my last two missed coins where hidden. Having done that we immediately headed for the church.

Valuable items in the catacombs

We quickly found the still locked door and used the key from the Raven which unlocked that part and led us down to another floor. An unexplored floor full of black horrors. Fortunately none of them had any level draining capabilities and I always used magic missiles against them. Most of them died by only one hit. Behind a few hidden buttons and secret doors I eventually found three manuscripts. I used the scrying glass to read them but was none the wiser except that I had to perform some sort of ritual outdoor.

The hidden level of the old church

I returned back to the village and took the opportunity to buy the vistani potion. This led up to a cutscene where we where invited to a gypsy camp with the intent of foretelling our future. But the fortune teller said one card was missing from her deck and we where not given any informtion. Back at the village, it was time to explore the foggy parts of the wilderness and perhaps try out the potion ?

A magic missile on its way to the black figure

I feel I am very close to the end but it still remains a mystery of how and where I will defeat Strahd. First I have to find the item but right now I am quite clueless on how to do that. My hope is that in the next post I will have won the game.

We will see...

Ravenloft: Strahd´s Possession - To the depths of evil

Last time my group had just cleared the whole cemetary except for the major place there. The entrance down to its catacombs. The reason for that was that the entrance was guarded by a very powerful undead creature and the only way to get in was to give the two statues outside the crypt a gift in the form of special bag of dusts I had found in other places of the cemetary. After having convinced them of my intentions they allowed me to pass through the undead guardian and down to the underground cemetary levels.

These levels was the toughest so far. Level draining creatures in almost every room. But I found out a tactic for them too. If I did not have room to manouver and cast spells like fireballs, ice storms and magic missiles from afar, I would cast a protection spell to help against being drained. It only affects one character but by casting it on the two front characters the chances are very much improved to survive at least one hit. Regardless of tactics I had to save the game after every singe enemy killed.

As before my goal was to open doors by finding certain hidden buttons or keys. It took a awhile but eventually I got to the stairs leading down to level 2. While exploring these catacombs I found a lot of different items, mostly healing potions and clerical scrolls but also the occasional magical wand or weapon. Level two required me to open six or seven locked doors in a row and it was only possible by finding hidden buttons around the whole map something which was not that easy because they are difficult to spot and some of them was found in secret rooms. I had to quickglance the cluebook for the last button. In the end I found a staff of revival and an elf´s signet ring. Both items which I concluded was to be used in the church to revive the fallen apprentice the high priest had spoken about. I returned there and to my satisfaction it was correct. I managed to resurrect the person from its bones and could even recruit him, an NPC priest. He was only level 4 I believe and since I was in level 7-8 with the rest of the group that was never an option. He told us about his story and that he had managed to sneak into Strahds castle by using a key. He was willing to give the key to us if we would enter the castle and defeat the evil Strahd, something we where keen to do anyway.

So after having revived him and completed the final chapter of the church and cemetary - or a least that is what I believed - we returned back to the town. It wasn´t until now I realised there was another exit in the town that lead north. We took that route and fought our way forward to Strahds castle. With the key we could enter.

Strahds castle turned out to be a huge challenge. It was interconnected through several stairs to several levels both down and up and also to different towers. It was filled with guards which was tough to destroy but worst of all was the zombie lords. I have yet to defeat one. My tactic is to make the grouip invisible and to sneak past the zombie lords. I have found one key but there are lots of strange places to explore, a huge amount of secret doors so it will take time to complete all these levels at one. I felt quite bored to search through all of these levels and run up and down through the stairs. It was hard to follow since stairs is not marked on the automap so I had to manually make those notes. 

I found several pieces of parchments and letters that Strahd had wrote himself and I am now certain of his true evil. He must be stopped. 

I am struggling through this place right now and hope I have the energy to complete it and get out on the other side. I have no idea how much of the game remains but suspect I have at least completed over 50% by now.

I will return in another post when I have completed all the castles hidden floors and dungeons and when my goal is clear and linear again.

Ravenloft: Strahd´s Possession - Promising

With this post I feel things are coming together with the game. Its true self are slowly showned and the more I see the more I like it. It sure have its irksome interface but I am slowly getting used to it and it works better and better.

