History YMMV / Darkstone

** A similar bug can be found in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation version; the normal mace's selling price, for some reason, is higher than its buying price, which you can abuse for extra gold.

** The Amazons clad in full plate armor and wielding one-handed maces and shields are an absolute pain to deal with. Aside from being fast moving, fast attacking and attacking in groups with other Amazons, their attacks do a lot of damage and they are immune to all spells except poison based ones. Of which, there are ''two'' available spells and they are both level 4 spells, the highest tier available.

* GodDamnedBats: All the various Amazons, they'll never be an especially threatening enemy, as they all move rather slowly, aren't particularly fast nor strong with their attacks, and the one ranged variant in the Archer Amazons are probably the least threatening ranged-attacker in the game, being slow, weak, and having a low hit rate that will make most of their arrows bounce off you if you got decent armor. The Archer Amazons being ranged-attackers still makes them annoying, but the one aspect that makes all Amazons so annoying is that for some reason they all have a complete resistance to any attacking magic spell in the game besides Thunder and so will take only 1 damage from any spell that isn't Thunder. And once you reach dungeon level 7 or Marghor you'll encounter Amazons nearly everywhere afterward, with some dungeon levels or lands even having multiple Amazon varieties within them, so you'll rarely just be able to blow away all enemies with spells in a dungeon level. They are especially annoying for Wizards/Sorceresses, ensuring they will have to keep using the Lycanthropy skill long after their magic prowess surpassed it or use ranged-weapons they attack slowly with.

** The Wizards, who also have a ton of HP and will spam fireballs at you relentlessly while constantly teleporting around, to make them a hassle to target and difficult to run away from. If that wasn't bad enough they may also spawn Magic Bombs when damaged, which will really hurt you if run into one. Then there's a variant of them that don't teleport, but instead will summon a trio of Ice Golems when they spot you, which are pretty nasty enemies in their right that will spam Sparks at you, and will keep spawning them until you kill the Wizard.

** For enemies you can encounter earlier on, there's the Chief Rat Men, who will be among the first ranged-attackers you can encounter, but compared to other earlier ranged attackers they're more durable, attack faster, and seem to have a higher hit rate that will have their throwing axes penetrate your armor more frequently. Then there's one late game quest where you'll encounter fake crystals and if you try to pick them up you'll have two special Chief Rat Men spawned near you; they can't throw their axes, but they are the fastest enemies in the game, being impossible to outrun and having a ridiculously fast attack rate.

** For enemies you can encounter earlier on, there's the Chief Rat Men, who will be among the first ranged-attackers you can encounter, but compared to other earlier ranged attacks they're more durable, attack faster, and seem to have a higher hit rate that will have their throwing axes penetrate your armor more frequently. Then there's one late game quest where you'll encounter fake crystals and if you try to pick them up you'll have two special Chief Rat Men spawned near you; they can't throw their axes, but they are the fastest enemies in the game, being impossible to outrun and having a ridiculously fast attack rate.

** In the Playstation version, enemies and bosses that drop a plot-important item can have it stolen by the Thief skill, while they will still drop it upon death, meaning you can get duplicates of such plot items if you can successfully use the Thief skill, which you can then sell as artifacts later for substantial money, even the ones you would normally have to use up elsewhere to advance the plot. You can even get duplicates of the crystals when a boss drops one, which might seem useless at first since you can never sell the crystals, however the crystal collection for the Time Orb doesn't check if you actually got the seven different crystals, just that you have seven of any crystals, meaning you can have a duplicate crystal take the spot of another crystal. So through this exploit you can get the Time Orb and thus beat the game faster without having to resolve the plot of all seven lands (you can beat it after clearing just four of the lands if you're lucky enough to get four quests that end in fighting a boss that drops the crystal), and it can safeguard against a glitch that can make overworld items disappear permanently, preventing you from having to restart the game if it affects a crystal you left lying around.

** For enemies you can encounter earlier on, there's the Chief Rat Men, who will be among the first ranged-attackers you can encounter, but compared to other earlier ranged attacks they're more durable, attack faster, and seem to have a higher hit rate that will have their throwing axes penetrate your armor more frequently. Then there's one late game quest where you'll encounter fake crystals and if you try to pick them up you'll have two special Chief Rat Men spawned near you, which while they can't throw their axes, they instead are the fastest enemies in the game, being impossible to outrun and having a ridiculously fast attack rate to quickly slaughter you if you don't stop them from wailing on you.

