Darkstone

Darkstone was released in 1999 as one of the first notable attempts to bring the point-and-click, loot-collecting action RPG into three-dimensional graphics. The player picks from four classes, and unlike most of the competition, leads two characters at once, switching between them with a single button, allowing for combinations like a strong warrior paired with a wizard supporting him from a distance. The task is to gather seven stones, defeat a dragon, and free the land, but the path there leads through randomly generated dungeons, towns full of merchants, and side quests that get shuffled with every new campaign.

Technically it was a genuinely three-dimensional engine with a freely rotating camera, which was a welcome refresher at a time when most similar games still relied on two-dimensional sprites. The game required a 3D accelerator and, on the cards of the era, offered lighting effects, fog, and smooth transitions between open areas and dungeons. An interesting feature was a day-night cycle that changed enemy behavior and the appearance of towns, giving the world a rhythm. The atmosphere rests on gothic fantasy with dark castles, graveyards, and caves, accompanied by music that is more of a backdrop, letting the sounds of combat and footsteps in empty corridors stand out.

Contemporary reception was lukewarm to favorable: reviewers praised the three-dimensional treatment, the pair of characters, and the replayability, but faulted a shallower character system and a simpler story compared to the genre's biggest names. The game still found an audience and even received a console release, which was not common among similar titles. From today's perspective it is a pleasant, shorter action RPG that plays briskly and doesn't demand dozens of hours of preparation. The graphics naturally show their age, but the two-hero switching mechanic remains a fresh idea, and the whole title is an interesting reminder of how the genre searched for its way into three dimensions.