Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale (XBLA)

This game has an immense appeal to a certain kind of gamer geek.  If you have ever owned a set of dice with more than six sides, ever spent a whole weekend with a group of friends locked in a room together with pencil and paper on the table in front of you listening to a friend hidden behind a cardboard blind narrating a tale or heck ever stepped on a four-sided die then you probably know that special feeling that you can get when someone mentions “Daggerdale”. A place of rich history tucked away in The Forgotten Realms, it is a great setting for the current land of storytelling and adventuring: video games.  Not that video games are new, or that this is the first time that the Forgotten Realms have been remembered and brought to life in digital glory, but it marks the first attempt to incorporate Fourth Edition rules into a console hack and slash environment.  Just the nature of the platform will cause a bit of simplification, too much detailed play can not only be taxing on the system but can also but taxing on the player who is trying to use a limited number of controls to navigate a massive world.  There is nothing wrong with this at all as long as the developers can give the player the feel of the Dungeons & Dragons world while still making it fun to play.

The cutscenes aren’t quite as engaging as I would have liked, they consisted of concept art being dissolved between but it still worked and the voice acting was not bad.  When you enter the game itself it actually gets more engaging with excellent graphics, toned down music that is usually just underneath and mellow until a massive fight begins then it raises in volume and tempo.  The main time when this breaks down is when talking to npcs.  They just make a series of inarticulate grunting noises while words scroll by on the screen.  Now this is not completely uncommon in console games as a means of saving space but even if they just said a “what can I help you with” or better yet no sound at all then the immersiveness into the game would have been far easier.  As a player we can overlook no voice acting or bad voice acting but grunting is just strange.  Luckily as soon as you find yourself running through the dungeon halls you forget all about it again.

Game Play:

There are three types of game play and four types of characters to choose from.  There is solo campaign, local co-op campaign and online multiplayer co-op campaign.  Solo campaign is pretty self explanatory, local co-op is split screen and multiplayer co-op online is up to four players.  The four characters you have to choose from are a human warrior, elf rogue, dwarf cleric and halfling wizard.  While at first this might seem limiting, race doesn’t really play that much of a factor and they are well designed.  Let’s face it though most of you knew all that months ago.  What you want to know is how it actually plays.  It plays really, really smooth.  Camera angles shift but are easily adjusted and the controls are excellent at response time and angle.  The only problem I really found was that the game starts off hard really early so save a lot.  If you are in the middle of a quest chain and you die it starts you back at the beginning of the chain which is a bummer and may get fixed, but it also causes the chests and barrels you raid for supplies to re-pop so it is a wash bordering on a benefit.  The only real problem with that is failing the same quest at the same point and having to restart the chain again can get old, but you may find yourself facing it with a better purchased piece of gear or a better drop.  Also you find you can grind a bit on the goblins so that you have a bit more strength when you get to the wicked looking and harder hitting skeletons.Online play hasn’t really gotten out of the gates yet due to how new the game is.  When playing online you can choose between a new character or the one you have been campaigning with so if you have already grown attached you can bring your favorite out to play.  During my playtime there were no glitches or lag issues so even though the load screens and cutscenes may be a bit dull, your in level action with be smooth and a beautiful sight to see.  The Fourth Edition Rules are built into the equipment drops, damage and skill systems so that a true P&P geek will feel the rules in play but a console jockey will just hack and slash along for the ride.  They did an excellent job making a console game with a PC D&D look and style

Playtime/Cost:

Playtime is really hard to figure, it depends on builds, play style, replayability which this game has at least four times, one for each class, not to mention online play and local co-op AND if you get stuck on a quest.  But at $15 it is cheaper than a hardcover editions of the rules it is based on so I would say it is incredibly worth the money!  And it is a good by for D&D geeks and console jockeys alike (if they aren’t the same person in your household).

Last Call:

My inner geek is comfortable without a pencil for the time being and no paper is in sight.  I will go right back to playing some more Daggerdale after finishing this review and know that the developers and publishers didn’t bring us another NeverWinter Nights but they didn’t really bring us a NeverWinter Nights 2 either! (yep, I said it).  Instead they gave us a nice solid D&D game I can use to run my XBox through the paces and one that already has me looking forward to a sequel.

Side Note:

And if my cousin Aaron is reading this – back in 1982, when the succubus gave you the Kiss of Death she had shown plenty of amoral and downright evil behavior prior to that and you died due to your hormones.  Accept it.