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[twillight]

This game is nothing but annoyance.

First: the equipment-system is annoyingly limited, and works in an anoying way.

Second: there are many items, and you don't know what you will need and where.

Third: this game at points is about pixel-hunting. I downloaded the walkthrough to have a basic understanding of the items, and accidently saw the Warlock-picture puzzle. Now I DID examine the picture before, but it turned out you need to examine A SPECIFIC POINT of the pixel. As there is no autohighlight option - what is the very basic of adventure-games -, this makes the game frustrating.

Fourth: the game allows free roaming. The bad part is, that the limitation of equipments, namely healing of HP and MP, forbids free roaming. So this game is about knowing every detail before even starting the game, and do thing in THAT exact order THEY planned, no exception.

Fifth: maybe because of the free roaming, maybe something else, but clues are easy to miss and die because of that. Like the Lurker yu find first time, and as it makes you scream, and is ugly, and roams around you most certainly attack. I found no clue ingame what says never attack a lurker. Stupid thing.

Sixth: this thing looks like some early version of Resident Evil. The problem is, clicking all around on a static interface, while the enemy dinamicly chases you, is unbearable.

The game's visuals, story, music and atmosphere would be top notch, but the gameplay is unhandleable.

[Enchanter23]

Originally Posted by twillight

This game is nothing but annoyance.

First: the equipment-system is annoyingly limited, and works in an anoying way.

It's a survival horror game. This one goes for realistic environment description. You are not meant to be a lorry, carrying all the 65535 items you have found during your life. Upon entering the house, you have only your pockets, and you cannot stuff in there more than the pockets can contain. The same goes for the suitcase which you find right at the beginning.

Originally Posted by twillight

Second: there are many items, and you don't know what you will need and where.

Just like in real life, when you enter an alien strange house, and look around. What are all these items for? Are your expecting some invisible helper hover over you, whispering the meaning of every item you found? That is easy to implement in a computer game, but in reality it is close to impossible, don't you think? Once again - the game goes for realism. Nothing more. Your guns are limited in ammo. You can die easily. Even magic, though made real, eats your magical energy away surprisingly fast. This is not a shooter (though some characters can be developed to play the game more like this way, I'll give an example later).
Anyway, there is a lot of written stuff scattered all over the house, which has hints and clues concerning the use of the majority of items, so one should not complain, but investigate further.

Originally Posted by twillight

Third: this game at points is about pixel-hunting. I downloaded the walkthrough to have a basic understanding of the items, and accidently saw the Warlock-picture puzzle. Now I DID examine the picture before, but it turned out you need to examine A SPECIFIC POINT of the pixel. As there is no autohighlight option - what is the very basic of adventure-games -, this makes the game frustrating.

There are very few hard moments in this game when it comes to pixel-hunting. And even then, one could just figure this one out, because the painting is really unique, in comparison with other furniture and wall stuff seen on the first floor. Because it's so unique, it is worthy of a second glance, a more prying one, and there you are - a hint - green glass bits inside of the gem slot on the warlock's neck.

Originally Posted by twillight

Fourth: the game allows free roaming. The bad part is, that the limitation of equipments, namely healing of HP and MP, forbids free roaming. So this game is about knowing every detail before even starting the game, and do thing in THAT exact order THEY planned, no exception.

It allows free roaming, because it is a role-playing game, as well as adventure. Of course, the less you are constrained, the more freedom you have - the more feeling the game generates.

And concerning limitations of healing equipment - once again, this is NOT a shooter. Play Doom and get lots and lots of medikits, if you like this process. Some folks don't find it limiting or difficult that they can survive only one hit, and then they have to start a game anew. This is all about skill and imagination. This game is HARD - as long as you don't know what is what. That's true. But, as the creators have stated in their manual, it is also all about trial and error. You die a lot, and start over, maybe another character, who could last longer (or could not). And so on.
And once you became more familiar with the game, you will be surprised how easy it becomes. A lot of monsters in the game can be beaten or avoided by using special items or their combination, without shooting, hurling spells and other loud stuff. (Zombies shy the Juju Fetish, holy water instantly kills gargoyles and ghosts, harmful shrieks from egyptian
mummies can be rendered less harmful by turning on a stereo, fire elemental spawns cannot survive an ordinary flame extinguisher - and on and on...) If you do things right, the monsters just start ignoring you, or they are rendered harmless, or their attack is significantly lowered, etc. When you play, you learn. This game is about many deaths to those unfamiliar with it. But the more experienced and careful this gamer is, the more easy it will be for him to continue through the game.
In the end of the message I will give one variant of strategy to have a rather easy start.

Originally Posted by twillight

Fifth: maybe because of the free roaming, maybe something else, but clues are easy to miss and die because of that. Like the Lurker yu find first time, and as it makes you scream, and is ugly, and roams around you most certainly attack. I found no clue ingame what says never attack a lurker. Stupid thing.

Yes, clues are really easy to miss and you die because of that. Real-life situation, folks. It is a survival horror game, and it was STATED by its creators that it is difficult. Therefore, no complains on this part.
About lurkers - not exactly true. Actually there is a note telling to stay away from a lurker. Of course, if you are an experienced FPS gamer and the first thing you do is attack everything on sight before thinking, it's your problem that Lurkers start to dislike you. But if you are a careful gamer, playing an investigator in an unfamiliar and hostile environment, you usually RUN when you see the green tentacled monstrocity rolling itself towards you, and not shoot it with your feeble-looking revolver (the only gun found at the very beginning). And later it will be a comforting discovery - to realise that the monstrocity ignores you completely.

