• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

A Lv1-15 Adventure for a party of three

Hello and welcome to the first Microquest adventure, Micro Quest: Blackstone Mine. From what I understand Microquest episodes are all stand alone adventures about a group of adventurers (doh!) that have to solve some kind of problem for the people of the realm.
In this case there is trouble down in the mines, the introductions shows some miners being killed but who is responsible of this? Play the game, it's your job to find out and save the day!

The game starts as the three men squad of adventurers (Aluxes, Estelar and Hilda) arrives to the mining town: we have a warrior, a ranger/archer and a sorceress that fills the role of both mage and healer, but unfortunately there is not much else to say about these characters since they are rather generic blank slates, have no backstories and during the game they have just some dialogue exchanges in some parts of the dungeons, and they just comment the current situation, nothing more.
Ok, so after meeting the captain of the guards they will have to stock some consumables and then enter the mines. There are just three floors, and luckily the second and third floor have a teleport that can be activated to send them directly to the village, so they can rest, buy better gear and restock potions. I wrote "luckily" because the team walk slowly and the mine is a sort of labyrinth, but not too big or complex, and I was able to explore 100% of it and finish the game in an hour.


Take this! Sigh I only wish I could read clearly the stats of the characters...

Ok, do you want the good or the bad news first? Ok, first the good ones: the difficulty is ok, maybe a bit difficult at start, but after earning some levels not only you will get new abilities and the party will be stronger, but I also notice it's easier to flee from combat (maybe thanks to higher dexterity?). You can also save the game anytime and anywhere, and there is no chance to be stuck or blocked since you just have to explore all the floors and free the miners from... their monsters. Well yes, you just interact with the miners and you are sent to fight some kind of monsters, then you win, they thank you and teleport on the surface. A bit hasty, but it's ok! There is also a secondary quest that may lead to an optional combat encounter and let you earn extra loot. Combat is classic: the warrior and ranger will be your main attackers with standard attacks and special moves, while the sorceress is best used as a healer and as a spellcaster IF you have the right elemental spells to exploit the weaknesses of the enemies (second floor has fire based enemies, and sadly my sorceress had still to learn the ice spell! Since she started with the fire one and she is a weakling her role was relegated to simple healer).

Now the bad news: I won't complain for the random encounters (or for the fact that I had a hard time checking the Hp amd Mp values due to the white numbers overlapping the white dressed sprites, especially Estelar!), even I am not fond of them, but on some choices for example, the silver nuggets. You can extract these from the walls but I my opinion they are not worth since they let you earn very little gold when sold! Instead chests (but also combat encounters) provide tons of gold and some also contains the top tier armor sets and weapons (selling weapons and armors you do not need also provide a good quantity of gold since they are costly. On the other hand potions are very cheap)! Yes, you have no need to buy them since they can be found on 2nd and 3d floor if you look around (anyway upon reaching the third floor you will be rich and able to afford everything).
Last one is the generic look of the game: there aren't many dialogues and the protagonists are rather boring, the most interesting character is probably the thief, that you may or may not encounter. Maps are average too, they have a generic look and while they are not bad or terribly designed (no overly spacious rooms at least) they are not memorable either. There are also a couple of odd choices like a one-way door on the first level (why?) or that secondary tunnel that send you few meters from the main access (what's its purpouse?). And also that automatic moving cart outside the mine that runs like crazy but luckily it will pass through the party like an immaterial ghost (again, why this could not be a scenario detail and leave a simple entry without this distracting prop?).

Said this, I did not find errors, typos or bugs, so I was able to finish the game 100% without problems.


Why this door is one way only? WHY???

Final Verdict
Micro Quest: Blackstone Mine looks like one of these Dungeons and Dragons introductive adventures for beginners: go to the village, enter the mine, kill goblins, save the peasants. That's it, nothing complex, the problem is that in this case the party is as generic as everything else, and while I can excuse the choice of a classical setup for a short and simple adventure, the banal and boring characters are a missing opportunity, considering that this is the first episode of the series. I mean that establishing some sort of storyline and dynamics among the three party members not only would have made this game more interesting, but also it would have made the player curious about the next adventures of the trio.

The final result is a rather average game, that is clearly much better than a flawed or bad one, but unfotunately it doesn't shines and screams "average" on every map (some parts and events feels rushed, but I guess these are just hasty) so much that... yes, the rating I'm forced to give is exactly this: 3/5 average!