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Lemmy
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Bubblewrap
Dec 2000
time: 06:29
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I played it for while, it's interesting.
Character creation is more tedious compared to fallout, 2 screens instead of one, and several tab panes on the right. It takes some getting used to, but if you know the SPECIAL system you'll quickly find your way to the familiar statistics.
I really like the way they've implemented the skills, there are 3 main groups: Fighting, Thieving and Magic, and all groups have about the same amount of skills, all of them with a very distinct use.
My character is a bit of an allrounder, concentrating on Perception, Agility and Intelligence with off course the Gifted trait...don't know what i'd do without it  .
I like the way you get experience while sneaking past an enemy. It seems that for each "sight roll" the enemy fails, you get experience. So if you wait a while before attacking, you could get a dozen xp points early on without doing anything.
Also something interesting is that when creating a character, you have to choose which type of spirit you'll carry with you. You can choose from Elemental, Bestial and Demonic.
During the game, the spirit you've chosen will appear and give you tips and hints.
Biggest turnoff so far is the realtime combat system combined with the fast movement of your enemies. For me there is virtually no time to take any action between the moment they've noticed, and the moment they are standing next to me and killing me.
I'[ve only played as human so far, but i'm stil curious about the different branches of magic..
So far i'm enjoying it. 
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Grumbold
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London, UK
Mar 2000
time: 05:29
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- The screen is 800 x 600 only, which is a pity because...
- The interface takes up too much of the game screen. While you can toggle it off, I find the quick slots and text window invaluable.
- The main character is poorly animated. Sneaking at the slowest pace through to the fastest run is all donw with one walk animation that just looks terrible at running pace.
- Despite being large, some of the interface buttons are very small and badly placed. Quicksave and quickload pixels apart is just asking for grief!
- The chat window is not very user friendly. It would be better if it was centre screen while you engaged in dialogue.
- Point allocation on levelling up is very unforgiving. There is no way I could find to back out if you put a point in the wrong place.
- There are lots of options in combat, with fast, normal or calculated swings at various body locations, but absolutely no feedback on what your chances of hitting actually are. The luck factor was high too so it seemed easier to just wade in and quicksave/quickload until you got a good result than fanny around with the combat options. Criticals seem limited to dishing out knockback and extra damage, at least that was the only obvious result.
- The same sort of thing applies to lockpicking. The only way to guage the difficulty of a lock is to quicksave, try to open it three times then quickload. Repeat about 10 times and if you have failed you can be fairly sure you've got no chance of opening it. A red/amber/green traffic light to show you if there was any point in even trying would save a lot of frustration.
- your animal companion in the demo is a pain in the bum. Because it meanders around you on a wide leash it can easily aggro more monsters than you want at the worst possible moment. It doesn't seem to care if you're sneaking or stationary either. Hopefully humanoid companions aren't as moronic.
- Combat against anything except the slowest monsters is going to be melee before you can fire off an arrow unless you're on the ball. Since you cant target while paused, firing off spells and melee swings in succession is a pain and you can easily click different enemies by mistake.
- Gauntlets and armbands use the same armour slot. One of my pet hates.
None of this stuff makes Lionheart a terrible game, but it does hint at less than first class production values. I just hope that they consider tweaking some of the bits that could go a long way to giving it more polish and playability. While I prefer TB games I'm not averse to RT combat, in fact I think Divine Divinity does it very well. It just doesn't fit with the level of complexity and difficulty that seems to be in Lionheart.
A speed slider, targetting when paused and hopefully some feedback on your success chances when opting for a calculated head shot vs a wild swing at the legs of an ogre would really help, as would an attempt to give at least the main character some more variation in their movement animation. If it arrives in the same state as the demo I don't expect high review scores even if the plotline is really strong.
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29-07-2003 12:18
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ACK!
. I guess that'll make you want the game to play more, but the conversations and stuff like that is what I want to see.
Inside, there is a varitable army of bandits along with a bunch of unexplainable poison-spitting monsters. There is not even any dialouge with the bandits - there's one charging at you as soon as you enter the door without a word spoken. 
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