I never gave up the Caverns west of Barovia. I just had to methodically write notes on the map and to find all teleporters and hidden doors. The graphics is so pixelated in large screen that it is hard to see what things really are. To find a hidden button is very hard and easy to miss. To find a secret passage is even harder. I have now started to strafe myself against the walls and have found several hidden doors that way. This cavern requires you to find four jade keys to open four special doors in order to proceed. I got stuck from time to time and to get myself going again I had to get some hints from an online map that pointed out something I had forgotten or missed totally. Like a secret door. That was the only way for me to proceed. It also turns out that I had to go back and recruit the priest in the entrance of the caves because she is the only one to open one of the last doors in this cavern.

My new system of just clicking on the enemies instead of my characters weapons have made combat much easier. The cavern was inhabited by skeletons and the occasional bone golem. Those golems are pretty tough but not with some magic missiles. I find that magic missiles feels quite overpowered. Most of the tougher enemies in the game could be taken out with only one missile if you´re lucky and at most two or three hits.

The cave hid some interesting stuff like some wands and a few magical weapons. At that time I didn´t have any of my mages with me but a low level spel is identify which I cast on every weapon/armour I find to know wether they are magical or now. If not, I will just drop them. There are also quite many potions littered around in the game and I have never used a single one of them because healing in this game is pretty easy. You could rest almost everywhere as long as you are not in vicinity of an enemy. That replenishes all your spells and also heals the party. It is fortunate this part of the game is pretty liberal since there are other areas that are hard with it.

One major item which is vital in the caves is a key that leads to the church northeast of the village.

Teleporter

Anyway, after some tough searching I finally came to the last door and then the priestess awakened and helped me to open it. Unfortunately those last stages of the game was filled with tough monsters. Just when we had found the portal which we believed was the only way to exit this land and entered it we found that we where teleported to the town again. The warrior that had joined us had disappeared and left us and we felt cheated. The priestess had fulfilled her mission too and abandoned us and we stood there with a huge pile of items they left behind. The only way to pick them up was to quickly recruit two other NPC:s. I returned back to the wilderness just before the caves and picked up the strange mage. Then we returned to the city and I picked up my old companion mage at the tavern. We then got all the equipment and I choosed a base for us. An empty house we used as a stockpile for all of the items we didn´t need for the time being. After this process we continued to explore the village.

Prayer sceen for priests

I found at least one other NPC, a female paladin but since my main character already was one I was content with my party as it was and we left the village to explore the northern parts. The grounds outside the church was filled with undead, mostly zombielike creatures that was easily disposed of. We entered the church with the key we found in the caves and soon discovered a paralysed priest in the main hall in front of an altar and a black mirror where it seemed his soul was trapped in. We spoke to him to learn from his terrible faith and continued to explore these halls. They consisted of two large levels filled with undead, traps and secret passages. 

Church

It took me a few hours to clean out the two levels. Early on I found a book that contained some sort of ritual where I needed four very specific items. I also found a book which I completed by finding missing pages that formed an important message. Together - I suspected - they hold the key to free the high priest in the mirror but those pieces were hard to find. Especially I had trouble open two doors opposide each other with no visible button, hidden door or secret passage nearby. I had to cheat on this one but the solution was not found because this wasn´t particular hard. I found out in a let´s play that the lever for these doors where behind a pillar in the neighbouring room which I had totally missed. The temple was filled with new potions, chests (which act as containers) and some weapons. now I had the mages with me and could both identify all items and also scribe every scroll we found down to the spellbook. One favourite item I found was a magical throwing daggar that returns to the throwers hand. This made it possible to fight with one of my mages to the right because they can only use ranged weapons.

I also had much help of my elven mage that has an innate ability to find secret doors. It helped out a lot in this place.

Eventually we completed the levels and returned to the trapped priest and read the ritual to free him.

As always lovely and helpful comments from the group from time to time

The next part was to explore the area east of the church grounds which was the cemetary. This place increased the difficulty a lot because it was filled with close to 100 undead of which a dozen vampires with draining level abilities. To fight them became my hardest part. Level draining is perhaps the worst thing in any RPG because every level lost could easily translates to several hours of gameplay in grinding. So naturally I saved before trying to confront any vampire and then immediately checked my level status after a fight before saving again.

