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Why don't you have a 0 star rating? This game rates it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: December 31, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Here in Australia we pay big money for games. This one cost us $89, and it was barely worth $1. (It was a local impulse buy). Its as buggy as they come. It crashes between "cities" nearly every time. It only allows ONE person to have ONE save game. The interface is cludgy and despite its 3D the graphics are really sad.

We are RPG game lovers from way back but this one was a big disappointment. The fact that its a diablo clone was actually a plus for us as we really enjoyed that game. Its just sad that instead of improving on diablo they went the other way.

The font they use is too intricate and too small to read and I still dont know what half the buttons are as I cant make out the text!

In RPG's I like to roll my own character. Here they do it for you and take away half the fun of the game for you.

I am sad to say that there is nothing good to say about this game except that the box is pretty. Pretty enough to suck you into buying it and regretting it.

Why bother?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 14, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I have the same opinion about this game as I do the Hellfireexpansion for Diablo: If you are going to release an updated versionor expansion to something, it needs to be an improvement. This game isa Diablo clone with a few 3D tricks thrown in to make it shiny and new. There is nothing here that is worth wasting the price of entry. If you have Diablo already, dont bother with this. If you bought this and havent played Diablo, dont buy Diablo...

You get what you pay for

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: September 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game was originally released for 10 dollars. Almost everything about it is pulled straight from Diablo and is not quite as good. Though this game has a few things about it that are interesting, and can be enjoyable to some people, I would just skip this game and go for Diablo 2.

D&D Stlyle Games

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 24
Date: February 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The number one thing that attracts me to an RPG is if it has one of four logos.
#1 Forgotten Realms
#2 TSR
#3 SSI
#4 Wizards of the Coast
I am a hard core D&Der from the 70's and wont recommend any RPG title that does not have one of these logos as without it, it means that is not officially D&D nor does it have the D&D rule system in place. I have found that any game that does not have these logos are wimpy at best.

Fair game, for a diablo clone. Gets dull VERY quickly

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: December 15, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you've played Diablo through to the end so many times you begin to see the spiked monstrosity in your dreams, and STILL can't get enough - but really wish it could make use of your new 3D accelerator, this is the game for you! On the other hand, it's far more likely you'll play Darkstone for a few evenings, uninstall the game and begin having a blast playing Frisbee with the disc.

-Buy this game because you enjoy playing games with no particular point, because the only skill you wish to employ is marathon mouse-clicking, because you just can't get enough pointless quests for useless objects, or because you are completely indifferent to storyline 'Just point the way to the next monster! '

-DON'T buy this game if you're looking for a challenging fantasy game with an immersive storyline, or if you're looking for something new and interesting that will earn itself a place of honor on your hard drive.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Diablo, though it shared many of these shortcomings, it had a distinctly 'real' atmosphere. You felt a certain amount of immersion despite lack of an involved storyline. Perhaps had Darkstone been released years ago with Diablo it would have been a different story. Darkstone strikes me as being 'dated', and perhaps incomplete. Did the developer ship it out before it was complete? Who knows.

If you purchase this title, be sure it's from a place with a forgiving return policy. Speaking of which, anyone want to buy a copy? It's in perfect condition, barely used...

(Diablo +3D) - 99% fun = Darkstone

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: February 03, 2000
Author: Amazon User

1 1/2 Stars. I bought this after reading PC Gamer's review that gave it a 90% and Editor's Choice award. After playing the game for several days, I went back to the review and saw that the reviewer was the magazine's wargames specialist, who probably never played Diablo and unfortunately has no good concept of how an action/RPG should play.

This game is a tremendous disappointment. While it does contain 3D graphics, the modern 1999 display is actually inferior to the 2D 1996 game that inspired it. The display in Diablo is much easier to see and actually has a better, scarier atmosphere than Darkstone.

The 3D effects in this game would be ok, but for an huge problem, which is that you lose your preset front-forward camera angle any time you change directions. The character ends up going sideways and the perspective is lousy and difficult to follow. I understand that Tomb Raider 2 had this same problem with the camera angles. In any event, it is so distracting that it takes much of the fun out of the game. Ditto with the label on your character - when scanning for treasure near your character after a fight with the cursor, it pulls up a little note with your character's name on it, which is very annoying and makes it much harder to find loot.

