Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession

Game review

Game Ravenloft: Strahd 's Possession is partly based on the principles of the popular board game Dungeons & Dragons. The game takes place in the country Bavoria and the story is quite simple: Lord Dhelt of Elturel was attacked in his own castle and a mysterious killer stole his precious amulet with magical powers. You control the characters who are servants of the Lord and receive task to track down the killer and bring the amulet back to the castle. When you track down the amulet, you are mysteriously teleported into a foggy part of the Bavoria, where you encounter various monsters. You have to survive and find your way back to the castle.

Lord Dhelt was attacked in his own castle by unknown assailants. These mysterious assassins stole the Helm Symbol - a rare magical amulet. Lord Dhelt will ask you to catch the killers and bring back the amulet. The moment of victory will soon turn into a new adventure. After obtaining the amulet, the heroes are teleported to an unknown territory, in an unknown country. There is no way back because the area is surrounded by a kind of poisonous fog.

The inspiration for the world of Raveloft, and thus its primary atmosphere, is gothic horror, and it very often uses analogy to characters from existing fictional literary works of this genre. And so it is obvious where to look for the main inspiration for the game's antagonist, Prince Strahd von Zarovich, lord of Barovia - the place where the player's party was teleported.

The game used 3D computer graphics and used a game engine identical to the later SSI title Menzoberranzan. Generally, the keyboard or mouse-driven directional arrows were used to move around or change perspective. As an early 3D game engine, it moved slowly and could appear cumbersome. However, there was an omnipresent map in the top corner which helped gamers from becoming too disoriented by the slow and cluttered progress of the game.