Finally Finished Game - A Review - ID: 673
FORUM: Guides, Spoilers and Walkthroughs
This topic was started by Montag on 29/05/2012, 19:31:49
- Possible Spoilers Below so beware ******************************
- Possible Spoilers Below so beware ******************************
So I finally finished the Game (well, technically, Im camped out at the final chest I cant open). Very Impressive game that brought back a lot of fun memories. The first dungeon game I ever played was Tunnels of Doom (and thats as old school as you get) as a kid. Graduated to Wizardry (the very first one), Bards Tale, and then onto the SSI Pools of Radiance Series. Ive been playing computer games pretty much since I was 10. Some of my favorite gaming memories are from those old school games that I played 20+ years ago.
I was very surprised to find SilverSword. I found it by accident looking for some new apps for my iPad. On a whim I tried searching for Wizardry and then Bards Tale to see if they had been ported over. SilverSword came up and for $3 I figured why not and gave it a shot. I think its safe to say it was the best $3 I have ever spent on a computer game. It totally got me. I had a hard time putting it down until I finished it which I guess is about the best thing you can say about any game.
My end game group was comprised of:
1.) Pali - equipped with Stone weapon
2.) Bard - used the Travel Song probably 99% of the time to cut down on random encounters. Equiped with SilverSword
3.) Rogue - Because I was afraid of needing one or missing out on loot without one. By far my weakest character.
4.) Hunter - Katana/Bow. Was switching back and forth between ranged/melee.
5.) AM
6.) AM
7.) AM
IMO, by far, the Bard is the best person to give the SilverSword to. It turns them into a 1 hit kill character. Same with having a Pali with the Stone Weapon. They are also a 1 hit kill character. The easiest person to have dropped from my group would have been the Rogue. Next would have been the Hunter. After that, it would have been the Pali.
Until I gave my Bard the SilverSword she was pretty weak end game compared to everybody else. However, after the SilverSword she held her own for a melee character.
I think I would have definately been better off dropping the Rogue for another caster around mid game and definately by end game. Would be tempting to do with the Hunter too (dropping him for another caster in end game).
One thing that would have made it tolerable (dropping Rogue/Hunter for 2 more casters) was the suprising low AC of my casters. One of my casters had the best AC out of my whole group and the other 2 were at roughly the same AC of my melee guys anyway (heh, and more HP due to changing classes so much). It probably didnt help my melee characters (but did help my casters!) but I seemed to have noticably better "high end" caster armor drops than any melee armor drops.
<SIZE size="150"><s 150]Things I Liked:</SIZE>
1.) Well, pretty much everything! It more then held true to the original. Again, best $3 I have ever spent on a game and probably best $3 I have ever spent on anything.
2.) Easy easy interface. Nothing seemed bulky or hard to do. No tutorial or anything was really needed on how to navigate the game. After a little bit of play it was all very obvious.
3.) Auto mapping. Very nice feature. Back in the day I remember my brother and I breaking out the graph paper and mapping everything. As fun as it was back then, it would probably have gotten very old very quick so was a very good idea IMO putting it in. Only once or twice did I have to go back and break out some graph paper when I was getting teleported around in some of the final mazes. I probably could have just used the map with the text functions but was just easier for me to use graph paper for those very few times I was getting confused.
4.) The party interface. What I mean by that was how things changed in your party in early, mid, end game. At different times you would need different strengths from different classes and having to swap out characters at points and bring in new ones or bring back "retired" characters.
5.) Overall, the maps were good size. Nothing was too large. What I mean by that is that it was still relatively easy to navigate between towns or where you were going. Sometimes, in games like these, to help give the "feeling" of a large distance they make things too far away (ie, 400 spaces to get thru a forrest). I liked how the different zones had their own distinct theme and it still wasnt too difficult or time consuming to get from say the Ruins to the Crossroads.
