Inspired by games like the Diablo franchise or Torchlight, Realms of Ancient War is an old school hack and slash dungeon crawler with very limited depth and breadth that is hard to overlook even tough it isn't a triple-A title. The story in the game is not the worst we've seen so far, in all honesty it's fairly interesting and one of the stronger points of the game. The game starts years after the so called Ancient War which divided the land to 4 territories (East, West, South and North...duh, imagination at it's best). The Northern King proposed truce so he invited the remaining kings to the Hero's Garden. Something went wrong because the Northern King was never to be seen again and the rest of the kings became soulless zombies. Yes, clichés after clichés, but it's not all that bad. The game contains some witty dialogues and turns.

We can pick from 3 unnamed characters: wizard, warrior and rogue. Each have different styles but they aren't that different that any would change the gameplay significantly. Each class has it's own skill tree, where you can level up your attacks. There are 1 level and 3 level skills. Skills open up gradually. The first group right after the beginning of the game, the second after you reach lvl 10, the last after lvl 20. However, there are two problems related to your skill management. First, in every stage you can gain exactly one level. No matter how much you fight or how many side quest (there aren't that many) you complete. You can only get 1 skill point in each stage. That makes the whole level grinding procedure useless and dropping all the challenge. You will get your skill point no matter what.

The second problem comes with the use of your skills. You have only 4 skills at your use at a given time. Two of them are to be activated with the mouse and two with keystrokes on the keyboard. You can program these skills to the aforementioned buttons. If you want to use other skills you have to use the alternative set. Essentially you have 2 sets of skills, which can be changed at any time with a button push. Easy enough, in theory at least. Practice is a different beast. Remembering which skill you have assigned to which button in which set is pointless, painful and horrible. When a dozens of foes are attacking you there is no way this system can be use properly. Using this method is understandable on consoles where there are limited buttons to use, but on a PC it's unacceptable. This is where you realize that 4 skills/attacks are well enough to complete the game.

At least the fighting and hack'n slashing is exciting. You are continuously attacked by tens of enemies, making the game challenging and intense. Sometimes it is hard to hit smaller enemies, like spiders which live everywhere, rain forests or volcanoes it doesn't matter for them. Graphically the game doesn't excel, but it's not bad either. For an XBLA title it's passable. Not are the audio tracks though. Audio effects are horrible and repeating. Listening to the same 3 grindings throughout 8-10 hours when you hit enemies is annoying. The music is on par with the rest of the audio. You get one passable song which plays when you start the game, the rest of the music tracks during gameplay are just pointless burrs.

R.A.W. is a below average hack and slash game that tries to build upon it's great predecessors of the genre but fails in every possible way. It's chaotic, mediocre and boring. A game that is hard to recommend when you can get a dozen of it's kind cheaper (or even for free). If you can finish it once there is no point starting the game ever again.

Rating: 45/100; Replay Value: 1/5; To Beat: 8-9 hours; Played on: normal.

"I played games 10 years ago that outdo this in every way"
Having been a fan of the Snowblind engine games on consoles like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath, I had some interest in this title as well. Unfortunately, this game has left me massively disappointed.

Story
You are wandering around when you get attacked by some creatures. A voice tells you to head through a portal. You find the voice belongs to one of the 4 realms Kings, who is trapped in crystal and yet still able to communicate. He wants your help to activate 4 gates and stop these creatures at the source.

More stuff happens later, but it doesn't get any better. The story is boring and forgettable. I quickly lost interest in it myself.

Presentation
Graphically, this game is decent. Not great, with the fixed camera, boring locations and constant repeated enemy types, but it isn't horrible. You at least know where you are on the screen, most of the time.

Music and sound effects are poor at best. Fortunately, you won't remember it after you are done with the game.

Controls
The keyboard / mouse controls are just awful. Please, don't even try to play this without a gamepad. Playing with a gamepad has its problems still, but it can be played at least. You are unable to remap anything but the four face buttons, which could result in some irritation since the game doesn't follow the standard controls for similar games that use a gamepad.

Gameplay
Move forward, beat up enemies that spawn out of nowhere within sight of your character, and repeat. The randomly spawning enemies are quite a pain in the ♥♥♥♥, and it doesn't help they don't even spawn out of camera.

Gear is boring, with each piece of equipment for your chosen camera being the same as your previous gears in every way but stats. Speaking of stats, only gear can change those, levelling simply allows you a skill point to power up mostly pointless skills. Each skill doesn't even give you specifics on their enhancements, instead saying stuff like 'Minor damage, Moderate damage and Greater damage', meaning you won't even know how useful a skill is without spending points on it. At least there is an item you can use to have all skill points reset so you can later invest them in better skills.

Wandering around each level can be bothersome as you have not been given a minimap of any sort, just a compass to point you towards your current quest location. Most levels aren't so big that you require it, but its sill an annoying omission.

Lifespan
If you can somehow beat the game even once, you still have the option of beating the game with all three character classes. I pity the people attempting such a goal.

This also has a rather poor co-op mode, with the second player having a character with a scaled level and default equipment, that won't be saved between levels. Beyond getting an achievement by having a second player join in, I doubt anyone will bother with co-op.

Closing
Even ignoring the much better competition that was released years ago, this game is a poor choice for purchase. I would recommend against purchasing this title, your money can and should be spent on much better items.

A run of the mill, bog-standard action rpg. 3 possible classes, 26 totally boring levels, bland and uninspiring skills, and combat that most of the time boils down to mashing the basic attack skill. Story-wise nothing spectacular either, and side quests (if any) are limited to simple "go kill" or "go fetch."

Avoid unless you somehow have absolutely nothing else to play.

7/10
An ok game.
Fun but nothing special.
They really overdid it with the spiders on every level.
Also no map was annoying.
Having said that I kept playing to the end so can't be bad.
A nice little dungeon bash if you can grab it in a steam sale as I did then a bargain :)

This has been ported from consoles and is barely playable on the PC. If you get this in a Humble bundle or on sale I reccomend you use a xbox360 controller or similar for this. Game feels and looks old and gameplay is really clumsy. You get easily stuck in the environment as well. So play at your own risk.