Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Review

Developed by Stormfront Studios and written by R.A. Salvatore, Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone sounds like an RPG-lovers dream! While there have been plenty of D&D-based video games in the past, Demon Stone  is a little different, placing you in command of a party of three heroes on an adventure to rid the land of two evil warlords. Is different good? Well, that’s up to the gamer. However, Demon Stone ends up playing out more like EA’s The Two Towers than it does other D&D games.

Years ago, two feuding warlords were locked away in a Demon Stone by a powerful wizard. Fast forward many years, and three heroes met by chance at the ancient mine in Damara. Or at least they thought it was by chance. They found themselves compelled by a mysterious force to the Gemspark mines, where a strange set of doors lies in their path. The adventurers break through the doors and unleash the two powerful warlords. Now the three heroes must stop the warlords before their war destroys the world! The story manages to be interesting, which R.A. Salvatore fans will be glad to hear. The three characters are all unique, with their own history and personality. I really enjoyed the cast of characters in this game, including both the heroes and the villains.

You play the game as the party of three heroes. You can quickly switch between them to take advantage of the unique abilities and fighting styles of each. Rannek, the fighter, is the traditional warrior. He’s physically strong and carries a big sword. Illius is a sorcerer, armed with a staff and powerful magic spells. Last is Zhai, a rogue who uses stealth as a deadly weapon. Gameplay is quite varied, so you’ll often find yourself switching characters to defeat a certain enemy or to solve a challenging puzzle. When you aren’t playing as a character, the AI takes over and manages to do a decent job controlling them.

At the end of a level, your party earns an equal amount of gold and experience. Experience is used to master new abilities, while gold is used for armor and weapon upgrades. Many of the abilities have prerequisite abilities, so you might need to think ahead a bit. However, most of the abilities will be familiar enough to RPG fans that you’ll feel right at home. By purchasing equipment and abilities, you can really increase the power of your heroes, making the remaining journey significantly easier. There’s a wide variety of abilities, although they sometimes have crazy control combinations that are tough to perform.

Outside of the basic combat abilities, each hero has a useful special ability that will help you through various situations. For example, the sorcerer can place down magic exploding balls, which can clear your path. Your party can also use team abilities by filling their hero meter. The hero meter is replenished by defeating enemies and using combos. If your meter is partially full, you can do a team attack that will summon one of your allies to aide you. If all three of your party members have a full hero meter, you can perform a very powerful team super attack that will damage all opponents within a large radius.

Each character has a projectile weapon that they can use to take enemies out from a distance. The fighter has axes, daggers are the weapon of choice for the mage, and the sorcerer uses powerful magic blasts. The fighter and rogue can carry a limited amount of projectiles, but will be able to pick up more as the adventure progresses. The sorcerer, on the other hand, can take an unlimited amount of shots with his magic blasts. Your projectiles are all upgradeable, so even though they don’t start out particularly strong, you can eventually make them an integral part of your arsenal. They’re also required for a lot of the game’s puzzles and boss battles.

The game features legions of monsters to fight, and you’ll often find yourself hugely outnumbered. These battles can be a lot of fun as your three heroes take down countless enemies, but they can also be a bit frustrating due to the amount of chaos on the screen. In these circumstances, you’ll often rely on the aide of healing items. You can find healing potions that will restore the HP of a single character or healing scrolls that will restore your entire party. The HP of all three party members, your hero meter, and your remaining projectiles, are displayed clearly on the screen. This makes it easy to keep track of your characters during even the largest of battles. Annoyingly, if a single one of your party members dies, it’s game over for you.

Gameplay in Demon Stone is extremely similar to the Lord of the Rings games from EA. The abilities work much the same way, the character building is very similar, and the basic hack-and-slash gameplay is more or less the same. Fortunately for RPG fans, Demon Stone provides a slightly deeper RPG-rich experience, but perhaps not deep enough to satisfy the most hardcore RPG lover. Fans of The Two Towers will surely appreciate Demon Stone, but fans of games like Neverwinter Nights probably won’t. One area where Demon Stone doesn’t shine is in the co-op department. It’s a really enjoyable adventure, and it would seem ideal for co-op mode since you’ve got several party members. Unfortunately, co-op isn’t an option, and your friends will simply have to watch. Lengthwise, Demon Stone isn’t short but it isn’t exactly a hefty RPG either. It can be beat in a weekend if you’ve got the time, but the short adventure is still a memorable one.

Demon Stone offers superb visuals. Each character is intricately designed and moves fluidly in combat. The environments are varied and never get dull. The spell effects are also impressive, and result in combat being a beautiful sight to see. Unfortunately, when hordes of enemies pop onto the screen, you’ll sometimes experience a bit of slowdown. Demon Stone features an all-star cast, including Patrick Stewart and Michael Clarke Duncan. Outside of the superstars, the rest of the cast performs nicely as well. The music and the sound effects are also solid, although perhaps not as memorable as the voice acting. The camera is sure to cause the occasional bit of frustration due to your total lack of control over it. Sometimes enemies will be swarming you and you won’t be able to see where they’re coming from and won’t be able to rotate the camera in order to get a better look.

Seeing as this review is being written long after the release date, you should easily be able to pick up Demon Stone for a low price, making it an easy recommendation for the RPG fan who wants a game to play over a weekend. It’s not the deepest RPG out there, but it’s still a lot of fun to play.

Final Grade: 78%

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Screenshots

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Videos

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFuT_lZvy84[/youtube]

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Guides / Links

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Wikipedia Entry

FAQ/Walkthrough