Hand of Doom Review: Old-Fashioned Challenging Adventure

Do you miss the old RPG games of the 80s and 90s? If you do, Hand of Doom will be a refreshing blast to the past. You play in the first person and go on missions for a dark overlord, solving puzzles along the way. It’s hard not to be absorbed in the silly FMV instances or laugh along to the cheesy lines.

Replicating the old experience is what Hand of Doom does best. The first person perspective and UI make you feel like you stepped back into the past. Casting spells is a creative endeavour, and you find weapons that gradually improve to fight enemies. Unfortunately, if you have never played an RPG in previous decades, this game appears stale.

Movement is clunky, while visuals and audio don’t match the quality of today’s games. Combat doesn’t do anything other than remove obstacles for puzzle-solving. This isn’t similar to current RPGs at all, and it’s worth passing up if you can’t adapt to old-school gaming.

Hand of Doom is currently on PC for USD 9.99.

Story – Listening To Your Boss

The first part of Hand of Doom starts off similarly to Mia and the Dragon Princess. You view someone else’s story before snapping back to the actual character you control. As a minion for your dark overlord, your assignment is gathering powerful magic to crush the overlord’s enemies. As you go around the world, you will fight creatures and help others to complete your objective. While you are forced to work for your boss, the chances of you leaving servitude increase with every adventure. What actually happens depends on the nature of your actions.

It’s not a sophisticated story but it works for the setting. You move around and help others while trying to complete objectives. Puzzles will block your progress and you must use the resources around you to succeed. NPCs will either provide clues, mission objectives, or side quests to help you out. Others will flesh out the bleak world that exists, as you are stuck in your servitude for the foreseeable future.

The boss who keeps you in indentured servitude.

Since it resembles an old RPG, you shouldn’t expect the usual story quality from modern RPGs. It’s cheesy, short, and doesn’t have the same level of detail. But nostalgic players will notice that the story is exactly like the dungeon crawlers they grew up with. You have a varied cast that provides hints and personality along with adversaries trying to stop you.

As long as you know the game is taking inspiration from old-school RPGs and dungeon crawlers, the story works well. If you didn’t think that or expected more modern touches to the story, you will be disappointed with what you get.

Gameplay – Clunky First Person Exploration

Hand of Doom brings back the old RPG navigation system, complete with an old user interface. The world is seen through the middle of the screen, with the left and right sides containing everything else. While it doesn’t look like much at first, the user interface is crucial to your success.

As you explore, you will use various weapons that you come across, switching between them as necessary. Some obstacles you encounter require spells that you must chant, selecting the proper incantations. If you get the incantations wrong, nothing happens or you get a different spell which doesn’t help you.

Exactly like the games of the past, for better or worse.

It’s a good way of making the player work with what they have and wait for a confirmed spell. Unfortunately the movement will require some time to adapt to, since it isn’t as smooth as other RPGs. You must turn and face a direction before you can move forward. This also applies with fighting enemies, since you must face them directly to hurt them.

Just like Darkest Dungeon 2, you must spend time learning the controls and the user interface. It isn’t the easiest adjustment because everything is designed to be dated. You can still have a fun time playing and solving the puzzles, but you must adapt to the old-style controls. Gameplay will otherwise be too frustrating to continue.

Thankfully, there is a map you can refer to that helps you navigate. You won’t have to create the map by scratch and it properly informs you of special markings on the map. A tome you obtain early on serves as an easy reference guide for spells and lore. Some modern RPG features made it over which prevent the entire game from taking too much time.

Audio & Visuals – Cheesy Yet Effective

Don’t expect the visuals or audio in Hand of Doom to resemble anything modern. It’s pixelated graphics with the occasional 2D portrait of a person talking. NPCs and enemies are more polished but you can still see the pixelated design. Any FMV sequences capture the cheesy spirit of old games, with delayed reactions to spells as an example. It works because it fits the game’s theme of a cheesy adventure, and you don’t think of it as a downside.

The audio will also sound scratchy as other sounds play. When you explore and hear voices, it feels like someone played an old recording of a speech. You can understand what’s being said, but you know this isn’t the best audio quality you found. It all goes back to the theme of the 90s RPG, where this is the sound quality you would expect.

On one hand, the visuals and audio being this way definitely fits the theme of the game. It wouldn’t be as effective if this was an actual modern RPG. As it is a representation of what old-school RPGs were supposed to be, it makes players feel at home or interested in the experience.

On the other hand, you can feel the dated experience with every step you take. While it isn’t a bad thing, it’s not what you would expect if you’ve been playing games after the year 2000. It’s great for nostalgic purposes and feeling like a player from the older generation. But if you don’t appreciate what the quality is trying to represent, you might feel let down by the visuals and audio.

Hand of Doom was previewed on Steam with a code provided by UberStrategistPR.