I'm sure you're familiar with the expression "one step forward, two steps back". Well, someone gave Daggerfall a big bottle of home-made booze, because Battlespire takes a few steps forward, but then fumbles back, sideways and every which way. Battlespire is many things: unique, captivating, stylish, fully voice-acted, full of lore, even fun. However, of all the things it is, there's one thing that Battlespire isn't: a well-made game.

Visually, if we cast aside DOSBox limitations and the fact that it runs poorly unless set up right, Battlespire really is one of a kind in the Elder Scrolls universe. Set in the eponymous Battlespire, it's not even fully in the reality of Tamriel, teetering somewhere between it, and the realm of Oblivion. A setting so out there lends itself to some truly artistic environments and this is one aspect of the game I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. If you can look past the low-res textures, the overall aesthetic is really top-notch, the Daedric architecture is foreboding, sinister and larger-than-life. The levels themselves are handcrafted and done well, and nowhere near as labyrinthian as Daggerfall, but are still more complex than the "cave with occasional side path" dungeon design that Bethesda adopted after Morrowind. The music is also very good. Daggerfall's chippy fantasy bloops and monotone dungeon drone is replaced by truly ominous synthey tracks. Even the main menu theme is incredibly eerie. The voice acting can be hit or miss, but most of it is well-made and fairly tongue-in-cheek, campy and over-the-top. Personally, I loved it, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. One thing that did bother me, however, is the player character's responses (who are thankfully NOT voice acted). Some of them read like they were written by a high-school student. They don't sound like a character from Tamriel at all.

But beyond the one-of-a-kind façade, the game itself falls apart like your weapon after using it too much. I'll give credit where it's due first, so I can then commence the proper bashing: if everything in it worked as described, Battlespire would have the single best character creator in any Elder Scrolls game, period. While similar to Daggerfall, it doesn't punish powerful characters by making them level slowly. Rather, it uses a point-based system that allows an incredible amount of flexibility and freedom. Disadvantages add points while advantages take them away, and you can freely spend points on attributes, health and skill increases, gear, potions, passive abilities etc., so on paper, you can start out strong if you min-max a bit. Problem is, there are a lot of ineffective skills, and some attribute and skill combos are utterly baffling (Personality governs three magic schools, Intelligence governs nothing but Critical Strike), and creating a weak character is all too easy. 
Magic, for example, is badly broken and way gimped compared to Daggerfall (and that's ignoring the AoE self-spell absorb), and I wasn't able to kill certain mobs even with 100 Destruction and 100 WIL. You can't rest, so you have to rely on potions and gems for your magicka reserve as well. Most spells are useless or weak. As someone who always mains mages, this was very disheartening, and after scouring wikis and 13 hours in, I just gave up on magic and rolled a melee and archery character so I could even beat the game.

Battlespire is hard. Incredibly, unforgivingly hard. The game advertised itself as such, to be fair, and any accompanying official documents make that abundantly clear. Even the setting and premise make it clear. You're a fledgeling Imperial Battlemage that thinks they're going for a trial run, only to be ambushed by a Daedric invasion. While all seven dungeons are handmade (and done well, mostly), the loot is still mostly random and your success will depend on luck. There are NPCs, but there are no quests, taverns, no merchants or blacksmiths. You meet Dremora in one of the first rooms in level 1. Enemies hit hard, have high resistances, and pull no punches. Even with maxed main stats, you will end combat bruised and battered by trash mobs. The puzzles require your full attention and a lot of scouring for clues - they are, however, not as obtuse as some of Daggerfall's so-called "puzzles" with ground-breaking design such as "look for a random torch to activate in order to access teleporter 4 out of a 12 teleporter sequence". If you pay attention to your surroundings and read all the relevant scrolls, you should be able to figure out what's expected of you. But you will run out of potions or arrows if you don't Scrooge McDuck your way through the game. You will get lost or wonder what to do next. You will die. A LOT.

And everytime you do, you will get booted to DOSBox and have to wait for the game to load again (by design). And then you'll reach the infamous Level 5 bug, where dying too much or exiting the game too many times bloats your savefile size, corrupting them in the process. Or you'll just get stuck on pretty much... anything when jumping. Or stuck on level geometry. Or the enemies will. Or they'll disappear. Or quest items will disappear. Or the music will! Or the water level will randomly rise after you load a game and insantly drown you even at full breath. Or some elevator platform will decide it no longer acknowledges your existence. Or you will drop an item for inventory management's sake and won't be able to pick it up again. Or the Jump icon won't appear. Or your teleport spell will ignore your anchor and teleport you into pure black. Hell, even the music, awesome as it is, doesn't loop properly. I think you get the idea. This is bad coding at its worst. Unfortunately, unlike Daggerfall, there is no Unity solution or even fan-made patches. Scouring the wikis and keeping all 8 save slots occupied is your only hope.

And ultimately, despite the intriguing and quality hand-crafted levels, despite the unique premise, setting and visuals, despite all the lore and fun it offers, for as much as I lament that it's the only level-based (i.e., not open world) Elder Scrolls RPG title, Battlespire is just too broken, too buggy and too undertuned and unpolished to be a good game, and thus, it's not game worth recommending. Again, I really can't overstate what a crying shame it is, because it can be fun, it has many good moments and cool characters. But unless you have bucketloads of patience and a willingness to start from scratch more than once, you probably won't get to those parts at all.

If you're a patient, die-hard Elder Scrolls fan, a fan of Daedric lore, and a fan of old-school RPGs and dungeon crawlers, then by all means, go for it. I am all of the above and despite the frustrating mess this game can be, I did derive plenty of fun from Battlespire. Beyond that niche, however, I just don't think Battlespire is crafted well enough to be called a good game.

