A rare RPG offering from Blue Byte, a German company mostly known for city builder and strategy titles. Albion is a game clearly inspired by early '90s Ultima with its top-down view, mouse-driven interaction and a heavy focus on NPC dialog (almost to a point). It even works in a few elements of Ultima Underworld with its towns and dungeons navigated in a first-person perspective. Unlike Ultima, though, there's no real opportunity to indulge in your evil influences - you just get a scolding if you try to steal anything, and there's no opportunity to kill NPCs except in scripted battles. The game rewards puzzle solving with experience points, which is a nice contrast to most RPGs of the time that only reward inventing excuses to kill as many things as possible. Despite predating it by over a decade the storyline bears a strong resemblance to James Cameron's Avatar, right down to the catlike alien race that lives in harmony with nature and the central conflict between the capitalistic aliens (humans) and the natives being remarkably similar. Or 1992's Ferngully if you prefer, though sadly there's no singing Tim Curry to liven up the stock plot and characters. Combat is turn based affair set on a grid, utilizing melee weapons, magic and firearms; though ammo for those is remarkably rare and should probably be saved for especially tough enemies. Progression through the game is also very linear, with little opportunity to explore freely and no real player choice other than being able to choose your party composition for some key events. This can be problematic at times, too - if you're simply too low on resources to overcome a particular combat challenge and have no way to get more, you can be forced to reload a save several hours back, or even restart entirely.
Albion is a pretty forgotten game nowadays, and for good reason - it's not especially memorable other than its unique and bizarre visuals. Nothing about it is particularly bad, but not a lot really stands out either; it's pretty much the textbook example of an average '90s CRPG. Maybe worth a look if you're into seeking out amusing obscurities, but I'd readily recommend playing through plenty of other '90s RPGs before this one.
Publisher: Blue Byte
Released: 1995
Platform: PC