Depths of Peril
- November 22, 2010
- Soldak Entertainment
Get on SteamIn "Depths of Peril," protect the barbarian city of Jorvik from threats and compete with rival factions to rule it. Balance building your faction's power with diplomacy, trade, and war, while exploring, battling monsters, and completing quests. Your choices have consequences, as making enemies can lead to severe consequences such as a declaration of war.
Mac OS
PC
Windows
Linux
Reviews
- Depths of Peril offers a unique blend of ARPG mechanics with a dynamic political system, allowing players to engage in diplomacy and competition with AI factions.
- The game provides a nostalgic experience for players familiar with older ARPGs, featuring a variety of quests, items, and character customization options.
- Despite its dated graphics, the game runs well on current hardware and offers a fun, fast-paced gameplay experience that encourages replayability.
- The game suffers from numerous bugs and crashes, particularly in certain areas, which can significantly hinder the gameplay experience.
- Combat and gameplay mechanics are often described as clunky and repetitive, with a lack of depth in quests and enemy variety.
- The user interface is unfriendly, making inventory management and interactions with other factions tedious and frustrating.
- story66 mentions
- 9 % positive mentions
- 85 % neutral mentions
- 6 % negative mentions
The game's story is largely criticized for its lack of depth and originality, with quests primarily revolving around repetitive tasks like "kill x enemies" or "gather x items," offering little narrative context or emotional engagement. Players find the overarching plot to be minimal, often reduced to a cycle of defeating increasingly powerful foes without meaningful character development or lore. While the quest system encourages competition among factions, it ultimately feels generic and uninspired, detracting from the overall experience.
“Beasts and monsters and all manner of evil are threatening to overrun the place, and your guild is there to take on quests meant to keep them at bay.”
“The town hosts several of these covenants, and they all compete for influence by doing more quests than the others.”
“Basically you assume the role of a guild leader and fulfill quests and defeat enemies in order to level up and bring glory to your faction.”
“As for the story, there is none: some big baddie is doing evil things so you must first thin out its forces by killing its main lieutenants, and once you finally get to kill him, you just learn that there is an even bigger baddie waiting in line.”
“The enemies are repetitive and overly numerous as they seem to respawn indefinitely, and the quests are extremely generic, offering little to no background as to why you are doing what you are doing.”
“The only reason the quests appear to exist is for experience and not for plot or dialogue, of which there is almost none on some quests.”
- gameplay40 mentions
- 20 % positive mentions
- 65 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
The gameplay of "Depths of Peril" is a mix of basic hack-and-slash mechanics reminiscent of RPGs like Diablo, combined with an innovative NPC political system. While the game offers a manageable size and some fun elements, it suffers from clunky controls, repetitive quests, and a lack of polish, leading to a gameplay experience that can feel both mind-numbing and frustrating. Despite its flaws, it provides a decent amount of mindless fun and showcases potential for deeper mechanics in future titles.
“It is refreshing to see a game focused on the gameplay experience instead of all the bells and whistles, and at a manageable size so I don't feel like I'm getting bored or the game is just too overwhelming in size for me to tackle.”
“Depths of Peril combines basic hack-and-slash gameplay with an innovative NPC political system.”
“Diablo-esque gameplay while competing with other AI groups to complete quests and ultimately take control of the town.”
“It's a neat idea, but the gameplay is clunky and slow.”
“Quests are bland and repetitive, and the gameplay is really just a mind-numbing bore preceding some terribly overwrought guild battle relying on half-baked mechanics.”
“Buggy, ugly, deeply flawed when it comes to its core gameplay mechanics, Depths of Peril is by no means a great game; yet, it delivers a decent amount of mindless fun.”
- graphics30 mentions
- 13 % positive mentions
- 47 % neutral mentions
- 40 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are widely regarded as outdated and reminiscent of the 90s, often described as poor even for its release period. While some players appreciate the unique mechanics and world-building elements, many find the visuals to be a significant drawback that detracts from the overall experience. Despite this, a few players consider it an underrated gem if one can overlook the graphics in favor of gameplay innovation.
“The graphics are very 90's, as is the base Diablo-style gameplay, but it has a lot of great ideas that make the world seem alive, such as the faction politics and the advancing difficulty of the enemies you face.”
“It's an odd graphics engine, yet it still managed to be advanced in the areas that count the most, like world shadows and a dense, randomly generated landscape.”
“Great if you can get past the graphics!”
“An underrated gem if you can get over the terrible graphics.”
“I've played this game off and on since release and keep coming back to it, in spite of the horrible graphics.”
“The graphics are pretty poor for any time period and inexcusable for even 7 years ago, when the game was developed.”
- stability4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The game's stability is mixed; while it runs excellently on current hardware and is largely bug-free, it suffers from significant flaws in core gameplay mechanics, leading to a less polished experience. Despite these issues, some players still find enjoyment in its mindless fun.
“The game runs excellently on current hardware and is bug-free.”
“The game runs excellently on current hardware and is bug-free.”
“Buggy, ugly, and deeply flawed when it comes to its core gameplay mechanics. Depths of Peril is by no means a great game; yet, it delivers a decent amount of mindless fun.”
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and frustrating, particularly due to the repetitive nature of trading with NPC covenants, which often results in receiving uninteresting items. Additionally, inter-covenant combat is described as a monotonous experience filled with accidental teleportation and misdirected attacks, further contributing to the overall grind.
“Trading with the NPC covenants is a chore, since they only send trade offers with their junk items, and constantly checking their inventories for interesting items every 10 minutes is tedious.”
“Inter-covenant combat is a tedious click-fest in which you invariably keep teleporting out of your base on accident or attacking the wrong person.”
- emotional2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Users feel that enhancing the vibrancy of the settlement would not only diversify the available quests but also deepen the emotional investment players have in defending it. This suggests that a more dynamic environment could significantly enrich the emotional experience of the game.
“Bringing more life to the settlement would add diversity to the quests and create a deeper emotional reason to defend it.”
- optimization2 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game is highly optimized for Ubuntu Linux, requiring only 100 MB of disk space, which users find impressive.
“The game is extremely optimized for my Ubuntu Linux system, with a measly 100 MB disk space requirement.”
- humor2 mentions
- 150 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the reviews stems from the irony of downloading a free game that has since transitioned to a paid model, with users finding amusement in the game's lack of multiplayer features and the perceived absurdity of its pricing. The sentiment reflects a lighthearted frustration, suggesting that the game could be significantly improved with cooperative play.
“It's funny because I downloaded this silly single-player game when it was free to play, and now you have to pay to play! LMAO! This game would be 50 times better if there were co-op.”
“It's hilarious how I ended up with this ridiculous game that was free at first, and now they want money for it! LMAO! Imagine how much more fun it would be with co-op.”
“I can't stop laughing at how I got this game for free, and now they want me to pay for it! LMAO! It would be so much better if it had co-op mode.”
