A long forgotten RPG, the hack-and-slash gem that no one's ever played.
From what I could piece together, this game suffered the fate of many... delays made development run too long. By the time it was ready for release, other games were looking much better and the budget had run dry, so the game kindof fell by the wayside. I think only a handful of copies were even printed in the states when this game finally finished in 97.
So, what is A&A? Well, its a first-person hack-and-slash RPG using a modified DOOM engine. You start by choosing a class and name, and then picking a quest. There are a handful of them, scaled according to difficulty, and each quest has the equivalent of 3-5 DOOM levels worth of action. Punctuating each phase of a quest is the opportunity to return to town, where you can buy and sell goods, sleep at the inn, put your money in the bank, or even start another quest if you like. Quests are almost exclusively of the find-this-item-and-get-to-the-exit variety, and you'll be treated to small smatterings of story at the beginning and end of each level via text displays.
Combat is executed by facing an enemy and attacking them. Melee weapons have short reach, you have to be right in the enemy's face, but you can also shoot with spells, wands or crossbows if you are so equipped. You can also interact with the world by picking up objects and using them, throwing objects into the world, casting spells (which travel like projectiles mostly), and opening doors/switches/etc.
Basically you have two "hands"... your left hand (the mouse pointer) and your right hand (a box on your HUD). Pushing the attack button basically uses whatever is in your right hand. If it's a sword, you swing it. If its a wand, you cast its magic. If its almost anything else, you eat/consume/cast it. As you kill enemies you'll gain experience, which in turn will raise your level, increasing your stats. There's a handful of stats to watch out for, and each of them has an effect on your performance. You have to manage your health and mana, as well as regularly eat and drink to stay healthy. Your left hand is how you pick up objects, throw objects, examine things and move things around. In the first person view, you can click on something to grab it. You can then click again to throw it away, or drop it into your backpack. Right-clicking on something lets you examine it (but you may not know what it is or what it does... it pays to be smart). Your inventory and equipment appear as grid box and paper doll models, respectively, when you open them, and you can grab things to/from them just as you would the world.
Spellcasting is done with runes, each spell has a combination of runes needed to cast it. If you have the proper runes (and the spell is of your magic type) you can dial the rune combination on the number pad and push keypad enter to throw magic. You learn new spells by finding the right combinations on scrolls. Hypothetically, any class can cast magic, but the most powerful healing and attack spells are reserved for priests and wizards, who are weak in combat. Even sailors and mercenaries have some magic, but they have low mana and their spells frequently fail. Of course, cool magic comes at a price. Wizards are forced to fight in paper-thin armor with sticks, while warriors can swing big axes and shoot bows and wear the Supreme Chainmail of Superawesomecool.
Ok, great. So how IS the game? Well, its got its high and low points. For one, the graphics are UGLY. It uses a modified DOOM engine, but the sprites and textures are dark and muddy, like an amature WAD might be. In fact, everything is pretty bad looking, everything is brown and a lot of your journal text is almost unreadable. There's a few midi music tracks and token sound effects, and that's about all that can be said for the presentation. The HUD is almost entirely brown. This game just feels older than a 1997 game. It LOOKS like a game that had some development trouble, or was just a prototype for something better.
For an RPG, this ga,e has almost no plot to speak of. I'd say its more of a fantasy action game than a true RPG... the whole point is to loot stuff, cast magic and swing axes, not negotiate with whiny elves. In fact, one of the first things you do is slay a bunch of whiny elves. Neat.
It controls just like DOOM for the most part. Hold ALT to strafe, SHIFT to run, CTRL uses items and SPACE opens doors.
Ok, so if this game is so mediocre, why again is it great? Because for some reason, its a blast to play. There's hundreds of objects for you to find, loot and eat. Depending on how smart you are, you might not know what something is, and eating it to find out what it does is half the fun. Spellcasting is tremendously satisfying. You can launch homing missiles, unlock stuck doors, brew healing potions, get nightvision, give yourself better traction, push foes away or pull them off high rooftops, you name it. In between all this, you get to slay evil druids and skeletons, solve simple DOOM-type puzzles, drink potions of Giant Strength and Cure Poison, find Mystic Orbs of Doom, loot dungeons and crawl back to town to sell it all, and level up! Also, this game supports co-op I think, but it barely runs on DOS emulators, and good luck getting that to work. Sure, the combat is a little shallow, but how well can you expect the DOOM engine to emulate swordplay?
I think if this game would have been widely released back when DOOM was in its hayday and the DOOM engine wasn't so tired out, this game would have been remembered as a great. Sure, the combat can be a little weak sometimes, but everything else about the game is just so classic. It could have stood to be a little prettier too, but its challenging and its a good way to kill a couple of afternoons old-school style.
The Verdict:
If you happen upon this game someday, by sheer happenstance, in your wanderings about the globe... buy it. It deserves to be played.
You can see how this game was influenced by The Elder Scrolls, and it does some pretty cool things with the DOOM engine. It's not big on plot or high-speed action, but it sure is campy and probably extremely rare.
Of course, this sort of game makes for a purely retro experience. It's a hack-n-slash in first person that's graphically somewhere between Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.
I seriously can't be the only person in the world who's played it...