In one of the more interesting openings to any recent RPG, you are cast as one of the bastard scions of Richard the Lionhearted in an alternate-history Earth where a great disjunction let loose the demon hordes and has pitted various factions not only against these evil forces but also against one another. The tale opens with slavers discovering you are indwelt with an elemental spirit that marks you as a natural-born magic wielder, you are cast into a dungeon, whereupon your spirit manifests and begins to give you instruction and background, an ingenious lead-in to the in-game tutorial section. After escaping the dungeon, you will eventually need to join one of the several factions seeking to destroy the evil forces. The choice you make here will sharply affect the first half of the game, opening up or closing off avenues of questing and character development.

You can join the ruthless Inquisition, who seeks to abolish magic; the secret Wielders’ group, who seeks out and educates those with magic talent; or the Knights of the Crusade, who seek to protect the holy relics of Christianity from the demons’ machinations. Along the way, you’ll meet a host of real historical characters that will give you quests, advice, or even join up with or fight against you. Unfortunately, this promising beginning is just that; the title grinds slowly to a halt toward the end. Let’s explore what went right and what went wrong a little further, shall we?

The game is a mélange. The character development system is lifted from the Fallout series, a significant plus as you have many options for tweaking your character’s strengths and abilities throughout the game. Exploration, interaction, and combat are much like Diablo or Divine Divinity more than Baldur’s Gate, with you playing the central character and occasionally having a tag-along NPC party member or two at your side.You choose your race (human, feralkin, or demokin), gender, and physical appearance as well as some determining characteristics (types of magic, weaponry and thieving skills, etc.) right from the get-go. Picking your “guiding” spirit will alter the game’s orientation a bit, primarily offering different choices of spellcasting skills. You can choose to increase your abilities in any area, though you select several preferred or “tagged” skills and spell types to begin at a higher skill level.

Controlling your character is intuitive, pointing and clicking on locations where you wish him or her to go. The interface is well-designed and easy to use, though rather large; a pop-up or auto-hide feature similar to the Windows taskbar would have been welcome here. You explore large areas -- Barcelona and its surroundings are a full five maps – and can enter most dwellings and stores to search (or loot), interact with inhabitants (including fun run-in’s with Machiavelli and Shakespeare), or trade for equipment and magic items. The mapping system and journal do a good job in allowing you to easily keep track of your location and quest status, though the ability to annotate the map and a quick-travel feature in the local maps would have been much appreciated – I wore many a rut into the cobblestones of Barcelona’s three main districts in the course of my questing.

Combat is in real-time and similarly intuitive; you control melee attacks with the left mouse button and spellcasting with the right mouse button. You can set hot-keys (or click icons on the interface) for commonly used weapons, items, and spells. Unlike the Temple of Elemental Evil, you can’t set up multiple weapon loadouts (i.e. one configuration of armor and weapons for ranged attacks and another for melee), but you can pause the game, re-equip your character or select less-commonly used spells, then resume so as to not be caught flat-footed trying to find your bow while being munched upon by the local attacking fauna. Theoretically, you can target specific body parts and use a slider to increase attack rate at the expense of accuracy, but I didn’t find that these made a great deal of difference, especially in the game’s later stages. So far, so good. Now, on to some frustrations…

The first half of the game is engrossing; scripting, storyline, and pacing of the action are all excellent. You acquire levels and loot quickly enough to feel rewarded but still have significant challenges and strategic decisions to make. Quests are varied and open-ended. Locales are varied, from beached shipwrecks to underground tombs to the other-dimensional home of the Wielders’ guild, hidden right under the nose of the Inquisition.

The second half of the game, however, is completely linear no matter what faction you have chosen. Now the magic-wielding Celts from the heathen British Isles have invaded Spain and France, setting out to take control of the demonic magic and then (naturally) the world. Small spoiler hint: Don’t talk to Nostradamus until you complete all your other quests; there’s no doing so after speaking to him. While it is a nice touch to return to maps you had previously seen only to find homes burning, edifices crumbled, and the Brits’ catapults raining devastation on the now-familiar streets of Barcelona, there is a sudden change for the worse in tempo and storyline. You now trudge through linear and uninspired maps full of waves of difficult and identical enemies, inevitably finding that had you only known what was to come, you would have chosen your skills differently. The endgame favors the well-balanced character. If you’ve crafted a powerful mage, the physical dangers you’ll face will likely overwhelm your skills. If you’re a master thief, you’ll be overcome by the sheer numbers of the enemy. If you’re the ultimate warrior, your lack of magical skill and resistance will be your undoing.

Furthermore, the ending is anti-climactic; in all the times I’ve saved the world (and haven’t we all? Where’s my action figure?), I’ve never come to a final showdown with some cruel sorcerer, evil usurper, scourge of the universe and source of all evil …only to merely talk him out of it. I’m not kidding – this is a viable option in ending the game. Yes, you can just whoop him as well but seriously…diplomacy at this point in an epic tale? I don’t think so…

Visually, this is an improved Diablo-esque setting, with vivid 2-D graphic backgrounds and characters, a varied color palette, and nice lighting and spell effects. You will fight in historically accurate settings with great mood and character, traveling through the Pyrenees mountains, the beaches of Spain, and multiple dungeons and ruins. The character models, spell and monster animations, and backgrounds are all crafted with pride. There are enough ambient details (flags fluttering, waves on the shore, and so on) to keep the eye-candy seeker mollified. As in most RPG’s (sigh), the music is good but becomes repetitive, while the sound effects are solid throughout. Ambient sound is effective and the surround sound works well. Voice-acting is top-notch as well. The manual is generally helpful, though you’re likely to find better strategy tips in the online forums. There’s an online cooperative mode for up to four players as well. In my testing, both single- and multiplayer modes were solid and I never crashed once.

My best contrast is with the surprise hit (and underrated) Divine Divinity. Similar in styles, the former title pulled off what Lionheart failed to do: keep your interest and test your skills right to the end. I felt like a car in the middle of the roller-coaster train – going uphill with excitement and suspense, not seeing the crest of the hill before the plummet actually begins. The ending of the game is a splash at the bottom, like a log flume ride in winter. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy your first few forays into Lionheart’s environs, only to find yourself slogging through its latter half. Good luck to you at that point.

Final Grade: 68%

Official Lionheart Website

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