6.) Caster spells sucking up your gold and limiting how quickly you can put together very powerful casters. There were a few times I was actually held back when I wanted to change classes or got access to new spells because I just didnt have enough money to buy the spells. This seemed to scale very well for my game progression. Im not so sure how hard this was to balance but was probably pretty easy to screw up so grats for doing on a good job on that.
<SIZE size="150"><s 150]Things That Could Possibly Be Tweaked (just my humble opinion, and not meant to distract from the greatness of what was made):</SIZE>
1.) Rogues. As the game progresses, Rogues become borderline useless. Especially with Casters essentially being able to open up anything (albeit for the price of spellpoints). Rogues really do take up a valuable spot for no benefit that I could detect by the mid game and especially the end game. Personally, I kept my Rogue the entire time thru (but mainly due to fear that I might miss out on something by not having one around).
Rogues have weak HP, the hidden crit attack is nice but you have to "waste" your 1st turn just to access it. Casters can open anything a Rogue can. So it really seems to me that its a class that has very few positives come the end game.
IMO, your overall group loses combat power having a rogue around. However, there could still be good out of combat reasons to at least make it more tempting to keep a Rogue in your group (sacrificing combat power for out of combat power things). Things like a decrease in random combat encounters (the Rogue helps avoid them), increase in gold from monsters (the Rogue takes out the gold teeth and doesnt think twice about checking body cavities for swallowed loot), increase chance of getting items, increase chance of getting better items, increase chest loot, ect.
I just think little things like that might go a long way to at least making it a tradeoff not having a Rogue and could even tempt the powergamers amongst us to keep a Rogue.
2.) Random encounters in zones you are too powerful for. Basically, this would get rid of an annoyance of having to deal with yard trash you could care less about. I would hit run but still, after clicking run 10 times just moving thru a zone to get at your bank account gets kinda old. I remember the old SSI Pools of Radiance series had something like after X number of random encounters in a zone you would not get any more. So basically, when you cleared a zone, it was totally cleared. While that probably wouldnt or couldnt work for all zones in this game...I think it could be an improvement for quite a few of them. Especially zones you spend a lot of time around (ie Crossroads).
3.) Item drops. A fairly high percentage of my drops seemed to be weapons. Not much armor. I think my poor Hunter was still running around with Store bought leather in Inferno and even had a few Store pieces when I finished the game. Would have been nice to feel that all my characters had noticable armor upgrades by the time I finished.
4.) Darkness debuffs. I didnt mind the debuffing really. But taking out the flame and having to relight a flame source only to have it go off again did get a bit tiresome in a few spots. Kinda didnt like having to go thru a 45 charge Lightwand just to make it thru a dungeon. Not sure if this was by design or just the consequence of the debuffing. Take away all the buffs and do it regularly enough we dont just keep rebuffing...fine. Talking away our light source every other step for what seemed like 20 steps...annoying... :) If it was just on one map or something I dont think it would have been a big deal but seemed like it was more then just 1 map to me this was happening.
5.) Having to randomly bump into walls in fear of missing something. Eh, not so fond of this. I dont mind it for specific maps but seemed to be more common end game. Heh, I really liked (but in a bad sort of way) the maze that what you saw on your screen wasnt how it was. Was confusing and frustrating at times but I think in a good way. Again, I think things like that only work if done in small doses. With the Sorcerers Eye and a Rogue in the party, I would have hoped I wouldnt have had to do nearly as much random bumping into things as I felt I had to end game. Again, in small doses its workable, but when it starts to become the norm it can quickly become tiring and annoying.
6.) Another End Game Continuing Challenge. Something to occupy people and be another source of a money sink for the game. Something along the lines of when you have "finished" the game you open up a special Dwarven Rune Vendor that sells Runes (but for a very high price, ie 100k). Something so that people could spend some time upgrading some of their equipment slots...etc.
<SIZE size="150"><s 150]Conclusion:</SIZE>
Great game. Glad I bought it. Glad I played it. Had a great time playing it. Would recommend it to all my friends and old gaming buddies.
Montag