This took time but even here the tactics is not to get in melee contact. Just shoot magic missiles, fireballs or ice storms and the vampires are quickly gone. It took some hours to clear the whole place including searching into every house in the cemetary. I found a locked grave of the person that murdered the jeweller in the village. I couldn´t open the door but by returning to the village and NOW accept the quest of possession I got the key from the jeweller and could open this tomb. And there he was, an undead lord that I did fight by hurling a few magic missiles at him and then it was over. By returning to the village afterwards I completed this quest and was given a few magical items.

After having reequipped ourselves we where ready to explore the last part of the cemetary...

So my reflections now is that the music had become a little better. I love the sudden screams, footsteps and echos in the environment and the music even picked up a little in the church. Fighting is relatively easy when not fighting level draining creatures. I feel that offensive spells are overpowered compared to similar AD&D games.

More about my adventures in the cemetary in my next post...

Ravenloft - Strahd´s Possession - Trying to like it

I continued my quest in them game Strahd´s Possession. I found the village Bovaria. It turned out to be quite large with many, many houses to search. I thought I could just do them systematically but the awkward interface and the terrible graphics in fullscreen mode made it easy to miss exploring some building. Therefore I used the automap which is fully acceptable and you can also make notes on it. I put a X-sign on every house explored and marked places of certain interests.

There are day/night cycles in the game and especially at night the streets are more dangerous. I was attacked by several brigands/thieves which I had to fight off. Fortunately you could rest quite liberally except when in immediate danger. I must tell you that the combat system is really awkward. It plays out in realtime but the steering is terrible which makes it hard to turn around to face the enemies when they also tries to circle you. The combat is a click fest. At least you get information if you miss or hit and what damage you inflict or receive but other than that it is slow and cumbersome. Enemies don´t reveal their health status so you have no idea which in a group have already injured. Also, my figher turns out to be the worst member of the group. He hardly hit but receives most of the damage. The only way effective way to fight is to use my mages magic missiles and my priests flame blade. Since you also don´t get any loot or any visible experience points (I am sure I get it. I would just like to see it like a reward) fightning feels quite unneccessary. It is just a hinder. Enemies seems to wander around by random until they see you and then swarm you. We are all starting on level 6 so any immediate level ups are also not on the table at this stage.

Ok, apart from the boring fights, what happened in the town ?

Map from the old Paladin

• I met an old Paladin that had lost his amulet of faith and couldn´t live or die with that shame. He gave me a map where I would find a tree stump and asked me to take a pick from him and dig just west of the tree. There I would find a key leading down to the catacombs under the village. Somewhere there lies the amulet. 

I did all of this and it was quite interesting. The underground catacombs was pretty large filled with fireball traps, living walls and its evil denizens. I could only fight them with magic because my melee weapons did only 1 or 2 points of damage. I had to rest and rememorize my spells a lot down here. Eventually I found two important keys that unlocked some doors. Behind this I found the amulet. I was very lucky because one of the keys was hidden in a room only accessible through an illusionary wall which I just stumbled into. They are very hard to spot with this bad graphics at the fullscreen resolution. It took me 1,5 hour to go through this catacomb.

The automaps for the game are quite good

When I returned to the Paladin he opened a room with my reward. A Paladins sword and some armour. None of them was any better than my starting equipment so I got very dissappointed. I don´t know if they have some special properties or are magical which I cannot detect but the descriptions of their damage or or my armour class was not affected at all.

What lies ahead of me is to explore the rest of the houses. It would take a few hours because I have only begun to explore a few of them. I have decided to take help from an online site with the town already mapped out just to save some time.

Right now I struggle with giving up this game because I don´t feel any progression with my characters, weapons or anything and the interface is really terrible. It is slow and clumsy. To use a potion or an item I have to go to the inventory, select the item put it in my hand and then return to the main screen and press the hand. Still, the free roaming movement in the 3D-world is slow by using the numeric keypad on my keyboard.

Inside a building in the village

The music is very simple but it tries to be atmospheric. I found the music in Ultima Underworld much better. The game's strongest part is the interactions with NPC:s and that your partymembers actually comment things they see from time to time. That is a very good thing and not very common. It reminds me of Realms of Arkania and games like Blade of Destiny and Shadows over Riva. This is probably Strahd´s possessions strongest part right now.

