What was being referred to as a Diablo clone by people, turned out to be a pretty cool game. Although the size was a bit big I decided to take the chance and try out the game myself since the 3 or 4 thumbnailed screenshots looked alright on the company homepage. Icarus comes from JC Research (www.jcresearch.com) and features a terrific RPG/Strategy game for the PC. Although it is not accelerated, like most games are now, the game offers an intriguing story line, a host of characters, towns, adventures and turn-based combat.

All models and players in this title are pre-rendered. They move fluidly across the screen and the animations of their action sequences are also well done. The colors on the characters are shaded at times, which tends to add a bit of realism to the graphical look of the characters. All the towns are also well rendered, in that objects can be seen clearly from the 3/4 overhead view and important/essential objects are highlighted when the mouse is moved over it, like Diablo in fact. Each character also has his/her special move and spells. The spells in the game look alright but they tend to come off as just sprites sometimes. The graphics for them were so well done that they tended to stand out and look like objects with no motion or character. Another thing to note is that the game runs in high resolution mode which might be a problem for people with 1 MB or 2 MB video cards. Other standard graphical features exist such as changing the gamma control as well. Aside from that the game graphics are not incredibly good, however, they are not incredibly bad either. To compare it to a title in the same genre as Diablo, I would have to say that graphics wise this is a better title. However, I think that Diablo's spell effects were much better than Icarus.

The only speech in the game was heard at the beginning during the Slide Show intro. This seemed like it was recorded last minute by a programmer because it does not sound at all like it is supposed to. During this game the usual sound effects are present such as the different weapons attacking their opponents, the distinct sounds for each spell and the ambient noises of birds and crickets as you explore the towns. I believe that there is additional speech in this title on the original CD-ROM, however, it is just for certain parts of the game and not for each and every word said by the characters and NPCs. Music was also not included in this release since it was CD-AUDIO, which I think was a real shame since it means that there's probably only around 6-8 tracks for the whole game. Another thing that is noticeable is the fact that the game can get a bit boring at times because there is no speech, sounds or music whatsoever in most parts in the game, so the player is just left to point and click without hearing even a reaction sound.

Well it's like this, this gameplay in this game is made up of 3 mini-like games of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Tactics and Diablo. The game is quite like Final Fantasy in its storyline. Like all Final Fantasy titles the story line is very intriguing. It was very cool to see almost patented Squaresoft events such as the main characters walking in to a battle to save a friend and characters moving according to their emotions, ie. pacing when nervous or running when scared. The Diablo element comes into play when the player has to walk around, in non combat mode. The game interface is also very similar to Diablo, in that, players are given a blank body to put their weapons, shields and most noticeably like Diablo, their rings onto. The battle system in the game is turn-based and is very much like Final Fantasy tactics. Characters are placed on a grid system and the range of weapons, spells and other items come into play. The characters have to be at a particular distance to hit an opponent with a certain weapon and spells have to be positioned such that they are directed straight at the enemy. if multiple enemies are standing in the same vacinity and an area wide spell is cast, all enemies in that range are hit by that spell, including other characters if they are there as well. As first it was very frustrating to move around the grid system in battle mode, however, after a certain amount of time I got used to it and appreciated the limited freedom that was given to the player.

It depends on what type of game the player likes to really rate this a fun game or not. If you are the type who does not like RPG/Adventure games at all this is not the game to begin with because it was immediately frustrate you. If you the type of person who likes games such as Final Fantasy/Tactics or Diablo I suggest you pick up this title and give it a shot because you might end up liking it. Lastly, you absolutely love games like Warhammer and games like it I suggest you pick up this title because you will like the tactical based grid engine and its components.

Sadly no multiplayer component exists in this title and this will be the item to bring down its score.

All in all an excellent snag in terms of PC RPGs and a good pick up if you are a fan of RPG/Adventure games build on a turn-based grid system of combat.

When I heard that Icarus was a Diablo clone, I was real happy and excited to see another RPG because RPGs don't get finished very easily or very quickly. It's a type of game you can always come back to and expect something new. That really wasn't the case with Diablo though, it had one town and you kept going back into the dungeons. Icarus is different though, it has many towns and different fighting places, you can even fight in towns.

Even though I heard that Icarus was a Diablo clone, it is really very much different than Diablo. This game is turn based to start with. I really don't like turn based fighting, but you can't get everything. As I remember before in an old preview by Simplex for KKnD 2, he said the units would move as if they were sliding across the floor, well its the same case for Icarus. The animations are not smooth like Diablo's, but the 3D model characters aren't so bad yet they still aren't better than Diablo's either. Some of the magic effects are not very good either, the fire effects really suck.

The sounds to this game are pretty bad. Some of the sounds used in this game are from other games. They used wrong sounds for specific events also, like when you use a sword on a enemy then you hear a punching sound. And you also don't hear a unsheath sound when you draw your sword. The sound effects for magic are pretty bad also. The sound is pretty much the worst part of the game, they are not too great and are below average.

Although the graphics and sound are not that great, the gameplay to this game is very good. As I said before there is a lot of towns and places to discover, and people you have to save. You may even find some friends who will join your battle. This game gets pretty good as you go on into it. You may even discover some new creatures to fight with and you can even buy some pretty cool weapons from the towns. Each town has different weapons and items you can buy. You can also enter houses to talk to people.

Overall, its a pretty decent RPG once you really get into it. I'd suggest RPG fans have a look at this title.