Monday, March 7, 2016

Anvil of Dawn (1995): Initial Impressions

Here's an interesting one I've heard some great things about in certain circles (i.e. reading posts on www.rpgcodex.net/).  I have very little history with Anvil of Dawn.  I remember back in high school reading a review of it in an issue of Computer Gaming World, and while it reviewed well and I remember being impressed with the screenshots, at the time I was just getting into what was "cutting edge" in PC games at the time (Mechwarrior 2, probably Quake) and I guess even if I did run into this game on the shelf somewhere I would have probably passed it up.

Which is a shame because Anvil of Dawn has a lot to offer and I would probably have enjoyed it a lot back then... though I would have been missing an important component necessary for enjoying the game to its fullest (more on that later).

Anvil of Dawn is a first-person, single-character dungeon exploration role-playing game.  Movement is step-based, though combat is real-time (of course, like most games of this type, combat basically works in "turns" as enemies tend to have wait times in between attack animations).  And—again, like most games of this type—much of the game involves exploring dungeons, combat, and light puzzles (in that order).

The game begins with a CG rendered cinema to set the story up and before you know it you are in the game.  I like that it hardly wastes your time.  Right off the bat, I liked the atmosphere—the world the game takes place in is definitely a dark one compared with many other RPGs at the time.



Prior to starting the game though you need to pick a character.  The game system is extremely simple, and you are basically choosing between a magic guy, a fast girl, a strong guy, a healthy girl, or a guy that is just okay at everything.  You can then reallocate the stat points if you want.  I went with the magic guy, and rearranged his points to max out his magic to ensure the very best in magical hijinx.



The game starts immediately after and you are exploring some castle.  Compared with Lands of Lore, you immediately notice that the view takes up the whole screen.  It also scrolls smoothly as you walk, just like that other game.  Unfortunately, while the monsters and NPCs are gloriously hand-drawn, the dungeons were CG rendered.  Sometimes it looks fine—the starting area for instance is some castle so it makes sense that you would have these perfectly flat and clean walls/ceilings.  Unfortunately, it ends up looking way too clean when you get to dungeons and caves and such.  I would also have liked the scrolling to have been a bit more smooth (it seems to have been rendered at only a few frames per second), but I understand they needed to save space back then.


You run into your first enemy in this same area.  Screenshots don't do them any justice, but the enemies in this game are simply amazing.  Although they are extremely detailed, they are all fully animated—from their attack animations to their deaths.  They really blow the Lands of Lore monsters (which often have a single frame of animation for their attacks) away.

One standout feature of this game is the soundtrack.  Moody and touching, it makes backtracking through dungeons a pleasure.  This is definitely one thing modern games don't get.  You can forgive a lot of tedium if you have some great tunes to listen to.  The Anvil of Dawn soundtrack is not only extremely fitting and atmospheric... it's very catchy and I often put it on in the background when I am working.

Not that I would have realized this back then.  You see, like most games of this vintage Anvil of Dawn was composed on a Roland SC-55, then down-converted to play on Soundblaster/Adlib OPL soundcards.  Granted, great music will still sound great even on inferior hardware... but on a Roland device Anvil of Dawn really shines!  Nearly CD quality (the only MIDI soundtrack that compares in my opinion is Warcraft II [the redbook audio soundtrack is just a recording of the Roland music playing], Doom 2, and Duke Nukem 3D).  A good SC-55 soundfont loaded into BASSMIDI does a respectable job—certainly better than the default Windows MIDI synth—but does not come close to the actual hardware.

Here's another monster:


How does the game play?  Although it is quite typical, it's got some good and bad parts. First the good: the dungeons are lengthy enough to be interesting, and the automap is quite excellent.  Each enemy has its own patterns and you have to develop (shallow) strategies to deal with them.  I like the way you level up by developing skills through use.  Finding stuff in the first few hours feels awesome because actual upgrades are rare.

Bad? By its very nature as a single-character game it's shallow.  You only fight one enemy at a time (unless you are surrounded of course).  The strategies you eventually develop for each enemy basically come down to "how long do I have to wait/how many attacks can I get off before I step back to avoid the attack animation."  The game is extremely linear—although you can have a couple choices after the first dungeon, you really should go to the next dungeon in the plot for a challenge level that is much more fair.

The inventory is annoying, though nothing near as annoying as the one in Lands of Lore.  You've got a single inventory "box" on your character sheet where everything you pick up gets dropped.  You can sort with bags and stuff, but it's a pain.

A LOT of the "puzzles" involve dropping rocks on switches, and some switches can take 2-3 10 lb. rocks to switch.  When your carrying capacity is 40 lbs. this can really put a damper on your game (you can exceed your carrying capacity but doing so negatively affects your stats).

I feel that they could have done a little more with the area outside the dungeons.  When you leave a dungeon the game takes on a sort of MYST-like view, where you move around from hotspot to hotspot until you find your next dungeon.  I was hoping more for a step-based overworld like in Might and Magic.

As much as I like the "improve skills as you use them" system, I feel like there should be more.  Basically, your overall skill level (weapons or magic) only improves depending on how much damage you do with an applicable skill.  Once you reach the next level you can choose which skill to improve.  I gained a single spell level over the course of the entire first dungeon, and while it really seemed to affect my spell damage, it would have been nice to develop more hit points, speed, or something in addition to that.

Finally, as amazing as the enemy sprites are, I wish there were more of them.  You typically will run into anywhere from one to three different enemies in each dungeon.  It gets boring fighting the same monsters over an over—especially in the first dungeon which only has one monster (plus one unique guy you can fight).


Overall, Anvil of Dawn is a great game.  It's definitely shallow—this is definitely not a worthy successor to the seminal Dungeon Master—but it's got great atmosphere (especially that music!), imaginative monsters, relatively lengthy dungeons that are fun to explore, and is just a blast to play.  Definitely looking forward to more!

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