An experience that's more "Ehb" than flow.
- Combat mechanics are excellent for an action RPG.
- The world of Ehb is ripe for some great story telling.
- A great single player title.
- Game is short for an RPG. (10.5 hours first play though)
- Graphics don't hold up under scrutiny.
- Odd choices made for the multiplayer portion of the game, which limits the game's replay value.
- Collecting loot is an afterthought and unexciting.
- Little control over your character's development.
Similar to:
Dungeon Hunter, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath
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Dungeon Siege III is the latest title by successful RPG developers, Obsidian. Known for working on games like Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian has proven they can put together a solid RPG experience.
Fans of the first two games will find the latest installment to be a little departure from what they're used to, which is both a good and bad thing. For starters, there's no mule, but Obsidian has tried to evolve the franchise into something more than what it's known for. Let's take a look.
Gameplay
What stands out the most about Dungeon Siege III is the combat system. They've made fighting hordes of enemies a little more tactical instead of the point-and-clickfest most action RPG fans are used to. Spells take a few seconds to cast, swinging a sword has realistic recoil, and strangely potions have been done away with. There are no health or focus (Mana) potions in this game at all. In fact, there aren't any consumable items, but I will get to that in a bit.
Whipping your sword around in all directions is going to get you killed. It's a simple fact. As I mentioned, DS3 requires players to put a little more thought into their actions before running sword first into a mob of bandits. Each character comes with three different "stances", which slightly changes how a character plays. Two stances are offensive based, while one is defensive. For instance, Reinhart the Mage has a close range stance for hand-to-hand combat, a ranged stance for attacking mobs from afar, and a defensive stance, which provides healing, focus regeneration and an armor buff. Lucas the Warrior has a similar set up with a one-handed weapon stance, two-handed stance, and a defensive skill set similar to Reinhart's. Each stance comes with three abilities, with all nine being upgradable as you level.
Leveling in the game comes relatively quick. By the end of the game, I was level 27 and needed to grind for 20 minutes to reach the level cap of 30. When you level, the player chooses which ability they would like to upgrade. Each ability has two choices that will give it a little extra sizzle. For instance, you could choose to give your lightning bolt a ten per cent damage increase per rank or a four per cent chance for the bolt to jump to other enemies. Players need to be careful when leveling their abilities because each ability only has five upgrade slots. Once those slots are filled, that's it. Players can mix and match between the upgrades or select the same one all five times. It's their choice. To add to this, abilities can also gain experience as you use them. Once an ability is maxed out, an "Empowered" version is unlocked. However, during my experience, only two of the abilities maxed themselves out by the end of the game, both of which I rarely used in their empowered state. It's a great idea, but needs to be fleshed out some more.
As a side note, I've had a chance to play as all four characters, and sadly quite a few of the abilities are recycled across the heroes. For instance, three heroes have spells that can summon a familiar to fight for them. Talents, like boosting your critical hit rate, are also repeated, but with minor changes. In my experience, the only difference between characters was whether or not you wanted to focus on melee or ranged combat. Everything else was fairly similar.
As mentioned earlier, consumables have been ditched. Instead players collect orbs dropped by enemies to regain health and focus or they can use defensive spells to restore a portion of their HP. Attacking enemies is another way to regain focus. Simply punch a fire beast in the face a few times and you will find yourself able to use one of your abilities again. The lack of consumables only adds to the strategy of combat, as opposed to repeatedly spamming the potion button.
If you happen to die, however, a companion (real or computer controlled) can revive you by standing over your twitching body and holding down a button. When your party is wiped out, you will have to reload from your last save. Don't worry though. Save points are abundant, and I'm talking abundant of the "too many" kind. Every few rooms you will have a chance to save, have your health replenished each time you do and carry on. The over placement of save points actually makes an already easy game easier. Hardcore is a different story.
One of the biggest draws of any RPG is plundering for new gear and loot. Sadly DS3 falls short. There are chests to open and coins spew out of dead bodies, but you never feel excited to find new gear. Each piece of equipment comes with an assortment of stats, which seem randomly generated until you have the same "Boots of Vigorous Vigor Vig" three times over. Rarely do you receive anything that is clearly superior to what you already have equipped and since equipment barely changes your character's appearance, you really don't care what you're wearing until mobs become more difficult. Not everyone is going to agree with that, but my Reinhart was wearing the same ragged, mustard stained, white shirt and a Conan the Barbarian circlet for the first five hours of the game. Toward the end, I stopped opening chests completely once I had the equipment for the build I wanted. Even end game chests that were massive and made out of solid gold would drop common loot and 200 coins.
As you adventure through Ehb, you will pick up loot for your companions. This allows you to outfit your chosen companion during the campaign. Equipment is character specific, so no swords for the mage and no guns for the warrior, unfortunately. Merchants sell a set assortment of equipment during your adventure, but again, none of it seems to be better than the rest. You literally end up with half a million gold that you can't even dump into a hole and swim in like Scrooge McDuck.
An odd feature that was put into the game is the ability to transmute unwanted equipment into gold. At no point during the game did I ever reach my item weight/capacity limit, if there even is one. I was always able to sell my junk to the merchant. I'm not sure if transmuting even serves a purpose in the game at all since you're practically rich for most of it.
