Solasta: Crown of the Magister Early Access Preview - Page 4
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Article Index
I could honestly go on and on about every little thing, but I hope by now you get the idea. The game’s story still needs a lot of work to become in any way satisfying.
But here’s the thing, right now the game handles its conversations in such a way, where every dialogue is like this interactable cutscene. This voice acting-heavy setup makes editing quite tricky, not to mention how annoying it makes dealing with shopkeepers.
I say the developers should keep this system for important story conversations only. Then, they should add a simple, easily edited text box for everything else, including the shops.
This approach should hopefully make it easier to pad the game with some extra NPCs too because right now, even the main hub city can feel a bit empty. And while they’re at it, the developers should really add some extra side content. At the moment, there’s not a lot of it, and what’s there is extremely basic. This results in you going from one story mission to the next in a very rushed manner. You really need some optional locations and red herrings there to not feel like you’re being given a CliffsNotes version of the campaign.
Hopefully, all that stuff is still coming. And seeing how there’s already a campaign selection screen, we may be getting some DLC or custom campaigns at some point in the future.
Technical Information
Back in the day, Endless Space was notable not only for being a competent and fun 4X strategy but also for the fact that it was a Unity Engine game that worked like an actual piece of real software and not a bunch of spaghetti code held together with duct tape. Because of this, I’m optimistic that come launch, Solasta will be able to avoid the usual pitfalls.
At the moment, it already runs well but is a bit too taxing on the GPU. And even on an SSD, the bigger levels can take a while to load.
The options menu, though, is already looking good. Beyond just robust video settings and adjustable quick and auto-save slots, there’s a separate tab for gameplay-related options where you can decide if you want your enemies to be grouped based on their initiative and whether you’d like your roll seeds to be preserved through loading. And, there’s also a tab where you can customize how the game presents its many dice rolls to you.
This being an early access release, there are bugs of course, but at the very least, the game never froze or crashed on me. Most of the bugs were just mildly annoying, like when I had to change areas for the feats I picked to start working.
Inventory management is also quite janky right now, both because of some minor bugs and the fact that the game has a crafting system that fills your bags with lots of useless junk. At the very least, that stuff should have its own inventory tab.
Speaking of crafting, right now it looks like the best way to get magic gear is to craft it, and that’s a huge negative as far as I’m concerned. Throughout all my years of playing RPGs, I’ve never met a single person who actively enjoyed crafting. At most, some people don’t mind it. I honestly have no idea why developers keep adding crafting systems to their games. I fully agree with Richard Cobbett on this one - heroes don’t craft.
Moving past that, the game’s visuals are also not where they should be just yet. The environments are sharp and pleasant, but are a bit on the generic side and lack a certain sense of artistic cohesion. The character models, though, are outright bad. And while usually, this wouldn't be a problem at all in an isometric game, Solasta’s cinematic conversation system doesn’t quite synergize with the subpar models.
Conclusion
The early access build of Solasta: Crown of the Magister is but a taste of what’s to come. But with its fateful adaptation of the ruleset and an extremely satisfying combat engine, it’s already starting to look like a CRPG no self-respecting enthusiast would want to miss.
However, in order for Solasta to truly shine, the Tactical Adventures team still needs to polish some rough edges and take a good long look at the game’s narrative side. And if they manage that, they’ll have something spectacular on their hands.
