This is one of those games whose reach far exceeded its grasp. It takes the base elements of design established by games like Ultima, and tries to apply them to a realistic medieval setting with supernatural elements and a freedom of exploration.

It fails to execute this concept very well partially because of game breaking bugs some of which were later patched, but in the early days of the internet this was a luxury available to some, not as simple as letting your game auto-update while you get a drink. The other problem it faces is the utter repetitiveness of the gameplay itself. In terms of both combat and exploration, there just isn't enough variety here to keep your interest, so it ends up being a large open-world game filled with tedium instead of potential.