Record of Lodoss War, despite the name, is sort of a direct sequel to the anime OAV series it is derived from, rather than a video game retelling of the same epic. The backstory posits that you are a resurrected hero of yore (a link that fans of the series should pick up on quickly), brought back from death by the sage Wort and the Grey Witch Karla to rescue the shipwrecked company of Parn and Pals on the isle of Marmo. Under this premise, the cast of the OAV series makes a return as in-game NPCs, to aid and abet your cause as you, the legendary hero, grapple with the imminent re-rebirth of the dark goddess Kardis. Pulpy? To be certain, but that's not the problem - I'm all for Tolkienesque antics, and in that aspect, Lodoss War (both the anime and the game) makes no pretensions otherwise. The trouble is that the plot, as conveyed by the game, is very predictable: it's painfully obvious that the Lodoss license was shoehorned in just to parade the series' marquee characters about and score fan attention.

The game system itself does little to further the idea that this game takes place in the Lodoss world; there's no real relationship between spells and abilities in the series and those uncovered as the game progresses. Rather than attempting to immerse the player in series lore and establish a similar context, the game attempts a more conventional Diablo-flavored action-RPG approach, with a serious emphasis on leveling up and looting.

But is that really bad? Well, that depends: if you're looking to revisit the realm so richly colored in the anime, then you'll probably be left disappointed. On the other hand, if you're you've been waiting for a hefty chunk of raw, unadulterated GAME, with a little more story than usual to nudge things along, you'll probably find a lot to like on the isle of Marmo.

Make no bones about it: this game takes its action-based RPG approach straight from Blizzard's monstrously popular Diablo series, although it is by no means a complete ripoff. As an unnamed resurrected hero, you're brought back to life in a simple dungeon, and given a basic tutorial on the control mechanics of the game. After that, quests are dispensed by NPCs in a somewhat non-linear fashion, giving you access to new areas and, as expected, new equipment. As you go, it's straight up slashing, slicing, and bashing, with a simple spell system worked in to good effect. You'll mow down many hundred-score foes on your way to the final confrontation 30-plus hours later, all of which vary in size, type, look and tactics. Almost every character from the OVA series makes at least a cursory appearance, and you'll even do battle alongside (or against) a few of the more significant ones. From a pure gameplay perspective, it's very engaging in its seeming simplicity, yet like Diablo, there's a fair amount of depth below the surface.

The classic carrot-onna-stick approach that fueled the classic roguelike titles (see: Moria, Larn, Angband) and Diablo takes full effect, here: it's always just one more level, one more increased statistic, one more quest to complete, and wouldn't ya know it, it's 3 AM in the morning and your wife is sorely peeved. The compelling nature of these games doesn't lie in either the shamefully shallow plots or action mechanics. They induce their "MUST PLAY MORE" brainwashing through the regular and precisely calculated delivery of statistical upgrades, which in turn opens up more areas for the player to safely explore - which leads to more upgrades, and the thus the Cycle of Roguelike continues. Players preferring more immersive aspects in their games may shake their heads in bewliderment, but those of us who've tossed away entire college careers in dungeon delving know all to well how oddly captivating this little process of "Explore, Upgrade, Repeat" is.

Lodoss War is no exception, and to its merit, the contrived story is better developed than any other title I've seen in this arena. This lends some incentive to the game on the initial playthrough, adding a much-needed shot of context to an otherwise generic dungeon romp. A decent translation and passable voiceovers keep it real, and the presence of a popular license may attract folks who'd normally be put off by the largely abstract "quantum Tolkien" antics of the pure roguelikes.

A pity, then, about the graphics: they're awfully lifeless for anime source material. Dungeons, deserts, and characters alike are drably rendered, and would be a total wash were it not for the colorful and well-animated spell and combat effects. To keep the frame rate up, the general-purpose characters and monsters aren't particularly textured - a design choice was made to render everything in polygonal form, ala Darkstone. To keep the frame rate smooth even when thirty-plus baddies are onscreen, heavy texturing got the axe, leading to a lot of largely green-and-grey models that, while clearly identifiable, lack any real aesthetic style. Boss encounters, such as dragons, on the other hand, are very well animated and sport decent texturing. Incidental effects and spell animations are pleasing to look at, fortunately, and are quite timely and subtle (as opposed to the overkill seen in most Square games) without being abbreviated or awkward. The dungeons sport decent textures, yet remain largely dull thanks to a limited palette choice and a lack of environment effects. Deserts are more grey than golden, and everything seems to be largely stone and metal. Contrast this with eye-flaying color and beauty of the dungeons in Phantasy Star Online, whose imaginative textures and room designs are a pure spectacle, and Lodoss War seems unnaturally spartan in comparison. And the FMV? Don't go there. Badly rendered and grainy to boot, the video footage is purely functional at best, prodding the story along with inferior results.

There are a few notable points, though. First of all, each equipped item translates into a visual change to the main character, modifying his appearance accordingly. Our hero can actually look pretty stylin' as the upgrades continue, transforming him from a painfully bland grey shaded model to a fashionable example of Today's Modern Warrior. Animation isn't too shabby across the board - many monsters sport a variety of animations, and a few of the boss encounters are downright pyrotechnic. Slowdown shows up when the action gets intense, although it never gets truly choppy. Lodoss War is no visual marvel, but it gets the job done, by and large.