I probably did a mistake by visiting the jeweller in the village. I had already been warned in a comment of my first post but never understood that it was this encounter until it was too late. The jeweller was an undead that demanded that I would slain his murderer who stole things from him a long time ago. This murderer could be found in the cemetary and is now some sort of undead lord. Until I have fulfilled my promise my soul are now possessed by the jeweler. I didn´t acutally find out until an hour or two later when I checked the status of my paladin. He was possessed it said. But I never understood what it meant......Until just some moments later when the ghost of the jeweller haunted me impatiently and said the undead lord still lives and he demanded me to go there or he would squeeze the life out of me. It was then I understood I had some sort of time limit before my Paladin would be lost.

What would YOU have done ?

I had to google this part up and it was obvious this is one the worst things you could do early on in the game. It is way too hard to fulfill that quest at this stage so my paladin is lost. I thought about quitting the game right here but decided to do one more try by reloading an old save and avoid this jeweller for now. I am glad I did because the game started to grow on me afterwards.

My next exploration in the village was the mansion and the village mayor. He was obviously a puppet for Strahd himself (the ruler of this land) and told me that Strahd had invited me and gave me an introduction letter. In the room he already had an elven guest and after we had spoke for awhile I recruited her to my group. It turned out she was a mage as well. I have no clue wether experience points is divided between the parytmembers or not so until that is confirmed, the more the better. 

After I had explored the mansion and picked up some scrolls in the library I was ready to accept the invitation to visit Strahd Zarovich. Now a cutscene took over showing the carriage taking me to Strahds castle. This is a nice touch in the game and all texts are spoken as well which adds much to the atmosphere.

Suddenly I was inside the gates at the castle. I could not explore it since guards where everwhere. The only way forward was to the dining hall where I med Strahd Zarovich for the first time. He was polite and told me in no uncertain terms that there is no way to leave these lands. However there was rumoured to exists some teleporters which he wanted me to investigate in the caves west of Barovia village and since he hadn´t the time himself and trusted us he gave us a key to enter those.

Then he invited us to a splendid dinner with the best wine of the country before letting the driverless carriage return us to the village. And here I was again. At least with a clear goal again. Now things started to get more interesting and I decided to head for the caves so we left the village through the western gate and entered a wilderness. We where immediately attacked by skeleton bats but this time I found that the easiest thing to fight anything in the game is to just clicking on them and all available weapons will attack in their order of readiness. Now the combats actually was managable and I could get rid of dozens of skeleton bats withouth much trouble.

The only interesting place in the wilderness was a house with a mage that had made it to his permanent residence. He was interested in joining us but since I already had my party at full strength I declined. Instead I found the entrance to the caves to the west but also a new NPC woman who was also in search of those caverns. She could also join us but I refused this time as well and decided to enter the caves with the key Strahd had given us. 

This underground cavern turned out to be huge and hard to navigate. Not only because it was filled will teleporters and disorienting squares but it was also filled of skeletons. Those where, however, easily disposed of but before I entered the main area yet another NPC showed up. A strong warrior who I decided to replace my first multiclass fighter/thief/mage aquaintance. If not only because I now didn´t have as much strugge in combat as before when I had to rely almost solely on magic. He was a fighter at level 7 and quite competent so he is with me for the time being.

Death comes often in this game

Attacking skeleton

I have to say that I end this post with a better understanding and a more positive view of the game than after my last post. Combat is more managable now and the story have developed. I also love the cutscenes and the dialogues with the NPC:s and from the group members. Those texts are really well written, like reading a fantasy book. 

This cave however is hard to navigate and all teleporters are not activated or functional while othere require keys. I haven´t found a single key yet and I have searched everywhere. My worst nightmare is if there are illusionary walls here because frankly, in a free roaming, slow moving game like this it would take ages to search the walls and that is just too boring and tedious with the little time I have to spare. I might look up a map of this place to help me out if I don´t find anything soon.

I would imagine that at the time in 1994 this game would be a really good RPG. Too bad the graphics is not coming to its best to be played in fullscreen. I sometimes play it in a very small window just to try to understand what I actually see on the screen.

I was very near to quit this game when I found out about the irreversible possession you get from the jeweller ghost. I had no motivation to reload an old save game. I even let my possessed character be killed in order to use a scroll of raise dead to see if I could get rid of the possession but with no success. Anyway, I am glad I did give it another chance so I could progress a little more in the story. Let´s see if the labyrinths and dungeons of the game will be the irritating part that will destory my progress.....