It's a classic hardcore detailed RPG. While Star Trail is the real shining star of this series, this is a great introduction to old school gaming. I have no idea if they fixed the bugs (save game destroying errors) from the original, so be wary of certain siutations such as starting a fire in the spider cave or gathering coins in the final tomb.

I'm a big fan of realism in my RPG, even when it can be frustrating. The idea of having to plan for weapons breaking, illnesses, cold and wet weather, equipment wearing out, as well as climbing and swimming challenges is something often overlooked in most modern games.

If you love all-inclusive details, where you build your characters from scratch and have to plan your quests tactfully, this is your game!

RoA1 is complex RPG based on Germany's best selling pen and paper RPG "The Dark Eye". The game is very rough around the edges with stiff controls, repetitive graphics and micro management and instant kill dreath-traps; and yet the world of Aventuria is fun to explore and RoA is one of the few game series that tried to get the pen and paper rules as closely as possible onto the screen.

With the classic RPG party of up to six heroes (plus an occasional NPC) you have to travel through and explore the viking-inspired country of Thorwal to find pieces of an old map showing the location of a legendary sword. Find the sword to thwart the impending orc invasion and save Thorwal. The story is as simple as that - but it's not an easy task.

Travelling Thorwal is not a cakewalk. Find food and drink or your heroes will die of starvation or thirst. Gather herbs, brew potions and poisons or use them to cure death threatening diseases. Protect your camp or you risk enemy surprise attacks at night. Try to climb a mountain without a rope? Your party better have proper climbing skills or you can wave your heroes goodbye as the game cruelly hurls them down chasms to their deaths. Bottomless pits, rocky old boats that sink without warning - the game loves to kill you without giving you a chance. You better save often. Not enough? One wrong word may upset an NPC carrying one of the precious map pieces you're looking for and you will never get it. No second chances. Miss too many and you cannot complete the game (without the game telling you).

Towns and dungeons are explored in old fashioned 3D view à la classic Bard's Tale and Ultima Underworld. Combat takes place turn based on an isometric grid. Traveling across the lands happens on the large map of Thorwal itself.

Over twenty years later there are many things that will turn gamers away instantly. The game gives you no quarter. But if you give it an honest chance you may find that exploring Thorwal and its dozens of villages and towns and numerous dungeons will be an adventure to remember for a long time to come.

Realms of Arkadia series does a great job turning a pen and paper Rpg into a video game. If you're into P&P RPG this game and series is a must have. If you want HD graghics and intense 3D battles with fast and furious leveling and rewards this is not for you. What you do get is a challenging game with a high sense of accomplishment.

Other games of the time did not go into the game management required by the Realms of Arkadia. Just covering the basic needs of food and water can be difficult if you don't select the right characters and skills. You must then place points into your skills when leveling or allow the computer to do it for you but not always getting logical reulults. With improperly placed skill points some skills will never be successful.

Not to mention casting spells. Of the 5 different magic using types each have their own strengths and weaknesses in spell casting. If you don't plan ahead some spells will remain unavailable or extremely difficult to cast, depending on spell strength, and Attribute score. which is also new to video games as most if not all games before simply required you to have enough spell points to successfully cast.

In other words, challenges that other games did not have and alot still don't.

Being able to replay a game is a major bonus as you can try different characters to receive different starting skills and spells. You can then place points differently and at the end of the game have completely different characters. Another bonus is being able to use these characters throughout the entire series of games.

Even if you don't like the video game you can print out the manual and sit down with friends and have a great time rolling dice and complaining how the game master hates you. Even if you do like the game it's always fun complaining how the GM hates you.

If you think this game is too oldschool, you might as well complain that there's too much violence in Halo, or that Minecraft is too blocky. If you mind oldschool, this game is not for you. The interface is primitive even compared to the sequels. That is not the the problem.

What IS the problem, though, is that they spent the minimum possible effort getting it to run on modern computers. And that was already little, considering DosBox is free software. The sound is poorly configured, and choppy. On Ubuntu, the whole game doesn't even run thanks to a broken library that is included.

Do not buy this game or any other retro/dosbox-based games from this publisher until they clean up their act.

