Ginsu 2000(B.C.) -- Always Needs Sharpening?

One of the most misguided theories ever created is that "more is better." While Diablo didn't have enough items popping out of dead monsters, there really can be too much of a good thing. In Throne of Darkness nearly every monster gives at least one item, sometimes several, and frequently at least one of them is magical. Why complain you may ask? Because even with the inventory of seven samurai you tend to get bogged down with extreme haste. Worse, rotating the inventory items from character to character until you get to the one with enough gold (and you don't get nearly enough gold to do everything you'd like to do) to repair it, or even compare the stats of every warrior to determine who most needs what, gets exceptionally annoying. Gameplay tends to involve about twenty minutes of inventory shuffling for every five minutes of play.

Another of the more interesting features of the game, ironically, is also one of its greatest flaws. The seven character system, as great of an idea as it is, tends to lead to more problems than chronic inventory spread. In order to be a force of any power, you need all your skills that you can earn, which naturally indicates that every character class will prove important at some point. Unfortunately, in the beginning, your melee units will take center-stage while your arger and wizard remain dormant until later parts of the game. This in itself wouldn't be quite so devastating until you get to a more difficult portion of the game and realize that neither of these characters will gain experience at a teriffic rate, even when they do begin to see some more action. In the end, the result is frequently a terribly unbalanced and incapable group of warriors.

Finally on a technical note, I experienced a series of crashes which didn't exactly make gameplay smooth. While--assuming the forums serve as a reliable indication--there only seem to be a handful of people with this problem, it is a debilitating problem regardless. The crash appears to be related to a certain spell, or sequence of events which may use the same image or sound file. Every five minutes or so, the game crashes and requires me to restart the game. Fortunatley there is a good save game feature, and most people aren't experiencing this, but it's a terrible hiccup and was worth a serious mention.

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