** The Queen Spiders, which are giant fireball-spitting spiders. They have a ton of HP, hit hard, attack surprisingly fast, have very strong armor that can make them especially hard to consistently damage with ranged-weapons without you having a very high hitrate, your weapon's durability will deplete at an accelerated rate when hitting them, and they can poison you with their melee attack for good measure. Plus if you get an enemy on your side, from either using Invocation to summon a Fire Golem or Confusion to turn enemies against each other, no monster will retaliate against a Queen Spider and will just stand there being attacked until it dies. The only reprieve about them is that they move rather slowly and in dungeons their massive size keeps them restricted to the rooms they spawn in, but their size also means it can be difficult or impossible to maneuver around them in confined spaces, especially with a pack of them.

** The red and blue Skeleton Captains. The yellow Skeleton Captains aren't bad, being essentially a beefed up version of the basic skeleton. but the red and blues ones are not only stronger but also shoot fireballs and Magic Missiles respectively, while they have very strong armor like any skeleton has that makes them difficult to damage without a very high hitrate, especially with ranged weapons.
** For enemies you can encounter earlier on, there's the Chief Rat Men, who will be among the first ranged-attackers you can encounter, but compared to other earlier ranged attacks they're more durable, attack faster, and seem to have a higher hitrate that will have their throwing axes penetrate your armor more frequently. Then there's one lategame quest where you'll encounter fake crystals and if you try to pick them up you'll have two special Chief Rat Men spawned near you, which while they can't throw their axes, they instead are the fastest enemies in the game, being impossible to outrun and having a ridiculously fast attack rate to quickly slaughter you if you don't stop them from wailing on you.

* GameBreaker: At least in the Playstation port, there's really no reason to play any of the classes besides the Assassin/Thief class unless you're explicitly looking for a harder and more limited experience. First ranged combat is vastly superior to close combat, even if the weapons are weaker you'll be getting hit a lot less often, especially against the bosses and stronger enemies you're not strong enough to flinch, making them much more capable of fighting enemies above their punching weight without having to rely heavily on magic, and close-ranged combat can be cumbersome in general with the wonky hitboxes that enemies often outrange. Then the real gamebreaker is their Thief skill that allows them to get far more items and equipment from enemies, while stolen equipment is much more likely to be enchanted, which significantly increases the likelihood of them getting better equipment, and when combined with the GoodBadBug mentioned below of being able to get duplicate plot items, also means they'll be getting drastically more money. With all that extra money, they'll not only be able to afford substantially better equipment and keep themselves stocked up on items, they'll also be able to buy far more of the stat-boosting potions that will become your main source of stat-increasing after you get to the point where levelups are painfully slow and no longer rewarding, which will make them stronger than the other classes in durability, damage output, and magic ability. They even get the Identify and Trade skills for good measure too, which means they won't have to spend any money on identifying unidentified enchanted equipment and will be able to know which equipment is most worthwhile to take back to sell, while Trade lets them buy stuff/get services the slightly bit cheaper and sell stuff for a slightly bit more profit with each upgrade in the skill, which really adds up over time and they can exploit the cheaper repairs to get even more profit by repairing their loot before selling it. Assassins/Thieves are really playing an entirely different game from the other classes with the massive monetary and combat advantage they get.
** The best spell in the game that you will probably use way more than any combat spell? Berserker, that level 1 spell you'll probably get very early on, possibly as even your first spell. When Berserker is active, your armor and hitrate are drastically increased, your movement speed is about doubled, and your health regenerates at a significantly fast rate, while the spell has a rather low mana cost and even at its first level will have a long duration of over 30 seconds, that significantly increases each time you upgrade the spell. With Berserker active you could be nigh-unkillable while you'll be hitting enemies a lot more often than they're hitting you, especially with the pesky ranged-attackers as the armor increase can make you near-immune to projectiles, not to mention how immensely useful the movement speed increase is in general. You'll be using this spell all the time from the beginning of the game to the absolute end, and no other spell in the game will come close to matching it utilities and sheer usefulness. This spell even makes close-ranged combat bearable and can allow allow close-ranged fighters to beat bosses without using any potions nor anything else.