I'm sure you're familiar with the expression "one step forward, two steps back". Well, someone gave Daggerfall a big bottle of home-made booze, because Battlespire takes a few steps forward, but then fumbles back, sideways and every which way. Battlespire is many things: unique, captivating, stylish, fully voice-acted, full of lore, even fun. However, of all the things it is, there's one thing that Battlespire isn't: a well-made game. Visually, if we cast aside DOSBox limitations and the fact that it runs poorly unless set up right, Battlespire really is one of a kind in the Elder Scrolls universe. Set in the eponymous Battlespire, it's not even fully in the reality of Tamriel, teetering somewhere between it, and the realm of Oblivion. A setting so out there lends itself to some truly artistic environments and this is one aspect of the game I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. If you can look past the low-res textures, the overall aesthetic is really top-notch, the Daedric architecture is foreboding, sinister and larger-than-life. The levels themselves are handcrafted and done well, and nowhere near as labyrinthian as Daggerfall, but are still more complex than the "cave with occasional side path" dungeon design that Bethesda adopted after Morrowind. The music is also very good. Daggerfall's chippy fantasy bloops and monotone dungeon drone is replaced by truly ominous synthey tracks. Even the main menu theme is incredibly eerie. The voice acting can be hit or miss, but most of it is well-made and fairly tongue-in-cheek, campy and over-the-top. Personally, I loved it, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. One thing that did bother me, however, is the player character's responses (who are thankfully NOT voice acted). Some of them read like they were written by a high-school student. They don't sound like a character from Tamriel at all. But beyond the one-of-a-kind façade, the game itself falls apart like your weapon after using it too much. I'll give credit where it's due first, so I can then commence the proper bashing: if everything in it worked as described, Battlespire would have the single best character creator in any Elder Scrolls game, period. While similar to Daggerfall, it doesn't punish powerful characters by making them level slowly. Rather, it uses a point-based system that allows an incredible amount of flexibility and freedom. Disadvantages add points while advantages take them away, and you can freely spend points on attributes, health and skill increases, gear, potions, passive abilities etc., so on paper, you can start out strong if you min-max a bit. Problem is, there are a lot of ineffective skills, and some attribute and skill combos are utterly baffling (Personality governs three magic schools, Intelligence governs nothing but Critical Strike), and creating a weak character is all too easy.  Magic, for example, is badly broken and way gimped compared to Daggerfall (and that's ignoring the AoE self-spell absorb), and I wasn't able to kill certain mobs even with 100 Destruction and 100 WIL. You can't rest, so you have to rely on potions and gems for your magicka reserve as well. Most spells are useless or weak. As someone who always mains mages, this was very disheartening, and after scouring wikis and 13 hours in, I just gave up on magic and rolled a melee and archery character so I could even beat the game. Battlespire is hard. Incredibly, unforgivingly hard. The game advertised itself as such, to be fair, and any accompanying official documents make that abundantly clear. Even the setting and premise make it clear. You're a fledgeling Imperial Battlemage that thinks they're going for a trial run, only to be ambushed by a Daedric invasion. While all seven dungeons are handmade (and done well, mostly), the loot is still mostly random and your success will depend on luck. There are NPCs, but there are no quests, taverns, no merchants or blacksmiths. You meet Dremora in one of the first rooms in level 1. Enemies hit hard, have high resistances, and pull no punches. Even with maxed main stats, you will end combat bruised and battered by trash mobs. The puzzles require your full attention and a lot of scouring for clues - they are, however, not as obtuse as some of Daggerfall's so-called "puzzles" with ground-breaking design such as "look for a random torch to activate in order to access teleporter 4 out of a 12 teleporter sequence". If you pay attention to your surroundings and read all the relevant scrolls, you should be able to figure out what's expected of you. But you will run out of potions or arrows if you don't Scrooge McDuck your way through the game. You will get lost or wonder what to do next. You will die. A LOT. And everytime you do, you will get booted to DOSBox and have to wait for the game to load again (by design). And then you'll reach the infamous Level 5 bug, where dying too much or exiting the game too many times bloats your savefile size, corrupting them in the process. Or you'll just get stuck on pretty much... anything when jumping. Or stuck on level geometry. Or the enemies will. Or they'll disappear. Or quest items will disappear. Or the music will! Or the water level will randomly rise after you load a game and insantly drown you even at full breath. Or some elevator platform will decide it no longer acknowledges your existence. Or you will drop an item for inventory management's sake and won't be able to pick it up again. Or the Jump icon won't appear. Or your teleport spell will ignore your anchor and teleport you into pure black. Hell, even the music, awesome as it is, doesn't loop properly. I think you get the idea. This is bad coding at its worst. Unfortunately, unlike Daggerfall, there is no Unity solution or even fan-made patches. Scouring the wikis and keeping all 8 save slots occupied is your only hope. And ultimately, despite the intriguing and quality hand-crafted levels, despite the unique premise, setting and visuals, despite all the lore and fun it offers, for as much as I lament that it's the only level-based (i.e., not open world) Elder Scrolls RPG title, Battlespire is just too broken, too buggy and too undertuned and unpolished to be a good game, and thus, it's not game worth recommending. Again, I really can't overstate what a crying shame it is, because it can be fun, it has many good moments and cool characters. But unless you have bucketloads of patience and a willingness to start from scratch more than once, you probably won't get to those parts at all. If you're a patient, die-hard Elder Scrolls fan, a fan of Daedric lore, and a fan of old-school RPGs and dungeon crawlers, then by all means, go for it. I am all of the above and despite the frustrating mess this game can be, I did derive plenty of fun from Battlespire. Beyond that niche, however, I just don't think Battlespire is crafted well enough to be called a good game.