15 hours later and I've finished creating half of my party. that's 3 out of 6 characters. I read the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ English manual a few times, read the alternate Amiga manual in English as it is more detailed, and also Google translated large chucks of the German manual, which is the most complete. I've also read two GOG forum threads on spells. There were 2 threads needed to just list all the spells and describe them each with a single sentence as the forum post size limit was reached.

Will report back in 2020 once I get to play a bit, and my kids will let your kids know about the ending.

Would get a doctorate in pen&paper RPG's again. 12/10 IGN

In the year 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson changed the world by making a tabletop game called Dungeons & Dragons. What started as a Chainmail variant, quickly became the most famous tabletop game in the entire world. All thanks to the amazing amount of personal involvement. Like in Dead Alewives' famous sketch, people were able to argue about the color of their characters' eyes and it was fun. D&D was easy enough to learn, simple enough to play, but at the same time it felt so real for players that with enough imagination and good Dungeon Master you were able to become your character and explore mysterious dungeons full of traps and dangerous monsters. Naturally, D&D was a huge success. And as usual, when there's a successful something, everybody wanted their own version of that. Almost every big country had at least one D&D clone. Sweden, for example, had Drakar och Demoner (AKA Dragons and Demons), which even spawned its own computer game called Dragonfire: The Well of Souls (yes, Mutant: Year Zero was not the first RPG, in which you can play as the duck). In Germany? There was Das Schwarze Auge, AKA The Dark Eye. A game by Ulrich Kiesow, which became so popular that it even outsold D&D. Well, at least in its country of origin.

For D&D it took 8 years to spawn a video game. For The Dark Eye it took 8 years too, but it started with what D&D got only 14 years later, in the game called Pool of Radiance. What we've seen before that, was either basic stuff for the second gen consoles, or or side-scrolling experience based on legendary Dragons of Autumn Twilight novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. But Pool of Radiance? It allowed players to dive into the D&D world of Forgotten Realms on their personal computers. Attic Entertainment, creators of the horror RPG Lords of Doom and cute little SHMUP called The OATH, tried to do exactly that, only with The Dark Eye instead of D&Ds. And that's how Realms of Arkania trilogy was born.

Yes, I've said “trilogy”. Because back in the days, it didn't cost that much to make a game. Games with millions in their budgets will come years later, while only a few years ago publishers were just buying software from college students, often without even testing them (hello, SQIJ!). Therefore, it wasn't that uncommon to plan ahead and announce the fact that your game is only the first chapter of the trilogy right away. That's exactly what Blade of Destiny does. It puts you into the world of The Dark Eye, tells you that it's only the beginning and makes you look for the long lost sword. Which will help you to fight back the horde of evil orcs. Who are, well,evil and want to conquer the lands. Which don't want to be conquered.

That's pretty much it about the story. Modern kids would probably feel disappointed, because hey! Nobody's going to uncover the secrets of the highly-advanced machine race here and nobody's going to deal with the weird supernatural mobile apps. But let me tell you one thing – that was part of the charm of the old RPGs. Before games like Fallout and Baldur's Gate showed us that computer role-playing games can offer much more complicated experience, computer games felt pretty similar to what we had in tabletop games. Which means that it was all about us and our imagination. There was a certain charm about just... being. Being a warrior, or a wizard, or whoever you wanted to be in the rich fantasy world. We didn't really need anything else. It was more than enough to become an adventurer and look for some mysterious artifact. And that's exactly what BoD offers. Don't expect your quest to be easy, though. Since this game? It's kind of realistic. A bit too realistic if you'll ask me.

At the beginning of the game you'll learn about the fact that you're a young mercenary and after creating your character manually, or selecting one of the pre-made ones, you'll arrive at the city of Thorwal. And that's it. The game won't tell you anything. You'll have absolutely no idea where to go and what to do. And even after drinking a bit in the nearby tavern which will lead you to the main quest, you won't feel much better. Long story short, your goals in this game are: to find at least seven pieces of the map, to guess where the dungeon with the sword is located, to get the sword, to get and translate the orcish document that stores their attack plans and then find them and kill them all (kill the orcs, slay the orcs, destroy the orcs!). Sounds simple. Unfortunately, like I've said, finding things in this game can be pretty... complicated. To say the least. And while looking for the map pieces will end up being just a long chain of visits (visit a certain NPC, who'll send you to at least one other, who lives in another [s]castle[/s] city, then visit that city, try to access every freakin' house until you'll find the mentioned character, who'll send you to some others, repeat), the dungeons will be much bigger pain in the neck.

