History YMMV / Albion

* BrokenBase: The Khamulon is either an''extremely'' long and full of repetitive encounters combined with enough [[EmptyRoomPsych empty rooms]] to drive you mad, or one of the best dungeons for its length, sense of danger, complexity and some ingenious traps.

** Goddess' Wrath, once fully leveled up, guarantees instant death. The only downside is that it prevents you from looting their corpses, but you can only really use it for the final dungeon, which wouldn't really matter by that point.

** The Iskai healer in Jirinaar may randomly give you a healing potion as you end the conversation with her. The bug? You can do it as much as you want, making both a big reserve of free potions and a lot of money by selling more of them.
** The infamous long reach bug will let you grab things that are just out of your reach, and you wouldn't be able to get them othervise. Picking up a fruit that paralizes {{ManEatingPlant}}s? Snatching stuff from behind the counter and selling them back to the shopkeaper? Stealing a decent and expensive shield from a trainer, from across a stone wall? Sneaking into Kamulon without Khunag? Just right click as far as possible while moving towards them and you have it.

* NightmareFuel: Dungeons. Just imagine those dark and clearly alien hallways with the sounds of water dripping, chains ringing, heavy doors opening and closing, animals howling, combined with eerie music and monsters growling and jumping out from behind the corners or just [[NothingIsScarier standing motionlessly and waiting for you to approach]], not to mention the occasional magical or alien phenomena or complex mechanisms you come across every now and then which must all be figured out while dealing with these circumstances. And let's not forget the total darkness waiting when the lights go out.

** Goes double for the old Former Building, one of the very first dungeons you end up in. The monsters jumping out from behind the corners isn't the worst of it. You also get to meet {{ManEatingPlant}}s, cave trees that run away if you touch them, moving roots dangling in your face that you need to pass under, corridors with pulsating walls, and giant insects that love to come REALLY close and make annoying sounds that can make you jump when you least expect it. Sweet dreams.
* PopularWithFurries: The Iskai are essentially cat people. Despite that being the surface level, with a lot of BizarreAlienBiology going on, the game still managed to become quite popular among UsefulNotes/FurryFandom.

** Some scripted events will use special animations (like characters trowing objects or firing weapons, or more commonly, explosions) which are actually animated screens, imposed over the main window. They cover up interface objects like the clock or the monster eye, and are not always aligned with the background. In the above mentioned cutscene with the fireball, Tom's entire front may disappear until the impact.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To Thalion Software's obscure Amiga role-playing games, ''Amberstar'' and ''Ambermoon'', which uses a similar mix of isometric and 3D gameplay. Albion was developed by many of the same developers after Thalion closed its doors.
* ViewerGenderConfusion: Drirr has been mistaken as female occasionally. Given that he's an anthropomorphic cat-thing, though...
* TheWoobie: Poor Bradir. [[spoiler: His best friend blackmails him into killing him, then leaves the guy to deal with the whole ordeal all by himself. Dick move Akiir.]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: To Thalion Software's obscure Amiga role-playing games, Amberstar and Ambermoon, which uses a similar mix of isometric and 3D gameplay. Albion was developed by many of the same developers after Thalion closed its doors.

** Goddess' Wrath, once fully leveled up, guarantees instant death. The only downside is that it prevents you from looting their corpses, but you can only really use it for the final dungeon, which would'nt really matter by that point.

* UncannyValley: Intentionally invoked with NED. Most character portraits show a friendly smile or an aloof no-nonsense expression and will allways show at least some personality. NED's expression is completely blank, as if he's looking right through you.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To Thalion Software's obscure Amiga role-playing games, Amberstar and Ambermoon, which uses a similar mix of isometric and 3D gameplay. Albion was developed by many of the same developers after Thalion closed its doors.

* MostAnnoyingSound: The bleeps coming from the internal speaker almost every time a bug is encountered. It's even more annoying when the bug is fatal (the game crashes and all unsaved progress is lost).

* SpiritualSuccessor: To Thalion Software's obscure Amiga RPGs, Amberstar and Ambermoon, which uses a similar mix of isometric and 3D gameplay. Albion was developed by many of the same developers after Thalion closed its doors.

** All you need to do to "beat" the final boss is [[spoiler:to run away. Which will take you all of two turns. Yes, really. However, you can choose to defeat him instead -- it's immune to physical attacks, but if you have at least one of the offensive mages and adequate healing, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome you can actually kill it in battle]]]].

* DisappointingLastLevel: Of all the islands, Nakiridani is probably the most entertaining, giving us a higly interactive environment, plenty of opportunities to learn about the people's culture, not to mention an original plot, and original setting. Later islands were much larger, less interesting quests, and never really encouraged much interaction with the people. By the time the player nears the end, the whole thing comes down to endless repetitive fights in Khamulon, and long, boring puzzles that do nothing beyond challenging the player's patience in Umajo Kenta.

