Dungeons and Dragons; for some, the name conjures an image of impenetrable geekiness; something they don’t understand, and as such mock. For others, like myself, it conjures up some of the fondest memories, built with fantastic people. Memories of sitting with my old housemate, debating whether my character was actually good or if he was a bad guy who just thought he was good. Memories of our DM, keeping the group on edge and passing around mead, controlling the atmosphere perfectly. Those nights were some of my best at Uni, building lasting friendships and having genuine laughs over a drink and a table full of dice.
Whilst for many the Baldur’s Gate series was a childhood favourite, my experiences with isometric CRPG’s didn’t begin until these times, when those same people; who knew how much I loved computer games suggested I give it a go. I did, and spent even more nights with said housemate playing that!
Needless to say, I enjoy the mechanics of D&D, and any game which translates these and the overall feeling of playing D&D into a digital, single-player form. Whilst much of the fun comes from playing with a group, the storytelling, character choices and dice-rolls do translate well into the digital realm and stand up in the modern age; as proven by the remasters of Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, and the success of Pillars of Eternity. The latest D&D CRPG, Sword Coast Legends, hopes to follow this success, but has it succeeded where the others did?
Sword Coast Legends is set around the Sword Coast of Faerûn, the main continent of the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms setting. Possibly the most popular setting, it’s been the basis for the majority of D&D related games; with most set around the Sword Coast/Icewind Dale area; and whilst I would have liked a D&D game focusing on a vaguely different region, at least the majority of players of Sword Coast Legends will be familiar with some of the areas. The story begins with a (rather horrific) dream sequence, introducing you as a member of the Burning Dawn; a mercenary guild with mysterious origins. As the first few hours progress, you find yourself and your guild mates hunted by another mercenary group, headed up by a knight of the god Helm. Believing your group to be demon worshippers, you end up embroiled in a horrific mystery.
As always, the setting is pretty much flawless, and well represented in many respects. The characters are also pretty engaging, with my favourites being an early-game Halfling warrior and a terrified necromancer, but there’s very little new here that you haven’t already seen in Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale.
Despite the first few hours being pretty interesting and full of slaughter, after a while the story starts to lose its way with a lack of truly original ideas. I did enjoy some of the narrative twists; like the one seen at the end of the prologue quest, but there isn’t so much a branching storyline here as there is a single big branch which some moss on it. As a player you find yourself frustrated with a lack of choice, undermining what many love about D&D as a game system; simply, that you can do anything. As long as your DM/GM is open to ideas, you can go about a task in a multitude of different ways; e.g. convincing a character to do something via violence, charisma, seduction, bribery, intimidation, a talent or simply magic. In other CRPG’s of a similar ilk, you often have a large variety of choices based on your stats, but these are suspiciously absent from SCL, which often leaves you with fewer options than you could fit on a hand, and even that’s relatively rare. Perhaps I’ve been spoilt by a load of great narrative RPG’s lately, but at times my inability to take action left me deflated.
The main quests are pretty standard fare; often ending as a “go here, get this” affair, but there were a few more interesting side quests in the mix which led to a couple of interesting moments. I enjoyed the narrative of some of these, and the fact that some seemingly unrelated ones were linked together down the line made them all the more engaging.
Although it’s a far cry from AD&D, I really did enjoy the combat in Sword Coast Legends at first. It’s less methodical than other CRPGs; mainly due to the use of a cooldown system over a Mana or spell-point based one. You don’t have to constantly manage remaining abilities and spells and can just get to blasting and cutting, which makes it smoother and faster. However, as I continued playing I realised that there wasn’t much more depth than was immediately apparent. Granted, there are elemental types and damage types, but it felt more and more reminiscent of an MMO combat system, just with a lack of interesting and varied skills. Once you’ve chosen a specific school/tree of study, many are straight-line upgrades to a set of 4/5 skills, whereas I was hoping for a wide variety of abilities and spells; especially as a wizard!
Character customisation in SCL is pretty good. There is a good (and expanding) range of options for class and race, with Humans, Halflings, Elves, Half-Elves, Drow, Dwarves and Tieflings represented at present and all of the standard D&D classes available from the start. It would have been nice to see Orc hybrids and more advanced classes, but it’s a satisfactory selection, especially when you consider the variety of racial variants and backgrounds you can choose from. There’s even a pretty robust appearance customisation menu with multiple character portrait options. I’m pretty impressed by this aspect, although the start of your character’s story doesn’t reflect their background or race particularly well. Whilst I generally approve of racial blindness in terms of how you treat people, I would argue that having more acknowledgement of your character background would enrich the game world as a whole.
Graphically SCL isn’t half bad, with a dynamic look and pretty nice 3D character and world models. This presentation leaves it feeling like a much more modern game than those which mimic the classic drawn CRPG style, like Pillars of Eternity, despite some muddy-looking textures at times. It does however lose something in the transition, and I’m not sure if I like it as much as the isometric, hand-drawn style. The voice acting and sound design is also pretty good, mixing the fantasy elements of the world in with a more jovial feel overall.
The package includes a variety of multiplayer co-op modes, including a much anticipated Dungeon Master mode; finally allowing players to run D&D “campaigns” of sorts in a computer game. However, I have some serious issues with it. The brilliant thing about D&D is the rapport; that fact you build relationships together, both as a party and as a group with the DM. With absolute control, a DM can modify the story or events to accommodate the players, and balance difficulty on the fly so that he keeps it fun; challenging, but achievable; for all players. SCL presents an asymmetrical gameplay mode where a single played controls the dungeon, earning monsters and such to try and beat the party and stop them from completing it. They design the dungeon beforehand and have to let it play out, only really having control over monsters and some traps. There are no in-depth scripting tools, no on-the-fly modification; in all, there are far too many limitations for it to truly be called a DM mode. It’s essentially a dungeon crawl with the monsters controlled by another player, with no real emphasis on creating a narrative, making campaign creation far too difficult, with many elements having to talk place outside of the game itself. Frankly, I think the majority of players will ignore this mode and instead use a tabletop simulator for their online D&D antics.
One final thing to note is the support the game has seen; despite the original developer shutting shop recently, new patches and free DLC packs are being released to continue the game’s development. I’m glad to see the DM’s resources and player’s option expanding, and the free release of a new campaign scenario has been pretty generous. The game has obviously improved tremendously since release, and feels more complete than I can imagine it once did.
Overall though, I’m a little disappointed with Sword Coast Legends. It’s fun but ultimately unoriginal, lacking the depth and finesse of other Sword Coast games. Whilst the faster combat and graphical style is an improvement, the given abilities and overall depth doesn’t measure up to the source material or its predecessors. The character customisation does allow you to make an original, interesting character, but the DM mode is arguably feature-incomplete as a D&D replacement, so you won’t be able to really use it for your own campaigns unless you want to deal with the huge limitations of the software.
Regardless, I could see myself recommending it if it’s on sale. Sword Coast Legends isn’t a bad video game by any means; it just isn’t a very good Dungeons and Dragons game, and that’s a disappointment.
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