The original title could've been named Dark Messiah The legendary Kicker of Might and Magic. No other computer role-playing game(CRPG) I’ve played goes the full stretch of satisfying kicks as Dark Messiah does. You know the movie 300 from Zack Synder where the king leg shots the dude so hard he flies back into the abyss below? Same energy here. And guess what? You can spam the leg button until you run out of stamina. Thereby making yer leg and by extension the gameplay, the star of the show, and for a title made in 2006 I was impressed how nearly everything holds up, heck even the graphics! And the level design for its time got me all giddy once again from my time playing Prey(2017). Turns out Arkane Studios created this! Wowzers! A first-person ACTION with light rpg and immersive sim mechanics huh? Well color me intrigued! Let's head into the vital info before I dive into the great content.

Usage of Valve’s Source engine was actually due to a sort of accident the team saw Half-Life 2 demos, they contacted them bam teamwork baby. The making of the aforementioned title goes into the finer details, but what makes the collaboration so special is the techniques the team utilized in regards to the physics in a way to drive the ambitious goals for not just Ubisoft’s plans for the game but also Colantonio and his team’s ambitious goals to strike while the iron is hot for a focused player immersion experience.

And I must say it does, to the extent it is the biggest highlight and shines so bloody hard.Aside from your own personal Leonidas kick hostiles into the void button. You have standard jump, attack with melee, magic spells, stealth capabilities, bow & arrow, staff, or harnessing a sword and shield are viable playstyles. With your own skill trees in the passive or abilities department, Had fun exercising a jack-of-all-trades build, with stealth going into the bin since I felt it was half-baked once detected and everyone would swarm you nearby. Thus I had to become some type of medieval John Wick with extra power on his lower body, capable of slaughtering foolish adversaries.

I firmly believe player immersion is hot and alive here by the power of ordinance. A term coined by Randy Smith who worked on the game said ‘player of ordinance’ means “that when we supply a tool at the beginning of the game we can no longer take it away such as a barrel that can be broken. It has to be accessible throughout the game, supplying many tools at the start and we have to make sure to use them.” - “This was apparently a challenge for both animation artists and level designers to manage so many tools. Where the art worked in tandem with the gameplay coordinators.” This is important because the immersive sim elements are vital to the main gears structuring the whole breadth, other games in the genre employ the same principle, Prey’s GLOO gun, Dishonored’s blink, Thief’s blackjack or rope arrow etc.

Like so, the fusion of level interactivity is highlighted extremely well from beginning to end without being absurdly difficult when faced against multiple assailants. The verticality can be abused by both enemies and you to lure unsuspecting mobs off a cliff, shoot from far away, and hit mechanisms and switches to trap and force foolish dum dums to their doom. I grinned maniacally as I baited clueless mobs to a big pendulum, whacking them into oblivion hell there’s even a rope arrow I could spam on any wooden surface! What is this Thief!? Hell yeah! And the tried and true method of yeeting barbarians from tall heights nearly overcame my acrophobia, with physics playing a key role in being pretty generous in what I can and cannot do.

And this is where my mixed feelings begin. Not a positive or a negative merely some concerns I had during my playthrough varying in quality I felt that should be noted.

The story is simple and nothing truly deep. Without heading into spoiler territory, I wish the dialogue was overhauled to keep me invested. The premise begins with you as a young man by the name of Sareth who is apprenticed under the wizard Phenrig, years training with your mentor has honed your skills enough to take you along a quest of sorts to retrieve a Shantiri Crystal, this crystal is important once returned to your master, and it is here where Sareth’s journey truly begins…

…into shaking my territory, to get a glimpse of what occurs I couldn’t help but ask myself the countless blasting my suspension of disbelief and very predictable sequences of events occurring. Leading me to believe the plot wasn’t much of a strong suit but rather led on the low-priority list in favor of the positives I mentioned earlier. It’s a shame because the world is barely above interesting in a sort of light worldbuilding compared to the Forgotten Realms universe which is dense and exciting to see what’s new to learn.

Speaking of weak embers, enemy variety sorely needs extra models to stop reusing the same mobs again like it's going out of style. I saw the same humans, orcs, demons, goblins, and undead zombies/skeletons rinse and repeat. Bosses also share the DNA being reused repeatedly though thankfully rarely than commonly. Makes me think not much budget or focus was prioritized on enemy models in favor of the combat and AI which are acceptable alternatives, though somewhat predictable to fight the same old enemies once again disfavoring surprises for re-using the old formula.

Modern tinkering is somewhat required.[www.pcgamingwiki.com] Several things could be patched in to help users from any future issues such as the large address aware helped a bunch in case of ‘out of memory errors.’ A skip intro videos, enable the consoles along with killing of head-bobbing were optionally nice to have.

Overall, Dark Messiah’s laser focus purely on gameplay is an ambitious undertaking to give as many tools as possible to the player while making the whole level usable with the right approach deserves praise. Ralph’s team combined their previous experience to flourish some key tenets: Imagination, freedom, in the core - combat all played a key role in transporting me into a brawler action role-playing game with an immersive sim to boot. I was very satisfied to the point I have zero complaints on the gameplay itself, rather it’s more so on the painfully predictable cheesy story along with enemy design and boss copy-pastes instead of variety and minor tinkering involved if played on PC to play it modernly. Wistfully I wonder if the collaborative effort by multiple studios during development were a part in a lesser focus on the narrative in favor of the multiplayer aspect which allowed players to face off in 16 vs 16 on humongous maps. It’s a worthy game in the CRPG genre made by a passionate team with an Ubisoft backing that turned Dark Messiah into a salvation for Colantonio from becoming bankrupt at the time while simultaneously granting players a new playground to enjoy in the Might and Magic series. Sure, I still wish for a Arx Fatalis 2 nevertheless, I am grateful the developers had a chance to bounce back rather than going under as is the fate of other unfortunate talented companies. I sincerely hope if you’re hankering for the boot to end all videogame punts. Then I have no problem proclaiming just as the devs said here “Best kick in a videogame?” Oh hyah! 🦵☁️

6.6/10

Review severely cut to fit Steams 8000 character limit. Full review here[www.backloggd.com]

Still a pretty decent RPG, despite its age.
Plays pretty smooth once you get into the flow.

This is the first game I bought on steam. I got it for the price of a 20oz bottle of Mtn Dew when I got a new laptop. I thought "well, if it runs like crap, it was only worth a Mtn Dew". Game is pretty fun and I wish it had sequels. Also, Jerma's videos of this game are legendary.