Now, you won’t just explore stony corridors plagued by vampires and were-bulls, but damp, moist forest worlds or frost-choked caverns home to living trees and crystalline warriors in search of priceless artifacts.

That being said, perhaps the outing’s greatest achievement is simply how it manages to cram yet more depth and detail into an already vast and open-ended odyssey while remaining so all-encompassing, yet effortlessly accessible.Īnd while still prone to growing ridiculously repetitive after a while beholden to endless backtracking and difficult, especially for those unfamiliar with Diablo or Dungeons & Dragons‘ basic conventions, this improved variety translates directly to more addictive play.

A simple button press is all it takes to move, sprint to a nearby locale, swipe with axe or halberd and conjure up the odd lightning strike or stamina-restoring incantation on-command. So, even if it takes some time to master the concept of limited health/magic points collectible fish that transform your sidekick into flame-spitting salamanders and lithe, lynx-like beasts or hotkeys that let you activate healing effects or summon beasts on-demand, eventually everything comes naturally. Still, newcomers won’t be at a loss either, as despite the wealth of material players must process (deciding which assignments to accept, arms/armor to equip, spells to keep in one’s magic book, statistics to upgrade as experiences levels are gained, etc.) – the action’s still purely mouse-driven. What’s more, you can even import previously-saved characters into the tale, which – despite giving you an unfair edge up-front – does help further the epic’s sense of continuity. If nothing else, the title does a stellar job of picking up right where its forerunner left off, delivering a host of new magic items quests characters surroundings and challenges to tackle. To wit, you must scour a variety of new townships, labyrinths and even worlds in search of the powerful Book of Fate, with a number of unexplored, elementally-themed lands (based on fire, ice, earth, water and primal chaos) yours to cleanse of darkness.Ĭue a non-linear, transport hub-based journey through randomly-generated levels filled with tricks, traps and treasure, not to mention a host of vulgar beasties from spell-casting humanoid squids to living mushrooms, sentient insects and rotting cadavers. Having successfully conquered the evil which threatened the town of Grove in the original game, our intrepid hero – star of the monster-infested, maze-clearing saga alongside his intrepid, transformable pet – is quickly confronted by new intrigue.Īs an amusingly-narrated intro explains, an old stranger soon arrives bearing news of a hidden temple filled with danger and treasure, plus prophecies which threaten the welfare of the realm’s innocent inhabitants.

Fate undiscovered realms review