Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft is a 3D fighting game for the PS1 based upon the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license. You would think TSR, the company responsible for creating D&D, would be able to construct a competent fighter. You’d be wrong.
So things really started looking good from the beginning, because the intro video, while primitive by today’s standards, actually is good. Check it out below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhkXHR8vcwY&w=425&h=349]
Pretty intense, if not laughable. But the hilarity actually ensues shortly after. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that most (if not all) early 3D fighting games are blocky as hell (Look at the first Virtua Fighter). I expected to see some shitty graphics, huge characters, and even a flawed fighting system off the bat, since if you haven’t heard of the game before, it’s probably for a good reason. Fighting games are in a niche so precise that if you’re game is even slightly flawed it is shunned from the community altogether, unless looked at as a joke. But as the video below will demonstrate… things could have been way better…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xotDSUM4v0k&w=425&h=349]
I found things particularly funny around the 1:45 mark. Dumb AI and invisible walls FTW. Ugh, it just makes me wonder what they were thinking. D&D is a great IP, and there hasn’t been, at least to my knowledge, a good fighting game based around the imaginative series. Please, prove me wrong if you know of another game. Speaking of D&D, aside from the name Ravenloft, how does this have anything to do with Dungeons & Dragons? I was not into 2nd edition (Advanced D&D), but these names and characters seem to mean nothing to me. Maybe it’s just beyond my D&D knowledge (I started playing at 3.5).
But for now, rest assured that Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft is a not-so-fun title that falls under the D&D franchise license.
Laters,
Jsick
