When you finally step inside this elegant contraption and the door slams behind you, you're back in hell's belly, where the only things to light your way are the spurts of lava wheezing through its incinerators or the overflowing bowls of black oil that can be lit with a flame torch. Neither can the mountain light and air penetrate Brume Tower's thick iron doors. Neither is the sun able to restrain the old familiar skeletons, whose bones gather up into human shape when you step near, nor the gaunt zombies who buckle and strain under barrels of oil, which will scorch your beard off if struck by a wayward sword. Light can be introduced to Brume Tower by setting fire to stone cups that bubble with black oil. But don't be fooled: these happy rays do nothing to hold back the nightmare horde - the 10-foot Minotaurs that drip lava from their armpits, the fat and bald crawlers (their missing legs replaced by nothing but tendrils of smoke) who detonate themselves if you come too close.

It's something new to the series, in other words, at least in terms of ambiance. This second instalment acts as a visual counterpoint: a brisk, cobweb-clearing tumble down a mountainside, snow-crunch underfoot, bright sun overhead. The first chapter in the Lost Crowns series was a scramble and grope through a dim-lit weave of crypts and caverns.