See, those just... happen. You travel from one city to another as usual, then boom! there's a dungeon on your way. Which won't be marked on your world map at all. Neither before, nor after your visit. The only way to remember that is to take notes on paper. Which was OK for the time, but still, didn't feel that good in this exact case. Exploration in this game is confusing and that's it. And yet, it's fun. Just because the world is big and heck, it was an open world full of secrets, which you were free to explore in any way you wanted! Sure, Richard Garriott achieved that ages ago, but this game sure had its own interesting features. From interesting debuff system, which forced us to choose a weakness for every character's strength (Want to become stronger? Add a bit to your hero's fear of spiders) to hunger and thirst. This game sure has a lot to offer.

On the other hand, with all that stuff and confusing guide-oriented exploration, the game may feel a bit overwhelming. A simple dungeon exploration (the main gameplay is pretty much a typical grid-based dungeon crawler with isometric battles, which isn't the most common thing to see in the genre) can become a huge pain in the neck. I've already mentioned how hard it is to find the dungeons. But guess what? In most of those you won't even be able to navigate without a light. How to get light? Well, you'll need either certain items, or a wizard. But to be able to cast spells, you'll need to rest. And to rest you'll need food and water. And time. Because there's also a time limit in this game. Pretty big. But still. So, yeah... not the most friendly game out there.

Another thing about this game is that what we have here is an old English CD version. Why that's bad? Well, for two reasons. First – translations sucks. Not as much as it did in Castlevania 2, but still. And second – soundtrack. German CD version had absolutely brilliant CDDA music, while English CD version was exactly the same with the floppy one and only had crappy MIDI. Which will soon become your worst nightmare thanks to how it's the same exact basic thing on loop. They had a great chance to actually give us the real deal in Steam, but... they didn't care. So here, the same old crappy version all over again. Enjoy.

And yet, despite all that, BoD totally worth your attention. If you like the old school dungeon grid-based games that is. Not only it's the very first computer game based on The Dark Eye, it also comes with that unique atmosphere of the early role-playing games. The one that was long lost in time. Yes, it can be frustrating and yes, it's still the same old crappy version. But man, it still feels good.

I see Blade of Destiny as a preview to the main adventure -second part of the trilogy Star Trail where lots of secrets and suprizes awaits you.Blade of Destiny just shows you some game mechanics , plus you can train and test your heroes in oder to import them to the next part of the trilogy.Still it is a fun game to start on your introduction in the Arkania world.


A bit late , but i reccomend to edit - dosboxrealms1.conf - this file can be found in the game directory, few lines have to be changed: scaler=advmame2x ; cycles=18000 . scaler makes picture a bit softer and 18000 cycles looks like the optimal speed.

I am a Noob to Classic Dos gamming, but I have had a recent desire for such titles. I carried with me no nastalgia whatsoever upon my purchase of this game. I read the reviews here and decided to chance it... I am not disapointed AT ALL with my purchase. I am a huge fan of Baldurs Gate, only discovering it about 3 years ago, as well as a few other RPGs that have been re-released to those of us who were not fortunate to have PCs at a young age and the LARGE step above consol gamming they provide. If by any chance you are in a similar position and you find complex CRPGs fascinating, then please do yourself a favor and purchase this Trilogy. I bought them on sale of course, but have had more fun with "Blade of Destiny Classic" than I would with the newest and more polished Elder Scrolls entry. This game is unforgiving, to me in the Best way, and I confess that I haven't even finnished the first quest....Its that hard to me, but like I said I am a Noob. However, despite my humbling experience with micromanaging and Character Building, the hours spent with the heavy shadow of failure hovering above have easily been some of the most entertaining I have had with an RPG. Yes, I've played Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect, but I seriously have never been as emersed into a game as I have this one. It is difficult to learn for a simple minded guy like myself to fully grasp, but I honestly feel rewarded with every effort I put in.

