Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on May 31st, 2011

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Easily the worst glitch I suffered from was during the final boss battle. While playing in co-op, my character literally disappeared from the screen and I became incapable of moving or doing anything at all. Because of this, it was up to my partner to do all of the work. While I'll confess that it was pretty funny at the time, it was a little frustrating to make it to the end of the game and not be able to actually fight the last boss.

Daggerdale'˜s biggest problem is how badly it suffers from the dreaded Repetitive Quest Syndrome. While a few quests will break the spell and have you fulfilling slightly different requirements, most of them just require you to take down enemies or find something for an NPC. There are optional sidequests to play through as well, but they carry similar requirements.

Clocking in at a little under seven hours, Daggerdale is a pretty good length for a downloadable title. Despite its loot variety and character customization, though, it also feels like a title that was pretty rushed. A few less bugs and more variety in terms of quests would have gone a long way, but unfortunately that isn't what we ended up with. Here's to hoping the next two games in the intended trilogy learn from the issues that plague Daggerdale.

Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale offers approximately 7-10 hours of gameplay for a single-player adventure. For game completionists, one of the Achievements/Trophies is completing the game with all four characters. That easily pushes the gameplay time over 30 hours (although it is a repeat of the same quests). The glaring bugs of D&D: Daggerdale is the major drawback of the game. D&D Daggerdale could have benefited from some more Q&A time before publishing. That said, the bugs aren't crippling to where you cannot complete the game or have them deter you from playing it.

If you enjoy fantasy action-RPG games, Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale is a nice downloadable adventure. There aren't too many downloadable games that target this genre like D&D Daggerdale does. While Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale may not be the triumphant return for the Dungeons & Dragons video game series, it's a fun action-RPG diversion.

Daggerdale features standard multiplayer options, which enhance the experience. Whether you are playing with someone on the couch next to you or someone across the country, treasure hunting and goblin slaying is more fun with friends. if you can get it to work. You shouldn't have any problems playing a local game, but online multiplayer is an exercise in frustration. The matchmaking system is practically nonexistent. When trying to find a game, a list will show up showing the host's Gamertag and the number of players in the game. There is no information about location or player level. You could just as easily find your level 1 character in the final battle as bring your end-game character into someone's tutorial. Should you manage to find the right game, relish every moment of it because you will more than likely find yourself disconnected from the host quickly.

There is also no trade system for loot. You have to drop items on the ground and hope that your partner is honorable. Merchants don't even stock the same goods depending on which party member speaks to them. This eliminates the ability to be generous with your gold, which isn't shared across the party and can't be dropped.

So for your 1200 MS Points you get a very faulty and frustrating online multiplayer mode and a single player that falls short of the mark and turns into a war of attrition all too quickly and to top it off, no Venger. Daggerdale had so much potential but sadly the programmers seem to of lost focus along the way. I so wanted this game to work and though mainly a negative review I still find myself going back to it, only to be disappointed again, so my final score is probably higher than it really should be.

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