Shannara

The game is in many ways similar to the Death Gate released a little earlier. In Shannara there are four modes: actually "quest", in which you need to solve certain puzzles, read dialogs, search, select and use certain objects; combat - battles in turn-based mode; moving around the world, which in the game are presented in a rather arbitrary form - on a map with small figures of characters (moving within the same location is arbitrary and is done by clicking on the edges of the screen or using the "wind rose"); moving through dreams that are already more like traditional quest quests - by choosing a direction by clicking the mouse in certain directions.

As already mentioned, there are combat, as well as role-playing elements in the game, but they are insignificant, unlike the "adventure" one. So, you can really fight and even accept the party of party members (up to five people), but there are not so many obligatory battles in the game, and most can be easily avoided. Since moving around the world is carried out in map mode, there are monsters that can attack you on this map - they are indicated by dots of one color or another and become visible only when they are close enough to them. Blue color means that monsters do not see you yet - if you do not want to fight, then in such a situation you should do everything possible to avoid direct contact with them. If the color of the dots changed to red, then the monsters noticed you and began to chase. In this case, you can either try to run away (in a number of situations this is real), or join the battle.

The battles take place completely step by step with a strict order: first you attack, then your partisans (if you have them; you give orders to them), then the monsters. The number of your opponents in a particular battle never exceeds seven. In the upper part of the screen in combat mode, the monsters they met and their health scales are displayed, in the bottom - your squad, in the center - one of the monsters with whom interaction is now taking place. There is even some scope for tactics - for example, you can not only stand on the defensive or try to escape (this option is available all the time), but also, for example, attack the leader of the monster squad together (he is almost always there) in order to kill him and break the morale of opponents. Remember, however, that in this game there are no such concepts as "experience", "characteristics", "statistics" and so on, that is, for the victory over monsters you will not get anything useful.

View, as already mentioned, in the main game mode from the first person; control is carried out with the mouse, when you move the game cursor over certain objects, you can see their names, and some - take it in your inventory. At the bottom of the screen there is a window with portraits of satellites, with the help of clicks on which you can, for example, talk to them (by double-clicking) or examine their inventory, “wind rose” to set the direction of movements within the location (available directions are marked in red), as well as a place for verb commands. Yes, they are in Shannara - as in the good old quests, and after selecting an item or character a list of actions that are available with them will appear (that is, you do not need to enter anything manually). A lot of puzzles in the game are built just on the combination of specific objects and actions, often on each other. The above is also true for items located at your companions, but to perform actions with them you must first "climb" into their duffel bags. In this case, you should definitely pay attention to the following circumstance: if the item is in the satellite’s inventory, and you want him to do something with it, then you must first click on the character’s portrait, then give the command for action, then click on the item; if you want the satellite to perform some action with the “met” object or object, then the second and third points need to be interchanged (that is, we first click on the satellite’s portrait, then on the object or object of the world, and then we select a specific action )

Dialogues in Shannara are possible both between the main character and his party members, and between them and the meeting NPCs. It should be noted that the conversations in this game are almost a key adventure element: they are highly branched and almost always interactive, moreover, some of them have their own “submenus” and the ability to change the conversation topic, as well as the choice of answers. Spoken phrases in the conversation tree are grayed out.