NOTE: I know you don't want to hear this.......I can't beleive I did it myself... READ THE MANUAL. It comes with the game here on Steam (Just right click the title in your Steam library.) You WILL get the best Experience if you will take the time to READ it, not glance over it. If it helps it is easily the most entertaining manual I have ever read, granted I have read very few. I am too dumb. LOL.

Okay. First, this is an old-school RPG. By that I mean, anyone expecting modern bells and whistles will be VERY disappointed. Hardcore and old-school gamers will likely find it to be an engaging story with mechanics they may not be used to.

The big question for me was "Should I just start with its generally better received sequel, Star Trail?" After completing Blade of Destiny, I'm here to tell you that the answer is a definite "Yes."

Though I played, completed, and largely enjoyed Blade of Destiny, I can't actually recommend it.
It's kind of like a horror B-movie: the negatives column is much, much larger than the positives, and the positives aren't exactly something tangible you can point to. But you had a good time, even if you're not really sure why.

About that negatives column:


The English version's music is absolutely atrocious. You can hack the German version's redbook audio (aka CD) music into the game (see the Community Guides section for instructions), and you probably should since it's actually pretty charming, though know this comes at a pretty large cost: plenty of miscellaneous text (definite articles, some generic messages) will now be in German, your encumbrance values will bug out, NPCs will instantly level to 20 when you recruit them (doesn't matter since they don't stick around more than a couple weeks), etc. These might be eyesores, but if you can tolerate them, it beats bleeding ears. Otherwise I'd just play the game with all sound muted.


Despite being a quite different game, it's got a strong Arena/Daggerfall aftertaste. The world is big but mostly empty. If you really want, you can break into any building and talk to any NPC, but there's never any good reason to do either of these things. Every building is rendered for a sense of scale and "realism," but they all end up looking the same... actually, in Blade of Destiny, buildings look literally exactly the same. There's a Cluebook with maps in the Documentation folder - use it.


The game feels unfinished. Many skills and spells are totally worthless, either doing literally nothing or having no actual application in the game whatsoever. You'll be drawn into quest lines that never actually start or go anywhere. There's a city with leftover dialog implying a totally different main quest. Bugs abound.


The big appeal of the game is arguably its simulationist twist. It strives to be less of an Roleplaying Game and more of a Roleplaying Simulation. For instance, besides food and water, your party needs to wear shoes and carry blankets to keep warm lest they succumb to disease. Tetanus will kill your party members far more often than dragons or demons.

It's a cool, low-magic setting that never really sees the spotlight because the battle against the elements is only a matter of checking boxes. Does everyone have boots on? Ok, you're immune to frostbite. Does everyone have their own blanket? Ok, you're immune to the flu. Does your party have dishes and plates? Ok, you're immune to a couple more "eating off the ground" diseases. Total wellness costs only half your inventory slots.

After checking all the boxes, the only vectors for disease are certain enemies (like every other RPG) and the rare-but-very-dangerous travel through swamps. Oh, and treating your party's own wounds. Yes, you'll actually kill more characters trying and failing to wrap a bandage around their gaping wound than just leaving it alone to heal while sleeping, because for some bizarre reason a critical failure on "Treat Wounds" gives them, of all things, Tetanus. Which is a death sentence as, for practical purposes, it's incurable. As a test, I spent half an hour dumping my entire immense fortune on a healer trying to cure one guy's Tetanus to see if it was possible. It never worked.


With some of the non sequiturs dropped on your party, you might think the translation is bad. Well, it's not perfect, but that's not the problem. Apparently quite a bit of the game was incoherent in German as well.


Having played Star Trail for a few hours I'm glad to say that many of these issues, and plenty of ones I didn't even get around to, like the tedious combat (but it's not era-inappropriate), were addressed for the sequel. While I enjoyed Blade of Destiny and getting up to speed on The Dark Eye's mechanics, Star Trail is simply more complete and less frustrating. And its MIDI music won't cause you physical pain.