Sound brings some striking contrasts into the equation: the voices are good, and the ambient music is quite pleasant if unmemorable, but the effects need some worst. The biggest offender is the footstep effects - they range from mildly irritating (leather boots) to ear-burstingly agonizing (metal boots). Repetitious and overwhleming to a fault, their obnoxious cadence will have players begging for some sort of sound effect volume control. And while monsters react to the "loudness" of your footsteps, was it really necessary to translate this effect into raw aural form? I think the cons really outweigh the added "depth" in this cruel implementation. Despite this outstanding flaw, the rest of the sound effects are largely incidental groans, creaks, and swooshes, as expected. Catchy glissondes and riffs announce level upgrades and bonuses, rewarding the player with adio cues for each successful action.

And the control? Quickly, then: on the play screen, the analog pad moves the hero, the D-pad selects items (potions, mostly) in the inventory belt, and the buttons are used for attacking, activating environmental objects, using belt items, and casting spells. Hold down a shoulder button and tap the analog pad to rotate the camera, and hit start to access the very Diabloesque inventory system. Saving is handled by via strategically placed save points, appearing here as glowing menhirs. Selecting a spell involves holding the spellcasting button and punching in a selection - a bit cumbersome and unintuitive, in my opinion.

As you progress, you'll collect new equipment to upgrade your basic statistics and abilities. These items can range from swords to helmets to rings, and many of them have the ability to be upgraded through Ancient Inscriptions, runic words which add new modifiers. The Inscriptions can be found on stone engravings scattered throughout the game. Once found, they can be inscribed on your equipment by a friendly dwarven blacksmith, assuming you have enough mithril for him. Mithril is often dropped by roaming baddies, or found in chests, and it takes up no inventory space. This is as close to shopping as the game gets: there are no gold pieces to hoard or shopkeepers to haggle with. As expected, you'll spend a lot of time recalling back to the dwarf to enchant new inscriptions on new equipment, and you'll find the customization options are very extensive, often rewarding focus on a particular subset of attributes as opposed to across-the-board balancing. Dumping a lot of mithril into Parrying and HP Bonuses, for example, seems more beneficial than spreading your customization efforts out diffusely across all statistics. A lot of effort into a few preferred areas works better than a little effort in a lot of areas.

Equipment micromanagement is a requisite part of the genre, and Lodoss War adheres to this notion. You have several chests to stash spare equipment, since your inventory will quickly be consumed. You'll find that you have several sets of equipment, each for particular circumstances: a high-resistance set for areas rife with magical foes; a heavy armor kit for the more physical brutes; and several weapons ready for any occasion. Half of the fun lies in kitting out for the occasion, prepping up for that climactic boss battle with the best set of gear you can find.

Thus equipped and ready to rumble, it's monster-bashin' time! The dungeons are big and multi-leveled, and the overland areas are densely populated. The ever-convenient "recall"-type spell (named, imaginatively enough, "Recall") lets you jump back and forth between your home camp and previously-visited outlier regions with ease. You'll be using this spell frequently, since there's a lot of terrain to cover, both inside and outside of the main quest arc. A big plus for this title is in its frequent non-linear aspects: there are a number of significant side quests that can score you some grand rewards and put you ahead of the game. This can make the game a bit easy, but really, what's the point of a challenging sidequest if it doesn't make future encounters less trouble? You can, of course, hustle along the main plot arc in 20 or so hours, but you'll be missing some of the more interesting boss battles and dungeon layouts if you do. Exploration across the large mainland and conversation with NPCs is both encouraged and rewarded appropriately. In this aspect, Lodoss War really shines.

On the other hand, I have to gripe that one particular strength of this approach to action-RPG gaming is largely ignored: the randomized dungeon layouts. On my second playthrough, I'm hard-pressed to note any signs of randomization, although the game is certainly long enough without it. Still, this may put a crimp in the replayability of this game for the potentially hardcore; if you're the sort of gamer who's on his or her umpteenth jorney through Diablo 2's Nightmare level, consider this a caveat. To balance this genre departure, the developers have made the various maps you'll traverse both large and plentiful. The maze design is clever, and there are plenty of puzzles to solve - you'll never be stuck for long, and that's good; there's a lot of ground to cover.

Taken altogether, Record of Lodoss War is a fundamentally playable, competent game that tries to wed the tried-and-true gameplay style that marks Diablo and the roguelikes to a greater sense of story and adventure. Does it work? For the most part, yes, but it's a pity that they neglected the aesthetics, preferring a very generic visual metaphor despite the storytelling aspects. Lodoss War is the sort of game that eats up time for genre aficionadoes, but also leaves them wondering, after the fact, why exactly it engaged them in the first place: there's no ambition, no sense of style, no real design panache, and yet it still produces a whole inventory's worth of entertainment. Weird, that.

Overall: Lodoss War is an amusing action-RPG which places an emphasis on loot and leveling coupled to a stronger narrative component in the hopes of creating a more focused experience. Although it doesn't succeed perfectly in its aims, and despite the largely bland visuals, Lodoss War is a reasonably deep and engaging experience that will please both advocates of Diablo-style hack-and-slash as well as fans of the anime series. There's a lot of solid gameplay lurking below the lustreless exterior.

Factoid of the Week: There was a previous Lodoss War title developed for the PC Engine, although it was more a traditional RPG than the current hack-and-slash incarnation. It never saw release on these shores - probably due more to its mediocrity than any anti-RPG sentiment on behalf of NEC/Hudson.