Azael
Magister
Despite having an exam in macroeconomics coming up shortly, I've decided to write up my own little review of Troika's latest roleplaying game. Bear with me, since I'm quite new at this and I'm likely to repeat myself. I'll do this in segments and won't bother with any introduction, since I figure you all are familiar with the game.
Character Creation - First thing you encounter in the game and while it's good it's not without its flaws. Already here it's obvious that the game is geared towards people who have some prior knowledge of D&D. It's fun to cook up a number of different characters types though, really fun. The biggest flaw with the character creation is that if you go back and change something, you have to start over from that point, even if it is something as inconsequential as gender or hair style. Not good and quite frustrating. Even so, the sheer amount of possibilities give this segment a score of 8/10.
Combat - It's all about the combat, or at least so you'd think if you evaluate the design decisions. Combat is good, very good, and apparently very faithful to the rules, although I personally couldn't care less about that. The number of spells you can use seems greater than most previous D&D games. A few gripes about the combat is that the enemy AI is less than stellar at times (although I guess that's more of a general phenomena of computer gaming) and that there are almost too many options, for the non-PnP player that is. Much have been said about the radial menu, and while I find it functional and easy enough to navigate it's far from being an ideal solution. I really think they could have come up with a better interface. Still, this is easily the strongest point of the game. 9/10
Quests - In the beginning of the lasts segment I said it was all about the combat, but in the end that isn't true. There are plenty quests to do in the game, and here lies the biggest problem of the game: most of the quests simply aren't interesting. I don't know what Troika were thinking when they included not one (which really would have been one too many) marriage/romance quest in Hommlet, but five of them. What is this, a roleplaying game or a matchmaker simulation? The fact that all of the marriage quests are done in a way that makes the romances of Baldur's Gate 2 seem deep and well written doesn't exactly help things. Apparently four or five lines of dialogue is enough to convince both NPC and PC of eternal love. Once you get to Nulb, what do you have there. Yep, another romance quest although a gay one. How very PC of them. Frankly the rest of the quest in Hommlet aren't much better, since most of them only have one solution. The only ones remotely interesting is the one where you have to collect money from Cavanaugh and the quest to get flour from the miller, since they at least give some moral choices. Things pick up a bit when you come to the temple, although they can only really be considered geared towards neutral or evil characters, which at least is an interesting deviation from most CRPGs where good guys get the most fun. The end verdict must be that this is the weakest point of the game. 4/10
Story and dialogue - Another weak point of the game. While some people have defended this game by saying that the original module is weak in these areas as well, I don't think this is an excuse. This is Troika we're talking about after all, Arcanum showed that they could write both good dialogue and story, but for most of the game this isn't very good. I suppose you could say that the game suffers a bit from the same problem as Arcanum did that for parts of the game you don't really know what you're doing, and more importanly why you're doing it. Again, this picks up when you get to the temple, but I think this is too late. Having NPC's provide you with more background information, even using such old tricks such as finding journals of other adventurers, would have helped. The NPCs in the game, including those who can join you, are largely not very interestin either. Even Ian had more personality than a lot of them. 5/10
Graphics and sound - The game looks great plain and simple. Both the backgrounds and the animations are beautiful. I've kept a savegame right before encountering the Balor, just because I think it looks so damn good. The sound effects and the music holds a good class too. It's a shame that the atmosphere created by this isn't taken advantage of to the extent it could be. The voice acting is what drags this down, since for the most part it's terrible, with a few decent exceptions. The rest of it is good enough to warrant a high score though. 8/10
Final thoughts - Like I said, I have an exam coming up next week, and I've still spent way too much time playing this game. I think this is a game that could have been really, really great and it's a shame that bugs and questionable design decisions keeps it from achieving that greatness.
Final score: 7/10
Character Creation - First thing you encounter in the game and while it's good it's not without its flaws. Already here it's obvious that the game is geared towards people who have some prior knowledge of D&D. It's fun to cook up a number of different characters types though, really fun. The biggest flaw with the character creation is that if you go back and change something, you have to start over from that point, even if it is something as inconsequential as gender or hair style. Not good and quite frustrating. Even so, the sheer amount of possibilities give this segment a score of 8/10.
Combat - It's all about the combat, or at least so you'd think if you evaluate the design decisions. Combat is good, very good, and apparently very faithful to the rules, although I personally couldn't care less about that. The number of spells you can use seems greater than most previous D&D games. A few gripes about the combat is that the enemy AI is less than stellar at times (although I guess that's more of a general phenomena of computer gaming) and that there are almost too many options, for the non-PnP player that is. Much have been said about the radial menu, and while I find it functional and easy enough to navigate it's far from being an ideal solution. I really think they could have come up with a better interface. Still, this is easily the strongest point of the game. 9/10
Quests - In the beginning of the lasts segment I said it was all about the combat, but in the end that isn't true. There are plenty quests to do in the game, and here lies the biggest problem of the game: most of the quests simply aren't interesting. I don't know what Troika were thinking when they included not one (which really would have been one too many) marriage/romance quest in Hommlet, but five of them. What is this, a roleplaying game or a matchmaker simulation? The fact that all of the marriage quests are done in a way that makes the romances of Baldur's Gate 2 seem deep and well written doesn't exactly help things. Apparently four or five lines of dialogue is enough to convince both NPC and PC of eternal love. Once you get to Nulb, what do you have there. Yep, another romance quest although a gay one. How very PC of them. Frankly the rest of the quest in Hommlet aren't much better, since most of them only have one solution. The only ones remotely interesting is the one where you have to collect money from Cavanaugh and the quest to get flour from the miller, since they at least give some moral choices. Things pick up a bit when you come to the temple, although they can only really be considered geared towards neutral or evil characters, which at least is an interesting deviation from most CRPGs where good guys get the most fun. The end verdict must be that this is the weakest point of the game. 4/10
Story and dialogue - Another weak point of the game. While some people have defended this game by saying that the original module is weak in these areas as well, I don't think this is an excuse. This is Troika we're talking about after all, Arcanum showed that they could write both good dialogue and story, but for most of the game this isn't very good. I suppose you could say that the game suffers a bit from the same problem as Arcanum did that for parts of the game you don't really know what you're doing, and more importanly why you're doing it. Again, this picks up when you get to the temple, but I think this is too late. Having NPC's provide you with more background information, even using such old tricks such as finding journals of other adventurers, would have helped. The NPCs in the game, including those who can join you, are largely not very interestin either. Even Ian had more personality than a lot of them. 5/10
Graphics and sound - The game looks great plain and simple. Both the backgrounds and the animations are beautiful. I've kept a savegame right before encountering the Balor, just because I think it looks so damn good. The sound effects and the music holds a good class too. It's a shame that the atmosphere created by this isn't taken advantage of to the extent it could be. The voice acting is what drags this down, since for the most part it's terrible, with a few decent exceptions. The rest of it is good enough to warrant a high score though. 8/10
Final thoughts - Like I said, I have an exam coming up next week, and I've still spent way too much time playing this game. I think this is a game that could have been really, really great and it's a shame that bugs and questionable design decisions keeps it from achieving that greatness.
Final score: 7/10
) Any character system worth its weight should have some complexity because that, in turn, is going to offer some semblance of choice. 
