Dungeon crawlers have always been solidly in the PC camp. Carious console games have tried, but few have succeeded. Dungeon Siege 3 is one of these.
The story of Dungeon Siege 3 is simple enough. Jeyne Kasinder, believing the 10th Legion killed the king, leads an army against them. She destroys them utterly, or so she believes. One member, Odo survives, and he attempts to rebuild the Legion using the children of it’s former members.
Each character has a unique back story, and while it’s rarely mentioned in the game, it’s a great touch. The story videos look like they were painted on parchment, and have a pretty nice style to them. It adds a very cinematic feel which is then ruined by the conversation system. It’s more Oblivion than it is Mass Effect. NPC’s stand still and speak at you, no matter what they’re saying. On the flip side, the voice acting is quite good, and each NPC, from the Queen to a fisherman quest giver, sounds unique and has a lot of character.
And I have to mention the locations. Every area you travel to is completely unique and full of character. You’ll even discover papers and books detailing various aspects of the world. And while the beginning areas are fairly generic, when you hit Stonebridge that all changes. The second you talk to the automaton standing out front, you’ll fall in love with the place.
The most important parts of any RPG are the mechanics, and DS3 does not slouch in that area. First off, there is no shortage of loot. Make friends with the vendors cause you’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. There’s no crafting so don’t be afraid to sell anything you’re not using.
Character progression is quite deeper than I expected it to be. You have a number of abilities you can use, and each of these can be boosted five times along two different tracks. They usually fall into the “Does x% more damage” or “Adds x effect”. Each character also have 11 talents that can increased on level ups. This allows you to build your character exactly how you want. There’s also a fair compliment of stats, so be prepared to stare at number for quite a while. It takes a little bit of reading to figure out what stats you want to focus on, but “Help Topics” explains them all in depth.
Now, on to the actual gameplay. DS3 features a very helpful “breadcrumb” feature that will show you where to go for your next quest, just make sure it’s set to the right one. When you complete a quest, the game auto-selects the next one, which may send you the wrong way.
And now here comes the bad stuff. While Obsidian did a good job making it very playable on consoles, being limited to only 9 abilities is just that: limiting. And that’s really how the whole game feels. Looking at the other successful console RPGs, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fallout it’s hard to figure out why this game feels so small. Even with side quests it’s fairly linear. You’re always chugging forward toward the next reason to be there. That’s not to say the journey isn’t interesting, it’s just not exciting.
And the conversations…It’s nice that the NPC’s all have voice acting, it really adds a lot to the over-all game. But they just stand there. They don’t even react to things other NPC’s are telling them. They just move their arms and talk at you until you pick the option that progresses the story.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the multiplayer. While it’s great that they decided to add local and online co-op play, your partner not being able to import their character or retain any benefits is sadly lacking.
But let’s wash that bad taste out of our mouths.
Dungeon Siege 3 is a great game. And while it has to cut back on the content to do it, it brings a genre rarely see to consoles. Wait awhile and pick it used and play through it on a weekend with a buddy. I guarantee a great time.
