-The game is very slow to develop.

-The sheer number of characters, spells, special items and quests make for a somewhat mish-mashed sense of gameplay.

-The combat is more muddled than other third-person fighting games (Diablo II, for instance).

-The levels, though more expansive than some other games, lack excitement. You're either searching [seemingly] forever or you're getting tooled by unseen (off-screen) baddies who one of your rogue AI players has engaged.

-You have to be near-genius to fully utilize the blacksmith and priest options (for making/repairing weapons and learning spells).

-The graphics aren't quite as good as Diablo II.

The positives are:

+The player-character AI is much more advanced than Diablo.

+The multi-player capability is refreshing and fairly well-done.

+The complexity of the blacksmith and priest gives the advanced user a chance to custom-outfit his/her characters.

+It's easy to resurrect players...which is necessary because they tend to die very often early in the game.

+There are lots of unique items and *if* you have the stats to use/wear them, they're very cool.

+The Japanese flair gives the game a dimension that Diablo II lacks.

+I bought this game at *sigh* WallyWorld for $4.77! What a deal!

+The manual is well-written and relatively comprehensive.

I don't think I'd shell out $19.99 for this game, but at $4.77, definitely check it out!

"It's hard, but really fun!", This game has an even better and cooler story than all the final fantasys put together. But not as good as the Diablo games. Just missing by a decimal in a percentage rating. This game is sweet otherwise getting to choose from 7 characters from three calans n' all. You get to use four characters at a time. Three are being controlled by the computer, where you are controlling one that you rotate using the space bar. The game is awsom if you like Revenant (another reccomended game) or Diablo.

As I am learning kenjutsu at my local dojo, I find the feudal Japanese setting and weapons much more interesting. It is even annoying in its realism - your weapons and armor have a durability factor and must be repaired or replaced frequently after battles.

This rates near the top of my list of favorite video games of all time: along with Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Dungeon Seige and Vanguard!

"Throne of Darkness is one really cool game!", I have to admit,when I first read some reviews about Throne of Darkness I was a little hesitant about purchasing this game.But since I liked DIABLO so much I figured I would give it a try...and it was well worth it,and more.If you enjoyed DIABLO,you will get into this game as well.I would highly recommend Throne of Darkness to anyone.

"sweet 10 dollar game.", not a lot of one-year old games that are 10 dollars are really any good. however Throne of Darkness is obviously an exception.

graphics: my computer is an AMD K6-2 350 MHz with 184 megs of RAM and an integrated graphics chipset that uses 8 mb of my system memory. if that makes you sick, believe it or not, ToD runs on it, so the system requirements are quite low, thus resulting in some "OK" graphics, but from that overhead view, no one really is paying attention that the Swordsman's arm. and the 800x600 resolution is only OK.

gameplay: gameplay is good after you find the priest and blacksmith. after you actually understand the system and all of the abbreviations of the item stats, then these guys are pretty cool. customizing armor and weapons with found items (usually from higher level enemies) is pretty cool and sacrificing old items for spell points lightens your load. you really gotta keep all of your characters (7 of them) on the same level. I have a level 25 ninja, and a level 2 wizard. and the spell system is a bit weird. my ninja has a level 15 spell that supposedly does i think like 175-200 earth damage but does nothing to some of the "bosses" of the mountain citadel (the last "level" i think) and also it gets really difficult in the last citadel, and because of my slow computer i keep crapping up in the place, but i can go to other places to level up.

Sound: music is pretty good and the japanese yells are a bit funny.

overall, buy it! its ten bucks, and if you don't like it, big deal. are you going to buy 10 candy bars instead? you will probably enjoy ToD much more!

"ToD Worth Playing", I found ToD to be an excellent game that had some very good features to it's credit. It loaded very fast, had good graphics, no bugs (that I experienced), and exceptional playability. While it is, indeed, Diablo-esque in it's format, it was still different enough to make playing it a pleasing change from Diablo. The spell graphics were not as visually stunning, but the melee combat was just as enjoyable. The only detrimental part of the whole game was in making, purifying, and repairing magic items, weapons and armor. Some armor, when customizing it by puting found magic items into it's slots, took up to 4 minutes to create. If you had a lot of things to make, you could, seriously, go get a cup of coffee and a sandwich before it was done. That being said, it was sometimes a welcome respite from the game and made me take breaks from it that I, otherwise, might not have taken. The game world was graphically beautiful and the creatures were well done, both in form and animation. Although you had up to 7 characters to choose from (with a party of 4 being max) I found that I rarely needed to play more than 4. I normally chose the wizard, berserker, archer, and swordsman and was able to cut through all adversaries like butter. I also enjoyed the fact that you can play the game with 4 different clans, each having different quests (depending on who was in your party). I would highly recommend this game if you enjoyed playing Diablo/Diablo LoD. In this day and age, it's hard to find a game that isn't fraught with bugs. It was nice to play something that was graphically beautiful, interesting, challenging, fun, AND stable.

"Lots of fun", A bit like Diablo II, but you have control of four characters at once. The controls (using the space bar to change from character to character) take some getting used to, but the action is fun and there are endless items that you can build using the items that you find (mostly parts of the monsters that you kill). Well worth the cost. A good RPG.