> What makes this game great besides the nostalgia factor?

Using some very light immersive sim elements and solid first person melee combat, the game rewards you for winning fights unfairly:

- You can lure enemies in front of a trap and kick them into it.

- You can freeze the ground near a cliff and watch enemies go sliding off into the void.

- You can throw an oil jar at the feet of enemies and cast a fire spell to ignite the oil and burn them to death.

- etc.

My only tip when playing is: if you're squaring off with multiple enemies at once and actually using the (very solid) first person combat system, you're probably missing out on some underhanded way to kill one or more of them in that area.

It's an early game by Arkane Studios, who went on to make the Dishonored series, Prey (2017), and Deathloop. It's basically their first iteration on what would become their trademark "stealth/combat with superpowers and player choice" immersive-sim-style gameplay that they refined to great effect in their later games. If you play it stealthily it feels remarkably like Dishonored, in particular.

It's hardly a great game -- the plot is cheesy and there are some frustrating difficulty spikes -- but as an Arkane fan and game design nerd I find it interesting.

Plus, there's a dedicated "boot" key and it's fun to kick orcs off cliffs.

Dark Messiah had unique combat mechanics in hazard filled environments, where you could create all sorts of physics based accidents to eliminate enemies.

Game combat was showcased in the demo which made a lot of people at the time to believe it would be the game of the year. Unfortunately the demo contained all the best levels and the full game fell short with less engaging ones.

I did not play much games since that time so i do not know if some other games outclassed the Dark Messiah combat experience but trying the demo is worth it for a lot of fun in great level design. https://archive.org/details/DarkMessiahMightAndMagicDemo