The dwarven mines were a labyrinth with the game's usual instant-kill tricks like falling rocks, weak floors (which you can't tell apart) and the unfairly tough regular enemies. Eventually I reached a room which required 3 gems to proceed,…
The dwarven mines were a labyrinth with the game's usual instant-kill tricks like falling rocks, weak floors (which you can't tell apart) and the unfairly tough regular enemies. Eventually I reached a room which required 3 gems to proceed, so I had to wander around until I found those. While searching, I entered a room containing one of those magical tablets. Unfortunately the room was a trap filled with rising acid, so you have to climb the pillar in the centre. Also the game doesn't give you control until your character's feet are already in the acid, so you lose half your health by default - how nice. The tablet spewed some more incomprehensible mythology telling you nothing and sent you on your merry way. Eventually I found all the gems, which activated an elevator and I had to face a boss monster - an ogre. It was insultingly easy since it was quite slow, so I could out-maneuver it and use the trusted strategy of throwing my weapons at it until it was dead. After you defeat it, the game gives yet another FU moment - you fall in a dark tunnel and hear that rocks are chasing you. The tunnel you run from them leads straight into a pit, so I had the pleasure of dying. After reloading I simply dodged the rocks and carefully went down. You learn something about a magical artefact and go to some tomb to find it.
I was not enjoying my time with this game. As I said, it's basically a clunkier Dark Souls and I'm not a fan of those games. The level design is made specifically to kill you, the enemies are faster and stronger than you and combat is not fun. You basically have to wait for their recover animations to strike. The various weapons don't make much of a difference since combos aren't all that useful. The food you find barely restores your health, so potions are the way to go. The story is barely there and it sounds like gibberish. I had to look up a walkthrough to see how many more levels there are and it's actually quite long, so I decided to not waste any more time with it and dropped it. Dark Blade may be interesting to Souls fans, but it's not for me.