** Sira can paralyze any single enemy in the game with her Thorn Snare spell, including the final boss, making boss battles ridiculously easy. Her Frost Avalanche spell does this to every enemy on the battlefield ([[ContractualBossImmunity except bosses]]), reducing most battles to tedious rounds of [[LiterallyShatteredLives ice breaking]]. In addition, she's actually almost as strong as [[LightningBruiser Drirr]], is one of the best ranged attackers, and her "Fungification" spell is by far the strongest single-target attack spell, more than thrice as powerful as Lightning Strike. Its only disadvantage is that if it strikes the killing blow, the monster doesn't drop anything.
** One of the late-game dungeons sports a trap that summons a horde of powerful demons to attack you. Normally, this is lethal to the party, but Mellthas' Demon Exodus spell, once properly leveled, can vaporize the entire horde in a single round. As the trap will faithfully conjure a demon horde every time you step on it, this process can be repeated indefinitely [[MemeticMutation for massive experience]].
** Goddess' Wrath, once you power it to full. Can you say, "guaranteed instant death for all enemies"? Only downside is that it prevents you from looting their corpses, but you can only really use it for the final dungeon, so it doesn't really matter by that point.

** There is an way to ''infinite money'' in some versions of the game, which goes: If you have money on all characters, the game will take it from them proportionately in shops, even when the party members don't have enough for this to work. So if one of your character carries all the cash but all others have a coin too, when you pay the game will effectively only take "Price of Item/Size of your party" from you. And the resell price is higher than this. Do it enough time and your party can go swimming in gold.

** Nailed it. The dungeons could have been the RPG equivalent of Silent Hill with a more complex sound system [[spoiler: since the creatures almost never had any kind of footstep sounds.]] It was pretty spooky as-is.

* PopularWithFurries: Iskai basic premise is "cat people". And even if that's just the surface level, with a lot of BizarreAlienBiology going on, the game still managed to become quite popular among UsefulNotes/FurryFandom.

** Many 2d sprites are way too obvious, especially in the 3d areas. It's possible to look at some Iskai buildings from an angle that exposes the enormous roof cupolas's (2d sprite, always paralel with the screen) "corner" sticks out behind the wall (vertical plane fixed in a 3d space)
** The storm demons are far worse at not looking like cardboard cutouts than most creatures. Also, they are the only demons that leave behind a corpse, even though it's not logical, being giant floating clouds with vague humanoid figures in them. Said corpse looks like their sprite was slightly twisted using photoshop, and remains stuck in midair, obscuring much of the battlefield. If you try to move any closer, good luck at seeing anything other than a big gray circular canvas with a bad Munch imitation drawn over it.
* UncannyValley: intentionally invoked with NED. Most character portraits show a friendly smile or an aloof no-nonsense attitude and will allways show at least some personality. NED's expression is completely blank, as if he's looking right through you.

* DisappointingLastLevel: Of all the islands, Nakiridani is probably the most entertaining, giving us a higly interactive environment, plenty of opportunities to learn about the people's culture, not to mention an original plot, and original setting. Later islands were much larger, had more generic settings, less interesting quests, and never really encouraged too much interaction with the people. By the time the player nears the end, the whole thing comes down to endless repetitive fights in Khamulon, and long, boring puzzles that do nothing beyond challenging the player's patience, in Umajo Kenta.

** Sira can paralyze any single enemy in the game with her Thorn Snare spell, including the final boss, making boss battles ridiculously easy. Her Frost Avalanche spell does this to every enemy on the battlefield ([[ContractualBossImmunity except bosses]]), reducing most battles to tedious rounds of [[LiterallyShatteredLives ice breaking]].\\\
In addition to the above, she's actually almost as strong as [[LightningBruiser Drirr]], is one of the best ranged attackers, and her "Fungification" spell is by far the strongest single-target attack spell, more than thrice as powerful as Lightning Strike! (Its only disadvantage is that if it strikes the killing blow, the monster doesn't drop anything)

* BrokenBase: The Khamulon is either an''extremely'' long and full of repetitive encounters combined with enough [[EmptyRoomPsych empty rooms]] tod ive you mad, or one of the best dungeons for its length, sense of danger, complexity and some ingenious traps.

* InferredHolocaust: The author of the blog mentioned in the LetsPlay entry had this take on the ending. You can see it below (though spoilers abound, obviously).

* ThatOneLevel: The Khamulon. It is ''extremely'' long and full of repetitive encounters combined with [[EmptyRoomPsych empty rooms]]. It nearly drove the author of the aforementioned LetsPlay mad.\\\
Other players find that one of the best dungeons for its length, sense of danger (you cannot just escape from it and return later), complexity and some ingenious traps, and would rather point their finger at the caves - the engine is really bad at rendering "natural" dungeons and navigating them is very frustrating.

