Record of Lodoss War - Sega Dreamcast - Intro & Goblin Fortress battle gameplay [HD 1080p]
27Full gameplay look at the opening section of the game including all the intros, terrible voice acting and the best console Diablo clone money can buy. Based on the Table top RPG by Ryo Mizuno, which was later turned into novels before being adapted for both Manga and Anime, published by Kadokawa Shoten. The game itself is designed as a continuation of the story seen in the original 1990 anime series and sees the wise sage Wart with the help of the grey witch Karla, resuscitate the former king of Marmo Beld. In order to stop the return of the goddess of death, destruction and misery Cardice / Kardis (Pending on the translator). The full title of the game is in fact Record of Lodoss War: The Advent of Cardice. However the subtitle was strangely dropped from the European version of the game, it can still be seen briefly in the opening attract intro at the very end, which is odd as the subtitle really explains what the game is all about as it is a completely new entry in the history of Lodoss.
Record of Lodoss War: The Advent of Cardice at first glance is a Diablo clone on console with more open environments, real combat & movement and full 3D graphics. Now you might think it was a Diablo 2 clone, however Advent of Cardice arrived in Japan the same time Diablo 2 was released in North America. In many ways Advent of Cardice is a far better game than Diablo 2 both better looking and sounding with a far more interesting plot and characters. Apart from the lack of multiplayer, Diablo 2 looks a bit pale in comparison and still does.
Advent of Cardice is a huge game, that will take days to finished, packed full of secrets, weapons and armour to unlock. With a fast pace real time combat that controls and handles better than Diablo 1 & 2 as you can move around and evade enemy attacks directly yourself. The game's story was written by series creator Ryo Mizuno and features most of the core characters from the original series the game also includes multiple endings, some of which break with the canon storyline that follow in the later animated series as you can allow key series characters like Parn and Deedlit to die, if you fail to protect them.
Unfortunately Advent of Cardice faced two big problems on release in the west, one is that the Record of Lodoss War ended up being quite an obscure manga and anime in the west. With it not being released in many countries at all, indeed most gamers who picked up the Dreamcast game had no idea of the back story that led up to the game or that there even was one. The other is that the game was published by Crave Entertainment & SWING! Neither were big publishers and who didn't have the budget to market the game correctly. As a result the game wasn't reviewed by that many magazines, nor did it get the fanfare as the game to take down Diablo 2. Instead it just got pushed out on the shelves to sit alongside the much advertised Grandia 2 and its far better looking cover. As a result the game didn't become the huge system selling RPG it should have been and faded into obscurity even to this day. On the plus side you can pick up Lodoss very cheaply for a game this good. Fans of the series will love the game and anyone who liked Diablo will also enjoy this fantastic game. If you own a Dreamcast and like RPG this should be in your collection.
Also known as: ロードス島戦記 邪神降臨 (Japanese) Record of Lodoss War: The Advent of Cardice (Full title)
Release: 2000
Developer: Neverland Company (ネバーランドカンパニー )
Publisher: Entertainment Software Publishing
ESP / エンターテインメント・ソフトウェア・パブリッシング (Japan) Conspiracy & Crave Entertainment (North America) Swing! Entertainment Media (Europe) under license from Kadokawa Shoten (角川書店)
Format: Sega Dreamcast (DC) / ドリームキャスト
Record of Lodoss War: The Advent of Cardice is not available on any other system.
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All footage in this video is captured directly from the Sega Dreamcast console, via an Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro using a VGA to HDMI upscaler.