Right from the beginning Shadowflare reminds me of probably the greatest action rpg game of all time – Diablo 2. The perspective, game mechanics and even graphics look really similar and are really good for a freeware game. You control a nameless warrior who starts in a small remote village. A dog companion that can be commanded is always at your side and you receive the first task from the commander of that village.

The commander is nice enough to hand you some equipment which you should equip by pressing the I button. Even the buttons for the interfaces are the same. Once you go outside the town you are attacked by the usual amount of low level enemies, namely Goblins, Orcs and bats.
You attack them with the left mouse button. Later in the game you can use the right mouse button to throw spells at the enemies which have to be learned before you can do so. Pressing Space changes the activity level of your dog companion. There are two modes, inactive which is the default mode and active. Inactive means that your dog will not attack but will take no damage as well.
Active means that it will engage in combat and take damage. A nice feature is that you can choose between several dogs that all have distinctive abilities.
One of the most important things in early gameplay is that you can get healed by the healer in the town. Just talk to her if your health is low and she will maximize it again.
Shadowflare is a great game, lots of fun. It has an internet mode that I did not test yet.

Weekend Fun Last Scenario Game
Yep, it’s pretty fun at the beginning but things start to become quite samey after a while. I stopped playing it after levelling up to around 13. The nice thing I like about this game is that you can play any style you like as a close combat, ranged or magic specialist without penalties under you switch careers after a certain level.
Nonetheless, still a good game – clean interface and easy to play – perfect when you need an action RPG fix other than Diablo 2 :)
Well we both agree that Diablo 2 is the ultimate game in the genre. Titan Quest is the only commercial game that comes to my mind that comes near it.
It is a good free game, did you try the multiplayer part ?
A fantastic game, actually, and let me add that for some reason I just didn’t enjoy Titan Quest. Oh, and the save routine of Diablo 2 was quite irritating too….
Anyway. Great find!
Nope, not likely to try anytime soon. Multiplayer games are not really my cup of tea :) I much prefer single-player games.