Type: Action-RPG
Publisher: Snowblind Studios, Magic Pockets
System: PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, GameBoy Advance
Year: 2001(PS2), 2002/2003(XB), 2002/2003(GC), 2004(GBA)
Players: 1-2

[review score="90" pros="great Action-RPG, long playtime, good replayability" cons="no equipment customization, if you leave the chapter you can't return, unbalanced EXP gains"]

This game’s Story makes pretty much no sense at all, but its awesome gameplay elements makes up for that.

The main character(Player 1′s Character if in Multiplayer Mode) is robbed by thieves, and sets out to find and kill those thieves, and then happens to end up saving the world from some dude who isn’t even mentioned until a ghost talks about her on the final floor of the final dungeon. A little like the story of Final Fantasy V, but this time there’s no Gilgamesh, sadly.

The game is spent over three separate worlds, first in the town of Baldurs Gate, then in a dwarven mountain, then finally in a swamp of some sort.

A thing that is a little strange about this game is that if you kill an enemy, its body will be lying on the ground until time’s end and it will not respawn.
That essentially means there’s a very limited amount of EXP in the game, and you pretty much have to kill every enemy you see to get any good levels.

The gameplay is mainly Hack ‘n’ Slash action with RPG elements thrown in, a little like Kingdom Hearts, but in a different style.
You press the %a%-button to attack with your equipped weapon, and you use %x% to use the currently selected Special Ability(“Feat”, not to be confused with Feet).
The characters are preset to Vahn, a Human Archer(uses Bows to shoot from a distance, worthless in 1P mode, but pretty valuable if paired with Kromlech in 2P Mode), Adrianna, an Elven Sorceress(uses Black Magic Spells to blast foes at a distance with huge amounts of magical damage, but dies quickly) and Kromlech, and a Dwarven Fighter(great physical attacker and tank, if you play 1P, this is your character), but those characters can also be customized with different Feats to learn new abilities.
The feats available changes with the character, for example Vahn has several Magical Arrow spells(such as Exploding Arrows, Electric Arrows and Burning Arrows), Adrianna has Black magic Spells, and Kromlech has different kinds of physical attacks with different reaches, such as Tornado which causes him to spin around, hitting every enemy surrounding him, and Bull Rush which causes him to rush forward, damaging and knocking back any foe standing before him.

New feats can be purchased using upgrade points which you receive every time you gain a new level, and better feats usually costs more Upgrade Points.
There is also a very fine balance between power and mana, meaning you must carefully pick what you use when to not completely toast your MP. If you want to clear out an open plain of many enemies you may want to use Meteor Swarm to bombard every enemy on the screen with meteors, however using that in a cave will cause many of the meteors to instead hit the walls or the roofs. On the other hand, Snowblind or Burning Hands will hit in a straight line with DoT-damage.

This game has incredibly good graphics and sound, something that gave it some very good scores on several sites, and the sound isn’t bad either even if the background music is a little boring.

The game deserves a solid 90% Score from me, and it well deserves it. Buy it, and then play the sequel which so far(i haven’t finished it yet) is even better than the original!