Dungeons & Dragons Tactics Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on September 28th, 2007

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At the beginning of the review I mentioned being of two minds about the game, yet it would be easy to pull a singular view from the review - that I hate the game. Yet I don't hate it; in fact I truly enjoy the game. For over a month I had two games - D&D Tactics and Jeanne D'Arc - alternating in my PSP ... then I got a new PSP and had one in each system until I eventually finished.

The bottom line is this - the game is full of issues and quirks, but it is like so many PC RPG's in that regard. It reminds me of Temple of Elemental Evil when it first came out - there were plenty of problems, but it was fun and the combat was solid. And that is ultimately what it is all about. I worked around the camera issues because exploration was fun. I adapted to finding all chests before killing the last monster because I wanted all of the loot. I figured out how to deal with the game not telling you about encumbrance issues so I wouldn't have to leave anything behind. And more than anything, I dealt with whatever inconvenience the game threw at me because I found the application of the D&D world to a tactics style game to be an absolute blast. Combat was fun, pure and simple. I wanted more in each dungeon, was always pleased when I killed what I suspected was the last monster and I didn't exit to the menu - because that meant there were more battles ahead.

The rules are straight out of Dungeons & Dragons, and seem to be followed fairly well. I'm not sure what version, exactly, but my guess would be 3.5, as it's the most recent one that is actually on shelves at this time.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics provides a faithful Dungeons & Dragons experience that fits in your pocket and lets you play adventures with up to six characters at your command. If you like tactical and strategy games and you're a fan of Dungeons & Dragons, I would suggest picking this one up. You might actually learn a few new tricks that you can bring back to your Dungeons & Dragons gaming sessions.

There is no story worth mentioning.

Its saving grace could have been its ad-hoc multiplayer. But that comes with the familiar situation for many PSP games, that it's going to be damn near improbable that you can get some of your PSP toting friends to buy this game. Even then, it's limited to preset characters and the most basic of dungeons to hunt together or deathmatches to decide who has the better dice rolls. No multiplayer co-op campaign, because that could have been rather good. At such a point, I'd just have to recommend you buy yourselves some dice, a notebook, and a players manual.

A major problem is the lack of clear documentation for this game. There is no way for you to plan out what sort of character you want to play ahead of time. When making a character in pen and paper D&D you have the books telling you what stats you need to take certain skills. There is no such information in this game. So when making a character if you do not give him specific attributes you may never know that if he had one more point of dexterity he could take a skill to let him dodge attacks better. Without this it is very hard to create the character you want, especially since some skills were wholly removed from the game and you cannot just consult a D&D book for help.

Also the rules are not Dungeons and Dragons perfect. When playing D&D as a tabletop game you have books that explain what your stats (such as Strength, Constitution and Charisma) must look like before you can take certain skills, called Feats. These allow you to do things like wield two weapons with more accuracy or to take extra attacks in a battle after killing a foe. However you get no such documentation with this game leaving you to figure out what sort of Feats you can take after making the character, a reversal from the tabletop that could have been fixed with some extra pages to the instruction manual. And before any of you D&D fans pull out your books to try and help with this, do take note that some of the requirements for Feats have changed and others are not in the game at all.

As a veteran of the SSI's wonderful AD&D Gold Box series, Dungeons & Dragons Tactics sounds like a godsend of a game for the PSP. The game is billed as an authentic D&D experience set in the Forgotten Realms using the the 3.5 ruleset. And while it does at least accomplish that -- almost to a fault --- it does so in a way that is cumbersome, uninformative and frustrating to the player.

The biggest problem with D&D Tactics is that it adheres to the rule set painstakingly in some areas and in other areas it omits the most of the basic tenets of the system. Top this off with an interface that at best would be called sloppy and you have the makings for an RPG experience that just isn't all that fun.

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