* PopularWithFurries: Iskai basic premise is "cat people". And even if that's just the surface level, with a lot of BizarreAlienBiology going on, the game still managed to become quite popular among FurryFandom.

** [[spoiler:All you need to do to "beat" the final boss is to run away. Which will take you all of two turns. Yes, really.]] [[spoiler:However, you can choose to defeat him instead -- it's immune to physical attacks, but if you have at least one of the offensive mages and adequate healing, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome you can actually kill it in battle]].]]

** Sira can paralyze any single enemy in the game with her Thorn Snare spell, including the final boss, making boss battles ridiculously easy. Her Frost Avalanche spell does this to every enemy on the battlefield ([[ContractualBossImmunity except bosses]]), reducing most battles to tedious rounds of [[LiterallyShatteredLives ice breaking]].
\\\In addition to the above, she's actually almost as strong as [[LightningBruiser Drirr]], is one of the best ranged attackers, and her "Fungification" spell is by far the strongest single-target attack spell, more than thrice as powerful as Lightning Strike! (Its only disadvantage is that if it strikes the killing blow, the monster doesn't drop anything)

* AnticlimaxBoss - [[spoiler:You can't fight the final boss. All you need to do to "beat" it is to run away. Which will take you all of two turns. Yes, really.]]
** [[spoiler:Actually, you can. It's immune to physical attacks, but if you have at least one of the offensive mages and adequate healing, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome you can actually kill it in battle]].]]
* DisappointingLastLevel - Of all the islands, Nakiridani is probably the most entertaining, giving us a higly interactive environment, plenty of opportunities to learn about the people's culture, not to mention an original plot, and original setting. Later islands were much larger, had more generic settings, less interesting quests, and never really encouraged too much interaction with the people. By the time the player nears the end, the whole thing comes down to endless repetitive fights in Khamulon, and long, boring puzzles that do nothing beyond challenging the player's patience, in Umajo Kenta.
* GameBreaker - Sira can paralyze any single enemy in the game with her Thorn Snare spell, including the final boss, making boss battles ridiculously easy. Her Frost Avalanche spell does this to every enemy on the battlefield ([[ContractualBossImmunity except bosses]]), reducing most battles to tedious rounds of [[LiterallyShatteredLives ice breaking]].
** Sira is practically a walking GameBreaker -- in addition to the above, she's actually almost as strong as [[LightningBruiser Drirr]], is one of the best ranged attackers, and her "Fungification" spell is by far the strongest single-target attack spell, more than thrice as powerful as Lightning Strike! (Its only disadvantage is that if it strikes the killing blow, the monster doesn't drop anything)

* GoodBadBugs - The Iskai healer in Jirinaar may randomly give you a healing potion as you end the conversation with her. The bug? You can do it as much as you want, making both a big reserve of free potions and a lot of money by selling more of them.

* InferredHolocaust - The author of the blog mentioned in the LetsPlay entry had this take on the ending. You can see it below (though spoilers abound, obviously).
* MostAnnoyingSound - The bleeps coming from the internal speaker almost every time a bug is encountered. It's even more annoying when the bug is fatal (the game crashes and all unsaved progress is lost).
* NightmareFuel - Dungeons. Just imagine those dark and clearly alien hallways with the sounds of water dripping, chains ringing, heavy doors opening and closing, animals howling, combined with eerie music and monsters growling and jumping out from behind the corners or just [[NothingIsScarier standing motionlessly and waiting for you to approach]], not to mention the occasional magical or alien phenomena or complex mechanisms you come across every now and then which must all be figured out while dealing with these circumstances. And let's not forget the total darkness waiting when the lights go out.

* SpecialEffectFailure: Some scripted events will use special animations (like characters trowing objects or firing weapons, or more commonly, explosions) which are actually animated screens, imposed over the main window. They cover up interface objects like the clock or the monster eye, and are not always aligned with the background. In the above mentioned cutscene with the fireball, Tom's entire front may disappear until the impact.

* ThatOneLevel - The Khamulon. It is ''extremely'' long and full of repetitive encounters combined with [[EmptyRoomPsych empty rooms]]. It nearly drove the author of the aforementioned LetsPlay mad.\\
\\

* UncannyValley - intentionally invoked with NED. Most character portraits show a friendly smile or an aloof no-nonsense attitude and will allways show at least some personality. NED's expression is completely blank, as if he's looking right through you.
* ViewerGenderConfusion - Drirr has been mistaken as female occasionally. Given that he's an anthropomorphic cat-thing, though...
* TheWoobie - Poor Bradir. [[spoiler: His best friend blackmails him into killing him, then leaves the guy to deal with the whole ordeal all by himself. Dick move Akiir.]]