Eternal Ring

"A pretty good game for Wizardry or Eye of the Beholder fans."

First, I would like to say that this game is not for everyone. If you liked games as Wizardy or Eye of the Beholder, you will surely like this. Why? because Eternal Ring has multilevel dungeons, a first person point of view (obviously with smooth graphics) and roleplaying. It reminds me of games like Might and Magic too. Now, onto the scores:

Story: 7/10 I give a seven because the story is too generic, although its a little entertaining.

Graphics: 8/10 The graphics are ok, they serve the purpose well. There are some pretty good day-night transitions, and theres no pop up, so the fog you will see actually is part of the gameplay. The magic spells, on the downside, are a little weak in the effects department. The enemies are well animated and are somewhat interesting, but theres no much variety per dungeon, name 2-3 different types of enemies. The animation and graphics of the dragons are great.

Sounds: 8/10 I like the musical score, I think its pretty good and fits the theme well. The sounds are a bit weak but nothing too serious, they just do the job, nothing more, nothing less.

Gameplay: 8/10 As I said before, if you like somewhat tedious dungeon crawling, then you will like it. Also, the magic ring combination is fun but a little tedious when you just make combinations and dont get the ring that you want.
The downside is that theres no automap or map available, I think that a game of this kind need something like that. The load times arent to high, and when you enter a house you dont need the game to load the house, you just enter it immediatly. I had a problem with my dualshock 2 controller, because the game didnt let me use the joysticks. I hope this error is not generic and that I just got a bad copy of the game. The in game menu is pretty useful and it lets you access your status and items easily. I also like the cut scenes that tell the story and presents you a boss before you fight him.

Replay: 1/10 Well, as any RPG, the replay value depends on you, if you liked the game too much to replay it or to get another combination of rings.

Conclusion: I liked this game a lot, because it remembered me of classic first person dungeon bashing rpgs. I recommend it if you also like this type of games.

Final Score: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/01, Updated 07/05/01