Silver (GOG)

A cursed kingdom and a personal rescue mission give this late-1990s action RPG more urgency than its fairy-tale opening suggests. David, a young knight from Jarrah, fights through the rule of the sorcerer Silver after his wife and other village women are taken for a dark ritual. The journey moves from villages and forests to hostile ruins and stranger realms, with demons, dragons, soldiers, and magical traps blocking the way. Its tone is colourful fantasy on the surface, but the stakes stay grim: recover eight powerful relics, break a tyrant’s hold, and survive the forces serving Apocalypse.

Combat is the centrepiece, using an unusually physical mouse-control system rather than simple button presses. Sweeping the cursor in different directions makes David slash, thrust, and parry, while the same approach extends to bows, knives, spells, siege weapons, and other tools. Real-time fights demand positioning and timing, especially when enemies surround the party or attack from range. Progress comes through finding better equipment, learning magic, talking to dozens of characters, solving environmental obstacles, and recruiting companions whose specialties cover archery, martial arts, brute strength, and more.

Silver stands out because its controls make swordplay feel closer to drawing attacks than selecting them from a menu, even if that old-school input style takes patience on modern systems. Its detailed pre-rendered locations, dramatic spell effects, and varied party members give the quest a broad adventure-game flavour alongside the action. Expect some classic-era roughness: fixed viewpoints, dated interface habits, and encounters that can feel unforgiving until the combat clicks. Fans of retro PC RPGs, especially players who enjoy the cinematic presentation of Diablo-era fantasy games but want more direct melee control, find plenty to like here; newcomers should approach it as a distinctive historical curiosity rather than a streamlined modern RPG.