I finished The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire couple of days ago. Here are my thoughts on it.
I am one of those crazy people who genuinely enjoys Daggerfall dungeons, so i thought to myself i must love Battlespire then? Well, yes and no.
The first impressions were not good, while i agree with the general sentiment that the game has good exploration and atmosphere, the engine is a bit weak.
Jumping makes me stuck, why cannot i climb small ledges while i could climb whole city walls in Daggerfall?
Swimming is ridiculously fast, jumping is sometimes diagonal sometimes not etc.
All in all i kept thinking to myself, "Thief engine could be great for this type of game".
Also the inventory interface is horrible, i don't understand why not just copy the Daggerfall one and improve upon it.
My first character was a pure fighter, which was a bad idea because of no resting and RNG combat, this left a sour taste in my mouth but couple of weeks later i decided to replay except give myself mana regen ability and a heal spell. This made the first level much easier without spoiling the fun because strangely, i never once had to just sit and wait for mana regen, always something new to explore.
Late game it was unnecessary since i had 20+ mana and hp potions, i think if i would replay the game now i could do it
without mana regen (knowledge of healing crystals also helps) but for a first playthrough it really helps.
My character ended as fighter/archer since archery is so good in this game because of 100% hit rate (i think missile skill only increases rate of fire?)
I could not imagine playing a pure wizard, spells are ridiculously rare to find, and with AOE spells you are more likely to kill enemies than yourself.
Speaking of AOE spells, the Codex review was not lying when it said that AI is horrible, getting stuck in walls and killing itself with spells.
Luckily as a dungeon crawler combat is not the main focus so i could let it slide.
Level design was pretty good, highlights were level 1, anything with underwater caves and level 5 (open ended island where you are hunted).
In the end, a
game. Lots of good stuff but bad stuff keeps it down. Now i'm in the mood for some more first person real time dungeon crawlers.