Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on May 28th, 2011

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The combat is fast, simple, and fun; most enemies fall after suffering a few whacks from your quarterstaff or a few bolts from your crossbow, and all of your powers have quick cooldown timers, so you don't need to worry about things like mana or stamina. What keeps you going isn't just the thought of slaughtering the next dozen skeletons, but also the thought of earning the experience and gathering the loot from doing so. It's rewarding to trade your ordinary short sword for a Dazzling Elven Short Sword of Expediency or see enemies suffer electricity damage after you shoot them with your new Crackling Shortbow of the Wounded. There's a real sense of becoming more powerful as you progress. Unfortunately, the pleasures to be found in this process are elusive. At times, you must fight off so many waves of goblins or other creatures that the battle grows tedious. And because new enemies have a tendency to just spawn into existence right before your eyes, there's no way to know how much longer these battles will last, so there's no sense of victorious momentum to carry you through as you approach the end of such a battle.

Other annoyances abound. Enemies who revive their fallen comrades, like goblin shamans, don't stand out much from their brethren, making it difficult to identify and focus your attacks on them in the heat of battle. You might find that a group of enemies simply can't advance past a certain point, which lets you safely pick them off from a distance with your ranged attacks. And, on occasion, an enemy standing right in front of you may be impervious to damage from your melee attack, but still susceptible to injury from an arrow or thrown axe. Also, once you've completed one objective and must make your way to the next, it's often difficult to tell which way to go. A waypoint on your minimap indicates the general direction of the objective, but the winding passageways of these mines and ruins mean that the direction the objective lies in and the direction you need to go are often different. Even the larger map you have at your disposal only shows a limited area in your vicinity, forcing you at times to just guess which path may take you the right way.

In some ways I like how Daggerdale embraces convention. I like old-school RPGs, too. The problem is that this design mentality breeds frustration in the form of overwhelming inventory management, slow combat, and a lot of been-there-seen-that stuff. Daggerdale is a game that needs to offer something, anything, other than loot and grind and it just... doesn't.

I'd love to note that the co-op element, which allows you to roll with up to three other people in these missions, is some sort of magical savior, but it's not really. It's riddled with its own specific bugs and problems, which are the makings of an even worse experience. The balance, which is already kind of broken in single player, is totally defective in co-op as well.

That's not wholly surprising. Daggerdale is a game that takes all its cues from the past, and while that sounds like an okay idea, it isn't. From UI, to writing, to systems, this feels like an ancient game that was also, tragically, not given enough time in the oven. The loot and action components might click with you at times, but there are just too many technical issues and other problems in the way of this basic, visceral kind of experience.

It's disappointing to see something that truly had a lot of promise turn out so poorly. Shallow role play opportunities, a barely passable presentation and narrative, and more bugs than you can shake a stick at makes it hard to justify the investment, not to mention the black eye it gives to the Dungeons & Dragons license (and owner Wizards of the Coast). When it was all said and done, you can't help but feel like the game was rushed and haphazardly put together. Daggerdale could have been at the minimum a great appetizer for those awaiting the launch of Diablo III, especially for D&D fans. Instead, it ends up being a bland and buggy exercise in tedium.

You can probably tell I'm finding it really hard to say anything positive about the game, but that really isn't my fault. Daggerdale would have been a whole lot better if Bedlam Games just started again from scratch, but I suppose it's a bit too late for that now. Atari has already announced a trilogy for Dungeons & Dragons, so we've got more to look forward to. Hopefully Bedlam will take on board most of the reviews and problems found with Daggerdale, and act upon this feedback to produce something that will appeal to hack '˜n slash D&D fans.

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