Never even knew there was a game for this. Always find old games based on fantasy books (granted 1999 is not normally old for these purposes -- 16 bit might even be too new for some of that) an interesting experience, even if they are not good.
So 1999... for mid tier devs doing fantasy RPG I would have been playing Drakan Order of the Flame, and learning to make cheats on PC games with a thing that needed a dongle in the parallel port. Screenshot comparing it would not have stacked up for PC but consoles might be a different matter. That said I would have probably more been looking at might and magic 8, legacy of kain, Resident Evil 3, final fantasy 8, a baldur's gate expansion (Planescape Torment later in the year), Syphon Filter, Tomb Raider 3 (the last good one for many), I missed out on System Shock 2, muddling through Tomorrow Never Dies on the PS1 (one of the many efforts to recapture the James Bond feel, some think this is an unsung classic though which surprises me -- for the record in Australia at least Goldeneye still made the top sales charts all consoles), plus a whole bunch of strategy games (Age of empires 2, sim city 3000, freespace 2, homeworld, dungeon keeper 2, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, Heroes of Might and Magic III). That is not even the complete list of games that people will know today from that year...
I had not read the books at the time (granted I would have been more about sci fi instead) and they were not amazingly popular in the UK -- everybody would have been doing Terry Pratchett (recents then would have been The Last Continent, Carpe Jugulum and The Fifth Elephant), David Eddings and the like, as well as continuing on with stuff from the 80s and 70s. It was not until the internet that I really met anybody that did them in the UK, and never find copies from then in charity shops and second hand book shops despite finding everything else.