Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight
for PC (DOS)

01.jpg
Wandrell:Popular Vote:
6/6
Company: Mindscape
Year: 1992
Genre: RPG, Action
Theme: Multiplayer / Sword & Sorcery
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
Views: 37860
Review by Wandrell (2005-07-24)
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You, as a knight of the druids, have been sent in a quest for the moonstone, which if finished will give you a place between the legends. In your adventure you will have to fight monsters, a dangerous dragon and three other knights, which can be controlled by up to three other players.

All of this will happen around a world map divided in four territories. In each of them you will find three kinds of places: a home land where a knight starts; a special location, like a city where you spend you wealth; and the shrines of the land, with an unique set of monsters in each territory spread among them. Those shrines are your main objective, as it is there where you will find the four keys, one in each land, that grants access to the central valley shrine, where the moonstone is kept. And also, once you beat the shrine's guardians, you will get money, magical objects and experience points to spend on your stats.

The fights are one of the main points of the games. The different enemies have different strategies, some being really easy, but coming in huge numbers, like the ratmen of the forest, while other are harder, and can easily give you a bloody and gory death, like the giants of the swamp. There many gory deaths actually, like being decapitated by another knight, or getting impaled in the horn of a running beast.

After a time the dragon will appear, and the game will get harder as it attacks the knights and steals their treasures, even the valley keys. It is not easy to kill, but you will be rewarded with his treasure if you are able to do it.

The game has many little things that make it something better than a simple hack and slash, starting with the multiplayer option and the fights for the keys that will happen. For example, your knight has many fighting moves, depending of the direction you press along with the attack button you can make an horizontal attack, a vertical one, stab or even throw daggers. Also, you can get some interesting spells, like the one that makes one enemy knight a favored target for the dragon or other that transforms you in a hawk, allowing you to travel anywhere of the lands.

But there are some problems with the game, like some bugs that at times will stop the game, and also some things are not explained. You can lose one life suddenly without knowing that you where poisoned by the ratmen, or you will have a hard time figuring what those wyrm amulets are for. The game would have needed more development time, but that doesn't make it bad.

There is no doubt that it is a good game to play with some friends, but expect to spend some hours with it if you want to finish it.

Comments (3) [Post comment]

Wandrell:

I suppose that what made me like it when I first played was the multiplayer and the freedom. It looks like a board game in the computer, also.

It looks like in Germany the blood in games is very bad seen. I have heard of other games banned or censored for its blood. RE4 for example I think was censored in Germany.

Mr Creosote:

This game is still banned here in Germany because of the gore. Original copies on Ebay UK are often bought by Germans - for insanely high prices.

Personally, I never understood what the buzz is about. Nice graphics and animation, sure, but in the end, it doesn't deserve the cult following it has. Definitely a candidate for my 'overrated games' list.

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