Single Player Experience
Dungeon Siege III, in my opinion, shines in its single player. O.K. The game pretty much is single player with multiplayer tacked on, I admit. The story is somewhat intriguing and you never lose your way during your quest with the Fable-like breadcrumb trail that can be brought up whenever you're lost. The story's narrative is told through a sepia toned moving storyboard, similar to the Fallout series. The rest of the story unfolds through conversation, which is controlled using a Bioware-esque conversation wheel. We've been seeing these pop up in just about every RPG lately? Unlike previous Dungeon Siege entries, your verbal actions now have direct influence and impact over the storyline, but there aren't a whole lot of options. For the most part, there are two different outcomes for each main plot point. Unfortunately, it doesn't usually go any deeper than to kill, or not to kill.
If you're a shy person and don't play online much, fear not for you will not venture alone. One of the remaining three heroes will tag along with you throughout your adventure as an AI controlled companion. As the game progresses, you will eventually meet up with all the playable heroes. Companions can't be directly controlled, but all their skills, abilities and equipment can be tailored to the players liking. The AI makes pretty good decisions for when and where to use their abilities and will also save your rear a couple times.
Aside from the main story there are side quests. They aren't so much as "on the side," but more like "along the way" quests. You will end up completing a "Find my lost watermelon" side quest while you're clearing out the halls of the Legion's Chapterhouse, which happens to be filled with animated armor. Each quest gives you a bit of experience and some loot, otherwise they aren't essential to the storyline.
Playing the game on Normal almost feels empty. You never have a tough time taking down enemies and occasionally you might spontaneously die and be forced to reload your game. With that said, Hardcore difficulty is a saving grace. It adds just enough challenge to the game without being cheap. It gives you a sense of urgency as well since bosses will bust out the old one-hit and being swamped with enemies will likely result in death. It's honestly what my first play through could have used. The down side is the game is exactly the same regardless of difficulty. The amount of money and gear you receive remains the same, with the enemies hitting for more damage.
Something the game truly lacks is exploration. The world is far from open and pushes you through what seems like a long hellacious corridor. Thankfully there is minimal backtracking. Once you're done with an area you have little reason to return. And that seems to be the theme of the game, honestly. The adventure took me ten and half hours to complete. I listened to every conversation, reached the max level and did every side quest. There's no New Game Plus option and your character can't be exported or carried over to other games. Replaying the game means you're selecting a new hero and re-watching the story. Theoretically you could play the game for 40 hours, each with a different character, but as I said earlier, there is little variation between heroes.
To leave it on a positive note and tithout spoiling the story, I will say the game does a nice job leaving itself open for an expansion pack or whole new title altogether. Dungeon Siege III is only the beginning of what might become a multitude of sequels. Hopefully they have better multiplayer. Speaking of which…
Multiplayer Experience
Multiplayer is severely lacking. What were they thinking? It's pretty much co-op single player. Taking your game online means you will be hosting your single player save where three other players can join up as one of the unselected heroes. The problem is nobody can import their characters nor do they receive any benefit from playing with you. No gold, gear or experience. Essentially there's no incentive for anyone, other than your local friends, to join your game. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed. Like most people, I was expecting a Diablo type multiplayer, which let me have complete control over my chosen character. Most action RPG's do it, but someone decided to scrap that idea for something that feels archaic.
Perhaps in an attempt to make things more frustrating, the camera zooms out and remains in a static position while online. Players can only move so far away from their buddies before they get the illusive invisible wall. I think that sort of thing is fine when you're playing locally, but when you're not sharing the screen with someone there's really no reason for it. Instead, combat becomes a mess riddled with frequent deaths and confusion. At times too much is rammed together onscreen and there's no escaping it. When playing Hardcore with a full room it becomes party wipe central with constant restarts. It's a frustrating experience at times.
On a positive note, the only semi-praise worthy aspect of multiplayer happens to be the conversation wheel. Each player can listen to a conversation at their own pace and can make their own choice as to where the conversation will go. During this, each player can see what the others are picking, which only really matters if you're looking to collect the achievements/trophies. A useless, but neat idea.
As a whole, multiplayer could have been significantly better. It feels thrown in because games sell better with it. Multiplayer isn't completely lost, however. A simple patch or DLC could fix the issue. Raise the level cap to 99 and add a New Game Plus with scaling enemies. Ta-da!
Graphics & Sound
Graphics simply get the job done. The textures do not hold up well against close scrutiny. Faces are devoid of character, equipment is dull and the environment has just enough foliage in it to give the illusion the world actually exists. In motion the game looks fine, but overall the title looks like it belongs on a last generation console. Perhaps the scariest/funniest things in this game are the goblins. I don't know who designed them, but they totally don't fit in the world. One such goblin looks like Benjamin Franklin. You will come across him during the story, so keep a look out because it's horrendously hilarious.
The musical score is orchestrated, which is nice, but all too often I could hear influences from other well known pieces. For instance, the most intense song in the game sounds like it was ripped from Batman: The Dark Knight. If I could link to the soundtracks for comparison, I absolutely would. Other than that, the sound is an assortment of fiery explosions and clashing swords. You've heard it all before.
My Humble Opinion
I enjoyed my time with the game. I love most RPG's even if others don't. The game is there, but it's held back by a few correctable issues. The game is a fantastic rental though. It's long enough to last you a week and it has co-op for you and a buddy. Multiplayer definitely needs an overhaul. RPG fans love investing in their characters and eliminating that aspect truly ruins the replay value. Loot collection also needs to be looked at. When you pick up a rare sword you need to feel excited that it dropped. Not once did I get that addictive feeling of winning the loot lottery.
As a single player game, the game is a great restart for the franchise. The lore and story are both there and the combat is genuinely fun. If Obsidian can expand upon its foundation, I have no doubt they will muster up a winner. This isn't a Diablo-killer, but it's a little something to tide us over for the time being.