The puzzles in this game are boring and the distance between receiving the clue and reaching a point in the game where you can actually solve the quest is far too long - often several different levels in the game.

Diablo had atomosphere and was creepy; when stalkers suddenly appeared and attacked, I jumped. I cringed when the horned demons made a run at me. By contrast, there is little suspense in this game. Most of the early levels feature endless rat killing, which gets old quickly. By attempting to be realistic with the lighting, the display is harder to focus on; think permanent cursed Cap of Night: -75% light radius.

Magic is trickier to use and less intuitive than in Diablo. Although I was focusing on archery more than anything else, I never could figure out precisely how to cast spells, based on the poor instructions in the manual. Although Darkstone allows for acquiring a broad range of skills, rather than just the one assigned to each character class in Diablo, most of the skills are neither interesting nor particularly useful.

Magic items and loot are less interesting than in Diablo and are much more expensive. It takes a long while to be able to acquire enough gold to buy anything useful or powerful (which I never really did, as I got too bored with the game to stick with it long enough to acquire a Big Weapon).

All in all, if you have Diablo, you will have more fun replaying it for the umpteenth time than trying to deal with this lousy clone, while waiting for Diablo II to arrive in February or June or October or Christmas 2001 or whenever. If you do not have Diablo, buy it - it is truly the most fun game ever made and despite the aging technology, is superior to this game in every way.

Bad, bad game, I cried for hours

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The game had a few cool features. I liked the fact that you didn't have to remember how to get to different locations, you simply had to visit it once and it was added to a list of destinations for you to pick from. The other cool feature was that it was a game...other than that, it felt like "Get item, kill monsters, go to next level, get items, return with items, kill monsters" The plot (as far as I got, as much as I tried to force myself to continue onward eventually even my self-loathing has a peak) was weak, the NPC's dialogue was horrid...I'm old school in that I actually care about plot in an RPG call me bizzare...if you want a good RPG, go get Might and Magic, or wait for Diablo 2. (though I always did like the M&M's better)

Addictive, with good graphics, but not much of a plot.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: January 19, 2000
Author: Amazon User

If you want a basic hack and slash dungeon game, where the puzzles don't require much thought, then this game is for you. If, however, you're looking for a game with character development and a good story line with intricate details and subplots, then you probably won't enjoy this game very much. I've played all of the Might and Magic games, except for the first two, and even the earlier M&M games were better than this.

The quests and storyline are very cliche'. Most of the skills you can train in aren't very useful. I have a fighter with 7th level repair and she still can't repair anything without breaking it. Trade and armsmaster are probably the most useful skills, as well as learning, which helps you level faster. One plus is that when you level, you can up your stats even if you can't afford to train.

A huge improvement would be if we could edit our own levels and quests, but the game doesn't even include that.

The 3D-graphics aren't too bad, once you get over the hilarious way the characters look (imagine a Barbie or Ken doll crossed with Japanese animation, and you'll get the idea.)

Another plus is the hack and slash portions of the game are addictive. If only the plot was better.

Terrible game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: September 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've played a lot of games in the past few years, and Dark Stone has to be one of the most boring games in the world. When it was new it did have it's halfway decent (although a little too cartoonish) graphics. But now that the game is a few years old, it cannot even claim that.

A bad attempt at a slightly more complicated Diablo, this game just doesn't cut it.

Darkstone, aka Diablo 1.5

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: February 15, 2000
Author: Amazon User

When Blizzard released its mega-hit Action/RPG hybrid Diablo in 1996, it was gobbled up with enthusiastic acclaim from critic and gamer alike, with good reason. It evolved the addictive dungeon-crawling formula from Gauntlet with gloomy, gothic architecture to create one of the most satisfying romps to straddle both sides of the Action/RPG fence in years, and shared distinction with Daggerfall in bringing CRPGing out of its regressive slump in the last few years. After the initial deluge, it's odd that most other gaming companies out there were slow to carpe diem with their own bandwagon products, given their the propensity to create "me-too" games if it follows a successful formula. So, this sensory input sluggishly trudged through the nervous system of the gaming industry until finally, in late 1999, it hit the brains of the rival CEOs, and out marched the clones. Darkstone lead the pack with Revenant and Nox soon to follow. It's a good thing that the most derivative of the three, Darkstone, was released first, because come this summer when Diablo II will be released (uh, so the grapevine says), this franchise will definitely be damaged goods.

