As a public service announcement from gamers to would-be game developers, here is a little equation to help prevent the kind of mistakes made in Dark Messiah: First Person Perspective + Platforming x Time Limits = Terrible Gameplay. Do us all a favor; learn it, live it, love it. Unfortunately, the problems with this poor-man's Oblivion clone are not limited to its awkward platforming elements.
You play as an orphan, named Sareth, raised by a mysterious sorcerer. Finally, after longing for some action your whole life, you are thrust into a predictable quest for an ancient relic, The Skull Of Shadows. Not trusting you entirely, the sorcerer summons a womanly spirit named Xana into your body as your 'guide'. Anyone who has ever had a girlfriend who constantly felt the need to impose her opinion on your driving at all times will be used to her brand of incessant nagging and unwanted commentary. She does help push the story along from time to time with little hints of shrouded truth, but mostly ends up annoying the hell out of you.
Rather than offering the type of open world exploration and sense of control that Oblivion offers, Dark Messiah locks you into the story in strictly told chapters. There are no side-quests, other than discovering a few obvious 'secret areas', and the level objectives are frustratingly rigid. It is entirely possible to have the game not move forward because one enemy somehow did not spawn in the right spot, at which point you must scour the level trying to find that last misplaced enemy to kill before the game recognizes that you have 'defended' the area. It does not happen often, but when it does, good luck not turning it off for good.
The game is so set in its ways that you never even get to decide your character's upgrades. Each of your fifteen levels you can earn in the game has a set skill upgraded along with it. There are no skill points to disperse, and no altering your character's predetermined path. You had best be sure of what class you want to play as, because the game is also strict as to your character's role. There is no, "I'll start as a warrior, then maybe learn the bow". Sure, you will see bows, daggers, and staffs lying around through the game. You will even be able to pick them up, but as a bit of a thumb-tease, the game refuses to allow you to use weapons outside your class. You can look at the other classes as a way to extend the replay value, but honestly making it through the game without boring yourself to tears once will be hard enough. Due to what feels like awkward controls for the mage and frustratingly large display of your bow as an archer (seriously, who walks around with their bow constantly cocked?), warrior class seems to be the best bet to make it through the game with the fewest additional issues.
The reliance on platforming badly mars the gameplay, which never fares well with a first-person view. To make matters worse, there are several points in the game where you are not only asked to leap around like Donkey Kong Jr. from rope to rope, but you are also asked to get through the section in a certain, undisclosed, amount of time. The most frustrating part of all is that the game offers checkpoints mid-chase, which can lead to your setting one just seconds before running out of time. Loading up from that checkpoint leaves in a never-ending loop of two-second failure; forcing you to load your game back from your last save point. Save often.
