Hello everyone. I am a fan of Arx Fatalis from Arkane. I have not kept up with it all for a while now. at one point there was speculation that Dark Messiah was a prequal or sequal to Arx. Was any of that true, or just wild theorys? How is Dark Messiah compared to Arx?
Dark Messiah and Arx are set in two different worlds, totally unconnected to each other.
Likewise gameplay is very different. Arx is a through-and-through RPG with character interaction, non-linear exploration and puzles. Dark Messiah is an action game with RPG elements. It's all about the combat in DM and there's very little else to it.
well, there are items that have "arx" on their names, so maybe it started as arx 2 and then it went into its own world. i love both games very much. still, arx2 would have been awesome.
Ok thank you for the responses. I looked into Dark Messiah and I don't think It is going to be something I buy. Action focus is the main issue here
Try the demo!
[alternate dl location]
DM shares one big feature with Arx and that is atmosphere.
Also, personally I'm not big on action either, but DM pulls it off really well (I'd love to see DM's combat added to a game like Arx).
Seriously, play the demo a couple of times (it's not that long) to try out a number of different combat strategies and skills. I haven't met anyone who didn't like it.
Last edited by addink; 20th Sep 2007 at 19:39. Reason: added alternate link
I rated the game a 97/100 some time back.
I come into this Dark Messiah forum and its laughable how few people visit it...so few that the forum only display 5 threads. Im thinking to myself "so many players out there that would love it if they only knew about it". Dark Messiah = the best kept secret in gaming history.
Players who dont check it out...its only their own loss.
sorry but it's no game to write home about. it is ok that it got its own forum, the TTLG qualities are certainly there but overall it just fell short of what it promised and that is always worse than "just" being average. I liked the game but never did replay it since there is no incentive for it and like has been said before: it has bad difficulty spikes, lack of fleshed out story and a few builds are pretty overpowered were as you can easily get a build that is totally underpowered and you die constantly in the last 2 levels.
a few more features and better quest/diversion in story and it could have (maybe) crossed that treshold that makes it a must-play-each-year classic. but atm it's just very good like Arx Fatalis, good enough to cope with its aging.
There's certainly a number of relatively more or less powerful builds, but you have to f' up pretty bad to get totally screwed by your choices, and it's not hard to correct with a few choice selections in the last couple levels. Indeed, I would say the mid-section is where you're most likely to find yourself in a bad way - and even then almost every difficult encounter can be solved with a few choice kicks.
I've probably replayed Dark Messiah more than any game other than Deus Ex, precisely because there are a lot of perfectly effective ways to play it, and they're each very different in game-play terms, in practice.
That's just how the opinions go with this game. Well actually that's how things go with most games.
I am a big fan of this game as well. I remember reading a preview of it in Computer Gaming World way back, was fascinated by it, and so bought the game at launch. I love the action and the atmosphere. It reminds me of Die By The Sword and the old Doom-based fantasy games like Hexen/Heretic. I think it is better than Bioshock in many ways too, which it launched almost at the same time as and shares gameplay with in numerous ways. But a lot of people don't like the way it plays, how there are so many traps, etc. The balancing has some issues as other say (ghouls come to mind!) Opinions are everywhere on how it "should have been".
It is flawed but I think it is a gem of a game. It's certainly rather unique. It's definitely not for everyone though. You have to be one who love's challenging twitchy first person gameplay or there's little point in considering the game.
Yes it's really to bad you can't stealth your way through the whole game ala Thief.
Having said that however, you can get through a lot of the game using stealth and it's well done.
I personally never understood the mediocre reviews myself. I find it one of the better action/RPG's ever made.
It's a shame you can't stealth the entire way through Thief either.Originally Posted by mgeorge
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