Darkstone is SO derivative, down to the color of the potions, names of equipment, character classes, stats, and mouse controls, that if I'd been handed this game without documentation on a nondescript CD I'd have thought it was "Diablo 3D." I challenge you to find a reviewer who DOESN'T make a Diablo allusion with this game. Even developer DSI is self-conscious about this, its very manual instructing gamers at the beginning that if they "are already familiar with this type of game," an obvious reference to Diablo, they can move on to appendixes outlining the major differences in structure from its predecessor. Even banner advertisements for Darkstone that I was privy too touted "All you former Diablo players searching for a new home, your search is over." There is something refreshing about a gaming company that admits that its product is nothing more than a stylistic rip-off.

The best way to review Darkstone would be to speak about how it in fact DIFFERS from Diablo. First off, in single-player mode you have the option of playing simultaneously with two characters, with the computer controlling one. This teamwork makes progress easier, and AI used is decent enough with a Warrior or Thief. In Town (yes, that's its name, "Town," DSI must have rightly assumed that naming it would be redundant, after all, one of the most oft typed phrases I saw on Diablo's Battle.Net was "see u in town"), in addiction to the mandatory blacksmith/witch/healer/innkeeper present there was also a banker for hoarding all that extra loot taking up space in your inventory, and anything that you purchase that exceeds what's in your pocket is extracted from your account (medieval debiting! How progressive!). There is also a Skills Trainer, who trains you in, well, skills, and various tiers of ability, that operate much the same way as spells except they don't tax your stats any. Some skills passively assist your character, such as "Trade" and "Perception" which endow your hero with the ability to haggle merchant prices and detect trapped objects, other skills like "Forester" or "Theft" have to be activated. The well-disciplined and learned character is a huge advantage on the road; I got in the habit or regularly using "Concentration," "Meditation," "Orientation," "Prayer," and "Lycanthropy" in-play, which was a huge boon to my combat skills, as well as using others such as "Repair" and "Recharging" to increase the value of surplus equipment I'd find before pawning off. There is also a feature to allow you to automatically backtrack previously visited areas, allowing the computer to take care of a lot of needless traveling to and fro in dungeons and on the surface world. There are a couple of irksome contributions unique in Darkstone's re-treading of old ground, however. One is the inclusion of hunger and aging of your characters, giving the game a condensed timeframe feel to it, but to what end? A tad of grounding realism to your careers as evil-smiting heroes? Luckily, there is usually enough food and anti-aging potions down the road. Two, prices tend to be extraordinarily inflated compared to Diablo, at rates 200-400% of what you'd expect. 10,000 gold just ain't what it used to be, pardner. And naturally, Darkstone's engine, bestiary, quests, and dungeon-design have been re-modeled and expanded from Diablo's, with 32 dungeons to Diablo's 16, and a plethora of randomized quests to go with them, even if they mainly fall in the banality of retrieving the of or killing the of ages.

I enjoyed digging up the nostalgia of Diablo's glory days in Darkstone, and played it nightly with a friend of mine for about a month before the novelty wore off. However, that's still only a third of the time I devoted to Diablo. Simply put, Diablo was a little more fun that Darkstone. Diablo had the feel of a melancholy AD&D Ravenloft adventure, Darkstone was more along the line of a clichéd D&D dungeon-crawl. Diablo's Trinsic was a morose and haunted country village bathed in crepuscular dusk, Darkstone's garden-variety "Town" is a fort enclosing a pen of adventurer shops in bright daylight. Diablo had a thematically consistent ensemble of demons and undead, Darkstone has a goofy collage of goblinoids, anti-heroes, and creepy-crawlies---you thought Monty Python's killer rabbit was a joke? Meet its rodent cousin. Even Darkstone's musical score sounds like a banal remake of Diablo's. Drak even makes a bona fide Evil Speech (tm) at the end of the last level before commencing battle.

Darkstone is a very serviceable modern upgrade to Diablo, with some welcome additions to the award-winning formula. It's worth looking into if you're a starved Action/RPG fan or if you want to relive some of that late-night hack-and-slashing with some friends. Just entertain no illusions about what it is, and what it isn't.

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