Originally Posted by twillight

Sixth: this thing looks like some early version of Resident Evil. The problem is, clicking all around on a static interface, while the enemy dinamicly chases you, is unbearable.

This game was released at 1992, while Resident Evil-1 appeared at around 1996. So if it comes to that, it might be RE that looks like this game, not the other way round.

The idea of clicking on static interface while being hit by dynamically attacking enemy was very popular at that time period - it was the epoch of Eye of Beholder trilogy, Lands of Lore-1, etc. All of them had similar static interface, and people were playing and winning these games, and none complained. You're playing a retro game, which is 19 years old already, so give it rest. Things were different at that time. (I personally played it at the age of 15 back around 1994, and the game interface and things looked pretty standard and not unusual or unbearable).
By the way, you can dynamically run away from your dynamically attacking enemy with keyboard controls - in Legacy your character's movement is controlled by WASD(Q,E). Use it to rush about the house in every direction (and don't forget to level the Dodge skill, which allows you to squeeze past monsters).

Originally Posted by twillight

The game's visuals, story, music and atmosphere would be top notch, but the gameplay is unhandleable.

It really depends on the approach and on what you are expecting from the game. If you want to run around in a non-stop way, shoot things, heal yourself, shoot some more, repeat, repeat, etc. - then why not play some other retros like Wolfenstein or Doom, and stop blaming this one to be different from them? If you don't, then be patient, master the gameplay and proceed carefully. And the game will reward you with the grasping story and sound atmosphere.

Now, a hint about strategic start, to increase chances of any new player who reads this and wants to give the game a try.
(this is just one of several ways to start, don't take it as the only way to beat the game).

At the beginning, create your own character by Re-design option, and pump his Willpower until you get one of the Protector Spells (Crimson Mist is a must). If you can't get it at first few Willpower pumps, re-do the character and try again. Once you got the Mist, spend around 3 skillpoints to level it up, and spend the rest of the primary points as you like, but not forgetting about Stamina, Meditation, First Aid and Dodge (no need to raise them above 4 or 5), that should be nice enough to start.

Now start and protect yourself with level 3 Crimson Mist of Myamoto (right-click on the spell icon and select ###). The spell is active for a rather long time period, and cast at level 3 it makes yourself highly resistant to the physical damage, and therefore, to attacks of the zombies that prowl this floor. In the brick area you will find a skeleton hand named Juju fetish, which forbids the zombies to attack you while you are carrying it in your hand, but there is really no need for the hand. In the same area you will find another buff spell - Iron Fist of Agatta, or something like that (I forgot the exact name). It powers up your melee attacks greatly. Just level it a bit and cast it at level 3 (###). Now a crowbar, or a bottle, or just your empty fists will do lots of damage, so you can just wipe this entire floor with those zombies (2 or 3 hits with an iron cane kills the monster). Don't mess with a lurker, though, if you don't want it to become your assailant for the rest of the game (and believe me, you don't want these to be your enemies). Later on, when you will find other Protectors, use them, and Melee your enemies (there are lots of weapons of this kind - from iron cane and baseball bat to chainsaws and katanas, so be creative . No need to spend the precious mana for attacking spells, or dealing with jammed guns. Armours found later - like Kevlar Vest - increase your protection furthermore.
Gargoyles on the second floor are really easy to deal with using your powered-up melee weapons. But they die instantly being splashed at with holy water - so why bother? And so on...

This beginning strategy is only one of several possible ways, I stress once again. The game allows you to go through it by various means, you can be an army dog with revolvers, pistols, shotguns and M-16, or a samurai using protective magic (the given variant), or a combat magician with lots of willpower and meditation to draw the energy from crystals - just explore. The only thing that is unavoidable at the end - you must have powerful enough magic to beat the last bad guy, it can't be beaten by ordinary weapons or means. So you can go through the game with different tricks and ways of using your items and weapons - but in the end it is your magical abilities and spells that matters, so have this in mind. It is okay though, if you go through the game until its very end knowing little or nothing about magic and die in the end - that is the fate of that particular character, take it as it is. That's survival horror and that's an RP element, imho.

Therefore, a decent magician can overcome the evil of the House in this game, while an ordinary person cannot. For those wanting to be the latter, I'd recommend AiTD-1, with the epic Oil Lamp hurling at the end.

A former poster mentioned how annoying the Bloodbeasts can be on the mansion's third level, the asylum. I second this. Yes, the pistols never seem to do any damage at a distance and using Flames of Desolation eats up a great deal of magic. Surely there must be a more efficient way of dealing with these eldritch pests.

And one other thing: Does anybody know if the Demon Mask does anything? At all? It was worn by samurai to terrify their enemies, so I assumed that maybe it would assist physical attacks or reduce enemy accuracy (specifically when used in conjunction with samurai armor and/or katana).

While I'm on the subject, what about the Snake Wand found in the third basement? So far all I know is that taking it springs a trap and some Sea Daemons show up. Anything else?

[timotaka]

The most important piece of advice I would give to anyone starting out with this game is to play it not like an RPG, but like a survival horror game. Trying to kill everything, working your way up from zombies on the first level, is pointless. You do not even gain any experience from killing simple enemies, but from discovering information (thus, read every document you come across) and solving puzzles. Most enemies in the game can either be destroyed by solving a puzzle, or there is some magical charm which will cause them to ignore you. When you do fight something directly, equipment is more important than skill.