Dawn of Magic Review
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As an example, the maps in the game are about as boring as possible, with lots of generic forests and towns, but they're also extremely busy with trees and flowers and butterflies and birds -- to the point where it's difficult to see where the enemies are or to figure out what's blocking your line-of-sight. The only reason I survived at all was because the mini-map showed red dots where enemies were located, and that gave me a general sense about where I should be casting my spells. There are also pathfinding problems (characters get stuck a lot) and useless skills (there isn't any reason to learn half of them), it's almost impossible to hit moving targets, and it's way too easy to damage -- and kill! -- your allies.Or consider the quests, which I would qualify as (sad.) Dawn of Magic is comprised almost entirely of the clichéd quests that other games make fun of. For example, your first quest in the game isn't to kill rats -- but it's close. You have to kill ten termites, and it doesn't get any more original after that. Most of the quests don't have anything to do with the plot (what little there is) and they often involve dopey or tedious activities, like gathering geese or delivering ore to a forge. Many of the quests are also so generic that you can repeat them as many times as you'd like, or just skip them, since their rewards are about the same as what you'd get just by killing regular monsters, which is what the game wants you to do anyway.
Dawn of Magic also missed an opportunity to improve its replay value. Like most action role-playing games, it has three difficulty settings, where finishing the campaign on one setting unlocks the next, and it also has three alignments, where the campaign changes slightly for each alignment. That's perfect symmetry, and it would allow you to play through three different campaigns while building up your character. But alas, you have to choose your alignment when you create your character, and so if you want to play through all three difficulty settings, you have to do so with the exact same campaign. D'oh.
Obviously, I didn't really like Dawn of Magic, but I didn't hate it, either. The game has a 30+ hour campaign, it looks okay, and it runs pretty well. It doesn't do anything especially new or intriguing, and it's nowhere near the quality of Titan Quest, but it still provides some entertainment. I have some friends who gave their dog a fancy chew toy for Christmas, but the dog ignored it and kept playing with the paper bag it came in. Dawn of Magic is sort of like that paper bag. It doesn't look like anything special, but it can be fun to play.