* GodDamnedBats: All the various Amazons, they'll never be an especially threatening enemy, as they all move rather slowly, aren't particularly fast nor strong with their attacks, and the one ranged variant in the Archer Amazons are probably the least threatening ranged-attacker in the game, being slow, weak, and having a low hitrate that will make most of their arrows bounce off you if you got decent armor. The Archer Amazons being ranged-attackers still makes them annoying, but the one aspect that makes all Amazons so annoying is that for some reason they all have a complete resistance to any attacking magic spell in the game besides Thunder and so will take only 1 damage from any spell that isn't Thunder. And once you reach dungeon level 7 or Marghor you'll encounter Amazons nearly everywhere afterward, with some dungeon levels or lands even having multiple Amazon varieties within them, so you'll rarely just be able to blow away all enemies with spells in a dungeon level. They are especially annoying for Wizards/Sorceresses, ensuring they will have to keep using the Lycanthropy skill long after their magic prowess surpassed it or use ranged-weapons they attack slowly with.

** A similar bug can be found in the PlayStation version; the normal mace's selling price, for some reason, is higher than its buying price, which you can abuse for extra gold.

** The Queen Spiders, which are giant fireball-spitting spiders. They have a ton of HP, they hit hard, can attack surprisingly fast, have strong armor that can make them especially hard to consistently damage with ranged-weapons without you having a very high hitrate, and can poison you with their melee attack for good measure. Plus if you get an enemy on your side, from either using Invocation to summon a Fire Golem or Confusion to turn enemies against each other, no monster will retaliate against a Queen Spider and will just stand there being attacked until it dies. The only reprieve about them is that they move rather slowly and in dungeons their massive size keeps them restricted to the rooms they spawn in, but their size also means it can be difficult or impossible to maneuver around them in confined spaces, especially with a pack of them.

* GodDamnedBats: All the various Amazons, they'll never be an especially threatening enemy, as they all move rather slowly, aren't particularly fast nor strong with their attacks, and the one ranged variant in the Archer Amazons are probably the least threatening ranged-attacker in the game, being slow, weak, and having a low hitrate that will make most of their arrows bounce off you if you got decent armor. The Archer Amazons being ranged-attackers still makes them annoying, but the one aspect that makes all Amazons so annoying is that for some reason they all have a complete resistance to any attacking magic spell in the game and so will take only 1 damage from any spell, even a level 8 Lightning. And once you reach dungeon level 7 or Marghor you'll encounter Amazons nearly everywhere afterward, with some dungeon levels or lands even having multiple Amazon varieties within them, so you'll rarely just be able to blow away all enemies with spells in a dungeon level. They are especially annoying for Wizards/Sorceresses, ensuring they will have to keep using the Lycanthropy skill long after their magic prowess surpassed it or use ranged-weapons they attack slowly with.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Draak is statistically fearsome, being far stronger and durable than anything else you'll fight, and he'll summon a pair of Mystical Wyverns with a ridiculous speed boost while constantly respawning when they're killed. Get them out of the way though through other means, and all Draak does is just spit fire at you over and over, which the Reflections spell will reflect like any other ranged attack. So if you just sit there and keep casting Reflections Draak cannot hurt you whatsoever unless you go right up to his face, as Draak will just sit there spitting fire at you instead of being smart enough to just run up and bite you. With enough mana potions stocked up to keep Reflections up and an appropriate ranged weapon or attacking spell to safely damage Draak from a distance, you can beat Draak pretty quickly without taking any damage once you get rid of the Wyverns, just remember to use the Time Orb before he reaches half health or he'll fully regenerate. The Time Orb's duration to kill Draak in is also quite generous, so the effective time limit against him isn't an issue either.

