There comes a point in a game where not even the dangling carrot of achievement points is enough to force you to keep playing. N3, for many people, will be such a game. In fact many probably won't even get AN achievement, simply because they'll be turned away by some horrendous game design and unforgivable glitches. But pause a moment to reconsider and you may find that although N3 is a game that is absolute rubbish at times, there are some redeeming features that may result in it being just the game to suit you.

N3 tells the story (with varying success) of two orbs, one of light and one of darkness. Prophesy foretells a time of darkness for ninety nine nights and, well, generally bad stuff should the two ever meet and intertwine. So it's up to you, in the guise of seven different characters, to stop the dark demon behind it all and save the world from destruction. What this pretty much involves is kicking heaps and heaps of green goblins' backsides.

It's in huge battles and epic confrontations that N3 really shines. It's not uncommon for literally hundreds of fighters to be on the screen at one time. Gameplay is quite simple: there are enemies, there is your character, there is your sword/staff/magic of choice (depending on your character) and there is the X button. That's pretty much all you need to know. Sure, the other buttons do things like string combos and block, but you can quite happily complete a whole character's story arc without pressing anything but X, X, X, X, X ... ad infinitum.

As you wade through enemies, their life force is collected in the form of red orbs, which automatically come to you. Gather enough of these and you unlock a special attack, instigated by pressing B. Some of these look damn cool, with time slowing down as you cause carnage en masse. As you do so in this mode, the orbs you collect change to blue. Collect enough of THESE and you get a super orb attack, which for some characters results in the total annihilation of everything on-screen – pretty damn impressive when it happens. It's during these moments that you'll be having so much fun that N3 will seem like the best fantasy action game you've played. I thought this for the first few hours as I giggled like a schoolgirl at fifty goblins being flung from my blade at each swipe. To be honest, it was like an interactive version of the first battle scene in The Fellowship of the Ring – where soldiers go flying in waves from Sauron's gigantic mace.

However this honeymoon period is soon shattered and it's almost painful to come up against some sobering technical glitches that make the game such a dog's breakfast. Where to start? First of all, there's the storyline and general structure of the game. You start off with one character, Inphyy. You're not given a choice but to complete some of her missions before other characters get unlocked. These include repressed voice actor but for the moment Temple Knight, Aspharr (Inphyy's brother, but not by birth - wink wink, nudge nudge); Myifee – a mercenary with no real incentive to fight except to follow an ostensibly hot woman who dribbles philosophical mutterings about loss, war and revenge. Then there's Tyuruu, a female mage who, with a voice that is seven octaves above Celine Dion's, is perhaps the most annoying character of the lot; there's Klarrann, a Church of Arphathoss priest who wields a very big religious staff; and finally there's Dwingvatt, whose inclusion as a playable character is confusing because of the fact that he's a high level villain in most of the other characters' storylines. There's also a secret character to unlock.

Each character's story is completely stand alone, and they can sometimes be quite confusing, particularly when a character dies in one story line when only moments before you finished his/her storyline and pretty much killed everything in sight, thus saving the world. The game's creators were obviously aiming for a complicated, integrated storyline involving multiple perspectives, but they failed miserably, the end result being a whole load of crap dialogue and totally confusing moments.

But you're not really buying this game for the storyline, right? You're buying it for the hours of battlefield carnage and epic confrontations that await your well-flexed thumb muscles. If such is the case, then you'll likely find that N3 does indeed live up to your expectations. Each character is immensely powerful even at low levels and as you level up (the cap is level 9) you'll unlock more combos with which to deal devastation unto enemy reinforcements. This is probably just as well because your own reinforcements (sometimes you get to choose which units to bring with you) do hardly any damage whatsoever. Sometimes there'll be only one goblin left and, despite being surrounded by fifty soldiers all attacking him, he'll only die when you finally give up on waiting for them to do the job and finish him off yourself.

During battle, enemies drop loot in the form of items, health, potions that boost your orb count and shields that endow XP bonuses. While this is all well and good, I generally found the level of loot-dropping to be woefully low. It's not until you equip yourself with special items that increase the percentage of loot appearing that you'll get some of the really useful items, and even then the amount that you can equip is limited by your level.

What this randomisation means is that one person may play through the game and have no trouble at all, thanks to excellent drops and items that act to make their path through levels extremely easy. Another person (read: me) will play the game and be stymied at every turn, and bemoan the random loot as he/she sifts dejectedly through the pile of crap objects available to equip. Solution? Play through the levels again and again, level up, hoard loot and use objects that increase loot or XP to pillage the game system so that later levels are a walk in the park. I understand that this is the way that N3 is meant to be played, but I also strongly believe that the game shouldn't punish you for not wanting to replay the same level seven times before you're powerful enough to defeat the boss on the next level.

N3's frustration level ranks pretty high. This is owed to several things, the most blatant of which is the fact that the game is simply not 100% finished. It's full of bugs, invisible walls, items falling two inches beyond reach and story scenes that launch automatically .07 milliseconds after a boss battle ends, leaving you bereft of any cool items that were dropped – not to mention the fact that you can take damage during the game's mid-level cut scenes. You see, it's not the game itself that is hard, but the design of it. Characters do not all become available at once, so if you're having a tough time with a character or you particularly hate him/her, you're stuck with them until you can grit your teeth and trudge your way through the same damn levels that you've already worked through for the last three characters so that you can unlock someone else.

There's also the fact that end level bosses are, to put it frankly, cheaters. I've busted my best butt-kicking combo on bosses for five minutes flat, not giving them time to breathe, and they will block it all and then swipe me with one fell blow, taking half my energy off. Then they'll interrupt me mid-combo (when I cannot block – not that blocking works half the time anyway) and will do exactly the same thing – kill you with ease. Leveling up helps somewhat, but I still found that some bosses packed quite a punch even at level 8 or 9. Generally, if you can get bosses knocked down once (which can be difficult in itself), you're able to stop them from getting up, Mortal Kombat sweep-kicking style.

By now, you may be feeling a little bit put off, but fortunately I can say with honesty that I actually enjoyed quite a few aspects of N3. Whether that's because of a love for all things fantasy and action, I don't know. But I do know that there were a lot of moments throughout N3 that were extremely enjoyable and that the game does have a certain addictive pace throughout.

The truth is the game doesn't pretend to be anything but a piece of entertainment conducive to you thrashing the X button and seeing satisfactory carnage on-screen. If the many bugs weren't so apparent and the general structure of the game different, N3 would get two thumbs up, but as it is, the game only deserves the attention of those who really love this genre. Everyone else probably won't find enough to satisfy or keep them interested.