Darklands is an unusual for its genre RPG by MicroProse, which instead of taking us into a fantastic land, allows us to immerse ourselves in the reality of 15th century , along with all the events characteristic for this period: the growing role of the Catholic Church, spreading chaos among the ordinary inhabitants of the papal inquisition or upheavals at the royal courts. Of course, there is also a place for fantasy elements (dragons, monsters and devils' worshippers calling their master to visit Earth's paddle), but in comparison to the rest of the factors, they do not constitute the overwhelming majority.
The authors of the game approached the subject of creating new heroes in a very interesting way. The whole process is reminiscent of arranging a curriculum vitae, in which we determine the professions of each of the charges, which he or she ed during the years of his or her existence. Depending on how you manage your character's career, you will receive a certain number of points, which can be distributed between the available skills and character traits. Age is important here - the older the hero is, the more he can do, but it is not the best idea to send sixty-year olds to battle. Please note that the age of time is very visible in Darklands and it may turn out that our newly created heros will die of exhaustion after a dozen or so days of travel.
The main area of activity in Darklands is a gigantic map of the former territory of and neighbouring countries (even some Polish settlements and cities are available). The action is observed here from a bird's eye view - apart from our heroes you can see roads, rivers, forests and larger locations to which you can go, such as monasteries, villages or castles. The adventure does not have a clearly defined goal and in principle it can last forever (all the more so as it is possible to replace older heroes with younger ones). Yes, during the game we will have to perform a lot of tasks, both smaller and larger, but there is no one main element of the story, which would bring the struggle to an implacable end. We can walk where we want to go and do what we like alive.
Darklands takes an innovative approach to skirmishes with enemies. The fight takes place in real time, which can be stopped at any time of the battle. We give simple orders to all heroes taking part in the battle, but this is not necessary for success. The program behaves extremely intelligently and in case of lack of reaction from the player, it takes action for him. Also, visits to other locations are made in a different way than in other RPGs from the first half of the 1990s. After reaching the city, several text options appear to our eyes, which in turn can activate more of us. Manipulation of the available variants is time-consuming, but the richness of actions, which we perform, for example, during a visit to the village, cannot be overestimated.
Darklands is an interesting product and definitely different from other games of this type. Both the freedom of action and the vast world positively influence the experience of gameplay. The low number of references to fantasy elements and a greater concentration of authors on the realities of the medieval world are also pleasing. In the game we don't find the magic typical for RPG - instead we have the art of alchemy and divine help, manifested by summoning saints in various situations. The audiovisual setting does not stand out above average, but the lack of graphics and sound perfectly compensate for other elements of the game.
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