Game Description

Iron & Blood is a 3D fighter based on Ravenloft, a fantasy horror setting in the world of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Strahd von Zarovich, vampire lord, and Lord Soth, deathknight, and constantly scheming and plotting against one another, and a party of heroes has become caught up in their power struggles.

This group of adventurers must face off against the most malicious and evil monsters and villains the land has to offer if they are to survive and find their way back home.

At the beginning of the game, players must choose from a pool of characters that includes the forces of good and evil. Paladins, wizards, warriors, assassins, were-creatures and more can be chosen from. Once they've got a character picked, they must face off against a series of opponents in one on one matches to the death.

During the matches, which take place in closed off arenas of various types, players can use weapons, magic, special moves, and anything else at their disposal to destroy their opponent. ~ Scott Steinberg, All Game Guide

Roots & Influences

Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft takes characters from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks and the Ravenloft atmosphere. ~ Matthew House, All Game Guide

Review: Enjoyment

The only enjoyment to be had with Iron & Blood is watching the computer make a fool of itself. The AI is horrible, the arenas are just as bad and executing moves is uninspiring. It's just not a fun game to play and it only proves to be frustrating. ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

Iron & Blood is a unique fighting game in a few ways. Instead of having depthless muscle-clad characters, it takes all the different player classes from Dungeons & Dragons. You can choose from clerics, warriors, mages, wizards, and elves with 16 characters in all. This aspect is pretty impressive really. There's lots of variety to choose from and all the fighters look really detailed. And of course they all have magical powers and special attacks based on the actual D&D rulebooks. There's over 250 different moves/combos buried within the game but the delivery is pretty unoriginal. Executing moves takes a few button presses and nothing else. But this isn't even the main problem...

The main problem is the AI. Iron & Blood has some of the worst artificial intelligence I've ever seen in a video game. You can actually win fights by tricking the computer into thinking you're standing in front of him when you're really not. All this takes is a jump over their head or a side step to the left. Half the time, it can't comprehend the fact that you moved and it starts attacking where you were standing. Sometimes, the computer will run itself into the side of the screen and keep running in place until you do something about it. Sometimes it will run itself repeatedly into a wall and literally bash himself senseless until his health meter has been drained. Unfortunately, it's also hard to get yourself turned the right way sometimes. Turning around can be a very slow process and because the computer helps you turn, you take lots of cheap shots in the back. This is utterly frustrating and extremely poor. Also poor are the actual arenas themselves. They're all pretty uninspiring and their 3D nature just doesn't work with the actual movement controls (like turning around).

But perhaps the main problem is that it's a fighting game. Iron & Blood is fully endorsed by TSR (the people who created D&D) and it is hard to understand why they'd do a game of this nature. Wouldn't Dungeons & Dragon fans want to play an actual strategic update of the fantasy game? So the bottom line is that Iron & Blood just can't win. It's not going to draw in any other fans than those who play D&D. And the fans that do play the game aren't going to put up with this sonically mediocre fighter. Even fighting game fans that aren't prejudiced against the content wouldn't play it. Better break out your pencils, paper and rulebooks... ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Review: Graphics

While all the fighters look diverse and detailed, the arenas themselves look pretty poor. ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Review: Sound

There's nothing very original in the sound department. It's your basic fighting game sound effects, nothing really new. But some of the musical pieces are fairly epic and fit the mood nicely ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Review: Replay Value

There's absolutely no real reason to play this game in the first place let alone finish it. ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Review: Documentation

The manual isn't bad and it explains some of the back story and player moves and combos. ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide