Buy Depths of Peril

I wanted to like this game. It was even fun at first. The first thing I really made it a point to understand is that this is an older game from an independent developer. A lot of other people have pointed out that it is unpolished, but I don't know if that is the correct word for it. It is extremely polished. It's also somewhat primitive.

The concept is kind of neat, and it does play a lot like Diablo II. The difference being that Diablo II is a more fluid experience. I can overlook that, though, if the game has certain other cool aspects. The problem is, it really doesn't.

The whole goal of the game is to defeate the other "factions". That seems kind of silly to me given the fact that the town seems to be constantly under seige in a hostile environment. I mean, you can't leave town without getting attacked by MOBs, so the goal seems a little bit unrealistic. It's a game, though, so I can even get over that.

The problem, as I see it, is that other than the goal of the game being different, it really doesn't offer anything new. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say that it's like Diablo II took a step backwards. The leveling in the game, which is one of the most important aspects of any game, is really lackluster. Inventory management is extremely difficult to the point where I was guessing which items would be better for my character. Finally, the actual dungeons are horrible. This is the one area where the graphics are really a let down. It's too much work to try to see what is going on in the dungeon let alone trying to explore every nook and cranny.

Essentially, this game involves getting quests and "solving" them. Back and forth. Wilderness to town. That's about it. And then when your house gets attacked, you have to drop whatever you are doing to go defend it. There really is no political intrigue involved. You can trade with the other houses, and that's the only way to raise your relationships with them. All of that is for naught, though, because the end goal is to destroy them anyway.

I'd give this game about a 4 on a 10 scale. If you want a loot based dungeon crawler, Diablo II is a better option. The contestation between houses adds nothing to the game whatsoever. In fact, I think it's a distraction.

It's an indie Diablo-alike with multiple factions each sending their own heroes out into the wilderness to do the quests. You're not just trying to level your character, you're trying to take over your town from up to seven rivals. It's a little rough around the edges, but it brings some fun, interesting ideas to a very well-known formula.

Depths of Peril is a fantastic game allowing a blend of old school gameplay to integrate with new school dynamic. Create supremacy as you engage in diplomatic relations with other guilds or 'covenants', I highly recommend to RPG and casual gaming fans

A really cool action RPG, while the graphics suck it maeks up for that with some unique features. Namely quests in this game are dynamic: take to long to rescue someone, and they die. Leave a dungeon boss alone? They'll start an uprising. leave that alone? It'll keep getting wrose untill there's an attack on the town. On top of that, the whole time all of this is happening, you're actively competeing for control of the town with several other clans, that you can trade, form alliances with, or declare war on.

I highly reccomended tihs for people who like games like Titans Quest or Torchlight 2, but want something with a few unique tricks up it's sleeve.

Depths of Peril is an ARPG filled to the brim with unique ideas. From the premise of the game, where clans fight and adventure simultaneously for control of the region, to the randomly generated and adequately customizable game worlds. However, unique ideas alone cannot make a good game, and it is in the execution where Depths of Peril falls flat on its face. It isn't completely without merit, though, and I encourage anybody interested in making an ARPG of their own to at least take a look at the game, for the same idea in fully funded and capable hands is easily a recipe for success.

Unlike most other ARPGs, Depths of Peril doesn't contain a single game world that you advance through linearly; instead a new world can be generated for any of your characters to play in at any time. Each world has a number of 'covenants' (guilds of adventurers) that you can fight or ally with in an attempt to control the world. When only you and any allies you may have are the only ones remaining, the world is "complete". This world style allows the game to stay relatively fresh, but severely hampers the compelling story and exciting set boss fights common to others in the genre.

Depths of Peril manages to be like other ARPGs in many ways, though not all of them are positive. Quests in the world are randomly generated, often requiring you to kill enemies or find and rescue an NPC who you may then recruit to help you, two things which are also far too common in the genre. Also like other ARPGs, Depths of Peril suffers from some relatively uninteresting skills, few classes to choose from, all the flaws of random loot generation, and more.

The worlds themselves are uninspired and bland. The graphics are, as you can probably see from the screenshots and video available, not good, especially by today's standards. Even worse than that is how areas of each world will be literally squares of land with nothing separating them other than a small wall of some sort and a break in the wall to walk through. I'm not sure what kinds of forests and plains are perfectly square, but Depths of Peril has them in spades.

The most unique part of the game is, however, its strong point. Competing with other convenants for control is interesting and exciting, especially if you crank the difficulty enough for them to be a significant challenge (and cranking the difficulty up can easily be done). Attacking other covenants, however, is about as boring as can be, unfortunately; each covenant has a crystal that acts as a respawn and teleport point for its members, and you must destroy it to defeat the covenant. What that leads to is you and your covenant wailing on the crystal for a long time while killing the infinitely respawning enemies until the crystal eventually dies. For what could have been an amazing, potentially game-making mechanic, it's disappointing.

Probably the most disappointing part is the lack of multiplayer. It could be an amazing game to play with (and against) friends, possibily even enough to make me recommend it, but it's sadly not there.

A perfectly square field of unrealized potential is what Depths of Peril is, and you'll find numerous fields just like it if you choose to play it. While it has unique ideas, ideas alone are not enough for me to recommend buying it over other ARPGs.

