Return to Arms a good hack-and-slash (with a lot of blocking) and those of you who are into this genre should try it out
Well, when I played it, it turned out that it wasn't Nagafen. His name was Dozekar, but it was no less spectacular running around on piles of gold trying to kill him.
There are some new features in this "sequel". Two new class/race combos were introduced: the Iksar Shaman and the Vah-Shir Berserker. You can choose to fight alongside with the forces of good or evil, each story is a bit different and so are the missions to complete. The level cap has been raised to level 80, but you can import your characters from the original game to make the journey shorter. There is even a PVP feature that allows you to challenge your friends to a duel.
There are also two other goals aside from the completion of an area. One is a sort of an "arena" board for each level/area that you complete, and some of them unlock new levels. These are called Medal Rounds and they are quite difficult. I suggest waiting until you are much higher level to do these challenges. Unfortunately, these are single-player events, and even if you are in multi-player mode only one will go in to the challenge level. The other is a quest for Bloodstones, and to find each of them you will have to meet certain requirements (clearing a zone, saving certain creatures, beating a Medal Round, finding certain items).
This time around, we adventure through the Planes of Power, (but a primitive form of what Everquest players known them to be) gathering shards that when put together will bring Innoruuk back to life. The first mission is to go into the Plane of War and defeat Rallos Zek. Ok, on level one and I'm already running off to kill a god? That was unexpected.
Parading themselves in the game are gods Rallos Zek, Cazic Thule, Mithaniel Marr and Bertoxxulos, plus a few familiar faces from the first Champions of Norrath (Firiona Vie, Vanarhost, the mermaid Kerriel, Sylea). You can even find Broon, Proon and Droon, the cyclopes we used to run away from in the Karana's in the old days of Everquest without expansions.
The loading time has improved, and the constant locking that the first title suffered from isn't present. You can even equip items while in the shop menu now, very convenient!
The music has still the same epic feeling, but better. It's reminiscent of the Planes of Power expansion, which makes sense since that's where the game takes place, on an earlier form of them.
However, I was expecting a bit more from the game. Only two new skills for each class were added to the skill trees and many of the zones are remakes of areas from the first game.
Aside from names pronounced wrong (may Tunare place a curse on that voice actor for saying her name in a ridiculous manner) and others spelled wrong (Drundar, with an "A"? No where in EQ was it spelled like that.), Return to Arms a good hack-and-slash (with a lot of blocking) and those of you who are into this genre really should try it out.
Review text part of Grrlgamer.com
http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=championsrta