Rating of
2.5/5
All Your Dungeon Are Belong to Us
Chris Kavan - wrote on 01/08/14
While some may consider the hack 'n slash as the lowest common denominator when it comes the RPG games, when done right, it can be a very enjoyable experience. The king has to be considered Diablo - and that is the game I usually compare all others to in this genre. I have never played the first two Dungeon Siege games and picked this up (last year) because I had heard some good things and I do enjoy this genre. Luckily I didn't drop too much on this as the the game just doesn't have enough going for it to be considered anything more than a mediocre game.
Presentation: The game looks pretty murky and uninviting. It's a top-down view (much like Diablo) but nothing really stands out - not your characters, not the enemies, not the environments - it just kind of all blends together. They shake things up by giving you some variety - a swamp, a crystal cave, a blizzard-entrenched mountaintop, a foundry - but despite the effort I never found myself gasping at the variety. Usually each level also had some sort of mechanic to go along with it - but this just seems like a wasted effort to make things slightly more interesting.
The music was as generic as you can get and the voice acting was on the low end of the spectrum (I especially had issue with the main character I chose - who sounded like a mix between a computer program and an inquisitive child). Some of the other characters sounded much better in the cut-scenes and such, but still, it never made that big of an impact on me, regardless of who was speaking.
The game never did glitch out on me - so it at least has that going for it. I never noticed any major clipping or texture issues - though the game isn't exactly pushing the limits on graphics here.
Story: As I said, I haven't played the first two games, but at least this game does a fairly good job of filling in the backstory while making this one stand on its own. It seems the 10th Legion - long held as a bastion of justice and might - has been brought low by a challenger to the throne, Jayne Kessender - who has essentially framed the Legion for the death of the old king - they Legion has been scattered, most of the members killed. When Odo, an aging scout, calls for a meeting at a chapterhouse for all the Legion's descendants, it turns into a bloodbath, with only a few remaining members able to escape. Thus the game starts as you set off as on of the four main survivors (standard knight, a mage, a gun-toting half-witch or the enigmatic Archon) as you work to salvage what remains of the Legion as well as try to stop Jayne from taking control.
The game has a few main areas - you start off in Raven's Rill, a small town that has seen better days - and once you reactivate the causeways, you enter the a swamp before entering the large town of Stonebridge - run by a cabal of meisters. At this point you can choose to court the meisters or help the remaining heir to the throne in the former dwarven stronghold of Glitterdelve. I don't think it matters which one you choose to do first - eventually you assault Jayne at her own stronghold (The Spire) before having to face her full power.
Each major area has a major boss as well - while early on it wasn't too bad - by the end of the game things were getting ridiculous as my weapons and power just couldn't keep up with some of the baddies - luckily the AI was smart enough to (usually) resurrect me in time (and vice versa). The end of the game does change based on who you help or don't help - support or don't support - and the ending animation (along with a few of the cut scenes) are the best looking part of the game.
Gameplay: Standard hack 'n slash fare - you walk around the world map and kill whatever you encounter (from bandits to giant spiders to cyclops and more). Enemies can drop various loot - from weapons and armor to money, magic and health refills - and you will find plenty of breakable things and chests you can open. The game does have a very simplified equipment system - there are four levels of equipment (white green blue and gold) and you have various equipment slots. Each character uses their own set of equipment (aside from rings and amulets) - so you can't swap out armor or weapons - thought the game seemed to know who the main character was and dropped mainly equipment you could use. There are also plenty of merchants and I found myself buying a lot of decent equipment from them. Money really isn't that big of deal (aside from very early on) as you can always sell what you don't need and have plenty left over (at least I did).
As you level up you unlock a couple of things - first, you have main abilities. These are both offensive and defensive abilities - plus you can switch between two forms (as the Archon character anyway) which gave me either melee attacks or ranged attacks accordingly. Early on I went full-assault melee - but as the game progressed found that ranged attacks were much more useful (and didn't cause me to die nearly as much). Each ability has six slots available that you can "level up" if you will - usually there are two benefits you can go with - one usually gives you a defensive advantage (i.e. slowing the enemy down) while the other provides some offensive advantage (i.e. starting the enemy on fire and causing burn damage over time). You can either invest all six on one side or mix and match between the two. Obviously the skills you use the most you want to focus on.
The second part of leveling up are talents. Each talent gives you a specific task (increasing your agility or causing certain abilities to be more effective for example) and you can increase each talent six times. If you play solo - you also pick the abilities and talents for your A.I. partner (and things vary widely). You cannot unlock everything - so it does bear well to choose wisely based on what you want your A.I. partner to be more effective at (tanking, healing, massive damage, etc.). I found the A.I. to be mostly reasonable - though at times (especially when they need to resurrect you) they could act supremely dumb.
There is a multi-player aspect that I never got into. The main problem with multi-player is that while the main character keeps all progress and items - the second player keeps nothing. That, to me, is just ridiculous and I don't see why they would implement such a system. There isn't a lot of variety - kill, rinse, repeat - just like any other hack 'n slash game.
Replayability: You can play the game as each of the four characters (and you get a trophy for completing the game as each) though the game encourages joining a multiplayer game and taking out the boss as one of those characters rather than play through the whole thing four different times. Otherwise, other than a few different options (who to take with you - dialogue choices) the game pretty much plays the same every time.
Overall: A generic Diablo-esque clone that just doesn't have enough interesting content to be much more than a diversion, let alone a memorable experience.
Presentation: 2/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Replayability: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 2.5/5
