When you actually get into the game itself you will be doing almost everything through an unholy menu system. Transferring items from one person to another, visiting shops, saving the game... all are done via a cumbersome menu screen. Many will likely hold out hope that things will improve once the fighting starts. Well they do and they don't.

As you embark on an adventure you will be visually assaulted with the graphics of this game. To call them sub-par is doing a disservice to sub-par games everywhere. They are grainy, dark and, frankly, ugly. The backgrounds are poorly textured and everything looks like a primitive PlayStation one game except in miniature size. The assault on your senses never really goes away, even when you reach the "cutscenes" that are much like the ones in Puzzle Quest, being still frames while conversation moves above characters' heads. The horrendous camera only exacerbates this by being so incredibly zoomed in on the characters and not showing you much of the map besides where your party is at the moment.

There are two modes to adventures: exploration mode and combat mode. During exploration mode you will move your six man party around the map, searching for enemies and treasure and running across traps. Due to the lack of ability to you're your entire party at once, you are stuck moving each person a set number of spaces as per his movement rate (affected by his race, armor and weight of items being carried). Having a whole party of Dwarves, or other short races, can make this nearly insanity inducing. Due to these factors navigating during these periods is slow and tedious and it doesn't get much better when you get into a fight. The game runs almost like a lagging massively multiplayer online RPG with too many people on screen.

You will navigate these fights via that same menu system, making an obnoxious return. When you want to do basic moves, like to attack an enemy or to make a regular move across the battlefield, it is only a simple button press away However things like charging a target or performing a power attack will sometimes take up to three or more button presses. Casting a spell is even worse requiring menu navigation two button presses, some menu navigation, another button press and more menu navigation before the last press casts the spell. It's unwieldy and it makes getting through a fight take longer than it really needs to.

This is only further worsened by the sheer size of the maps you must explore before getting into fights. It's easy to dump four hours alone into the first few levels, sadly most of that time is spent navigating and searching the dungeons for treasure. Missing treasure is a bad thing since you can never go back and get it if you accidentally complete the adventure before opening a chest. Since killing enemies ends a quest, it is sometimes hard to tell when you should kill that zombie attacking you or let him be so that you can get to the treasure.

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