Introduction

Booting this game transported me back to the beginnings of gaming. The two dimensional graphics and animation are at least 10 years old and more likely close to 20 years out of date. There is no voice over in the game with text scripting as the main way to convey the plots and move the action along.

The two dimensional graphics have the “look and feel” of some of the early Ultima, Diablo, Dungeon Siege, Quest for Glory (Hero’s Quest) games. Top down perspective graphics with simple two to four frame animation when the characters move presents the setting and action. The background setting is constructed of tiles that are put together like building blocks to form the walls, doors and floor. When a character passes behind a wall, the wall becomes translucent so you can see the character, floor and items behind the wall and still see the wall.

The introductory scripting does not take into account different speeds of reading or even the amount of text per page. The pages with long text and short text remain on the screen for the same time period and automatically (without manual control) disappear and are replaced with the new text. If you have not finished reading the longer segments, you are denied the ability to easily go back and re-read the script.

Combat

The combat is a left click on the bad guy which is followed by hitting the bad guy with the weapon, The one spell that you can memorize is activated by a right click on the enemy or the floor near the enemy.

The inventory is an integral part of combat because the inventory can contain red life, called vitality by the game designers, potions or blue mana potions. Inventory items do not stack. The nine inventory hot key slots are hot-keyed with the 1 – 9 number keys.

Character progression is through experience. Experience is achieved by killing monsters or enemies in combat only. There are no quests that award experience.

Once you reach an experience “milestone” you are awarded five attribute points that can be added one point at a time to the attributes of vitality (life), strength, spirit (mana), wisdom, agility, melee damage, spell damage, and protection (armor).

Colors determine what the attribute enhancing items due. A green stat value is increased by using the item. A red stat value is decreased by using the item. A blue state attribute is one being enhanced by using an item and a gold stat is a stat that is completely maxed out.

Rings (2), bracelets (2), crowns (1), and amulets (1) can be worn to enhance your stats with their magical properties in the appropriate inventory slots. The time proven and accepted paper doll equipment system of equipping chest, legs, feet, hands wrist head, etc. is not used in the game. Items of a similar type all have the same graphic. All shields, rings, amulets, bracelets and crowns look the same and are placed in slots that contain a similar graphic to be worn and benefit from their stat enhancements.

You can carry nine hot key slot items, 28 regular inventory items, and six worn items for a grand total of 43 items total. You could have carried much more items if the potions or spell scrolls would stack, but they don’t stack. When a plot element gives you an item it appears on a floor tile where you must pick it up by clicking on the floor tile. The item does not go into your inventory automatically.

Plot

The point of the plot according to one source in Ethereal Darkness Interactive is to be lost as to where to go and what to do. You help Morning, the female protagonist; decide the course of her fate and ultimately the fate of her kingdom and world. In short, the plot is the same old save the (insert appropriate place, persons or things) from the evil (insert the appropriate antagonist place, person or things).

A more detailed summary has us in Princess Morning’s bedroom being advised by her handmaiden that her father, King Daerid of Leowyn, and mother, Queen Anoa of Leowyn, are overdue for tonight’s festivities. Morning’s fiance Prince Ardus of Litania, a neighboring realm, wants to make his intentions to court the princess public. Steward Halphen, an important Leowyn advisor, is concerned that the king and queen are overdue.

A lone rider wearing the royal colors, looks like Lord Oderan, reports that the king and queen were slain with their entire party. Lord Oderan is really an emissary from the evil Ashidians who want “their” land back. “Their” land includes all the land of Leowyn. The Ashidian army appears at the gates of the royal castle of Leowyn, named Castle Iridine, under the command of General Rhajad Rhul.

The princess finds out that her supposed fiance is actually a spy in the employ of the Ashidians, and is casting a spell to allow the Ashidians to magically transport into Castle Iridine to attack them. The fool Ardus has sold both Leowyn and Litania down the river since the Ashidians are not trustworthy. Princess Morning immediately dons the magical armor of Heona and kills Ardus.

