As of late, Sony seems to be making great strides in an effort to deliver quality games to their handheld, especially in the strategy RPG genre, but it goes without saying that bringing a fantasy behemoth such as Dungeons and Dragons into the fold was either a recipe for absolute success or a formula for total and utter disaster. D&D? Tactics? Any old-school pen and paper gamer knows these two things go hand in hand. The only questions left to be asked are how well can Atari hold up to the high standards of the core group of gamers that are going to pick up this title and can this game bring new players into the fold with little or no confusion? Well, grab your dice, order a pizza and let me put things in perspective for you...
Now, I know most of you hardcore D&D gamers are asking the question "Bill, why can't it be second edition?!", but to be quite honest, the game adheres to the D&D core v3.5 rule set almost seamlessly in terms of both complexity and depth. All aspects of character creation are present and the tactical aspects of the combat system, as well as the plethora of commands you can choose from are a welcome change from the standard fight/spell/wait cue of most games in the genre. It really transitions over well from textbook to textbox, if you catch my drift. It can be a little daunting from time to time, having so many choices to choose from, and that's where the frustration can set in, especially with people that aren't familiar with this rule set.
The game opens with the character creation process. You have the option of using pre-generated characters, designing a party of your own from scratch, or assigning a mix of both. To someone not familiar with the realm and character classes found within Dungeons and Dragons, creating a character can be an intimidating and frustrating task. Everything is interconnected in one way, shape or form. Certain classes require the use of certain stats over others, certain races affect your stats both positively and negatively, and your stats effect how well you are able to perform your skills or even how many points you are allocated to improve your skills with every level gained. Feats are bonus abilities your character can learn through level progression, allowing them to get bonuses to skills or enabling them proficiencies with certain weapons and armor. Luckily, for any option you have available, there is a brief summary of what that class/race/stat/skill/feat can do and what it will affect. In this respect, be prepared to read. A LOT. Throughout the game, you have the option of taking full control of your characters progression as far as skill point allocation or allowing the computer to auto-assign your newly acquired skill points. I recommend taking full control, as the computer doesn't always make the most useful choices and can really FUBAR your characters development.
On the other hand, party management is also one of the more frustrating aspects of the game. Each character has its own extensive character sheet, detailing every aspect of the character including skills, stat, abilities, and equipment. It can be a real chore digging through the menus trying to find any relevant information you may need to retrieve. Don't remember who picked up that shiny magic sword in the last adventure? Be prepared to spend a few minutes going through each character's inventory until you find it. The extensiveness of the skill set along with the weapon proficiencies is a real hindrance as well, as you navigate through menus trying to find out if this or that character has the martial proficiency to use certain weapons. It would have been a real benefit to be able to have a group loot menu, and a system to indicate if a character was proficient with a weapon or armor simply by highlighting it.
Thankfully, for the unfamiliar, there is a short tutorial section that details everything from standard actions, to fighting, ranged combat and magic use in thorough fashion. I highly recommend anyone not familiar with the D&D rule set to play through the pilot missions just to get a feel for the game before starting a campaign. If you're the kind of person that likes to jump into things head first, the game itself begins with what seems more like trial encounters, providing you the basics without being full blown tutorials. Early on you confront the canonical enemies of the D&D universe, with the encounters getting progressively harder. Goblins, bugbears, trolls, werewolfs, vampires - they're all here. Undead? Lots of undead. Maniacal mages willing and able to blow your face off? Absolutely. Elementals and planar beings? Yup. Dragons? ...seriously, do I even need to answer that?
The combat system, once gotten used too, is rather simple. Every facet of the combat rule set is here, and honestly, its implementation is amazing. Set up through menus and sub-menus for each action, every character has a wide array of options at their disposal. For instance, when you want to use the attack action on your warrior, it brings up a sub-menu, asking whether you want to do a power attack, which sacrifices the bonus to your chance to hit to inflict extra damage; defend, to decrease any damage you may take from enemy attacks; or ready an attack, which will allow your character to attack the first enemy that moves into an adjacent square to your own. Your choices get more extensive as you advance your skills and feats through leveling up.
The gameplay ranges from sub-par at its worst and phenomenal at its best. The character models and animations are very well done, as are the environments your adventures take place in. This game shines when the actual dungeon crawling takes place. Rogues play out as the sneaky backstabbers, magic-users hurl spectacular fireballs from their fingertips, warriors are the big brutes facing the enemy dead on while you pepper them with arrows from your ranger in the distance. Unfortunately, while the gameplay itself is incredible, the plot advancement and cut scenes are mediocre. The cut scenes consist of 2d characters that never seem to flesh neither themselves nor the story out. Dialog between characters is weak, and leaves you feeling like nothing more than an errand boy. Your characters never give you the feeling that they are anything other than a set of stats on paper. I did enjoy the optional side quests which allowed you to play out the adventure from the good or evil points of view. That actually allowed you to put a little perspective into your character. I've played with many DM's over the years, and sorry Atari, but you are by far the worst when it comes to story development.
The one aspect of the adventures that I found to be truly annoying was the camera system, especially within dungeon settings or tight corridors. Sure, the analog stick makes for panning the camera with ease, but constantly having to rotate the camera around to be able to see where my individual characters are or where I can move them too is quite simply irritating. Also, at times the movement arrow quite simply won't go where you want it too without panning the camera or changing angles.
Included with the extras is a glossary of frequently used terminology that makes the D&D translations understandable to the layman. Also, included with the bonus features is an art gallery which features the character artwork used for depicting the player characters. I didn't find this to be incredibly significant or necessary, as you see these same portraits many times throughout the game. What I was pleasantly surprised to find, however, was the music player, which features all 14 songs of the epic and suspense laden soundtrack, none of which need be unlocked to use.
All in all, I felt this game lived up to my expectations in all aspects except for the difficulty in the party management menus and the overall storyline. Honestly, the lack of basic plot elements early on was the biggest letdown of all. Seeing as the source material requires a great story to allow your imagination the ability to create an incredible world in your mind's eye, this story never comes off the screen and takes shape, and in turn diminishes the value of everything impressive in the game.
Graphics | Audio | Gameplay | Replay | Genre | Final |
