Daggerfall
Bethesda births belated blockbuster
by Andy Backer	Bethesda Softworks

TIPS: Daggerfall	TIPS: Daggerfall

he bottom line is that Daggerfall is the best CRPG of the year, period. Is it perfect? No, it's a flawed masterpiece; but know that its negatives do not keep it from being a great game. We're talking about a ten percent deduction here, folks; only a half of a star. Bethesda concentrated on developing better game play, not eye candy, and some gamers are already complaining about the graphics being VGA. Since the graphics are far superior to those in Arena (where the walls would pixelate at the slightest glance) I'm not deducting any points for that. I liked Exile in spite of its primitive graphics; I can certainly forgive Daggerfall with its excellent graphics for not being SVGA. However, a half of a star is deducted because there are still several bugs (alas) that there will probably be a patch for by the time you read this. The bugs are mostly minor, but they shouldn't be there. Daggerfall is a swords and sorcery type CRPG, where a single player character is developed to higher and higher levels. The levels are achieved only through a combination of monster hacking, guild training and skill development. A character only advances to the third level, for example, after s/he's improved 15 total points in all of the primary, two of the major and the first of the minor skills. Many different kinds of quests are available. Some come from talking to individuals in towns. Others are given by Guilds. A major story-line quest is available, but to complete it and win the game, the gamer's personal character has be at least level fourteen. The first stage of the story (meeting Lady Brisenna) does not require any particular level, but accepting quests from royalty after that does. It's best to be at least fifth level before attempting to do so. Some quests are impossible for low level characters to fulfill. The most rewarding crypts in Daggerfall province are The Crypts of Yeomhouse and Copperston. They feature a few low level monsters, and restock monsters and treasures every time you leave. Good for building character. The game is based on Bethesda's spectacular new Xngine™ technology, which allows unrestricted 3D view and movement. You can look up, down and all around. Often, you can go to where you look; climb on top of roofs, or city walls. You can't climb up ladders, by the way. You have to grab them. You can also swim and walk underwater, with the right spells. Xngine also changes what's possible with the auto-map. Dungeon maps have never looked this good. You can spin the 3D models of the dungeons you find, move them up, down, left and right. You can even look at them from top down. The game encompasses a topographical landscape twice the size of Britain, with multitudes of towns, fortresses, villages, graveyards, crypts, vaults, dungeons, caves, castles, homes, highlands, lowlands, rivers, cliffs, sand dunes, swamps, underwater and even different dimensions to explore. Some of the dungeons are so huge I've had doubts about ever getting out of them. With the recall spell, however, claustrophobia isn't necessarily a fatal disease. Daggerfall is such a detailed and gigantic game it can take hundreds of hours to fathom its depths (one beta tester claims tongue-in-cheek that s/he's not sure any of the testers ever finished playing it). Your character can accumulate immense wealth (safely exchanged for letters of credit from banks). With it s/he can buy carts, houses and even ships, which can be used to store treasure. Seventy-eight standard spells are offered initially in the game, and a Spell Maker (available in any Mage's Guild to even a Novice member) allows a character to create even more variations. If your PC isn't a magic user you can buy (and find) magic items, and potions which cast spells. After you think you've discovered everything about the game, try daedra summoning. Since the daedra will send you on quests to find the best artifacts in the game, they're well worth the thirty to forty-five percent chance you have of successfully summoning them. Talk about being completely free to determine who and what you will be, where to go, and what to do! Daggerfall boggles the mind with that kind of freedom. It begins with the character generator. Eighteen standard character types are available, and you can choose to customize almost infinitely. It's easiest to get through the game with a Battlemage; it's almost impossible with a mere Thief, but you're free to give it a try. After the starter dungeon, go to the major city of the province you're in (the on-line tutorial will tell you how and where) and cash in your treasure and join all of the guilds available. If you've picked the Archer's pocket sufficiently (stuck behind the horseshoe shaped table in the starter dungeon), you can even join the Thieves' Guild. One columnist recently said he thought true role-playing-games were dead; on the contrary, Daggerfall proves they are exhilaratingly alive and well. Not only may Daggerfall be the best CRPG of the year, it just may be the best CRPG of all time – at least, until the next flawed masterpiece is released. Heh-heh.

©1996 Strategy Plus, Inc.