ABANDONED PLACES 2

Four hundred years after the death of Bronagh Prince of Evil, Pendugmalhe his creator has returned to take revenge on the kingdom of Kalynthia. Dowgen leader of the ancient order of Arbitrion has reconvened the order to protect the innocent and recall the ancient heroes. Kuhalk the Sword of life emerges from the conjurers circle to revive the ancients, who have been frozen for the past 400 years. Your quest is to lead the heroes throughout their journey and confront Pendugmalhe in the desperate battle that is to take place in the third dimension.

Experience magical 1/2 bright graphics, magical spells animating around you, sounds which brilliantly create the atmosphere and monsters that will make your hair stand on end. AP2 is superbly crafted and technically brilliant; but all you really need to know is that it is a truly wonderful game.

• Explore the vast reaches of AP2, from Dungeons and forest to cities and castles.
• The atmosphere grips you as the wonder and magic of AP2 unfolds around you.
• Awaken the mystery of the ancients and revive the heroes who must save Kalynthia
• Uncover the secrets of the villagers and buy provisions to sustain you on your journey.
• Forests are enchanted and dangerous move quickly to the towns for shelter.
• Travel through treacherous dungeons confronting danger in many different forms.
• The vast outer world is far from friendly.
• The unsuccessful receive a special visitor.
• Hoards of foes in many different dungeons.
• Massive play window. 1/2-bright graphics. Full outer world. Hard disk installable. Huge dungeons. Super smooth controls. Animated spells. Full mouse control. Instant spell selection. 
• Over 32 pre-defined characters of player defined characters.

~ from the back of the box

 

Hungarian developer ArtGame returns to the dungeon crawler with Abandoned Places 2, a sequel to that impressive underdog of an RPG I reviewed last month. This time, there's no lacklustre PC port with the title being firmly locked on the Amiga. I had some niggles with the original, but will the year it took to create the follow up be enough to address them all?

The story, as usual, involves ancient evil and world-ending stakes. Pendugmahle - a name you will never know how to pronounce - is back to wreak havoc, and only a mythical sword and shield combo can stop him. Naturally, these artifacts are scattered across a labyrinthine world filled with traps, puzzles, and enough skeletons to fill a boneyard twice over. The nicely animated intro sets the tone with just enough melodrama to get you in the right mindset of a resurrected hero tasked with saving the kingdom. Again. It's like your life can be of nothing else!

The opening dungeon is a crypt. Hunt for switches and hidden buttons to get out (left).

You've found the entrance to the next dungeon! This one's a dwarven mine (right).

Graphically, the game is a major step up from its predecessor. The game window is enlarged to display a more detailed view of the cavernous locations you'll spend most of your time in, and the monsters are blessed with smoother animations and a more realistic art design that would feel right at home in Westwood's classic Eye of the Beholder or even Lands of Lore series. The catch? Even on high-powered Amiga setups, things can get a bit sluggish. The brief breath of a pause as you move is just enough to question whether the input has been recognised, and in its worst moments they unknowingly stack up to spill out in a cascade of static game screens. It's just annoying enough to make you lose your bearings or step into one of the many traps. Still, I's say it's not a major deal for patient players of a deliberately paced game such as this, but it's enough to question whether the developers bit off more than they can chew.

Character creation offers a solid range of customization, though it sticks to a fairly rigid fighter/mage dichotomy. Fighters lug your gear and bash heads; mages throw fireballs and patch up wounds. While you won't see cross-class progression like in Dungeon Master, the variety of portraits and attributes at least gives the illusion of depth, and it's always fun to build your perfect party from the lineup of 32 adventurers, though if you pay attention you'll find there's only one truly optimised group (Hint: it's Heliodor, Bevezar, Amalthea & Aster).

These flashing lights are traps. It could push you into fire, randomly teleport you or seemingly do nothing (left).

This pressure pad requires you to place a heavy weapon on top of it to disable a trap (right).

Perhaps the biggest change is how it handles the overworld. The bird's eye view of the world map that made up the first game has been transformed into one vast, interconnected area that plays just like the dungeons you narrowly escaped from. Bear in mind that this is still a game from 1993, so everything is still locked to an orthogonal grid, even with vague attempts to appear natural by adding trees and lakes. Bears, birds and other beast roam this land ready to attack as you search for a nearby city to rest and replenish your wares. Much like the first game, it's in these respites where you can trade treasures for upgraded weapons and health potions, but I suggest you spend most of your money on fish. The party can get hungry, and when they do they will slowly lose health making it a headache when your an hour in a dungeon with no signs of escape. Thankfully, you can overstuff yourself increasing your hunger past 100% and piscine delicacies are the most efficient way do so. If you extend your belly enough, you will not have to worry about it grumbling for a while, at least until you come across the next town.

One area where Abandoned Places 2 shows both creativity and complexity is in its slightly reworked magic system. The old priest class has been retired, with mages now divided into three schools of magic called "spheres"; elemental (straight-up firepower), necromancy (healing, resurrection, and other life/death trickery), and cosmos (a potent mix between the two, but takes an age to get anything good). Spells can now be "readied" in a character's hand and activated with a right-click on their hand much like one of your fighters and their weapons - a clever touch that makes magic feel more tangible, though it also introduces some limitations, particularly when timing is crucial in battle.

Is that Camelot in the distance? I hear it's a silly place (left).

Even so, it will still have an abundance of shops and useful establishments (right).

Speaking of combat, this is one area where great attention was needed, and none has been given. There's no visual feedback when you land a blow, just a greying-out of the character's hand, which doesn't exactly get the adrenaline pumping. Even the first game gave you a red splat when an attack hit. The stubborn lack of any keyboard shortcuts infuriates me even more. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to attack only to miss and activate the swap character action instead. And when you can take multiple hours on a single dungeon maze, this archaic type of gameplay is nothing short of insufferable. Thankfully, once a foe is vanquished, he'll remain so until you leave the area. Be an efficient killing machine, and you'll have the entire place to yourself free to explore at your leisure.

And it's exploration that remains the heart of the experience - and Abandoned Places 2 perhaps gives you a bit too much of it. The first dungeon is massive and not particularly welcoming to newcomers. Illusory walls and maze-like layouts mean that unless you're diligently taking notes or drawing maps, you're likely to get lost. But for the seasoned RPG fan, this sheer scale can be a dream come true. The game features 25 dungeons in total, from musty crypts to open forests to dwarven mines, each varying wildly in theme and challenge. Going by the length of time it took me to see through the early dungeons (the first one took me three-times as long as the first game), I estimate that's about 25-30 hours of gameplay.

In the end, Abandoned Places 2 is a classic example of a game that spectacularly succeeds in its goal for the time in which it was made, but falls far short for a modern RPG player. That doesn't mean that its achievements aren't worth applauding. It's a game for dedicated dungeon-crawling fans - those who live for mapmaking, embrace notetaking, and can forgive a little mechanical weirdness. It's not beginner-friendly, and it won't win over those allergic to grid-based exploration, but if you're a seasoned adventurer in search of a massive quest with an old-school soul, this one's well worth digging up.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses FS-UAE with WHDload to emulate the Amiga version. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 103 Mb.  Install Size: 219 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download


Abandoned Places 2 is © Francis Staengler & Steve Fabian & ICE Ltd
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

Like this? Try These...