The undead rise out of the ground quickly. At only a Level 2 warrior, the Jarl, Erik, is certainly not much of a match for them yet. Blow after blow rains down upon his head. You tell him to run, to get away, hoping that he will be able to get out of there before he is ripped from the land of the living himself.

He takes one faltering step away from the skeletal warriors; his health bar takes a giant dip and before he can take another step, he lets out his death scream as he falls to the ground.

Hope you saved before the fight, because if you did you can just avoid that area until you have built up your warrior a little.

Konung Legend of the North from 1C and Strategy First is the type of fantasy role-playing program that is loaded with quests, a few puzzles and lots of battle. There is some strategy involved in the game, though most of the action is hack and slash. Win and you receive rewards in terms of healing salves, money, better weapons or armor and magical jewelry.

The premise of the game is this: During the Age of Magic, ancient gods ruled the Earth. The Nordic Clan was the mightiest of the peoples in their domain, and they possessed many formidable and magical artifacts. The most potent was the Bracelet of Lordship. When the Age of Magic began to wane, the Nordic Clan took the Bracelet and hit it away, using a dragon to protect the divine item. The Dragon Amulet was the key to controlling the watch-dragon, but an attack upon its protector resulted in the amulet being broken into three pieces and sent off in different directions. The amulet fell into the hands of three heroes – Eric, Konstantin and Wolf.

You choose one of these three, and set forth on the quest to recover the missing pieces of the Dragon Amulet, discover the hidden home of the Bracelet and restore the Nordic Clan to power. Along the way you will have to battle a wide variety of monsters, beginning with the easiest (giant ants and spiders) and progressing rapidly to include mythical and magic beasts, and the typical assortment of undead, ghouls, giant worms and poisonous snakes.

Legend of the North comes with a simple small booklet tucked in with the CD. That is the manual. Little wonder, the controls are very simple and, while hot keys are available, they mostly consist of the point and click style of gaming. As you win battles, you character accrues experience points. Get enough and you can level up and disperse a bunch of points to primary (and necessary) character development areas – like strength, dexterity and charisma.

Graphically this game is a relative to Diablo II; let’s call it a third cousin. There are similarities in the game design, and even in the use of portals that will transport your character, or party to various map points. Some will plop you into areas where the computer-controlled enemy is a lot tougher, others will merely push you across an impassable river or inlet. The game tries to simulate a three-dimensional feel with lush graphics, which are well rendered.

The sound of this program is typical.

There are some drawbacks to the game play. The game board is a scrolling map, which you can reveal by moving the cursor to the side. However, there are no designed features that will let you know that you can’t go that any further in one particular direction. Even paths are cut in half, and one portal was reduced to the upper third, though it still worked. Conversations consist of unspoken text options: the individual you are talking too has a response, which opens up a list of responses from your character. The conversational options seem to be in a loop with no way to escape until you tell you click on the choice that basically says you have no further need to speak to the other person.

You can build quite a substantial war party as you progress through the game, but no matter how many you have, the enemy will always seek out the main character in the single-person game. If one of the computer-controlled members of your party triggers a battle, the enemy will move away from that character and attack your central character, whether you are ready for that or not.

Overall, Konung Legend of the North is a simple RPG that doesn’t offer much that is new to the genre, but does settle into the great pool of similar titles comfortably. If you are looking for innovative game play, with fantastic graphics and audio, an intriguing storyline and brain-busting puzzles, pass on this title. If you want a game that is solid graphically, features a retread storyline that still manages to supply a nice diversion, like simple game play and like to explore and fight – then this may be a title that you will enjoy.

This product is rated for Teens during to animated blood and animated violence. It does support multiplayer gaming with up to 16 capable of playing either through LAN or Internet sites. Each player must have the game disk to play.

Install: Easy
This program only requires 163 megs of hard drive space for the game itself. It does require host computers have Indeo 5.06, DirectX 7.0 and DirectX Media 6.0 – but all those programs come on the game disk.

Gameplay: 7.5
This game does react a little slowly, even though you can speed up the game, using the plus and minus keys, it doesn’t seem to go fast enough. One plus is that this game does have a day and night cycle, but the night is very dark and enemies can sneak up on you quickly under that cloak of darkness.

Graphics: 7
This game tries to emulate the feel of Blizzard’s Diablo II, or even Eidos Interactive’s Revenant, and though it comes close, it doesn’t get all the way there. There is not a lot of individuality in the design of characters in the village. The environmental graphical elements are nicely done.

Sound: 6
Nothing particularly exciting here; the sound track is quite typical of a vast majority of games in this genre.

Difficulty: 7
If you don’t lose your patience and develop your character, buying the armor needed to improve his defenses as he is able to wear them, then this game does not provide a big challenge. You can be given a whole mess of quests to accomplish at once. You can also cheat by saving the game, spending money on information, then going back to the saved game and implementing that knowledge without having to pay for it a second time.

Concept: 5
There is a lot borrowed in this game, from parts of the storyline to monsters.

Multiplayer: N/A
During the review period, I was unable to play this game online.

Overall: 7
This game has selling points: it is simple to understand and control, and has solid graphics. It lacks in originality, and the play is a little slow. But while this is not the kind of game that will take your breath away, it is the kind of game that – because of its simplistic nature  – will draw you back to play it.