** The Queen Spiders, which are giant fireball-spitting spiders. They have a ton of HP, they hit hard, can attack surprisingly fast, have strong armor that can make them especially hard to consistently damage with ranged-weapons without you having a very high hitrate, and can poison you with their melee attack for good measure. The only reprieve about them is that they move rather slowly and in dungeons their massive size keeps them restricted to the rooms they spawn in, but their size also means it can be difficult or impossible to maneuver around them in confined spaces, especially with a pack of them.
** The Wizards, who also have a ton of HP and will spam fireballs at you relentlessly while constantly teleporting around, to make them a hassle to target and difficult to run away from. If that wasn't bad enough they may also spawn Magic Bombs when damaged, which will really hurt you if run into one.
** The Mystical Wyverns, which come in two variants. The normal Wyverns are pretty bad as is, being rather durable enemies with a massively-ranged lunge attack that poisons you and [[HitboxDissonance reaches farther than it appears]], but the first variant of Mystical Wyverns will spam fireballs at you with the fastest attack speed of any ranged enemy in the game. The second variant spawned by Draak when you fight him thankfully can't shoot fireballs, but instead move ridiculously fast and will outrun you unless you got your running speed boosted, and Draak will keep infinitely respawning them when you kill them. The only way to get them out of the Draak fight so you can focus on him is to lure them far away from him, and cast the Slowness spell on them to bring their movement to a crawl, so you can then run away from them back to Draak where they'll then no longer pursue you as long as you don't go back near them.

* DemonicSpiders: Lots of them, including some [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Shelob]]-sized beauties.
* GameBreaker: At least in the Playstation port, there's really no reason to play any of the classes besides the Assassin/Thief class. First ranged combat is vastly superior to close combat, even if the weapons are a bit weaker you'll be getting hit a lot less often, especially against the bosses and stronger enemies you're not strong enough to flinch, making them much more capable of fighting enemies above their class without having to rely heavily on magic. Then the real gamebreaker is their Thief skill that allows them to get far more items and equipment from enemies, while stolen equipment is much more likely to be enchanted, which significantly increases the likelihood of them getting better equipment, and when combined with the GoodBadBug mentioned below of being able to get duplicate plot items, also means they'll be getting drastically more money. With all that extra money, they'll not only be able to afford substantially better equipment and keep themselves stocked up on items, they'll also be able to buy far more of the stat-boosting potions that will become your main source of stat-increasing after you get to the point where levelups are painfully slow and no longer rewarding, which will make them stronger than the other classes in durability, damage output, and magic ability. They even get the Identify skill for good measure too, which means they won't have to spend any money on identifying unidentified enchanted equipment, and will be able to know which equipment is most worthwhile to take back to sell.
** The best spell in the game that you will probably use way more than any combat spell? Berserker, that level 1 spell you'll probably get very early on, possibly as even your first spell. When Berserker is active, your armor and hitrate are drastically increased, your movement speed is about tripled, and your health regenerates at a significantly fast rate, while the spell has a rather low mana cost and even at its first level will have a long duration of nearly 30 seconds, that significantly increases each time you upgrade the spell. With Berserker active you'll be nigh-unkillable while you'll be hitting enemies a lot more often than they're hitting you, especially with the pesky ranged-attackers as the armor increase will make you near-immune to projectiles, not to mention how immensely useful the movement speed increase is in general. You'll be using this spell all the time from the beginning of the game to the absolute end, and no other spell in the game will come close to matching it utilities and sheer usefulness.

** The check for if you have the stats needed to wear/wield a piece of equipment only occurs when you try to equip it. So with a ring/amulet that raises stats, you can equip that ring/amulet, then equip something that ring/amulet pushed you over the stat requirement for, then swap out that ring/amulet for one with a more useful effect while still being able to wear/wield that equipment/weapon you don't have the stats for yet. You can also exploit this to learn spells sooner as you just need a minimum in your Magic stat to learn each spell and once you have it learned you can use the spell regardless of what your Magic is.

* EarWorm: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R8YZQ8HAwI The Darkstone Will Shine]]

* DemonicSpiders: Lots of them, including some [[Literature/LordOfTheRings Shelob]]-sized beauties.

* GoodBadBugs: Ranged weapons and spells can be used on enemies on the other side of certain types of walls and doors (such as prison-style bars), but they can't attack you in return. This is eliminated if you install any of the patches for the PC version.

* NightmareFuel: Be prepared for a cutscene following the fourth dungeon in which the landscape drastically changes.

** A similar bug can be found in the playstation version where the normal mace's selling price, for some reason, is higher than its buying price, which you can abuse for extra gold.

* DemonicSpiders: Lots of them, including some [[LordOfTheRings Shelob]]-sized beauties.

* NightmareFuel: Be prepared for a cutscene following the fourth dungeon in which the landscape drastically changes.
** There's also the Village of the Damned, where you can be mauled to death by an entire screen full of poisonous spiders. It takes only seconds.