Depths of Peril is, above
all else, an action-RPG (think Diablo). However, it is not your typical
action-RPG. It incorporates elements of MMORPGs and, more notably, strategy
games. The basic gameplay consists of accepting quests, buying equipment,
fighting monsters, finding treasure, and exploring the land. Sounds about par
for the course for an action-RPG, right? Well, this is where the similarities
between Depths of Peril and other action RPGs stop.
Let me start at the
beginning. You start off by choosing one of four classes for your character,
naming them and your covenant, and choosing a difficulty level. Then you’re off
to the barbarian town of Jorvik which serves as your starting point and hometown
as well as the main place to get quests and buy items. It is also home to rival
covenants.
But what are
covenants?
The main goal in Depths of
Peril is to become the leader of Jorvik, and the covenants are the many houses
in town vying for control. You are the head of one house, and there are several
rival houses each with their own leader. This is where the strategy elements
come in. You have some different options for winning whether you want to join
with rival covenants or destroy them all. The choice is yours. You can form
alliances, form trade routes, trade items, declare war and more. That is the key
to being successful in Depths of Peril. You are not always the most powerful
house, and you need to appease the more powerful covenants by trading items and
money with them so your relationship doesn’t deteriorate too much. Stay on their
good side until you’re powerful enough to raid their house and defeat them.
Otherwise, if your relationship does deteriorate too much, you will face their
wrath, often unexpectedly.
You can make it hard
on them, though. You have the ability to recruit up to five additional covenant
members — you can even take one around with you while questing—as well as buy up
to four house guards. You can also find relics around the world or at vendors
which will increase certain stats for your entire covenant.
There are more ways to
affect your relationship with rival houses, and some of them are a bit subtle.
For example, simply becoming more powerful will make rivals fear you more and be
more likely to form an alliance with you; or trading with another house will
cause the enemies of that house to like you less. Those are just a couple
examples of the game’s mechanic of having consequences to most actions you take
(or ignore). However, this system of “consequences” is more pronounced in the
regular quests and in the lands outside of Jorvik.
For example, other than the
boring old “go gather 10 rat tails for me” type of quests that we’re all used
to, many quests involve killing a certain number of monsters that are forming an
uprising or finding and killing unique “named” monsters. Now, I know what you’re
thinking: Hey, those are also the same boring quests we’re all used to.
The difference in Depths of Peril is that if you leave that uprising of
skeletons unchecked, you will likely find your town being raided and your
covenant being destroyed. Or if you leave that unique monster alone he will
start to form a group with other unique monsters and be much harder to take
down.
The best part is that Depths
of Peril is never predictable due to how dynamic the game world is. Every time
you start a new game (which could be quite often) the areas outside of Jorvik
are randomly generated as are the rival covenants. Also, there is never any real
pattern to when and what quests become available, which means monster uprising
can happen pretty much at any time, for example. Or maybe a vendor in town will
become petrified, and you have to cure them so you can buy stuff from them. Or
maybe your house will suffer a locust infestation, and you have to cure the
accompanying status ailment to continue to fight at full capacity. The list goes
on.
One neat thing about Depths
of Peril is that it has considerable replay value. Each game can last as long as
you want, depending on how long you want to keep your allies. This isn’t like
other games where you finish the story once and put it down as a finished game.
In Depths of Peril your character’s stats, items and recruits all carry over
when you start a new game. You can also choose the starting level and
aggressiveness of enemy covenants along with the overall difficulty of the
world. This effectively combines the character building and item collection of
an MMO with the gameplay of a single-player game. There is a story in the game,
mostly told in tomes found around the world, but you can gather and read them at
any pace you want.
It should be noted that the
graphics of this game aren’t impressive by today’s standards, though they have
their own particular charm. Environments are detailed and colorful, and you
won’t need a super powerful PC to run the game effectively.
Depths of Peril isn’t quite
finished yet, but it is shaping up to be a nice game. It may not appeal much to
the masses to due its dated visuals, but if you like action-RPGs, you might want
to keep an eye on this one, especially if you are looking for a change of pace
in the genre.
Depths of Peril is scheduled
to be released sometime later this year.
