Castle of the Winds (PC) review "Castle of the Winds is proof that you don't need anything resembling graphics, sound, or story to have a fun and entertaining game."

Castle of the Winds is proof that you don't need anything resembling graphics, sound, or story to have a fun and entertaining game. The simple act of combat and building up a powerful character is fun due to the simplicity of how it's achieved.

The story of Castle of the Winds takes up a scant few lines. You come home one day to find out that, well, you don't have a home anymore. Your father's farm has been burned down. You're out to bring revenge to the person who did this. It's horribly passe, but the story takes a backseat to the simple gameplay.

There's an overhead perspective to Castle of the Winds; it's all slightly reminscient to a Minesweeper game. Your character move on a grid, one square at a time. Monsters, gold, equipment, and stairs are all strewn about the map-type dwelling where all the fighting is done. The perspective never changes in the game; you do fighting and travelling right there.

You attack enemies by moving into them. A small dialouge box tells if you do any damage (i.e. Bobo strikes a glancing blow). This keeps combat simple and free flowing. Spells are also easily cast with two clicks of the mouse.

Castle of the Winds features a wealth of equippable things. The standard items can be equipped - swords, suits of armor, shields, helmets. But the game goes far beyond these simple categories, and offers the not-so-usual forms of equipment, such as rings, cloaks, boots, and even gloves. The equipment varies in type too, from short swords to maces to battle armor. Also, everything piece of equipment in the game could be enchanted, doubling its power or endowing it with special abilities.

Character customization is at a premium in Castle of the Winds. At the beginning of the game, you can customize everything about your character, from their abilities (constitution, agility) to their name, even the picture that the game uses to display your character.

With all these positives, what's the negative? Well, the lack of any compelling graphics, sound, or storyline can be quite disheartening. And Castle of the Winds isn't particularily long or difficult; the ability to save and load at will makes it a rather quick jaunt, no more than ten hours of actual time.

However, overall, Castle of the Winds is a fun time. While not quite deserving of a full-time play due to its overall lack of the essentials, it's a great way to waste time while downloading. It can be had for free at any big time download site (Download.com), and it's a very small download at that. You won't be sorry.

Community review by sgreenwell (Date unavailable) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.