With some time, this game will really grow on you.
You start off as a Warrior/Knight, your standard sword and shield type of player, escaping from a prison that is under attack. As you work your way through the game, you will free other prisoners. Once freed, those characters become available for you to play on future levels. This is good because the basic Knight character wears out his welcome pretty quickly as the game gets more challenging. Once you get the Druid powered up with some good armor and staves, the game really shines. The inclusion of side levels breaks up the dungeon crawl feel so things don't get too repetitive.
The graphics are pretty good for the age of the game, character models look nice, although some of the animations (jumping, going down ladders) are either poor or non-existent. The environments are simple yet varied, from the inside of a prison to a dockside town to a barren lava-filled wasteland. While the environments are very basic, they do give the feel that you are moving across from friendly areas to distant lands.
The music is good and adds to the mood with little distraction. The enemies DO get a bit old after a while, but some of the bigger ones really make you feel nervous when you see them appear in the distance.
In reading reviews for this game, the biggest complaint you'll see is that its a challenging game and the save system sucks. Will, both are somewhat true. Its not so much that the save system sucks, but rather there are a lot of things that will kill you instantly. Because of the long levels (sometimes as much as 30 minutes), it really sucks to have to play through again if you fall over an edge near the end of the level. However, because of this, you really learn to play through the levels perfectly, which reminds me of the old school 2D days when each jump could potentially send you back to the beginning. It can be frustrating but when you DO finish the level, you really get a sense of accomplishment. Also, the leves are not nearly as hard if you play with the appriate character and purchase the proper upgrades.
The inventory system in this game is based on how much gold you have. Everything you can buy, can be sold back at the same amount so you can experiment to your hearts content with the different gear, and in most cases, each upgrade will cost more so you can easily tell which items is better. There are no complicated stats and stuff to confuse you as to what to buy, which is nice because I hate wasting money on weapons if they don't do what I want.
Anyway, overall, this is a pretty good game if you can get used to the klunky feeling controls. (they only FEEL klunky at first, once you get used to them, they work pretty well) And also it gets more fun once you unlock the druid character so stick with it until you get that and it will really start to pick up speed.
This is a bargain bin game by now so pick it up used for $5 somewhere and have a great time!