Got the game working, at least I got past the village gate, into the '3D world' - but still have problems! Didn't meet the snakeman but instead met a dozen trolls, I have the fight pointer (the sword) and am left clicking on the enemy and nothing is happening! If I click on 'Fight' it takes me to the characters inventory, I then click 'Done' but again, nothing happens! Whether I play realtime or slowtime I cannot get anything to happen. The trolls only attacked me when I backed away, but when I was right in front of them they did nothing! If I talk, they respond ('no talk') and the animations seem okay, but the fighting seems off!
Is there something I am missing? Or have I just found another problem I have to overcome with this damn game?!
By the way, I discovered via the Empire website (Empire is a budget label that released this game in the UK) that you need a dll file called dciman.dll in your Windows/System folder, which I didn't have. You can download it from here if you need it
http://www.nodevice.com/dll/DCIMAN_DLL/item4787.html
I have mucked around so much with this game to get it going, I cannot say for sure this dll got the game working, but it was the last thing I did before the game did work beyond the town gates!