Even for a time where there was much less handholding in games, The Immortal stands out as exceptionally unforgiving in the gory and creative ways your character – an old wizard searching for his mentor in a ruined city – can and will die.

A refreshing mix of action, adventure and RPG, the game features real-time fights, puzzles, NPCs, spells and many items – each with a purpose, even if that purpose is to kill you in a gruesome manner.

The Immortal boasts great graphics for its time, a novel save system for each level making up for the many ways you die, varied environments to explore and a short but surprisingly engaging story told through dream sequences and characters you meet during your travels.

Although the game's manual provides some hints, each level of the carefully handcrafted dungeon involves a lot of trial and error to traverse – one wrong step can mean getting immolated, crushed, drowned, spiked, webbed, swallowed whole by worms or simply attacked with few opportunities to replenish health after a fight. Fights are limited in number however, and thus always feel like a significant accomplishment once you have won or managed to bypass them.

Puzzles are diverse and mostly unique, from reflecting light with a certain item so a hidden exit appears and planting spores that will poison everyone present in a room to avoiding invisible enemies through creative use of a fireball. Though it is mostly linear, the game also incorporates some choice and consequence, with different outcomes depending on whether you chose to kill or aid certain characters.

Not a huge hit for its time, I nevertheless have very fond childhood memories of the game. It had an immersive quality to it that, in my mind, outshines many newer and bigger games.