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Strategy First Inc has been a company established in Montreal for a few years already. They have published Man of War 1 and 2 before, here is a different game which offers action and adventures in a medieval world filled of creatures and traps. Clans is certainly the best clone of Diablo until now.

Travel through forest, donjons and castles to conquer a malefic creature which would like to dominate the world. You have the choice between 4 distinct characters who offer different aptitudes.

The races are Warrior, Barbarian, Elf and the Dwarf. Your character will be define by these abilities: Strength, Life Force, Agility, Magic, Sword, Axe and Pick Locks on a scale of 3-18. It is possible to change the abilities by playing with the scale points.

Just like Diablo, you must explore several places in search of magical weapons, magic spells or of keys which will open the gates to you towards new horizons.

You will have to face different creatures through out your traveling like Goblin, Green Orc et Black Mage.

But your main goal is to defeat the Demon and to find the lost Crown of Peace. You will also encounter characters that will talk to you. They will ask you different things like to give them a precious object or do a specific task like destroy a book that contain malefic magical spell.

" Graphically well done!"

" Easy interface!"

The interface is easy to figured out. You will see 2 heads one blue for your magical energy and the other red for your health. Then in the middle 4 little circles where you can put your weapons that you can change through out the game whenever you want. You can also put parchment in the circles for you to read. On your right you will have the inventory of what you own and on your left 3 icons: Game Menu, View Map and View Abilities.

You will travel through 7 levels like the Underdark, Chambers of Torment and Garden of Eternity plus 5 bonus one. You will also be able to change levels by 3 different "Portals". During the game the magical items bears different power like some you can drink or you have rings that you can wear in order to activate them.

In the multiplayer mode you have other game options like Gold Rush, Death Match and the Cooperative Mode that allows you to play up to 4 players in order to kill the Demo together.

Clans is very hard to play and did not bring a lot of innovations in it beside the creatures. More animation would have been welcome.

Many ideas in the game are well done like the wizard that tells us a story. The graphics are nice to look at and the interface is easy to work with. And the animation are also interesting to see specially when a creatures dies.

Clans is a good rpg game that makes you travel into their magical world with their creatures.

Companies

Developer
Strategy First
&
Computer House

Publisher
GT Interactive

Category
RPG

Notes

Originality: 80%
Gameplay: 86%
Interest: 84%
Graphics: 88%
Control: 85%
Sound: 88%

TOTAL: 85%

Requirements

Operation System
Windows 95-98

Processor
120 MHz Pentium®

Memory
32 MB RAM