My original review for this game was positive but after spending a little more time with it, I just cannot recommend it. The graphics are pretty poor for any time period and unexcusable for even 7 years ago, when the game was developed. The combat is mildy interesting but is plagued by a variety of skills that have some of the blandest activation sequences I've ever seen in a game. The enemies are repetitive, and overly numerous as they seem to respawn indefinitely, and the quests are extremely generic offering little to no background as to why you are doing what you are doing. The only reason the quests appear to exist is for experience and not for plot or dialogue of which there is almost none on some quests. One of the first quests you can get is to kill 9 pixies. What on earth did these poor pixies do to deserve such a horrific response as raiding their area and murdering 9 of them? You will never find out because there is no explanation.

Everything exists in the game to accomodate what I think the developers put a little too much focus on, and that is the competition with the other covenants. Once again, I am mildy interested in this area. I suppose it's kind of cool that you can form treaties and make trades with these other covenants to keep them happy, but there isn't enough depth even in this area to keep it interesting for long. I quickly found it to be more of a chore to constantly remind myself that I have to pay "tribute" to these other covenants or they're going to visit my house and slaughter my life crystal.

And perhaps the main reason why I changed my recommendation to a negative review is the fact that there is no slow down time in this game. Personally, I like to check out stats and equipment very often in ARPGs and hang around town and just relax and that is non-existent in this game. Every second that you spend going through your inventory, is time that is wasted due to other covenants never slowing down and always gaining influence and power. Want to sit back and relax with a fun, interesting ARPG? Then this is not the game for you.

Score: 4/10

A nice indie RPG; but not a typical one. You actually have a set of guilds in a town, defending it against monsters around. You only end the game by uniting or defeating all the guilds, a real twist on typical RPG stories :)

You don't always work together, you have guild infights, trading, diplomacy, all very light and fun! (and also terrifying and tough at times; they are comparable to your power). You also build up your own guild with new members and monster guards. It is deep enough for some real replay value even if the combat isn't complicated and the graphics not stellar, and the levelling system and loot (of which good items are rare) seem to be balanced. Worth a play if you enjoy the demo!

This precursor to Din's Curse is by no means a simpler game. A bit more rough around the edges perhaps, but the take on party based ARPG gameplay is completely unique. Your party competes with other groups for control over the town. You have all manner of diplomatic tools and victory conditions support alliance wins. All of this takes place in a sweet, if obviously tile based, procedurally generated world, with Soldak's great dynamic questing system. All the other groups are out in this world too, competing to complete the same quests. Groups you are at war with can be fought in the world as well. Indeed the most common path to victory involves crushing the other groups. In order to do this effectively you'll need to recruit your allies carefully, and then see to their development. You also have a hall of your own, where you can post powerful monsters as guards, enshrine relics to give your group bonuses and also build a library of tomes which grants further bonuses.

If you have the patience to learn this game's juggling act, you'll find one of the most unique takes on ARPGs around with its surprisingly deep strategic element.

This is a very fun indie single player Diablo 2-like game, with some additional clan warfare aspects. I put almost 100 hours into this. It may scratch that Diablo itch until D3 and Torchlight 2 come out. This developer also has a multiplayer follow up to this called Din's Curse, and a somewhat rogue-like dungeon crawler called Kivi's Underworld, neither currently available via Steam. http://www.soldak.com/

The action-RPG combat, questing, gathering of rare and powerful loot, leveling up to improve your character and skills, and ongoing diplomacy between your own faction and the other competing factions, all come together to make this one of the most addicting singleplayer RPGs I've played in a long time.

3rd person, overhead, hack and slash RPG (or diablo-esque). Single Player. 4 classes. Simulates multiplayer. You are a guild leader. Recruit other characters to join your guild. You can build relationships with the other guilds or go to war with them. You can kill those you are at war with wherever you find them. Even in the streets of town. Befriend or eliminate all other guilds to win, but you can keep running quests and play without other guilds. Enemies can show up in town and make things interesting. Great stat, skill, and item system. Really outdated graphics. Money is very valuable in this game unlike most hack and slash RPG's. This game got so much right, if it were multiplayer it would be well worth 20 bucks. I say its well worth ten.

I can understand that some people would love this. But somehow it didn't quite catch me. There are some good ideas here, and it works. But i don't feel the urge to open the game, and im afraid this one is gonna get uninstalled. I do however reccomend trying the demo for yourself and make up your own mind.

Awesome game, bought it on indiroyale.com! In my opinion it's one of the best singleplayer RPGs ever!

Want to dungeon crawl with a party, but don't have friends? Then this is a good option for you.

Simple yet engrossing; feels vaugely mmo-ish without being one.

REALLY GOOD GAME, it's like diablo but more open.

1

It feels like one of those very uninteresting F2P MMO's, only you PAY for it and it's single player. Bogus.

A lot of interesting ideas were jammed into this ARPG that were eventually done better in Din's Curse. Play that instead.

This game is weird. It has a really old RPG feel to it like something that might have existed in the early 90's and it feels like it might be a decent game to play if you had some friends that owned it as well. It's very much orientated towards multiplayer, you can play it single player with bots but the AI is horrific and you can just respawn a million times and attack the bots bases and you'll eventually kill them all.

I'm sure there's people out there that this game would very much appeal to, but it feels like it's a niche market game for multiplayer arpg pvp players.

It has a bunch of diplomacy aspects built into it, where you can buy friendship and all kinds of stuff but it all falls apart because of the huge design flaws because the game gives you what seems like unlimited respawns at your own base.

This is a big issue because everyones bases are literally right beside each other. They're houses in a tiny village and if you destroy the other guys base then you kill the guy.

Other than building up enough power to destroy someones base in the first place, there is absolutely no real reason to not just storm everyones bases constantly until they die.

I got 2 and a half hours out of this, I finished it more than once.