Steward Halphen dies at the hands of the Ashidians and in his death transports the Princess to safety, and monologues to tell her about the mana well beneath Castile Iridine. Halphen tasks Morning to seek out the well and remove the cursed taint of the well by putting artifacts in the well to heal it, and use the power of the well to defeat the Ashidians.

A walkthrough would be a good idea since the game script and NPCs (non-player characters) have very little in the way of direction. The lack of direction combined with the extremely lethal game play leads to a discouragingly steep learning curve at the beginning of the game.

Many people claim that there is no need for a walkthrough since the game is so short (10-12 hours of play time), and the game is really an “explore, save, explore, die and reboot” affair. You progress in the game by learning where not to go and die and where to go and get experience. Sadly the die and reboot game design is much less satisfying than other forms of game design. The most popular and satisfying game design is one that leads you through hints or map design to areas of first easy and then later progressively harder game play.

Another problem with the game design is the infinite and quick respawn of bad guys. You find yourself killing the same guys over and over and over again until you get powerful enough to kill off the more lethal guys that killed you when you mistakenly came across them. You repeat this process with the more powerful monsters or foes that you found by the “explore and die” technique earlier in the game. Most games have a delayed respawn or they have a means whereby the respawn can be turned off.

Morning’s Wrath areas can never be cleared of monsters. You find yourself killing the same monsters over and over again from the same spawn points. Most games have a way of turning off the spawn points and clearing an area so that you can move on to another level. Monster or enemy respawn in most other games, if any, is slower and more controlled. Most games control respawn so that the area behind you remains cleared so that you do not have to worry so much about being ambushed from the rear. The respawn in Morning’s Wrath is fast and furious.

The redeeming quality of the game is that the game play is somewhat addictive. The more you play, the more you like playing. Over time, the main character, Princess Morning, grows on you, and you find yourself caring about what happens to her.

Inventory is opened with the “I” hot key and Spell menu is opened with the “S” hot key. Spells are created with at least one kinetic and one magical rune. You can create spells using as many as 12 runes. Casting a spell consumes mana, represented by a horizontal blue bar in the top right hand corner of the screen. Another unfathomable limitation is that you can only memorize one spell at a time, but you can cast it as many times as you like as long as mana holds out.

An inexplicable darkness covers many screens and considering the poor graphics, I am at a loss as to whether this darkness sets the dark mood of the game or is just another annoyance to those who find themselves visually challenged by dark screens. You may need to adjust the gamma of your monitor to lighten the game up if dark screens are hard for you to see. Viewsonic has an UltraBrite Mode (other monitors have similar buttons) for gaming that will lighten up these dark areas making it a bit easier to see the outdated graphics.

A really nice feature that is going by the wayside is that you can save at any point in the game. There are no save points in Morning’s Wrath. Save points are an unnecessary limitation to computer games that has been brought over from the early console game design limitations.

Movement is only by left mouse button click on the floor within the limitations of the player character pathing routine. This means that if you click too far away from the main character, she will not move to the clicked point, you must find a point to click on closer to the character. There is no AWSD or cursor key movement support in the game.

There is no run mode. The character walks everywhere. You must just relax and enjoy the walk and resist the urge to be in a hurry to get anywhere.

Puzzles are interesting. There are word puzzles and color rearrangement puzzles. The puzzles were a lot of fun solving, when you found them. The puzzles are optional due to the multi-path and multi-solution plot. You can solve problems by different methods.

Rating

We rate the game as a 70%. The graphics are clearly retro and deserve a bad score for being dated but there is a nostalgic tone to them that is redeeming. The combat system is also a bit dated. The authors left out the useful system of quests and quest tracking that you see in most modern role playing games which in my opinion is a detriment to the game design. The main character is sympathetic and well developed which is a bonus since you care what happens to her. The simple game play grows on you with time.