Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)OK, where to begin... Here's some background on me. I'm a D&D junky. I love D&D, and I have since I was a kid. I don't play the RPG stuff much anymore, but I read some of the source material and a lot of the fiction books. I also rush out and buy the PC games when they come out. When I heard about this one, it was no different. I did think to myself, "Why is this game only $15?" Now I know... :)
I'm probably being too generous giving this game 3 out of 5 stars. I haven't finished the game, but I can't imagine the game will be much different after having played it for 4 hours. The game isn't a total waste of time and money - especially considering it was priced right for what you get out of it. But while there is SOME fun to be had, there's a lot of frustration, too.
THE GOOD:
The graphics aren't too bad, although they won't stand up to any AAA title of today. In fact, I kind of liked them. The character models look pretty good, and so far there seems to be a fair amount of variation of the characters - e.g. there are a number of different dwarfs roaming their halls in one part of the game. While not top of the line, for a $15 dollar game, they look OK. The textures aren't bad either. There's enough variety - so far - that I'm not too bored looking at the scenery as I play the game. The level design is better than some games I've seen. The game takes place below ground, so it's a throwback to dungeon crawlers of the past. It's actually a lot of fun to play a D&D game that isn't so focused above ground for a change. I guess they were trying - maybe??? - to capture the fun of games like Dungeon Hack, an old DOS D&D game. The story seems to be fairly decent too, but as I mentioned, I haven't gotten that far into the game. So I'll skip that part in this review.
The weapons, armor, and items you can find and/or purchase in the game are pretty neat. Some might say they are a little over the top and too powerful too soon for such low level characters, but for a short hack-and-slash game, I don't see a problem with it. You really need some powerful weapons to offset the number of enemies that come at you if you play it in the single player mode.
The music is pretty cool. It suits the game quite well, and it's one of the high points of the game - a game that sadly has too few.
There are some scripted in-game cutscenes, as well as some animated drawings with voice over that serve as cutscenes, too. The scripted in-game cutscenes are actually pretty good. There are also some scripted events that happen during the quests that add some flavor to otherwise boring quests where you fetch things.
THE BAD:
There are some balancing issues. Enemies re-spawn, and if you are low on health and without potions, you'll have a hard time getting back to safety to end your question. This is a real problem when it comes to the save system (more on that later!!!).
Limiting your ability to choose between four races that are tied to four classes is not, as the box quotes, "'the way Dungeons & Dragons was always meant to be played' - GamePro". The person that said that needs to be beaten with a pillowcase full of hard drives! [JOKING!!!!] You are basically given 4 choices. Not 16 (4x4) choices as in a mix of classes and races. You get four. They're bound together. You really don't create a character. The RPG aspects are pretty much stripped out of the game. When that goes, so does D&D. It makes about as much sense as the Ravenloft fighting game that came out back in the 90s. D&D is an RPG. When you limit what you can do to the extent this game does, not only is it NOT "the way Dungeons & Dragons was always meant to be played", it's not much of an RPG at all. There are plenty of RPG games to play, and people aren't going to spend much time on a game like this. Which begs the question, "Why make it?" If you aren't going to put out a competitive product, don't even start the process.
The story line and gameplay are very linear. This is another issue. With games like the Elderscroll series and NWN, and even Baldur's Gate, people don't want such linear gameplay anymore. Being dragged by the nose through a game, without any side quests or deviation, just isn't going to cut it today. This game has no choice. You follow quest A to quest B to quest C, with no side quests or plots. I assume you just connect the dots, so to speak, to the end of the game.
The ads for this game are so misleading. The worst claims are that they game includes an "Authentic D&D Experience" and "Character Development." Read the product description, play the game, and then go back and read it again. You'll see what I mean.
THE UGLY:
The save game system is one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've been PC gaming since 1995. It's bad by any standard. It's bad for a console port. It's just plain BAD!!! Unless I'm missing something, the save games don't do much of anything. No matter what you do, if you don't complete a quest, you start ALL OVER!!! So let's say your quest means doing 8 "things." You might think to yourself, "Hey, I'm on #7, and I've been playing for 2 hours. I don't want to play this all over again, so I'll save it." It doesn't matter. If you get killed, you start back at the beginning of the quest. You have to go talk to all of the characters AGAIN and go through the dialog AGAIN!!! This is a horrible system, and it's one of the most glaring negatives to the game. I've closed the game a few times already instead of playing through a section again.
There are some graphical bugs. I don't know if this is unique to my system or what, but I have a fairly modern and powerful system - definitely enough to play this game. I saw textures not showing up correctly on the character (they show up blue and white), flickering textures, to name a few.
The audio... Oh, man... They characters don't speak, which is OK. But what they do in place of that is just comical!!! They moan in different pitches. The dwarfs act like a bunch of strange mutes. You see dialog that you read, which again is fine, but while you read this, they moan like freaks! It's strange and off-putting. It made me want to laugh, which I'm sure wasn't there intent. They should drop that moaning in a patch!!!! Reading the text is fine. It didn't hurt Planescape Torment any to have lots of text to read!
The install was nuts. As I mentioned, I rushed out - literally driving all over my small city - looking for the game. I hurried to get home to install it and then play it, and it took so long. Why does the game need to download such a HUGE patch right away? The game seemed to be installing off the DVD, but it still downloaded a huge amount of data after the game was installed and before I could play it. I tried to purchase this game via digital download, but couldn't find it via that method of distribution. Which makes me wonder what it was downloading?!?! For such a cheap game, I would have been content to download it entirely from Steam, knowing up front that it would take a few hours to download it. But having a DVD, a physical medium, and then waiting for it to patch/install for so long was odd.
By the way... you might be asking yourself why I mentioned barrels in the title of this review. Play the game, and you'll find out. :) You won't be killing rats or some other lowly creature for loot early on in the game. You'll be slaying barrels. In fact, there is a sort of tongue-in-cheek reference to this in the game itself - sort of self-parody, I suppose.
To sum it up, the game is worth a play, but don't expect too much out of it. The save system is the worst aspect of the game. Going back and having to talk to multiple characters when you die during a quest, is just inexcusable. It's boring and it wastes the player's time. The downside is that this game had potential to be a lot better than what it is in its current state. The graphics are acceptable, the music good, the textures nice, models fine, character control not frustrating, and, most importantly, it's D&D! But instead, it feels rushed (How else can you explain moaning dwarfs instead of dialog or texture bugs???), poorly designed and planned, and a horrible implementation by any stretch of D&D rules.

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Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale is multiplayer Action Role-playing (RPG) game set within an authentic D&D gameworld that will thrill new and more experienced players alike. In this world players must unite as they quest to stop Rezlus and his Zhentarim from invading and conquering the Dalelands. Game features include: multiple ways to play, including single player support and co-op both in local and online play; pick-up-and-play style gameplay; multiple game modes; and deep character development.

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